A sad day for sacramento chess

As of last Wednesday 04/14/2010 the Sacramento Chess Club is for the time being closed.  Sacramento has had a chess club since 1934.  And now due to our elected officials incompetence and greed, the chess community is left without a place to meet on a weekly basis.  While we hope this is nothing more than a temporary situation it is just another example of Government incompetence. 

Why do so many think that raising fees and the like will result in more revenue?  How many more examples of higher taxes, fees, etc. do we need to be subjected to before someone suddenly has an epiphany and realizes that it doesn't work?

Below is a wonderful link to the history of the Sacramento Chess Club.  A huge thank you to Scott Gordon for putting this together!

And to all of the other Sacramento chess players on this site.  PLEASE...PLEASE...do what you can to get this ugly situation resolved.  call, email, fax your elected officials.  Let them know how we as a group feel about this.  Research a place for us to be able to meet. 

And to anyone that has the means to help resolve this situation either through contacts, monetarily, or whatever means you have please help.

http://ecs.csus.edu/~gordonvs/chess/sac.html

A life long Sacramento chess player.

The Hart center was forced to raise the rent until it was out of our reach to keep using.  The  center itself is still open, but the room we were using is to expensive.

The sorry situation when incapable politicians are given the authority over sports or arts or things of that sort!

 We are with you, all Sacramento Chess Comrades!

Thanks for the info, I'll do what I can to support getting the club back!

Lol.

Ooops, chess in the park, anyone?

Interesting... I just join chess.com a few months ago, having been away from chess for over 20 years, and I see my name in a thread on the forum - from 10 years ago!  A twilight zone moment.

We need some sacramento mentosacra their lifestyle to get the club up and going.

Since that "sad day" was 11 years ago, I think our broken hearts have mended by now

Since I dropped by the Sacramento chess club a couple of years ago, I think you're probably right. 

By the way, there is some interesting history to this story.  Apparently back in like the 1950s, the city of Sacramento bestowed on the chess club a bona-fide city charter guaranteeing that they'd provide the club playing space in perpetuity for free.  For decades the club was able to meet regularly in a nice facility at no charge.  Whenever a new city manager would try to charge us or displace us, we'd just show them the charter.  At one point they moved us to another nice facility, and things went like this until - apparently - about 10 years ago when it looks like the city finally managed to wriggle out of their own noose and dissolve the charter.  I wasn't playing at the time, but I do remember the club moving to a game store at about that time, where they have been meeting since.

In the olden days, the city owned really nice wooden sets, boards, and clocks from like the 1950s and 60s that we used for years and years.  The custodian at the old location didn't like us and made sure we couldn't take the wooden sets with us when they relocated us.  He said we had rights to space, not to the sets.  I have no idea where those cool old wooden sets are now, they're surely long gone.

Breaking....Library of Alexandria burnt to the ground....