Cosmo Garvin

Cosmo has been covering politics, development and the environment (and a bunch of other stuff besides) for the Sacramento News and Review for more than a decade. He’s the only person he knows to be kicked out of the Sacramento County Jail. Find him on Twitter @cosmog. Link on Sacramento News and Review: http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/cosmo-garvin/author @cosmog https://twitter.com/#!/cosmog

Web Site: http://sacramentocurrent.com


Arena plan relies on rosy numbers, assumptions and wishes

Mar 26, 2013

I’m still kind of stunned by the way the City has handled released of the arena term sheet–detailing (sort of) the basics of the deal with the investor whales to build a new Kings basketball arena on the site of … Continue reading

Save our schools: Jonathan Tran and Mandy Carrillo

Feb 18, 2013
Save our schools: Jonathan Tran and Mandy Carrillo

On Thursday the Sacramento City school board will likely vote to shut down 20 percent of the district’s elementary schools. It’s eleven schools in all, and all are in low income neighborhoods. The move will save about $2.5 million dollars, … Continue reading

Epic flail: School closure list is about to change

Feb 13, 2013

If you’ve been following this school closure saga, you may have heard that the school closure list is about to change The rumor is that Tahoe Park will likely be spared, and Mark Twain elementary is now on the chopping … Continue reading

Check the District’s math, school closures don’t add up

Feb 13, 2013
Check the District’s math, school closures don’t add up

Parents and neighbors are feeling pretty ambushed by the Sac City school district’s decision to “right-size” 20 percent of its elementary schools out of existence. The premise is that these 11 schools are “severely under-enrolled,” inefficient money losers, and that the … Continue reading

School closures: “Too many questions, too little time.”

Feb 6, 2013
School closures: “Too many questions, too little time.”

Note: This is a somewhat longer version of a column that will appear tomorrow in the Sacramento News and Review.  The more you peel back the layers of the Sac City school district’s brutal “right-sizing” plan, the weirder it gets. … Continue reading

Activists aim to overrule Sac City school board on Bell’s replacement

Dec 6, 2012
Activists aim to overrule Sac City school board on Bell’s replacement

When Ellyn Bell made public her intention to leave the Sacramento City Unified School District board of trustees–so she could live closer to her new job in San Francisco–her colleagues on the school board decided it was too late and … Continue reading

309: The Vallejo experiment, bringing democracy to city budgets

Nov 22, 2012
309: The Vallejo experiment, bringing democracy to city budgets

Big ideas week continues at Sacramento Current. The last episode was about new notions in California state budgeting. In this podcast, we drill down on a new idea for local governments that I’ve been really excited about. It’s called participatory … Continue reading

308: Reinventing California’s budget rules

Nov 21, 2012
308: Reinventing California’s budget rules

So, Proposition 30 passed. That’s good, right? But what keeps us from ending up with tens of billions in deficits next time? Not much. In fact, a lot of people say that deficits and volatility are built-in to California’s system–with … Continue reading

Hold on to your high schools. Here are the applicants for Sac City school board.

Nov 16, 2012

Interesting line up of applicants for the vacancy on the Sac City school board. Later in December, the board will choose a replacement to fill out the term of board member Ellyne Bell, who is leaving halfway through her second … Continue reading

Hansen talks about ethics and transparency, but he’s not off to a great start

Nov 5, 2012
Hansen talks about ethics and transparency, but he’s not off to a great start

I got a link to this video in my Twitter feed this morning. It reminded me that Steve Hansen completely blew off the questions I sent him Friday about ethics and transparency. He’s made a big deal about the need … Continue reading



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