Happy birthday and many happy returns!
Lisa Heyamoto: Happy 158th birthday, Sacramento!
By Lisa Heyamoto - lheyamoto@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, March 18, 2008
One hundred and fifty-eight years ago today, the city of Sacramento was incorporated to become the oldest city in the state.
And if you're not exactly inclined to bust out the party hats, Dennis Bylo is.
As he has in some fashion for the past four years, Bylo, a local activist, is throwing the city a birthday party at Cesar Chavez Plaza at noon. Eventually, he hopes to parlay it into an annual food and music festival he's dubbed the Sacramento Valley Fair.
For now, however, he and the city can swap stories about their respective budget woes. Bylo paid for today's affair with only the help of a neighbor, and the main attraction will be a red bucket intended as a depository for donations to help bail out the Parks Department during the city's budget crisis. He's suggesting checks be made out in some denomination of 1850, the year the city was formed.
"You can put the decimal point wherever you want," he said. "If you put it all the way to the left, you're getting your two cents in."
Unless, of course, you'd prefer to contribute the old-fashioned way and pay off all those parking tickets.
