Since the Sacramento Press made its splash on our city's media scene, I've contributed a dozen or so articles and made somewhere in the neighborhood of 125+ comments. I've written about the best burger in town, the arts, and, of course, politics. I've worn my Sacpress.com T-shirt proudly (thanks guys!) and patronized advertisers. But you won't see my contributions here for awhile because of the Sacramento Press' "terms of use" policy regarding comments. Let me explain. The Sacramento Press allows comments to be made by the site's visitors with screen names, not their real names (though some, like me, use their real names). This hides the identity of comment posters, and, as a result, giv

The Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op www.sacfoodcoop.com/ is helping the "slow money" movement -- a grassroots effort modeled on the Obama campaign's effort to get small donations ($5 in this case) to help seed a new economy. SNFC General Manager Paul Cultera told the Co-op's Board of Directors at its meeting Tuesday night that he recently spoke at the first Slow Money conference, which attracted more than 450 attendees from 34 states and six countries. The Slow Money effort, he said, is modeled on the "Slow Food" movement, which promotes local farms and keeping money in the local economy. Its goal, he explained, is to link Americans together to fund local food systems, improve health, redu

First, the bad news: Nationwide Freezer Meats, which wins kudos for being Sac's best burger www.yelp.com/biz/nationwide-freezer-meats-sacramento, is closing for the first 10 days of September. The good news: Beginning on Friday, September 11th, you can get its famous "French burger" (the standard) for $3.99. That's three bucks off the normal price. I'm not too passionate about my burgers (trying to wean myself off meat, which isn't easy in the summer), but when I do indulge, this is the place to do it. And here's another bargain: the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op will have another "Anti-Depression Friday" this Friday. Everything in the store is 10 percent off all day long. And you don'

It's back: Midtown Cocktail Week, slated for August 10-16, 2009.  As its website notes http://midtowncocktailweek.org/, "Midtown Cocktail Week Sacramento launched in 2008 as the brainchild of mixologist Erick Castro, President of the San Francisco chapter of the USB, and restaurant maven Joe Anthony Savala from Zocalo. These two friends and colleagues noticed what was happening in San Francisco with an entire city celebrating the cocktail and the people who create them. Now, MCW has grown into a collaboration that will provide a wonderful experience to everyone that attends." The event kicks off at L Street Lounge at 6 on August 10th, with the night wrapping up at a penthouse party acros

It's official: the initiative to change Sacramento's city charter and modernize its city government has qualified for an upcoming ballot. http://www.capradio.org/articles/articledetail.aspx?articleid=6927. More than 50,000 qualified signatures of Sacramento voters were verified by election officials.  But now what? With citizen initiatives at the state level, once a petition qualifies, it appears on the next ballot. Which makes perfect sense: since voters are trying to go around the Legislature, the Legislature is powerless to stop a citizen initiative from appearing on the ballot But not here in Sacramento. The City Council gets to decide when it appears on the ballot. So it could be d

It's unfortunate, Geoff, that you don't raise your standards to the quality of letters to the editor in newspapers and other quality online publications. You would find that the quality of comments increases and you will have a civic forum. As even the comments on your post indicate, these new guidelines don't do anything to increase the level of discussion.

Your name calling aside, the Charter Commission's lack of work was cited by the Sacramento Bee editorial board as well.

Awesome news. I'll be there on opening day!!

Actually, you are basing your example on the City Attorney's review. The City Attorney cherry-picked cities instead of providing an unbiased review. You are simply wrong that the City Council won't be able to override the Mayor's "will." Read the initiative. It's no different than most cities. You can read more about other strong mayor initiatives at the unbiased, nonprofit: http://strongmayorcouncil.org/

You can read more about the Maine election, see the NO tv ad, and contribute at: http://www.protectmaineequality.org/