A bad case of SCOTUS

A sense of place: Developer Paul Petrovich is awesome, as he no doubt would tell you himself. It was only a year ago that Petrovich wiped out a mural on one of his recently acquired buildings—one that he found to be an eyesore—and bestowed upon the city a much pricier and, er, shinier, piece of public art: the giant chrome horse in front of the new Safeway on 19th Street.

For his next feat, Petrovich will not only revitalize a city block—he will also travel backward in time and revitalize the very fabric of history.

Behold! Whiskey Hill, a daring new loft project coming soon to 21st and S streets.

Because Petrovich is as brilliant as he is generous, he understands that his customers want to live close to downtown, in a community made livable by the occasional bus and many, many restaurants with flat-screen televisions. But more than this, he knows the urban elite crave authenticity.

And Whiskey Hill offers authenticity in abundance—evoking a real place from Sacramento’s wild and woolly past. You see, Whiskey Hill was once a lawless spot of high ground where folks caroused and bet on the horse races and where, during the Prohibition, bootleggers brewed their mind-bending hooch for those who could afford a bottle.

But the real magic is that the Whiskey Hill lofts will be nowhere near Whiskey Hill, the actual place. No, indeed, according to local historians, Whiskey Hill was once in the area of modern-day 12th Avenue and Franklin Boulevard. But in Petrovich’s mighty hands, time and space are concatenated, and voilà, you too can live in a luxuriously appointed parallel universe.

Bites has an even bigger challenge for Petrovich, if he dares attempt it. Try selling lofts under the actual historic name for the area around 21st and S streets: Poverty Ridge.

Dog and pony show: The citizens of Broderick finally got an apology, only it wasn’t the one they were waiting for.

Manuel Valencia, director of La Raza Network, sent out the message on Monday apologizing to the community of Broderick for his organization’s role in what he now deems “a dog and pony show.”

You see, La Raza Network, at the request of West Sacramento City Councilman Oscar Villegas and Police Chief Dan Drummond, organized a town-hall meeting last month between city officials and angry residents of the West Sacramento neighborhoods of Broderick and Bryte over the city’s controversial gang injunction. (See “Fighting a clampdown,” SN&R News, August 4.)

La Raza provided the moderators for the meeting, put out the fliers and generally helped make sure tempers stayed in check during the three-hour event.

“A lot of people who came to that meeting had to hold their tongues, and be civil, despite their anger,” Valencia explained. But he felt good about it, given the assurances from Drummond and other city brass that residents’ many concerns about the anti-gang dragnet would addressed.

But almost two weeks later, Valencia said there’s been nothing in the way of meaningful follow-up. “Once the town-hall meeting was over, it quickly became apparent that it was just cosmetic, a photo op for the chief,” Valencia explained.

LAOTY: The award for the Lamest Acronym of the Year clearly must be hand-delivered to the newspaper editors of America who came up with a shorthand way to refer to Judge John G. Roberts: SCOTUS nominee.

Newspapers across this great name-shortening land of ours have printed SCOTUS in their pages.

We get it. It’s a play off of POTUS, an acronym known mostly to West Wing fan-clubbers as an insider’s quick reference to the president of the United States. So, modify that for Supreme Court of the United States, and you get SCOTUS, something that sounds more, well, dirty than dignified.

Should we now start referring to Old Glory as FOTUS and to our founding documents as COTUS and BOROTUS? Bites’ favorite is one that actually seems to fit for some strange and slightly creepy reason: Laura Bush as FLOTUS.