Recollections Around R Street

For complete authority on  Sacramento's Southside, see Sacramento's Southside Park by William Burg and Sacramento's Historic Japantown: Legacy of a Lost Neighborhood by Kevin Wildie.

Look out an upper-floor windowpane from one of the office buildings situated on R St. Tree-topped neighborhoods and urban skylines dominate the scene. To the west, an occasional high-masted sailing ship peeks above the landscape from afloat the Sacramento.

For a good part of the city’s history, to land at the Sacramento embarcadero meant an initial stop at the shops along K before proceeding straight onto J Street: the most direct route out of town and to the Mother Lode.

But R Street, too, is an important part of Sacramento’s past.

R Street was once bisected by a critical levee stretching east from the river more than a mile. On top of the levee sat tracks carrying California’s first railroad.

Beginning operation in August, 1855, the Sacramento Valley Railroad was acquired by Central Pacific (then Southern Pacific, now Union Pacific) in 1865, which connected the Sacramento waterfront with transcontinental customers.

The Central Shops north of downtown were specifically purposed to produce engines powerful enough to scale the Sierra Nevada Summit.

The R Street Levee, built after a series of floods in the early 1850s, was the effective southern edge of town, separating the nascent city from swampy marshes and Burns’ Slough.

At that time, as the city was expanding eastward, the entire tract south of K Street was considered ‘Southside’. Today, R Street is commonly thought of as the northern boundary of the Southside Park neighborhood.

With construction of the levee at Y Street (now Broadway) completed in 1902, and more robust flood control upriver the American, a large district of previously sparse inhabitance became attractive to new residents.

The park was commissioned in 1906, under consultation from Dr. John Hays McLaren, horticulturalist and 53-year-superintendent of Golden Gate Park. The now 20-acre Southside Park was once much larger, before the freeway’s incursion reduced its size by nearly 40 percent.

Adjacent the park, both passenger and freight trains traveled from Chico, via the Sacramento Northern Railway, and Stockton, by way of the Central Valley Traction Company. The two lines shared tracks along Eighth Street.

While horse-drawn cars, then electric street cars, and eventually automobiles allowed some folks to escape the noise and pollution of the urban core, others settled near where jobs and services were plentiful and convenient—and where no discriminatory housing provisions engendered exclusion.

A friendly but active debate persists between Masjid Al-Jame on V Street and the parishioners of a mosque in Detroit about which is actually the longest-practicing in the United States.

The oldest black religious congregation on the west coast, St. Andrew’s African Methodist Episcopal, founded in 1850, moved in 1951 to its current home on Eighth Street.

At one time, R Street, and the surrounding neighborhood, was the nexus of economic activity for inland California.

Electricity service first became available in Sacramento in the late 1880s, allowing the canneries and mills to run around-the-clock operations during peak production periods.

The Del Monte cannery stood at the foot of Q Street and the PG&E plant at the end of T Street—ground Interstate 5 entrenches upon today.

Beginning as a failed 1954 bond measure, the City of Sacramento funded a series of redevelopment programs by borrowing against future expected increases in tax revenue—employing a method known as ‘tax increment financing’.

The programs were popular with municipalities nation-wide, as cities clamoring to compete with newer suburban developments sought to rejuvenate their urban cores by eliminating properties thought of as ‘blighted’.

The California State Capitol Urban Renewal Plan was executed in three phases, replacing the area surrounding M Street (Capitol Mall), along the river, and south to S Street with superblocks, office buildings, and modern apartment complexes.

The population of central Sacramento dwindled from a peak of nearly 60,000 residents before 1950 to under 30,000 today.

Still, many wonderful old-neighborhood mementos are found amongst the new.

Like a nail house, the Stanford Mansion protrudes from a moat of asphalt at Eighth and N Streets, while the Nisei War Memorial on Fourth is all that remains of Sacramento’s Japantown.

The old Portuguese commercial district lined Third Street. The building housing the Continental Grocery Store, established in 1912, is still standing on the corner at U Street.

In 1974, the artist group known as the Royal Chicano Air Force composed the mural that anoints the Callahan Memorial Bandstand, which was erected in Southside Park in 1934. The bandstand lies directly across T Street from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, where Cesar Chavez’s 1966 march from Delano, Calif. concluded.

Uptown, a new saga of redevelopment is bringing sidewalk improvements and restaurants and lofts to the recently consecrated historic district. And with the all-but-certain construction of a new sports arena on K Street, more changes for the neighborhood are likely on the horizon.

Southside Park celebrated its centennial on June 14, with walking tours, face painting, and free swim at the pool.

Here We Sigh: the Sacramento Kings and a City’s Perpetual Ennui

Spirits were high March 6 after the Sacramento City Council voted seven to two to move forward with preliminary design and environmental planning for a new downtown sports and entertainment facility. The following day, the Sacramento Kings began ticket sales for the fall season.

With the city Council throwing support behind a handshake deal struck by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and Kings majority owners, the Maloof Brothers, it seemed that energy could focus on the requisite political jockeying to get done a public-private partnership of tremendous controversy.

Grant Napear, veteran Sacramento sports personality, is positioned in the thick of all public discourse on the Kings’ arena. After the March 6 vote, Napear proclaimed on his radio show, “Miracles do happen … Last night was something that, quite frankly, I didn’t know we would ever see.”

Less than one month later, the Maloofs walked away from a deal that would have cost them near zero in upfront money.

What no one knew at the time, but NBA Commissioner David Stern conspicuously revealed at an April 13 press conference, was that the league stood prepared to loan the Maloofs $65 million of the team’s $72 million share for the arena, with the NBA itself coughing up the remaining $7 million. The City of Sacramento was on the hook for $250-million-plus, which was to be raised primarily through leasing public parking assets to a private operator—the source of great criticism from opponents.

Often in contrast to the game being played on the court, the public relations spectacle has been well worth the price of admission.

The day the deal was agreed to in a Florida hotel, meeting narrowly a league-imposed March 1 deadline, Gavin Maloof wept. At the following game against the Utah Jazz, Gavin and Joe Maloof ceremoniously joined hands with Mayor Johnson at center court during an extended timeout.

Since that short-lived honeymoon period, rhetoric between the two camps has degenerated to subterranean levels.

“It’s round three of a scheduled 12-round bout that figures to go the distance,” said Napear on his April 3 radio show. This after the Maloof family expressed concerns with the handshake deal, refusing to pay $200,000 in preliminary planning costs. The Mayor responded by calling the Maloofs “disingenuous.”

Ten days later at a bizarre April 13 press conference, the Maloofs paraded out a group of hired-guns—including an economics expert and an antitrust-trained attorney—in an attempt to publicly discredit the deal that George Maloof described in February as “fair.” Chris Lehane, political heavyweight and then-leader of Kevin Johnson’s Think Big campaign—the at-issue advocacy group of the Mayor’s that led the arena charge for the city—subsequently compared the Maloof brothers to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il in negotiation. The Maloofs have since branded Johnson a liar, refusing to play ball with him.

Napear, for his part, is without room to pivot his opinion on the Kings: He spends days as radio talk-show host employed by KHTK 1140, Sacramento AM sports broadcast station, while game nights he’s television play-by-play man for Maloof Sports and Entertainment.

Like the Maloofs, Napear has been adamant for years that the Kings absolutely need a new arena—a remodel of the 24-year-old barn wouldn’t do. Without imminent replacement of the recently-renamed Sleep Train (neé Arco) Arena, the future of serious, money-making basketball in Sacramento was in considerable doubt: Anaheim, Seattle, and even Virginia Beach, Virginia all have surfaced as potential destinations.

After the deal lay dead, Napear walked back his support for the plan, parroting the Maloof line that it is in fact feasible to renovate the current facility.

With the proposed plan, the Maloofs would have been mere tenants in a city-owned building and stood to lose out on complete control of nightly advertising, parking, and concession revenues that they now enjoy for all arena events, non-basketball included.

The deal wasn’t without its thorny points for the City of Sacramento, either. The city still faced significant hurdles before shovel could meet ground for a new arena, including the challenge of squeezing the edifice onto a parcel reserved for a highly-anticipated transit complex serving the entire region—not to mention the potentially risky plan to privatize public parking, which has had mixed success in other cities around the country.

Sacramento is projected to face a double-digit deficit over the next several years, prompting a bond measure for a half-cent sales tax hike. Its neglected sewage infrastructure requires costly repairs, and utility rate increases are scheduled to hit residents hard by 2014. For the arena planning, the City of Sacramento spent $686,000 on consultants and lawyers to conduct studies, negotiations, and preliminary bidding activities—a sum that could have covered the summer operating costs for struggling public pools.

The Maloofs' own debt, which if the team optioned to tap the NBA’s offered multi-billion-dollar credit line, might weigh in at an amount far north of the $67 million the team assumed from the past ownership group. It’s a tough position for any investor maneuver in, much less an ostentatious group that has already embarrassingly withdrawn from Las Vegas, losing all but two percent of a once-fashionable casino and selling their 70-year-old family liquor business and cash cow in the process. 

There’s seemingly a lot at stake were pro basketball to leave Sacramento—and the Kings franchise has been especially nomadic over the course of its 67-year NBA history. It’s hard to argue that the presence of pro sports hasn’t brought civic cachet to an oft-ignored government town, plus the Kings and the Maloofs are active in local charities and the community.

Sacramento’s clamoring for cultural relevance two decades ago is what overcame significant challenge from environmental groups to develop North Natomas and the current arena site in the first place—a necessary concession for a group of local developers to build the facility and relocate the Kings from Kansas City.  Two years before, that same group from Sacramento had assured Kansas City fans that they were committed to staying put.

Months removed from the major theatrics, and with the Sacramento home opening of the 2012-13 NBA season set for November 5, the town is sunk in a serious sports malaise.  Many on both sides, the supporters and the detractors, are left without faith in city government, the forces that would benefit from a publically subsidized arena, or any urban identity Sacramento had to start with.

Mayor Johnson, who won reelection in June by a hefty margin, seems to have generated whatever goodwill he may have sought by championing the arena proposal. He and Think Big have since moved onto other downtown revitalization efforts, such as attracting a major-league baseball team, though Johnson still hasn’t gained the support needed to put his “strong mayor” proposal to a vote.

As for the Maloofs, a tenuous relationship with Sacramento remains. With few other local entertainment draws, a recently established league-wide revenue sharing program, and an improving team, it’s possible that the Kings can remain viable for some time in their current facility. But significant damage with the community has been left unrepaired.

Whether or not the NBA flees for another, even-more-eager destination, it’s clear that Sacramento faces a crisis of character. There’s uncomfortable resemblance to other beleaguered central valley towns—and little wonder why people look to national sports as a conduit to urban amenities and civic vitality.

Enthusiasm in Sacramento to support a lavish professional league in harrowing economic times, however, may be waning, just as competition from other cities around the country for that very privilege is heating up.


This article appears in the November 2, 2012 edition of The Davis Enterprise.

Napear’s Commitment to Sacto’s Crown

With the team’s impending move to Southern California, all invested in the Sacramento Kings—be it with their hearts or with their wallets—are in a constant state of preoccupation and anxiety.

At Maloof Sports and Entertainment, the management wing of the Kings, calls to the central office go unanswered and messages sit idly awaiting playback. Such is also the case at KHTK 1140, the AM sports broadcast network serving greater Sacramento, where emails addressed to the program director for the Grant Napear Show are no doubt marked ‘unread’ (if not ‘spam’).

Napear, like any number of ushers, mascots, and ticket takers, has no guarantee of continued employment after the Kings play their final game of the 2010-11 season on April 13 against the rival Los Angeles Lakers. No matter the team’s performance on the court—which has been somewhat improved since before the All-Star Break in February—there is no shortage of dedicated and talented people who will soon likely be looking for work. (Note: No formal decision on the team’s future has yet been made.)

One who will have no trouble finding it, though, is Napear, the television voice of the Kings as well as periodic contributor to ESPN Radio, the San Jose Sharks, and the Oakland Raiders.

“You’re going to love Newport Beach, Grant,” quips Greg Beacham of the Associated Press, joking on Napear’s radio show about the advantages of relocating to Anaheim (including proximity to the Real Housewives of Orange County).

“Don’t even—I’m not even going there,” replies Napear, attempting to avoid any discussion of his post-Sacramento plans.

For a man not known to be shy about sharing his every opinion on air, Napear is calculated when speaking of his bosses and their commitment to staying in Sacramento—perhaps on strict and explicit orders from above.

The frenzy in town is obvious to even the most casual observer, as fans argue about whether they will remain loyal if the team’s jersey reads anything but ‘Sacramento’, following breaking news on the smallest of facial expressions cast by Kings officials.

On a recent radio show, Napear recalled eager ticket-buyers camped outside for days in front of the old Arco Arena—a temporary structure converted to offices three years after it was built.

Such is the passion small market fans must have for their club—so is the passion a native New Yorker must have after touching down in the Central Valley to cover them.

Fans today are desperate to dream up plans to influence the Maloof brothers, Joe and Gavin, to keep the team in Sacramento—they also struggle to cope with their probable inability to make any impact on such a decision.

But for those for whom the Kings are an essential part of their livelihood, the show must go on—enthusiastically greeting the patrons and tearing the tickets, introducing the players and supporting the team during battles both on and off the court.

It wouldn’t be surprising for Gary Gerould, radio play-by-play man, and Jerry Reynolds, TV commentator and director of player personnel, to step down were the team to leave. Both men grayed after having been with the Kings organization for nearly their entire tenure in Sacramento. (Gerould announced his 2,000^th game this season.)

The Maloofs have been mum since word broke of negotiations to move the team to the Honda Center in Anaheim—an only slightly newer but substantially more luxurious stadium than the recently renamed Natomas arena. (Power Balance, makers of a discredited line of performance enhancing wristbands, has decided to postpone hoisting its name atop the Kings’ facility until the future of the team is known.)

It is no secret that the club needs a new building if it is to stay in town. Seattle recently lost its team to Oklahoma City under similar circumstances, just as Kansas City lost the Kings to Sacramento more than 25 years ago.

But getting an arena built in the first place was not without cost or controversy.

After purchasing the Kings with the intention of bringing the team to Sacramento, a group of local developers spared little effort battling zoning regulations, environmental challenges, and significant flood risk in order to realize the speculative potential of homes and businesses in North Natomas. A multipurpose sports complex, planned as the centerpiece for such development, was touted as essential to shaking Sacramento’s ‘cow town’ image.

With the identity of the city at stake, opponents faced residents clamoring for cultural amenities as well as the prospects for new jobs.

“I’d much rather be fighting a chemical plant or an oil refinery than a sports complex, because then we’d have 95 percent of the public on our side instead of maybe 50 percent,” the president of the Environmental Council of Sacramento said in 1987.

Heather Fargo, then member of the Natomas Community Association, insisted in a 1986 article that anti-growth advocates were unfairly characterized as “anti-sports, so therefore anti-Sacramento and [even] anti-American.”

Sacramento sports fans won. North Natomas is now dotted with houses and anchored by regional businesses employing thousands. A building moratorium is the result of a 2008 FEMA report designating the area a Special Flood Hazard Area. The cost to repair the levees is estimated at $780 million.

What concessions developers will require to build a new stadium is not entirely certain. In likely-too-late fashion, the City-Council-commissioned feasibility study to explore the issue won’t be complete until sometime after May.

With the NBA recently granting an extension for the Maloofs to file official documents requesting to relocate the team, an April 14 Board of Governors meeting may very well provide final word on whether the deal with Anaheim has been made.

For a consummate pro like Napear, despite all signs pointing in the direction of impending doom, little can take attention away from the game being played on the court. Grant still puts his headset on each night and goes to work.

To turn on the television and to not hear Napear’s emphatic, penetrating voice, they will have official confirmation that the bottom has fallen out—the end of big-league sports in sleepy Sacramento.

This article appears in the March 25, 2011 edition of The Davis Enterprise.

Fuera Nazia

None should be faulted for giving up on trying to understand the factions and intricacies of civil war Spain to explain all of what is happening here. Many demonstrations and disruptions and police mobilizations were occurring all over Madrid in the weeks leading up to the 2008 general election. The local Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT-AIT), based in Plaza Tirso de Molina, had draped anti-fascist banners outside several of their buildings in preparation for a right-wing rally sanctioned by authorities. To what can best be understood, a group of nationalist neo-Nazis crowded the plaza to protest incumbent PSOE immigration policy. In response, a counter-protest group emerged from the immigrant-populated Lavapiés, digging cobblestones from the street to use as projectiles and fortifying their position with flaming trash bins against both the fascists and police.

Photo credit goes to BK, who kept shelter on a balcony three floors above the embattled scene.

Democracy Now

As commuters rush home at day's end, beneath Royal Palace gold spires in the historical center of Bangkok at Sanam Luang, political will finds expression. Chants of cynical citizens are heard blocks away at the backpacker's ghetto of Khaosan. Son, permanent fixture of The Road, can find no word other than 'festival' to respond to our query regarding the commotion, which is faintly visible from the roof-level bar of the D&D Inn. He is the most nervous of us--while locals enter the area freely, we are frisked promptly by soldiers with automatic weapons.