Much of the 8 million tons of woody debris that facilities burn each year is material that would probably burn in open fields if there wasn’t an energy-producing alternative. Since the smokestacks on a biomass plant include filtering apparatuses that can remove some pollutants from the emissions, the industry — which has helped to phase out open burning of agricultural waste — has been credited as an overall boon to California’s air quality.

“It’s not secret data,” says West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon. “It’s already held by the government; the data sets are all subject to the Freedom of Information Act. It’s not private, confidential data. It’s already open to the public, but it’s just not in any usable form.”

Judging by prevailing retail practices, somewhere etched in stone is this edict: “To slay thy competition thou shalt undercut on labor costs.”

But a few apostate companies have strayed from that decree by offering decent wages, good benefits and predictable work schedules. Shockingly, the wayward are prospering.

For California labor lawyers, the 2012 Brinker v. Superior Court ruling was something akin to Brown v. Board or Roe v. Wade. In a case involving meal and rest breaks for hourly employees, the court ruled that businesses must have a policy giving workers those breaks — but they don’t have to ensure that staff actually take them. It seemed like near-total victory for business.

This is Chef Breedlove’s third attempt, more or less, at branding a mobile food business, and this time he’s letting his personality and mad-scientist approach to mobile food define the brand.

Trust is often at the heart of what goes right and what goes wrong. Strong trust leads to constructive conflict while poor trust invites elephants into the room. When a company has a culture of trust,  people keep their commitments. In its absence, team members become unreliable and productivity drops.

For eons, the construction and government sectors drove Sacramento’s economic engine. You either worked in one of these two areas or you knew someone who did. It was that simple. Remember 2005?

Sacramento is driving the farm-to-fork movement nationwide. These efforts are led by small, local owners with community-minded restaurants. Our ability to grow this movement could be put at risk if the minimum wage is not approached in a thoughtful way. 

On a rainy September morning, a long-time 16th Street resident was pulled away from home, dirty, faded and in disrepair. Nine months later, its homecoming was cause for celebration. And in between, the Mercury Cleaners sign was restored, re-engineered, re-wired, repainted and returned to its 1947 glory.