
Comstock’s Top 10 Stories of 2016
Last year was one for the history books. But as we start the new year, we wanted to take one last look back at some of our best-performing and most-read articles of 2016. Take a look and see if you missed any of our greatest hits — or if something might deserve a second read.

What Sacramento Can Learn From Stockholm
Writer living abroad shares lessons both cities can learn
Sacramento to Stockholm: It takes about a day to travel between these two capital cities. But they have more similarities than you might think, considering they are half a world apart. They also have lessons to teach each other.

California Drivers Pay for Underfunded State Patrol Pension
Californians in April will start paying more to register their cars — not to help maintain roads, but to keep the pension checks rolling for the motorcycle cops who policed them.

Art-Through-Pod Exceeds Goal to Help Homeless
Oak Park residents will surpass goal of 10 portable shelters for homeless — and keep on going
Oak Park neighbors Aimee Phelps and Kevin Greenberg delivered their first Art-Through-Pod in September and by year-end will exceed their initial goal of 10 mobile housing units for the homeless.
But they don’t plan to stop there.

VW’s Penance for Cheating Takes Shape With California Wish List
California’s regulator that played a key role in busting Volkswagen AG for cheating on emissions tests laid out a detailed list of options for how the automaker will have to spend $800 million toward advancing cars that don’t pollute the air.

California Maps Go-It-Alone Path on Car Emissions for Trump Era
Investors who pushed up shares of GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler on a bet that Donald Trump will gut clean-air rules may have forgotten another player with a big say: California.

Cash Haul
In a single generation, the Rozakis family went from having one dump truck to owning a $16 million materials transport business
In 2005, GR launched Crete Crush, a sister company to its trucking operation that includes two concrete and asphalt crushing and recycling centers, one at the company’s Rancho Cordova headquarters, and another at its 15-acre facility off Bradshaw Road in Sacramento. When the company first started, it was paying someone else to crush the concrete and asphalt that was accumulating from demolition site hauls.

Reflections From a First-Timer
Getting to the Golden 1 Center on opening night
I was getting more hesitant as the hours passed. Would I run into unsavory people? How crowded are we talking? And, being inherently conservative, I wondered about the cost.
I’m talking about my decision to take light rail for the first time … and doing so alone.

Untying The Traffic Knot
The effort to keep the Sacramento Kings in town showed what a community can do when everyone rallies around a cause. Now that the Golden 1 Center is opening and fans are coming downtown to enjoy the Kings, it’s bringing many people together again — perhaps too closely.

Status Check: High-Speed Rail
In 2014, we reported on the progress of the contentious and embattled California high-speed rail project starting to take shape (“One-Track Mind” by Allen Young, January 2014). We recently checked back in with Jeff Morales, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, to see where the project is now and why it’s still making headlines.