She chose to use her position  and editorial “megaphone” to chafe against the Sacramento Police  Department for allowing patrol officers who live outside the city to  use their police vehicles to commute to and from work. That some of  these officers live in Benicia, Stockton, or Yuba City, according to  Rutland, illustrates, in her view, managerial delinquency because  taxpayer funds are used to pay for excess gas consumption that by city  law prohibits subvention of these kinds of costs if city employees  live outside city boundaries.

Wow. Call Rumsfeld, it’s time for shock  and awe. Really? Of all the topics of critical concern to Sacramentans  today including -- but certainly not limited to – crime, flood  protection, rising energy costs and unemployment, a home-building and  housing crisis -- Rutland couldn’t come up with a more important  problem to bring to our attention? What about spending a few minutes 
of deep thought to propose a new solution to gang violence?

Sacramentans need to stop settling for media mediocrity. Cancel your  subscription to the Bee. This is an unfortunate situation but one that  simply has to change, and it's up to us to do it. We need local print  media that elevates the dialogue of our collective experience -- not  simply because it’s the only game in town -- but because it is a  thought-leader, a beacon of journalistic integrity and sophistication  that reflects issues that propel forward our collective quality of  life.

Rutland’s little commentary today exemplifies the sorry state of local media that is unfortunately perpetuated simply because people continue to pay for it. I say that it’s gone on long enough. “Stop the madness”!

A few Sacramento bloggers were on top of the story yesterday. You can see all the posts in Sacramento on the topic by searching 'lawn' in the search box in the top right corner of our page. RiverWrap is great for searching local blogs for specific topics!

RiverWrap Blog Feed Covers Sacramento - (21Q - SacBee)

Attention Blog Junkies - (The Sac Rag)

It's A Wrap - (Blogging the Grid)

Sacramento Blogs: That's A Wrap! - (Twin Soup)

This got me thinking back to the summer of 2007, when 100's of homes were destroyed after a fire broke out near Lake Tahoe. A fire in the Sierra isn't surprising. What was surprising was the rate at which the fire spread. The reason for the fast spreading blaze? Too many trees.
Throw in our now official drought with the "overstocked" amount of trees and we've got a combination for a great fire season!

•  Mainstream media in Sacramento had little impact. Shoddy, biased, amateurish reporting from the Sacramento Bee illustrated how badly this town needs a second printed media source. As the "only game in town", the Bee ran roughshod over Johnson -- some would say their coverage of Fargo prior to the campaign was similarly cheap -- presenting dialgue better suited to gossip pages at Raley's checkstands. Their Editorial Board decision to support voting for anyone OTHER than the two frontrunners reflects the smallmindedness many second tier cities like Sacramento strive to change -- a pillar of Johnson's vision for elevating Sacramento's stature. Moreover, it sets a terrible example for the democratic process -- throw your vote away. How could we have expected a high turnout when the city's main newspaper recommends that voters waste their vote?

• A new mayor needs a "strong" governing system. Voter apathy is a reflection of Fargo's bland personality and governing style. But it is also indicative that most residents don't even know what the mayor is responsible for. The "weak" system rewards a weak mayor -- it's simply not possible to promote and activate the level of change this city needs without a governing structure that enables true leadership to flourish.

• As it relates specifically to political campaigns, the system is completely broken. Residents unaware of how the city's elected officials came to office in the past surely know now. It's the Richie Ross show, as it's been for over a decade. That we as citizens allowed him to fulfill his promise of dragging Kevin into the dirt indicates one absolute mandate: change the legacy of Sacramento's powerbrokers. Ross's tactics -- all supported by the mayor herself -- ranged from flat out wrong (e.g., attacks on Johnson's tax record) to criminal (e.g., promotion that Johnson committed inappropriate behavior). Ross's legacy is a poison on this city and it simply has to stop.

Entering phase II of this campaign, voters should now be armed with a greater understanding of what's at stake. Yes, the issues are our top priority: public safety, economic development, education, flood protection, environmental sustainabilty should be on everyone's short list. But we should also see our local media, our governing structure, and our political campaigning system in a different light. It is my hope that Johnson's call for change extends beyond the issues so that voters see our city for what it is -- a second-tier city crying out for leadership -- and that the only way to get there is through new leadership unhinged from legacies that continue to keep good people down and Sacramento an afterthought.

Fortunately nobody was seriously injured, because if someone HAD been hurt we couldn't  really poke fun at the symbolism of this natural disaster. So the question now goes something like this: "If a tree falls in the election party and everyone gets put onto the street, does it mean the party falls too?"

At least for the evening, perhaps not. But the displacement of Fargo's party was more than symbolic. Sacramento voters demonstrated that Fargo's shameless smear campaign against Sacramento's favorite son was not enough to keep Kevin Johnson from beating the current mayor by over 7 percentage points.

A runoff is certain, and Fargo simply isn't going to be able to ride the negativity pony until November. The idea that she will have to face Kevin on the issues means more moments like the last televised debate, where Johnson probably picked up a few percentage points in the popular vote after demonstrating that he does indeed have a pretty good handle on the issues.

The second kinda funny/kinda sad thing I observed happened during Fargo's speech that same night, after the party migrated from Vallejo's over to her campaign headquarters. This one goes under the heading of "never ask a rhetorical question you don't know the answer to while on live television."

There she was, standing proudly next to Leonard Padilla, trumpeting her roll of endorsements from her "former adversaries" in the mayoral election, when Mayor Fargo spotted fellow mayoral candidate Sean Eldridge in the crowd.

Without a moment's pause, Fargo greets Eldgridge in the middle of her speech and asks, "are you ready to come up here on stage, too, Sean?"

A pregnant pause fills the primetime airwaves on KCRA's live broadcast, and then a voice (that sounds a lot like Sean's) sheepishly echoes from off-camera, "Not quite yet."

It was a hilarous and pathetic moment that will be repeated in the hearts and minds of thousands of on-the-fence Fargo supporters between now and November's runoff. Many of us, in our own way, will have to reconcile our historic loyalties to Fargo with the reality that a new day is dawning... and the Sacramento sun is shining on Kevin Johnson.