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The Indians’ C.C. Sabathia really knows how to stink up the joint.
• Patrick Kane is Russian out his picks for the hottest hockey groupies.
• Chris Cooley caught himself a keeper in the lovely Christy.
• Luis Gonzalez is mad at Miami for missing out on the Marlins.
• One Atlanta baseball fan is Brave enough to risk a foolish fatal fall.
• Chelsea fans get muted in Moscow, but are able to bash about in Britain.
The Sacramento, CA, mayoral race has finally crossed the line from nasty to vindictive this week as the primary approaches June 3rd. Incumbent mayor and leading candidate Heather Fargo has asked the Sacramento police chief to reopen the sexual misconduct case against candidate and former NBA player Kevin Johnson.
Of course, Mayor Fargo wants us to know that the request has nothing to do with the mayoral race. Total coincidence. Unfortunately for her, the police work for the Sacramento city manager and not her, so all she can do is constantly bring up the 2007 allegation from a 17-year-old Sacramento girl (since recanted and dropped) to keep the sexual predator legacy alive.
NoWayKJ.com, set up by Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447’s PAC, also doesn’t exactly place Kevin Johnson in a fine light. Neither were black leaders, who didn’t care much for the mailers that announced the Web site. Fargo totally didn’t have anything to do with that, though. She’s happy to let them keep at it, though, without interruption.
So what would Heather Fargo like you to avoid hearing about her over the din about Johnson?
Kevin Johnson is learning how dirty the world of politics can be. The former NBA star and Sacramento mayoral candidate spent his Thursday responding to old allegations of child molestation revealed by a mayoral opponent.
The SACRAMENTO BEE reports that local bounty hunter Leonard Padilla, who’s also looking to take charge of California’s capital, released a 1996 report from the Phoenix Police Department to the local media Tuesday. Read more…
• THE SPORTING BLOG tells Digger Phelps to lose the Andy Capp cap.
• Darren Rovell of CNBC needs your vote to decide minor league baseball’s best logo.
• RIZZO SPORTS WEEKLY climbs up with news that a couple of cute skiers are set to scale Mt. Kilimanjaro for charity.
Kevin Johnson, former Phoenix Sun All-Star, wants to be your mayor. (Well, assuming you live in Sacramento.) Johnson formally announced his bid Wednesday to oust three-time incumbent mayor of the California state capitol, Heather Fargo. SIGNAL TO NOISE has been tracking the story from the start and has all the political details.
(KJ and Barkley at a St. HOPE fundraiser; portrait by David Garibaldi)
KJ is no Charles Barkley. (Technically speaking, he’s half a Charles Barkley, but that’s a different type of scale.) Johnson has a BA in Political Science from Cal-Berkeley that he completed after his NBA career finished the first time. He graduated from a divinity institute program at Harvard after his brief comeback with the Suns in 2000.
“SLUMLORD” KJ HAS LONG WAY TO GO TO CATCH DONALD T.: Concerned Sacramento citizen and activist Robin Ware this week to local TV station KTXL on former NBA player Kevin Johnson: “He’s a slumlord“.
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KTXL reports Johnson owns “dozens” of properties in the Oak Park district of the city, but they “sit vacant or are in disrepair“.
Now a group of residents is protesting Johnson’s lack of action. More from Ms. Ware: “He’s let a lot of his properties go down the tubes and because of that, a lot of people are suffering and in pain, and he has to realize that.”
Contractor Jeff Guillot, who works with Johnson’s development company, said his goal for the Oak Park residences was “Tightening up the buildings, just nailing the boards back on the siding, that kind of thing.”
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Now that’s what we call development! To be fair, Kevin Johnson is just getting started in the real estate business, and he’s got a long way to go to catch up to everyone’s favorite slumlord-turned-NBA-owner Donald Sterling (who we want to personally thank for the rent-control crack houses on L.A.’s Westside).
