Posted: 17 Oct 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Top city managers are developing a recovery plan designed to jump-start Sacramento's defunct economic engine to get the city back up and running.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina, who is drafting the plan, said its focus is to guide the city out of the recession while at the same time making Sacramento less reliant on state and federal aid.

Most cities have general plans that outline how those municipalities will develop long-term, generally over 20- to 30-year periods. This plan, which Vina plans to launch by next summer, is different: It focuses on rejuvenating the city's battered economy over the next three years.

"The economic stimulus and the money from the state, that's going to run out, and that's not long-term sustainability," Vina said. "Our engine's off and we need to get it started again."

Vina has asked top managers to come up with ideas such as:

• A summit of developers and businesses, aimed at finally completing the rejuvenation of downtown Sacramento.

• Tackling gang violence by introducing gang members to services and exploring a tax initiative to fund public safety.

• Putting more into marketing what the city has to offer – and not just to those who live here.

The project is in its early stages.

Managers spent three days last month at a retreat at Camp Sacramento to explore ways of accomplishing broad goals, including: bolstering the local economy, making the city budget self-sustainable, increasing public safety and improving the city's quality of life.

Vina plans to provide more details to the City Council in January.

While many of the projects do not deal directly with finances, some – such as tackling gang violence – are still aimed at building a friendlier business environment in the city.

"There's so much we can do for ourselves," Vina said. "This is about helping ourselves and not waiting for a solution to be handed to us."

One focus is the continued redevelopment of downtown, especially the corridor of J, K and L streets.

To that end, he is exploring holding a conference with the city's most powerful developers and business owners.

"I want to find a way where we can get all the investors in a room and they can share their visions (for downtown)," he said. "What are they willing to do? What would they like to see downtown?

"I've got to believe that by asking them to do it all at once and commit to a plan, they're going to feel better about leveraging that risk. Right now, when you're the only one on a street corner, you're taking all the financial risks."

Another potential growth area for the city is Natomas, where a federal building ban is in effect until 2012 while nearby levees are upgraded.

"I want to start planning that now so that when (the building ban) lifts, we're not the city that's unable to deliver on permits, on building inspections on fire inspections," Vina said. "When it lifts, we need to make sure we have enough staff – whether it's our own or contracted out – because I want to address it quickly. Those are instant jobs."

Vina also wants the city to take advantage of the industries already growing in the region by trying to attract companies that support those job sectors. For example, he wonders if there's more the city could do to attract firms that make medical gloves and hospital gowns to supply the city's expanding health care systems.

He wants staff to look at what City Hall can do with its own books. That may mean laying out a plan to fill the city's economic reserve back up to 10 percent of the budget – it currently stands at about 3 percent – and exploring selling off assets such as buildings.

Vina also wants to explore placing more of the responsibility of maintaining neighborhood parks on the neighborhoods that use those facilities.

At the same time, the city could also devote more resources into the larger regional parks and generate revenue from visitors outside the city.

Mayor Kevin Johnson said he would "reserve comment until I see the whole plan."

Johnson said he would generally advocate beefing up the reserve budget, diversifying the city's economy to make it less reliant upon state jobs, and looking at incentives to foster a healthy environment for small businesses.

"We need something that's well thought-out and very prudent when it come to both the long-term and short-term effects," he said.

Call The Bee's Ryan Lillis, (916) 321-1085. Follow him on Twitter at Ryan_Lillis.

What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com

Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)

Here are some rules of the road:

• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "report abuse" button to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.

• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.

• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.

• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message.

• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.

• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.

• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.

• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.

You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "report abuse" button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.

If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to feedback@sacbee.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name.

If you choose to use our "reply to comment" feature, you should note that the length of the quoted comment will count against the size limits for your comment.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

Your Sacramento Guide: Delta Loop is 8 miles of quirky relaxation - Sacramento Bee

Posted: 17 Oct 2010 12:00 AM PDT

It's not easy to explain why it happens, but it does happen. It comes from the look of the area, the feel of the place, but there also might be some metaphysical force at work, something more than the water and the trees and the grass.

All I know is, you turn off Highway 12, and in a minute or two, if it takes that long, everything changes.

Your breathing calms, your shoulders loosen, the landscape comes alive. People are nicer. Birds chirp louder. I'm pretty sure clock hands slow down. It's like you've moved into a parallel universe, not exactly a step back in time but a step into a world that's just a bit different. In a good way.

This is the Delta Loop. Or as most people in the region would call it, "Where?"

And that's part of what makes it special. It's just this small, quirky stretch of a few miles, deep in the Delta, that most of us miss because it's a bit out of the way, and because you have to know to go there.

The Loop is five miles east of Rio Vista, a mile or so south of Isleton. Much of it is on Brannan Island Road, though technically, it's Andrus Island. That kind of detail isn't important, except it fits the pleasant eccentricity of it all.

Officially, the Loop is 10 miles, though two miles are on Highway 12 and they don't count. The other eight, on levees where the Mokelumne River dumps into the San Joaquin, are plenty.

Any trip into the Delta for most city folk in the Sacramento region is a reminder that we're close to a vast place still quiet and unsettled and at the whim of nature. Plus, there's the fantasy of being so removed from urban life that it's almost an instant vacation just going for a drive there.

This stretch is that and more. It's different from the more northern Delta, less lush and colonial in feel, more wide-open and wild. The San Joaquin River is maybe a half-mile across at points, and though a couple of miles along the Loop are green and thick with trees, most of this stretch is roomy wetland on one side, sweeping farmland on the other.

This is a recreation area, too, and it's been one for more than a half-century. The levee roads lead to plenty of marinas and roadhouses and small resorts – even a KOA campground. And everything manages to be different in tone and feel from everything else, which makes for a nice day of just wandering.

Plus, it's got houses weirdly built on stilts – huge stilts, three stories high – that look unworldly, like they belong on some planet from "Star Wars."

But much of this stretch is just nature – river and grass and birds and some trees – and that's what gives it such a strong sense of tranquility, even refuge. What matters is just being here, just seeing what's around you.

You drive along the levee and spot an oak across the water, standing alone, romantic and dignified. Its beauty is quiet but penetrating. It's easy to end up mesmerized by that one tree, a kind of a poem of nature against a background of water and sky.

When the wind is still, the wide river looks so calm from the levee that it could be a massive pool. On the other side of the road, looking down from the levee, you find wire-straight rows of corn on dry ground, oblivious to the water a few feet away that's actually high above the tops of the stalks.

If there's a perfect time of year to experience all this, it is now. Early fall gives the green fields streaks of tan and red and soft browns. The light is tinged with gold, even in midday, adding a sense of richness and depth to the world.

Another reason this is the time: You have the Loop to yourself most days. It gets busy on summer weekends because people who fish or go boating know the Loop; it's a novelty to the rest of us.

Lair with a history

And if you're going to visit, I'm saying start with breakfast or lunch at Korth's Pirate's Lair, in part because I feel some professional obligation to support all things pirate but also because it's a charming little spot a couple of miles along the Loop, in the lushest part of the drive.

The cafe – open just for breakfast and lunch – has light pouring in from all directions (not particularly piratelike, I'll admit) and only a few pirate-ish images. It does feel semitropical because it's surrounded by greenery, including a few thick palm trees, and there's a second-story rooftop deck for taking in the view. But not a peg leg or an eye patch in sight.

"That's a little disappointing, isn't it," said Mel Standerfer, eating lunch with his friend Gaylene Tompkins on a recent weekday. "We're still buying into the pirate theme, though. I'd come here if I were a pirate."

They were visiting marinas, looking for a spot to keep Standerfer's boat. He's a Sacramento guy who knows the Loop, but Tompkins, of Elk Grove, is a rookie.

"It's like a different world down here," she said. "How did I not know about it? What really surprised me was the river. Holy cow, it's wide."

Dee Reyes was cooking at the Lair that day. She said the place used to be more pirated up, but it now blends in the history of the Delta and the Korths, the family that started the cafe six decades ago.

Albine and Josephine Korth bought the property, nearly 50 acres, in 1931 with the idea of creating an asparagus farm.

In spring 1932, Albine moved two horses and two bales of hay onto the land. The hay was stolen that night. The next day, he hauled two more bales over to feed the horses, plus a drum of fuel. That night, the new bales were stolen, plus the fuel drum. (The horses were fine.)

Korth figured out what was happening. He decided – only half-kidding – that he had bought a pirates' lair, and a name was born, though he didn't open the coffee shop with that tag until 1940.

"There's all kinds of little histories down here like that," said Larry Brown. He's a retired Sacramento real estate guy now living in Stockton. "Every place has a good story."

Brown has a good story, too. He first came down to the Loop in 1947 when he was a kid; in 1991, he brought his young son, Sean, to the Pirate's Lair for his first restaurant visit ever. They still come back every year on Sean's birthday.

Soak up the landscape

If you drive west from the Lair, it isn't long before the landscape opens up. That's where you run into some of the oddest-looking houses this side of Tatooine. (That's Luke Skywalker's home planet and, uh, never mind.)

The buildings are on those huge stilts to bring their front doors even with the levee. That gives them vast views of the river and the Delta, and maybe more importantly, it puts the houses above a potential flood. As much sense as that makes, it still looks like the homes could, at any time, get up and walk away.

That's all part of the "different world" feel, but more than anything, the area speaks of simple serenity. This isn't a spot for just driving through – that wouldn't even take an hour – it's for stopping to gaze at the land around you, for spending a slow day, for taking in the uncomplicated grace of the river.

Casey and Devery Stockon have fallen under the spell of the Delta and this special spot. They still live in Napa but have run Owl Harbor Marina for more than a year now.

Owl Harbor, down in the southwest corner of the Loop, is nearly a mile long and has berths for more than 200 boats. It's mostly just boats and grass and trees and quiet, though there is an "Internet cantina" for boat owners, which is an open-air deck with tables and chairs and a wall blocking the sun that's lined with books.

Casey also owns a marina construction business, so he has a long river connection, and he fell for Owl Harbor when he found it up for sale. When they took over, Devery bailed on a corporate sales job to commute to the Delta from Napa every day to manage the marina.

"The first time I came here, I saw what he saw, how special this place is," Devery said. While she talked, Captain Jack, their new orange-striped kitten, dashed around the tiny office. They found him wandering the marina a couple of weeks ago, so he's still trying to decide if he'll be skittish or friendly. All bets are on friendly.

"We live in a beautiful place in Napa, but the drive here is worth it," Devery said.

"We like funky, so that's part of what attracted us, but there's something more. It's the quiet, it's the wildlife, it's the simple beauty. You have to slow down to really see it, and when you see it, you can't help but slow down."

The Delta Loop starts with a turn off Highway 12 onto Brannan Island Road about 45 miles from downtown Sacramento. Mile markers are posted on thick poles along the road, not that anyone can get lost following a single levee road. Still.

For more details and maps, go to www.deltaloop.com, but here's a quick rundown of some places to get food and drink, in order of appearance as you travel counterclockwise around the Loop. (Note: Hours may change for some spots.)

• Lighthouse Restaurant

151 Brannan Island Road. www.lighthouserestaurant andbar.com, (916) 777-4030. A big dining room with one wall that's all glass looking out at the river and a cozy outside deck on the water. Lunch and dinner every day.

• Moore's Riverboat Restaurant & Bar

106 W. Brannan Island Road, www.mooresriverboat.com, (916) 777-4884. Just what it sounds like: a big riverboat in a lush part of the Loop. Open for dinner Thursday, lunch and dinner Friday-Sunday.

• Korth's Pirate's Lair

169 W. Brannan Island Road, www.korthsmarina.com, (916) 777-6565. Though it could use a bit more pirate-y flair, it's a charming little cafe in an almost tropical spot. Open 8 a.m.–3 p.m. daily.

• Happy Harbor Restaurant

731 W. Brannan Island Road, www.deltaloop.com/happy. html, (916) 777-6575. Old-school bar and roadhouse with lots of business from locals. Open 7 a.m. daily, till 11 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 2 a.m. Friday-Saturday, midnight Sunday.

• Spindrift Restaurant

841 W. Brannan Island Road, www.thespindrift.com, (916), 777-4945. Comfortable dining room and bar with a seafaring feel. Dinner Wednesday-Friday; breakfast, lunch and dinner Saturday-Sunday; closed Monday-Tuesday. (Check with them for possible changes.)

– Rick Kushman

Call The Bee's Rick Kushman, (916) 321-1187. Listen to him Tuesdays at 8:40 a.m. on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK).

What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com

Here are some rules of the road:

• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.

• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message.

• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.

• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.

• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.

• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.

If you choose to use our "reply to comment" feature, you should note that the length of the quoted comment will count against the size limits for your comment.

A Map To The Year’s Best Shopping Deals - Forbes (blog)

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 08:45 AM PDT

PLEASANT PRAIRIE, WI - NOVEMBER 28: Holiday sh...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By Michael Deane

It would be great if the malfunction of your car, TV or dishwasher coincided with one of those once-a-year sales that are often advertised. But when do they happen? Are these, "We must slash all prices by 50%" sales just at the discretion of the store? Do they just have too many washing machines or couches or sedans, and need to get rid of them?

Wouldn't it be ideal to find out when these sales happened, and plan your life accordingly around them, rather than be at the whim of your fading clothes, broken-down jalopy or on-the-fritz flatscreen? Well, at the risk of sounding like an advertisement, now you can! We'll go through the best times of year to buy different major life purchases, and see how you can plan your year's purchases around sales. House

With a purchase as important as a house – the biggest purchase you're ever likely to make – there's no surefire way to get a good deal. It's always said that spring and summer are the best times to buy and sell homes. According to the "Complete Idiot's Guide to Buying and Selling a Home," when you look at the data, this is actually when most sales take place – but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best time to buy. One good reason to buy during this time is that there are so many houses on the market, and the rules of supply and demand may apply, so the prices will go down, depending on how many sellers there are. However, the book gives another tip: people don't want to move around the holidays, nor do they want to sell their homes during winter when the homes won't look their best from the outside, so if they are selling during these down times, they must really want to sell their homes, and you may be able to bargain.

See also: 20 Lazy Ways To Save Money

Cars

New cars usually go on sale just before the new models are released. It's not just to make room for the new models, but also because the older models will have less perceived value, due to being already "dated."An article from the New York Times, written at the beginning of September, quotes Juan Flores, the director of vehicle valuation from Kelley Blue Book, as saying that the best time to buy a car is Labor Day weekend. This is because of the reasons listed above, as the models for the next year start arriving in September. Not only are dealers trying to clear out the lots by giving the best prices, they'll also give the best financing deals.

An article on Edmunds.com, written by the senior consumer advice editor, says that the best time to go during the month is at the end, because dealers often have monthly quotas to meet, and they are more willing to be flexible on price. So, if you don't go on Labor Day, maybe try the end of September.

Appliances

Appliances are similar to cars; you should buy them just before the new models get in. This also happens to be in September. However, as with all electronics and many other things as well, buying during holiday sales can really help out. According to the Wall Street Journal's SmartMoney site, the best time is on bigger holidays like Independence Day, but retailers also offer big savings on smaller holidays like Columbus Day. So if you don't want to do all of your big-ticket shopping in September, wait until Thanksgiving.

TVs and Entertainment Systems

Black Friday is the first big sale of the Christmas season, and it's famous for its door-crasher sales and incredible deals; but consumers may not want to stand in line on a cold November morning to get these deals. If that's the case, then wait. Christmas sales on HDTVs, sound systems and other entertainment ephemera don't go away once Black Friday is over. As well, if a retailer has a year where sales don't go quite as planned, they'll be trying to unload all of their goods once Christmas is over, and before the year ends. So wait until after holiday season to get the real holiday savings.

Furniture

The best time to buy furniture is right after the holidays in January, and again in July. This is also due to the incoming new inventory. Bankrate.com did an interview with Jackie Hirschhaut, vice president of public relations and marketing for American Home Furnishings Alliance, who claimed that furniture stores, like everywhere else, need to clear out this inventory at these times to make room for spring and fall furniture lines.

The Bottom Line
The above tips on when to shop won't really apply to you if you need to have everything cutting edge. You won't wait until retailers are trying to unload their older models – when the best deals are happening – because you'll want the product as soon as it comes out, and you'll pay the premium for that privilege. For the rest of us, however, it's always best to wait until retailers are looking to clear the showroom.

Maps Guides

Sunday, October 17, 2010

“Sacramento drawing up its own road map to recovery - Sacramento Bee” plus 2 more

“Sacramento drawing up its own road map to recovery - Sacramento Bee” plus 2 more

Lair with a history

Soak up the landscape

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts