On Thursday, April 11th at 7pm, Forest Vance Training, located in beautiful Land Park, is hosting a charity boot camp benefiting The Muscular Dystrophy Association. About the MDA MDA is the nonprofit health agency dedicated to finding treatments and cures for muscular dystrophy, ALS and related diseases by funding worldwide research. The Association also provides comprehensive health care and support services, advocacy and education. The Association’s comprehensive services program includes diagnostic and follow-up medical consultations, flu shots, support groups, MDA summer camps for youngsters, a national medical equipment program, assistance with equipment repairs and modifications,

Approximately 86.4 miles southwest of Dooley Field, in the Land Park area, lies the 2012 MLB World Series trophy, cherished and displayed at the home of the San Francisco Giants, AT&T Park. On Saturday, a smaller, but much more personal trophy was on display in Sacramento, as the members of the 1983 Sacramento Pacific Little League’s World Series team gathered in honor of the 30th anniversary of their championship season. Hundreds of wide-eyed young ballplayers helped to celebrate the team that brought national recognition to the Land Park Little League as the former teammates reunited at Dooley Field during Land Park Pacific Little League’s opening day. Though a generation removed from

Got a bunch of energetic kids? Wheel them over to Fairytale Town and point them in the direction of Sherwood Forest. Kathy Fleming greeted a small group of us early this morning for a first-hand look at the new structure that includes slides, crawl tubes,, a talk tube, telescope and many climbing apparatuses. There are steps shaped as tree trunks and bedrock, an inclined log and a vertical climbing wall. To make for soft landings wood chips surround the base of it. "Sherwood Forest has been a treasured part of Fairytale Town for more than 30 years," said Kathy Fleming, executive director of Fairytale Town. "Hundreds of thousands of children will have fun pretending they are Robin Hood or

There were two pieces of evidence that pointed to New Helvetia's Friday night opening shindig being a pretty big deal. One, 297 people told Facebook they were going, and another 91 said maybe - which is the second worst answer in the world when someone says "new place to drink beer on a Friday night," with the first of course being "no." Pretty big numbers even when you factor out those who clicked Yes just for the heck of it. Two, I had been there thrice during their "soft opening" of three hour windows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights the last six weeks or so. Each time, more and more people were in there, and the beer was getting better and better. So, fast forward to Friday n

If you want to grab a beer while waiting for a table at Dad's Kitchen, you may have to enjoy it while standing in the waiting area, surrounded by other hungry, anxious patrons.  Two very vintage pinball machines (from the 60s and 70s) take up one corner, adjacent to a front-house reception station, while a few cushioned seats line the opposite wall. A doorway to the kitchen is nestled between the waiting area seats, and the restrooms are behind the reception area. It's a quaint place, mind you, and the beer selection is eclectic to say the least. On Tuesday, the Land Park eatery had suds from several California breweries on tap, as well as some from across the country, and even one from

Nearly five hours after phoning in an alleged false police report and barricading himself inside a South Land Park apartment, a man has been arrested and taken to the hospital.  A pepper spray-like gas was deployed inside the apartment complex on the 6000 block of South Land Park Tuesday at 10:17 a.m., Sacramento Police Department Spokesman Doug Morse said. The man left the apartment in a resistive state, and the SWAT team used a taser gun on him. The man – 51-year-old Antonio Mata – was taken to the hospital as a precaution, Morse said, and charges pending against him include making a false report, resisting arrest, false imprisonment and violating a restraining order. The latter two ch

The race for the District 4 seat on the Sacramento City Council was at times billed as the Land Park (Joe Yee) candidate versus the central city candidate (Steve Hansen), but it turns out the district's redheaded stepchild – River Oaks – was more important than many people realized. That's the conclusion Sacramento Current blogger Devin Lavelle reached in his smart post breaking down the vote. With Land Park and the central city essentially canceling each other out, River Oaks served as the tie breaker, or as Lavelle calls it, the "Ohio of District 4," and it tilted slightly in Hansen's favor. While it made up 10 percent of the total vote, Hansen's 4 percent advantage in River Oaks added

There is a stark difference between the two candidates in City Council District 4. Joe Yee has dedicated countless hours over his lifetime to Sacramento. From chairing the committee that released the much-heralded Sacramento 2030 General Plan** to chairing the Planning Commission to serving as an appointed council member, Joe has shown that true leadership takes hard work, integrity, and openness – not backroom deals and political ploys. (**This document is the single most important planning document for Sacramento through the year 2030 and has received numerous awards for its forward-looking focus and its solutions to seemingly intractable planning problems.) He has spent decades talki

Sacramento city staff presented their final recommendation for the Freeport Boulevard Bike Lane Project to an overwhelmingly skeptical crowd of Land Park and Curtis Park residents at McClatchy High School on Thursday, Oct. 25. At issue was a 1.2 mile section of Freeport Boulevard, a four-lane, two-way roadway that runs north from Sutterville Road to the railroad and light rail crossing at Fourth Avenue. The project is estimated to cost $1.4 million. The funding source is still to be determined. The section of road is scheduled for resurfacing in 2014, and the city wants to take the opportunity to transform a major thoroughfare into a “complete street” more amenable to bicyclists and pede

A neighborhood association in Land Park said it will support a plan to install bicycle lanes on Freeport Boulevard, as long as the city takes steps to mitigate increased traffic, make up for lost business parking and monitor the project’s long-term impact. “It is impossible to predict exactly what will happen when bike lanes are introduced and vehicle lanes reduced,” Land Park Community Association President Mark Abrahams said in an email. “In short, we recognize that the changes proposed in the Freeport Boulevard Bike Lane Project have had a very desirable effect elsewhere in Sacramento and in many other cities, but that changing the layout of the street is really only half the project h

The 12th annual ScholarShare Children’s Book Festival brought literature, laughter, and a love of learning to FairyTale Town in Land Park. The walkways were dotted with information tables, art & craft activities, and opportunities for children and the young at heart. Kathy Fleming, Executive Director of Fairytale Town proudly welcomed the family event to the beloved children’s playland that will be 53 years old this year.  She revealed that FairyTale Town will be renovating Sherwood Forest this November adding more climbing apparatus and things for the kids to play on and hoping to install another train for the Little Engine that Could train set. The most exciting news she had to share,

This weekend (October 5, 6, 7) is Norcal Noisefest, Sacramento's annual gathering of experimental musicians, noise artists and musical outsiders from around the country. This Noisefest is the sixteenth held since the festival's founding in 1995, making it one of the longest-running festivals of its kind in North America. Because noise is a profoundly unpopular musical genre, most people are unfamiliar with noise--there have never been any commercially successful noise musicians, although many successful musicians (from the Velvet Underground to Sonic Youth and Radiohead) have experimented with noise. The linked video below is a four-minute summary of what you are likely to see and hear at

The Sacramento City Council will consider approving a contract Tuesday for a project which aims to link bicycle and pedestrian traffic between Land Park and Curtis Park. The Sacramento City College Bicycle/Pedestrian Improvements Project will create a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly route on 12th Avenue between 23rd Street and Panther Parkway, according to a city staff report. The route will link with the light-rail station, and eventually, with Sacramento City College via a pedestrian bridge that will extend from the parking-garage area on the college campus, over the train tracks and into the proposed Curtis Park Village development, according to the report. A bike lane will also be

There’s a new resident at the Sacramento Zoo, the 2-year old Masai giraffe named Shani. “She is a pretty special girl,” said zoo spokeswoman Tonja Swank. “There are only about 100 Masai giraffes in American zoos.” She added that Shani will eventually mate with the zoo’s other Masai giraffe, Chifu. Shani came to Sacramento from the Los Angeles Zoo in mid-August and recently completed her quarantine period so she can now explore the exhibit, according to the zoo blog. The blog also notes that the Masai giraffe is the largest subspecies, and it is native to southern Kenya and Tanzania. Shani is about 11 feet tall, and she is expected to reach between 16 and 19 feet in height when she is

Sacramento’s newest craft brewery is scheduled to start production at 18th Street and Broadway in October. Construction is under way after months of delays at New Helvetia Brewing Company, owner David Gull said Thursday. “We started construction two weeks ago, and we’re scheduled to have that done Oct. 1,” he said. After that, the brewing equipment will be installed, and the business can begin brewing its seven- or eight-barrel batches of beer. Each barrel holds 31 gallons. Gull said the delay – the business was originally scheduled to open in February – was due to the time it takes to get contractors up to speed on a new project as well as hurdles caused by the nature of working in a

About $30,000 in high-tech equipment was stolen from the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival’s booths at William Land Park, officials said Thursday. “Tuesday night, some thieves broke into our booth at the top of the hill,” said Lori Ann Delappe-Grondin, a spokeswoman for the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival. “They ripped out a window of one of the booths and busted in doors of two others.” Delappe-Grondin said the stolen equipment included a sound board, a light board, a generator, tools and lighting fixtures. A replacement sound system is being brought in and taken out daily now, and the show start times have been moved back to 6 p.m., since the sun sets late enough to allow the plays to r

A crowd of about 650 to 750 people took in live music, food and chit-chat with their neighbors Sunday at the annual Taste of Land Park. For $25 in advance or $30 at the door, attendees sampled items from a slew of local and regional vendors who had set up booths. It was essentially an outdoor, all you-can-eat-and-drink buffet: There was everything from sushi from Miso Japanese Cuisine, to chili dogs from Willie's Burgers and Chiliburgers, to coffee from Espresso Metro Cafe. Also popular: the wine from independent vineyards and the beer that came courtesy of local brewers like Track 7, Rubicon brewery and Pyramid Alehouse . "It's going beyond even our greatest expectations as far as the

In separate interviews Monday, Mayor Kevin Johnson and mayoral candidate Jonathan Rewers responded to questions from Sacramento residents during chats with The Sacramento Press. Topics ranged from how the city should handle park maintenance to how the candidates would improve bike safety on city streets. Here are highlights of the interviews, edited to remove minor audio glitches. The candidates answer a question from Trisha Hedah, executive director of the Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates, about what they will do to increase funding for biking and walking. The candidates respond to a question from a resident about how to protect the economic and cultural benefits of the Second Sat

A new kind of tension may be ahead for Sacramento politics as two strong neighborhoods with vibrant histories are finally united into a single City Council district and, when the election dust settles, one council member will represent them both. In Land Park, the streets are wide and quiet, the zoo and lush William Land Park have welcomed families for generations, and residents want a bridge to West Sacramento built farther up the river to keep the traffic out and preserve the peace and quiet of their neighborhood. In Midtown, an eclectic mix of trendy restaurants and bars, art galleries, coffee houses and other small mom-and-pop businesses have helped attract a growing population of yo

Sunflower Farmers Market opened a long-awaited new grocery store in the Land Park neighborhood on Wednesday morning. Over 400 people waited at the entrance for the 7:00 AM ribbon cutting ceremony. The first 200 customers in line received a canvas grocery bag filled with food products. Steve Black, Vice President of Operations for Sunflower Markets, said the earliest customer had arrived at 3:15 AM. Several customers in the line were still wrapped in blankets. Sunflower Markets is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona and has 37 stores in eight states. The Land Park store is their third store in California and the company is in the process of opening several more in the state this year. The n