Cool blue water will be ready and waiting for swimmers at the Southside Park Pool grand opening party Friday – and one lucky swimmer will win the privilege of taking the first plunge in the pool since 2010. “The pool has just been filled, so it’ll be nice and cool for everyone,” Southside Park Neighborhood Association member Catherine O’Brien said Thursday. O’Brien and a group of her neighbors banded together in March to get the Southside Park Pool opened because it was not included in the recent Save Mart Save Our Pools Campaign, which raised $1 million to keep six other city pools open for the summer. In May, an agreement was reached between the city of Sacramento and the YMCA of Supe

Sacramento’s pools will be open this summer as the Save Our Pools campaign announced Thursday that it raised $1 million through individual donors, corporate donors and a $500,000 match by Save Mart Supermarkets. The campaign kicked off Feb. 14 with a goal of funding local pools so the same ones that were open last summer will be open this year. "It takes collaboration from all types and sizes to make a great city. Thanks to the efforts of Save Mart and its customers and vendors, plus our business community and residents from across the region, kids and families will have swimming pools available this summer in Sacramento. I couldn't think of a better way to kick off the summer," Mayor Ke

David Watts Barton hosted his final “Insight” show on Capital Public Radio Tuesday, and we talked about a few stories that have caught the attention of Sacramentans recently, including arena financing, affordable housing and utilities rate hikes. After Mayor Kevin Johnson announced a tentative agreement to get a new arena built followed by a 7-2 vote by the City Council in favor of moving forward with the project, it looks like a done deal. But a local group called Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork is making an effort to put the kibosh on the deal with a new November ballot initiative. The initiative would require any public financing for the new entertainment and sports complex to g

Save Mart’s Help Save Our Pools Campaign is in danger of not making the $1 million goal by the April 10 deadline. The campaign still needs to raise $850,000 in less than a month. Sacramento once had 12 pools open to the public, but by last summer that number dwindled to six pools and five wading pools, with open hours limited to four hours per day, six days per week. This was all due to budget cuts. The six kept open last summer included Clunie, Doyle, Johnston, McClatchey, Pannell Meadowview and Sim Park pools. The campaign that launched on Feb. 14 has been trying to raise money to keep the same six pools from last summer season open this summer. The campaign hit the $150,000 mark on F

Just a few days ago I made one of my frequent grocery stops at Save Mart on Folsom Blvd in East Sacramento. I have loved that store since I moved to Sacramento six years ago. As I cruised from the deli section towards the front of the store to check-out,  I snapped out of my reverie when I noticed something seemed different on the inside front wall. At first my brain did not compute.  And then it did. I smiled to myself and thought "Wow." What I was seeing on the wall was lots and lots and lots of blue and white paper icons, each with someone's name.  And it didn't stop with the front wall. Save Mart recently took the initiative in teaming up with the City of Sacramento in a big e

Community pools in Sacramento on the verge of closing this summer may get a reprieve – and nearly $1 million in operating funds – from a fundraising effort that kicks off Tuesday between the city and Save Mart Supermarkets. The city of Sacramento operates 12 pools to serve more than 467,000 city residents, but since 2008 the number of pools kept open each summer has dwindled due to budget cuts. By 2011, that number was reduced to six pools and five wading pools, with open hours limited to six days per week, four hours per day. Through a new fundraising campaign called “Help Save Mart Save Our Pools,” Save Mart will match dollar-for-dollar up to $500,000 in the donations made by individu

photographs by Barry Wisdom It wasn't the glitziest parade on the block, and more ads passed by than during a Talladega Superspeedway Nascar event, but the smiles that beamed from the shoulder-to-shoulder spectators at Sacramento's 2011 Santa Parade are the stuff that Christmas dreams are made of. Presented Dec. 9 by D&H Special Event Management, the capital city's 29th annual holiday tradition once again delighted young and old with an eclectic lineup of merry marching bands, a spate of sports cars, a bunch of Boy Scouts, a gaggle of Girl Scouts and a Santa in a pear tree. (OK – a Santa in a horse-drawn carriage.) Horses aside, chances are if it had an internal-combustion engine, it tr