Where In Natomas?

Still no correct answer for this May 28 photo!

8:57 AM | 9 comments | Read More

In The News: NUSD Budget Cuts Get More Ink

The Sac Bee today ran another article about the Natomas Unified School District's decision earlier in the week, this time spotlighting plans to increase 2nd and 3rd grade class sizes from 20 to 30 students per teacher.

THE BUZZ has heard from parents and teachers alike on this particular issue and when we asked the NUSD about whether this decision was final, we were told, "The cuts made this week are official although any board decision can be re-visited."

At the meeting next week, trustees will decide whether to boost class size at the kindergarten level too. Board members have stated plans to steer clear of 1st grade, but some teachers are saying upping class sizes from 20 to 25 in kindergarten through 3rd grades would be a better solution all the way around.

When we look at the $$$ being saved with these cuts, the numbers look like a mere drop in the bucket... We can't help wonder: At what cost?

Click here to read the Sac Bee article. Click here to check out a NUSD document with budget saving ideas. Click here to contact the NUSD board of trustees.

12:18 PM | 8 comments | Read More

Tips On Keeping Your Cars Safe From Thieves

By Matt Carroll, Vice President
Paladin Private Security

North Sacramento's connectedness continues to thwart crime on a daily basis as evidenced by both the success stories shared in Capt. Hahn's updates, as well as in the hard numbers that show improvement in most crime categories.

That said, however, we have seen a recent spike in North Natomas auto burglaries and auto thefts in recent weeks. Sacramento has long been a top-10 city for auto theft, but has also consistently ranked amongst the best in recovery rates.

Many in the community have recently asked Paladin for advice on how to best protect their vehicles. Just as a fire needs oxygen, fuel and heat to exist, property crimes such as auto theft and auto burglary have necessary ingredients of their own: Intent, Means and Opportunity.


While we have no control over a criminal's intent to commit an act, nor their experience and tools of the trade (means), we do and always will have some say as to the degree of opportunity we present them.

Some communities, such as Natomas Park, maintain community regulations aimed at opportunity prevention. Most notably, they prohibit street parking. Not only does this keep the community looking nicer (which is a deterrent in and of itself), but it places the onus on the suspect to actually enter a private property parcel to commit their crime. It forces the suspect to come within range of household lighting, motion sensors, camera systems, potentially present alarms, potentially present noisy dogs and of course line of sight of the homeowner. This changing of the playing field has been directly responsible for the successful capture of many burglars over the past year.

While we'd all like to believe in crime prevention, the best we can usually hope to accomplish is crime displacement. While keeping vehicles in the garages designed for them is the ideal scenario, its not a piece of advice many will follow despite the proven benefits. With respect to auto burglary, the same advice we've all heard many times before remains the best defense - keep all items out of view. When we say all items, we mean all items. Never suspect that your perception of value is identical to that of the criminal. While you may know there is nothing of value in that backpack on the floorboard, the criminal will knock out your window just out of curiosity.

So, let's say you're the model car owner. You religiously adhere to a vehicle security procedure. When you arrive home and park in your driveway you remove the list of items we know to attract burglars: your cell phone charger, your stereo faceplate and your GPS mount. You open your glove box and let it hang open, you pull open your ash tray and you lift the center console lid - all strategic maneuvers to explicitly demonstrate that there is absolutely nothing in your vehicle worth taking. To be thorough, you grab a handy-wipe and scrub the ring off of your windshield that shows the presence of a GPS unit in your vehicle. Your vehicle looks invincible. Finally, before heading indoors for the evening, you test fire your outside lights and check the sensitivity of your motion sensor lighting. You head indoors, confident you're protected.

You're probably well protected with all of these actions taken. However, if you live on a street where you are the only person behaving this way, not only will all of your neighbors think you're a bit strange, but your level of protection will have dwindled as well. While you've certainly done your part to deter crime in your community, your neighbors are continuing to serve as a bright beacon for the burglars, inviting them to take a gander at what your street has to offer. Keep in mind, auto burglary can lead to additional Means (garage openers, spare house keys) for other crimes. Now we've given them 2 of the 3 ingredients for their next act - a home burglary.

With our primary market in the multifamily housing arena, we find great irony that while these folks live literally on top of one another, they are highly disconnected and severely lack the sense of community that we find in the single family home communities in North Natomas. With apartment parking lots serving as a target rich environment, Paladin officers routinely "paper the cars" with notices. Our staff will put on a burglar mindset and peer into vehicles throughout the property. Any vehicle with an item in view receives a notice which politely and indirectly blames them for creating crime in the community. What is interesting is that we often receive a complaint calls asking "Where was security? My car was burglarized!" In many cases, when we run the plate they give us, we find one or more reports in our system showing our staff had issued that very vehicle a warning notice, essentially telling them this was going to happen.

We're creatures of habit, and even though we know the risks, we find it hard to change our behavior. Equally, however, people are also followers. We like to "fit in" with the herd. This characteristic can be turned to our advantage in ways to combat crime. Do you want to be the only person on your street parked on the street? Without exterior lighting? Point being, until the community as a whole adopts a crime displacement attitude, then commits to these beliefs through demonstrable actions, the burglars and car thieves will continue to be successful and in your neighborhood.

With many neighborhood watch groups operating in North Natomas, many have asked us what they should do now that they exist. What function can they serve aside from noble participation in E-mail groups and serving as good reporters of suspicious activity? Papering cars is one idea. Taking note of homes without lighting and generating a letter from your neighborhood group to the homeowners who are creating opportunity is a start. Advertise CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) strategies throughout your community: maintain "natural surveillance" in your community by preventing bushes over 3 feet high, tree canopies hanging below 8 feet. Ideally, you should be able to see across your street, down your street and up your street without obstructed view. Work with homeowners to make this happen - the resulting open environment improves safety, witness potential, throw of lighting and has a great psychological impact on the would-be offender. Consider hostile vegetation and noisy ground cover outside windows of the home. These are just several means of opportunity reduction - our collective responsibility as a community and our mission if we hope to reduce or altogether relocate crime.

12:03 PM | 0 comments | Read More

Dog Found This Morning At Regency Park

This dog was found at the Regency Dog Park at 5:30 a.m. today. The NATOMAS BUZZ reader who sent in the photo is not sure whether the dog is a male or female, but reports it is "very mellow, rides well in a car, house broken and walks well on a leash." The dog is being taken to the SPCA, so if anyone lost this dog, they can find it there.

10:10 AM | 0 comments | Read More

For The Kids: Summer Teen Program

The City of Sacramento's Parks and Recreation division is offering a Summer Teen Program at the South Natomas Community Center.

The program is for 6ht through 12th graders and will include outdoor and indoor activities, sports, arts and crafts, special events and fun group outings. The camp runs 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. June 15th - August 7th.

Registration costs $30. For more information call Julianna Iniguez at 808-1574 or e-mail her here.

9:59 AM | 0 comments | Read More

No. Natomas School Bike Month Results In!

The North Natomas Transportation Management Association sponsored May is Bike Month in seven schools, challenging them to track all trips taken by bicycle over the month of May.

North Natomas schools rode a total of 48,983 trips!

School	Total Trips	Trips per Student
Regency Park	17,028	22.6
Westlake Charter	5,625	18.8
Witter Ranch	5,095	14.2
Heron School	8,914	10.7
Natomas Park	6,428	9.9
H. Allen Hight	4,274	7.4
Natomas Middle	1,619	1.8

Hats off to Regency Park Elementary who rode a whopping 17,028 trips to win the Million Mile perpetual trophy that will be theirs for the next year.

In addition, six North Natomas schools placed in the top 10 of 45 participating schools in the region. To check out the regional results for yourself click here.

4:10 PM | 0 comments | Read More

More Details About NUSD's Budget Surgery

From Natomas Unified School District superintendent Steve Farrar:

Last night (June 3) our school board met again to address the worst budget crisis of our time. They approved a $2.9 million package of budget cuts, and are scheduled to meet weekly throughout the month of June to consider up to $8 million more in cuts by month’s end.

These are the highlights of the reductions approved last night:

• Reassign teachers facing layoffs into a pool of long-term substitute teachers, savings to be determined – potentially up to $1 million
• Increase class sizes in grades 2 and 3 to 30 students to 1 teacher, $750,000
• Close under-enrolled Regional Occupational Program (ROP) classes, $232,000
• Increase student meal prices by 50 cents and open new points of sale at Natomas High’s Terrace Cafe to generate more sales, $230,000
• Cut 2.5 positions for secondary social studies, $145,000
• Make further reductions in the support staff at the Education Center, $166,000
• Increase the distance students walk before busing is provided, $100,000
• Eliminate an unfilled elementary vice principal position, $96,000
• Reduce use of the Tungsten program, $45,000
• Cancel elementary summer school but keep high school summer school (middle school summer school will be addressed next week), $28,000
• Implement further energy savings including keeping the swimming pool at Natomas High open only June-September and turning off the stadium lights at Natomas High and Inderkum High in the evenings, $24,500
• Trim staff development budget for certificated staff, $21,516
• Reduce the contribution to the Natomas Schools Foundation, $16,000
• Reduce school decentralized supply budgets by 10 percent, $70,000

As you may know, the state budget crisis is worsening by the day and school districts across the state are having their state income reduced even more drastically than anticipated just weeks ago.

To put this in some context – during the Great Depression, budgets for education were cut by 25 percent over a five-year period. In California, we are facing a 25 percent reduction in state funding over just two years, according to some estimates.

Below are some of the possible budget cuts that may be under consideration at the June 11 special meeting of the Board of Trustees:

• Closing schools, $300,000 to $400,000
• Temporarily closing Bannon Creek Elementary for construction safety concerns during the conversion of the campus from a K-5 to a K-8 school (this construction project is using bond dollars that cannot be used for other expenses such as staff salaries and student supplies), $250,000
• Authorizing targeted layoffs, variable savings
• Eliminating athletics, $357,425
• Putting more/all schools on multi-track year-round schedules with a school closure, $400,000
• Having a four-day school week, $250,000
• More energy savings that include letting our lawns go brown, $40,000 or more
• Not purchasing school workbooks, $300,000
• Eliminating all bus transportation except for special education students (a mandated service), $862,000
• Eliminating all Tier III categorical programs, $1.4 million
• Staff furloughs, variable savings
• Eliminating P.E. for high school juniors and seniors and only offering the class at the freshman/sophomore level, $232,000
• Further review of increasing class sizes at the K-1 level (the Board already approved increasing class sizes at every grade level by 1), savings to be determined

Still to be addressed are issues of employee compensation that are subject to negotiations. Please note the following potential savings:

• Freeze step-and-column increases, $1.68 million or the equivalent of 29 teaching positions
• Implement furlough days, $283,363 per each furlough day or the equivalent of 5 teaching positions
• 3 percent salary reduction for all employees and administrators, $1.644 million or the equivalent of 28 teaching positions
• Eliminate compensation for class size overages, $236,000 or the equivalent of 4 teaching positions

In a related matter, our district is working to resolve the issue of School Resource Officers at Inderkum High and Natomas High. I’d like to note that we are in discussions with other agencies to provide this service at a lower cost than our contract with the Sacramento Police Department which ends June 30.

I’d also like to provide clarification on another important issue: How we pay for one-time land purchases/school construction vs. how we pay for ongoing expenses like salaries and school supplies:

• The funds for land purchases/school construction come from separate money “pots,” if you will, and can’t be comingled with funds for salaries and school supplies.
• We have built our new schools, modernized our campuses and purchased the West Lakeside property for future school use with voter-approved school bond money and land developer fees, among other sources dedicated just for this use.
• We pay for our salaries, school supplies and all other ongoing educational expenses out of the general fund – typically money that comes from state and federal sources.

As I said in yesterday’s message, I wish there was better news to report on the state budget crisis and how it’s affecting school districts across the state. I look forward to the day when education once again is made the top financial priority that it deserves to be in California.

Info about how to reach NUSD trustees can be found here.

3:41 PM | 0 comments | Read More

Online Soccer Registration Ends TONIGHT!

TODAY is the last day to register for the Sacramento North Soccer Club's 2009 soccer season online at snsclub.org.

More info can be found on the website. The registration link closes at midnight tonight!

3:23 PM | 0 comments | Read More

School Cuts: A Little Here, A Little There

The Natomas Unified School District board of trustees last night made $2.9 million in budget cuts. Decisions included:

• raising student meal prices 50 cents,
• increasing walking distances for busing,
• creating a new pool of longterm substitute teachers from the banks of our laid off teachers to save $1 million,
• increasing class sizes in some primary grades to save $750,000,
• cutting back on classes/programs that were under enrolled,
• cutting summer school at the elementary level, and
• eliminating some support positions.

According to NUSD spokesperson Heidi Van Zant, trustess have said they will consider closing a school, four-day school week, letting lawns go brown, targeted layoffs, summer school at the middle school level and athletics at the June 11 meeting.

The stated goal is to cut up to $11 million by the end of the month to maintain the district's solvency. Stayed tuned to NATOMASBUZZ.COM for a complete list of cuts later today.

Click here to read the Sac Beearticle on the cuts. An excerpt:

Among the cuts made are to essentially eliminate busing at three high schools, close the Natomas High School pool from June to September, eliminate elementary school summer school and increase class sizes in second and third grades to 30 children per class.

10:19 AM | 8 comments | Read More

9:12 PM | 1 comments | Read More

NUSD Considers More Budget Cuts Tonight

Natomas Unified School District Superintendent Steve Farrar sent the following message to all of district employees this morning:

Tonight our school board meets again to address the worst budget crisis of our time. Our district already has been forced to make more than $20 million in budget cuts because of the state crisis, and we are facing perhaps $30 million or more in cuts over the next three years.

Please visit our district website at www.natomas.k12.ca.us and click on the red link for “Board Agenda Online” to view the agenda and budget documents for tonight.

In a nutshell – the Sacramento County Office of Education has advised that we must make $5 million in cuts over the next three weeks and may need another $6 million in reductions on top of that just to maintain solvency this summer. With the state budget deficit worsening by the minute, and with voters recently rejecting all of the ballot budget measures, we have no choice but to make these reductions.

At last week’s special meeting on the budget, trustees made yet another $1.2 million in cuts:

• A freeze on all spending except for health and safety items, $500,000
• A “sweep” of the Adult Education ending balance into the general fund, $75,000
• A 50 percent reduction in the supplies budget for 2009-10, $327,000
• A 50 percent cut in the budgets for extra assignments and overtime, $433,000

Budget reductions that the school board may consider tonight and at future meetings include:

• Closing schools
• Authorizing targeted layoffs
• Eliminating athletics
• Eliminating summer school
• Putting more/all schools on multi-track year-round schedules
• Having a four-day school week
• Implementing new energy savings that include letting our lawns go brown
• Not purchasing school workbooks
• Increasing meal prices in our cafeterias
• Eliminating bus transportation except for special education students (a mandated service)
• Eliminating all categorical programs

I wish there was better news to report but I have pledged to keep you informed of our response to this state and national crisis.

12:08 PM | 10 comments | Read More

In The News: Decision To Drop Campus Cops

Sac Bee columnist Marcos Breton today penned a piece about the Natomas Unified School District's recent decision to cut campus cops from the its budget.

According to Breton's column, this decision would make Natomas high schools the only ones in Sacramento without an on-campus police presence.

Amazing. Just last year, Natomas experienced a startling spike in home invasions with high-school-age suspects. Campus cops at Inderkum, Natomas and Discovery high schools deal with gangs and truancy every day.

Click here to read the column in its entirety. The reader comments are also worth a read -- and worth consideration by our NUSD board of trustees.

One that stood out for us:

...at our school the police wear more than one hat. They really care for these kids. Know their names, and one PSO even became the wrestling coach, and in his first year, made it possible for one of our students to get a scholarship. Cops just aren't just cops anymore.

10:40 AM | 6 comments | Read More

Be Creative At Your Library

The Sacramento Public Library 2009 Summer Reading Program kicks off on Saturday, June 13.

Sign up online and spend your summer reading, engaging your creative side and winning some great prizes.

For more information, to register, and to find special events near you, visit the library's website at www.saclibrary.org.

11:57 PM | 1 comments | Read More

You Look Good Takin' Pictures

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW.

10:56 AM | 1 comments | Read More

Heard In The Neighborhood: Child Cyclist Hit By Car

This morning a 12-year-old child riding their bike to Natomas Park Elementary School was hit by an inattentive motorist, according to Paladin Security. The child is reportedly alright with only minor injuries.

Our question: How many children must be hit by vehicles in Natomas before motorists get a clue, slow down and observe traffic signals?!

7:40 PM | 5 comments | Read More