Missing Pieces
Is California's latest disability access law causing more lawsuits?
With California leading the nation in ADA lawsuits, two years ago state legislators enacted a reform designed to thread the needle between those positions by educating more businesses about their responsibilities so they would make required access changes. Today, no one can say whether compliance has increased. But the number of ADA lawsuits has soared.
Reaching Inbox Zero
5 steps to stop your inbox from running your life and ruining your day
Abandoning your email is sort of like running away from home: We all know you’ll be back by dinner time.
A Fine Opportunity
One trio’s quest to finance fine dining in Placerville
It was a question they’d asked themselves time and again. Could Placerville support fine dining? Surely, they thought, the market for their envisioned eatery, The Independent Restaurant and Bar, must exist.
Of Rice and Men
On the Cover: Parched by years of drought, thousands of California’s rice fields lie barren
In the Sacramento Valley, where 97 percent of the state’s rice crop is grown, family farmers have been forced to fallow cropland they have worked for generations. The economic hit has been hard and true, affecting not just farmers, but seed distributors, equipment dealers and anyone else with a thumb in the rice business. The drought could cost Central Valley farmers and communities $1.7 billion this year and may lead to more than 14,500 layoffs.
Philosophical Differences
How 3 alternative education methods in the Capital Region measure up
It wasn’t long after I got pregnant with my first son that I began thinking about education.
Even though I knew it would be years before my little guy would go off to school, I wanted to start learning about my options. Some fellow parents and I formed the Education Explorers to research different philosophies.
Here are the basics of what we found:
The Snowflake Strategy
To win with boomers, you’ll need individualized marketing
Let’s be honest, few generations were more aptly named than the baby boomers. While the moniker may have risen from a historically specific fertility trend, in many ways it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As writer P.J. O’Rourke once described it: “We’re stuck with being forever described as exploding infants.”
On the Delta
Even during one of California’s most extreme droughts in history, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta retains its appeal.
Stockton Cooperation
Huddle hopes to foster more than coworking in downtown Stockton
David Garcia, Stockton born and bred, has a background in urban policy and planning and has called cities like Baltimore and Washington, D.C., home. So when he and Tim Egkan co-founded Huddle, a new coworking space in downtown Stockton that held its soft opening last June, he knew change was possible. But that doesn’t mean he thinks it will be easy.
Avoid the Liquidity Trap
3 tips for succession planning
Surviving the Great Recession wasn’t easy for anyone, but it had a unique impact on business owners who were looking forward to retirement. One-third of small biz owners are over the age of 55 – primed to step away from the day-to-day routine. When the economy went into a tailspin, those trying to either sell or otherwise transition the ownership of their business had to keep working, even as the long slump made staying in business a struggle.
Dry Times
New water storage alone won't solve California's drought
California is in the third driest year in more than 100 years of record. Farmers throughout the state are seeing their water use curtailed, some communities are rationing water, and fish and wildlife populations are threatened. California needs additional storage capacity to weather such droughts, and it’s groundwater storage — not surface storage — that will have the greatest impact. Still, storage alone won’t be enough.