Farewell thoughts

In January, when Rachel Leibrock resigned as SN&R editor, Jeff vonKaenel and Deborah Redmond, who own the three News & Review papers, asked me to fill in for her while they looked for her permanent replacement.

At the time I was retired from the Chico News & Review, where I had been editor for more than a decade. I liked being retired—who doesn’t?—but Jeff and Deborah’s proposal was irresistible. I knew I would enjoy working with these good friends again, and I was attracted to the challenge of helming for a while the alt-weekly in California’s capital city.

Well, we’ve hired an editor—more about him next week in my final note—so it’s about time for me to go home to Chico and, like Candide, tend to my garden.

An editor is only as good as his or her staff, and I have been blessed to work with a hugely talented newsroom crew. I’m grateful also to the SN&R’s design team, whose creativity never fails to amaze me, the sales staff, who are out in the community every day marketing the product we’ve created, and all of the support people who keep the ship afloat.

I didn’t know Sacramento well when I started here. In five months I’ve come to appreciate its diversity, its creative economy, and its ever-expanding arts community.

The level of homelessness, however, is shameful. Sacramento can afford to provide housing and mental-health services to its suffering underclass, but it chooses not to do so. Compare it to Los Angeles, whose residents voted last year to authorize $1.2 billion in bonds to provide housing and services for the homeless.

If LA can do it, so can Sacramento.