Storm on Tuesday night: Wind downs trees, power lines across Sacramento, N. California
Sacramento Bee 1/27/2021 Daniel Hunt, Noel Harris, Michael McGough, and Theresa Clift, The Sacramento Bee
Jan. 27 A menacing and massive winter storm, fueled by an atmospheric river from the north Pacific Ocean, has reached the Sacramento region on Tuesday night.
The extreme storm is bringing heavy winds, near-freezing rain and dangerous driving conditions to the Valley floor; even at low elevations, snow is falling in several areas in Northern California.
This updates page for Tuesday has ended; get the latest Wednesday developments here.
Power outages reported across Sacramento region, SMUD says
By Sasha Margulies, iHeart Media
Jan 27, 2021
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is urging the city council to reject the city manager s plan to add new police positions to the city budget.
City Manager Howard Chan s plan would add ten new sworn officer positions to the current city budget. Chan says it would improve the department s transparency, equity and accountability especially since the department is facing intense public scrutiny. It would also add a total of $3.6 million to the department s over $157 million budget. Steinberg explains he supports adding the positions to the next budget, which starts July 1st. He says the money available now should be used to construct affordable housing, youth programs and participatory budgeting.
(OBSERVER photo by Robert J. Maryland)
SPD clocked 7,176 hours of overtime and more than $600,000 to police pro-Trump demonstrations at the State Capitol.
SPD Police Chief Daniel Hahn said 27 arrests and citations from the protests also included 16 that involved Antifa and counter-protesters. Eleven arrests involved Proud Boys and other far-right affiliates.
“We have tried to keep our community safe, prevent violence, minimize property damage, and ensure everyone’s constitutional rights were protected,” Hahn told the City Council in a virtual setting.
At various moments, the protests were edgy and full of emotions, turning into violence. Many critics say the police department was picking sides, protecting Trump supporters in their opinion.
Over the past few years, leaders in the Sacramento region have repeatedly touted the promise of Aggie Square. The mixed-use project, being developed through a partnership of UC Davis, developer Wexford Science & Technology, and city officials near UC Davis Medical Center, will add thousands of jobs and boost research around science, technology, engineering, and mathematics when it’s completed around 2026. But the project hasn’t been without controversy, with local groups attempting to negotiate with project principals in recent months for a community benefits agreement to address fears that Aggie Square could further gentrification and displacement in surrounding neighborhoods such as Oak Park, as Comstock’s