Updated 11:14pm - Oct 31. ‘08

I had today off. I ended up working anyways. I headed over the freeway to South Natomas with three South Natomas residents, including District 1 city council hopeful John Dahilig. We spent a good three hours video-interviewing anyone who would talk to us, from the Natomas High area to the Bel Air Shopping Center, and everywhere in between… including the South Natomas Community Center, where efforts are well underway to build the $1,000,000+ play structure…

Low income housing in North Natomas is finally the talk of the town — at least for a few minutes. Guess it pays to be a squeaky wheel after all.

Mary Lynne Velinga (I got it!) recently wrote a superb article that explored this hot potato in the Bee. In it were some dubious “official” quotes, followed by some outrageous reader comments. More dubious quotes recently showed up on independent blogs long after the article was published. I’d like to make a…

Time to stop and smell the flowers with Sunshine Ray Tretheway and his staff! Here we have included a few of our favorite quotes from two Tretheway letters that appeared on the Natomas Buzz (http://www.natomasbuzz.com) web site recently.

The first set of bites are from Tretheway himself in response to a resident’s status update on the North Natomas Financial Plan, in which the resident pleads with community members to come to city council meetings to convince the regal council that North…

Instead of entertaining new taxes, entertain this idea: Much of the crime in Sacramento is being committed by juvenile delinquents who are not being nurtured and guided through the maturation process. What’s missing from the lives of most of these young people is simply an adult who will hold them accountable.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Fargo’s new tax, and the purported fifty new police officers it will bring to Sacramento, aren’t going to magically produce those…

Ed note: Our first guest article.. and it’s a DANDY!

Thanks to Joe’s recent post, I’ve been mulling my former teaching career and the idea of what keeps kids in school anyway? I won’t rehash the statistics but essentially, Natomas Unified is failing to keep kids in school. Why is that and what can we do to make it better?

I stumbled across an old Dept of Ed article called “Manual to Combat Truancy.” This line in particular jumped out at me “I’ve…

Updated: Make sure you read the comments below as some interesting points have been made by readers. Also, it seems truancy rates can mean different things by region, but I think we can all agree what they mean in Natomas given the well documented crime issues and delinquency problems.

If you visit Mayor Heather Fargo’s circa 1995 City of Sacramento web site you will find a link titled “Community Issues.” When you click it, you will–not surprisingly–find ONE item in the…