“Tell them that Erick is ready and willing to do anything,” Erick Crawford said Thursday as the Sacramentan filled out a job application at a Kohl’s hiring fair near Cal Expo. Crawford was laid off last year from a temporary job building skylights.Erick Crawford of Sacramento didn’t have a car, and his bicycle had a flat tire, so he walked.
Four hours later, he sat in the lobby of a Courtyard by Marriott hotel near Cal Expo, patiently filling out a job application, his résumé resting on his lap.
Kohl’s Department Stores was hiring and Crawford, laid off the night before Christmas last year from a temporary job building skylights, didn’t want to miss out.
“Tell them that Erick is ready and willing to do anything,” he said Thursday.
Hundreds of local job seekers attended Kohl’s series of Sacramento-area job fairs last week, lured by the retailer’s promise to hire 600 people for four new stores in Sacramento County and Lodi.
The Kohl’s locations – in Citrus Heights, Rancho Cordova, Sacramento and Lodi – are among 30 that the Wisconsin-based department store chain plans to open statewide this fall, creating more than 4,200 jobs.
“They were very well-attended. We were excited that the turnout was so positive,” said Kohl’s spokeswoman Kristen Cunningham from the chain’s suburban Milwaukee headquarters. “There was a lot of excitement for the California job fairs in general.”
At Thursday’s event in Sacramento, Veronica Rivas hoped to be among Kohl’s 600 new employees.
A self-described “housemom” with two young sons and prior retail experience, she’s hoping to return to the workplace after her husband recently lost his job.
“I feel pretty confident. You try to be positive. That’s the best thing to be,” said Rivas, of West Sacramento.
Rada Medjed showed up hours early to the afternoon event, carrying a box of homemade baklava.
Since losing her job as a photographer several months ago, the single mom from Sacramento has begun to bake the sweets on the side for extra income.
But on Thursday, the sales floor, not the kitchen, was on her mind.
“I feel really fortunate about the opportunity at Kohl’s,” she said. “Something’s got to happen.”
New hires will be notified in the next few weeks and Kohl’s will keep applications on file for one year in consideration for future openings, Cunningham said.
For information on openings at Kohl’s, call (877) 639-5645 or visit www.kohlscareers.com.
Prepare to find a job
Searching for a job is hard work. Unemployment remains high and the competition is tight, but confidence, perspective and an open mind can lead to success, a pair of local employment experts said recently in separate interviews.
Preparation and confidence go hand in hand, said Richard Bunch, a work force coordinator at the Sacramento County Department of Human Assistance.
Knowing your employment history, the company and position you are seeking puts you a step ahead with an employer and puts you more at ease, Bunch said.
“Being prepared is a big confidence builder,” he said. “It’s one of the biggest steps of being comfortable in an interview and it helps you feel in control.”
It’s just as important for job seekers to keep their chins up, said Christina Moneypenny of the employment Web site EmploymentGuide.com.
“Even though you’re frustrated, you have to market yourself,” Moneypenny said “We tell the job seeker, ‘Yes, it’s frustrating, but be professional, go out there and make it happen.’ ”
Job fair Wednesday
Job seekers will meet with employers from a variety of career fields Wednesday in Sacramento.
The free job fair, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Scottish Rite Center, 6151 H St., is sponsored by EmploymentGuide.com.
Representatives from up to 30 companies will attend, according to a representative for the Web site, including retailer the Gap, the Sacramento City Unified School District, Radio Disney and Select Staffing.
For more information, call (800) 244-0353 or visit www.sacramento. employmentguide.com and click on “Job Fairs.”
Ask a job counselor
Got career or job-hunting questions?
Ask Terri Carpenter, one of The Bee’s “Ask the Experts” writers, who can answer your questions online. As a veteran career counselor at the Sacramento Employment Training Agency, Carpenter has lots of expertise in résumé-writing, job skills training and career counseling.
To post your question or see her advice to other job seekers, go to: www.sacbee.com/ask.

Anthony Pratt, a Kohl’s employee, talks to Veronica Rivas about her application at Thursday’s job fair. Rivas, of West Sacramento, is hoping to return to the work force after her husband lost his job.

SACRAMENTO - Candace Parker scored 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds to help the Sparks rout the Sacramento Monarchs 78-61 on Saturday night.

Michael Cooper can’t figure out his slumping Sparks, who blew another chance to move into the playoff picture against a team that is all but out of it. Rebekkah Brunson scored 19 points, Nicole Powell added 18 and the Sacramento Monarchs rallied in the fourth quarter for an 85-79 victory Friday night at Staples Center, their first in three meetings against the Sparks.

Chung Boon Yoon, owner of th 9th St. Deli, says furlough Friday’s have been bad for business. Here she helps customer Wayne Collins on Friday, Aug. 14, 2009.It’s become a depressingly familiar scene.
Three Fridays monthly in this summer of deficit reduction, owners of retail stores, restaurants and coffee shops in downtown Sacramento endure their own personal version of the state’s budget crisis.
Lately, their troubles have been compounded by the Legislature’s summer break, which has emptied out the Capitol. City and county furloughs add to the bleak mix.
Seats are empty. Cash registers are quieter, too, as thousands of furloughed state employees stay home from office towers in the heart of downtown.
“You could shoot a cannon off here most Fridays and who would notice,” said Robin Ritts, owner of a boutique womens’ clothing store, Robin Lyle. “Furlough Fridays has hurt absolutely everybody.”
“Our lunch business on those Fridays has dropped by 50 percent,” said Kelly Brean, general manager of Spataro, a popular restaurant across the street from Capitol Park.
This August is hitting such businesses in downtown’s well-heeled Capitol corridor especially hard. Not only are state employees staying home; the 120-member Legislature and much of its staff has been on vacation and doesn’t return until this Monday.
At 8:30 a.m. Friday, the normally car-choked Capital City Freeway was virtually deserted in both directions from Cal Expo to the downtown street exits. Morning traffic on Interstate 5 North into downtown Sacramento might have been a scene from 1985.
If the absence of state employees wasn’t enough, local government employees of Sacramento County and the city of Sacramento- hundreds working downtown in the same shopping districts - are also taking furlough days.
City officials say most are taking one day off per month. Some who work for the county take two days. Employees pick their own furlough days rather than take the same day. But many choose Fridays to make a long weekend.
“I’m taking mine two Fridays from now,” said Michelle Phulps, a human resources staffer for Sacramento County. “That means I don’t come here,” she said Friday, as she ordered lunch at La Bou Bakery & Cafe at 10th and I streets, across the street from Sacramento City Hall.

Sacramento’s new-home sales are still down and out, but some capital-area builders are betting money that the region’s suburbs will soon resume their growth boom.
They’ve begun snapping up ready-to-build home lots at prices ranging from $25,000 to $67,000, setting the stage for a new suburban land rush.
The phenomenon suggests that a real estate market in decline for four years may be resetting for a new business cycle, some say.
Builders looking for land are focusing on “finished” lots, which already have government approvals, streets and utilities.
“They just have to pour a slab and start building,” said Kathryn Boyce, Sacramento analyst for Costa Mesa consultant Hanley Wood Market Intelligence.
Capital-area builders say prices for finished lots have risen 20 percent since April as giant public builders muscle back into the region’s land game for the first time since 2005.
Boyce said the land rush is greatest in Placer County, followed by Folsom and Elk Grove.
Hanley Wood counts 17,251 finished lots in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties. Many are owned by lenders that repossessed them. Others are owned by development firms that need to raise cash. Investors own still more.
The recent escalation in land prices has led some in the industry to question whether they can make money when so many homes are priced at $250,000 or less.
“Prices might be going up too fast,” said Tim Lewis, owner of Roseville-based Tim Lewis Communities.
Lewis recently bought lots at two projects in the capital region and one in Reno – his first in that city. “I’m cautiously looking at projects, but I’m certainly not on a buying frenzy like some of these publics (publicly traded builders) might be,” he said.
Even with the recent rise, land prices in the Sacramento region are nowhere near the dizzying levels of five years ago. At the height of the real estate boom in 2004, builders paid up to $150,000 for finished lots in Roseville, and up to $120,000 in Natomas and Elk Grove.
Still, the renewed scouting and buying by building giants has sent a buzz through an industry that has endured prolonged downsizing and financial trauma.
“There is a consensus out there that we are at the bottom or pretty darn close,” said James Radler, a Roseville-based land broker with Park Place Land Advisors of Irvine.
Radler and others say publicly traded home builders such as Los Angeles-based KB Home, Texas-based D.R. Horton, New Jersey’s K. Hovnanian Homes and Meritage Homes, headquartered in Arizona, are among those looking at lots and buying. Others in the game include private Arizona-based building giant Taylor Morrison. All are among the capital region’s top builders.
“These guys need lots,” Rad- ler said. “If they don’t do deals, they don’t build homes, and if they don’t build homes they aren’t in business.”
Most of the builders didn’t respond to Bee inquiries, which is not surprising, say those who watch the industry. Said Boyce, “They’re trying to position themselves without anybody knowing.”
“They all want to be under the radar as much as they can,” added Dean Wehrli, vice president and Sacramento analyst for Sullivan Group Real Estate Advisors of San Diego.
During the housing downturn that began after area home prices peaked four years ago this month, many large builders sold off home lots to maintain balance sheets. A few closed down divisions and left the area. Now, though capital-area home building remains sluggish – just 1,764 sales the first half of 2009 – firms are competing again for lots in a market they expect to begin rising as early as 2010.
Industry analysts say big Wall Street home builders, especially, need more lots to keep operations going while waiting for a new cycle.
“They essentially haven’t done any buying for four years,” said Radler.
The supply of lots is also constrained by the closing of Natomas to new building permits through 2011. That region, popular with buyers and builders for much of this decade, is under a building-permit moratorium until levee fixes bring 100-year flood protection.
The building freeze has worked in favor of Placer County, and Roseville, especially, which accounted for 26 percent of the capital’s new-home sales in the second quarter of 2009, according to the Gregory Group, a Folsom industry consultant. During the real estate crash, the affluent city has remained the region’s strongest new-home market.
Boyce said builders are buying lots throughout Placer County – in west Roseville, at Rocklin’s Whitney Ranch and in Lincoln. Radler, too, confirmed the Placer County rush.
“That’s where it seems everybody wants to be. That’s the first choice,” he said.
“We’re looking all over the region,” said Russ Davis, vice president of Folsom-based Elliott Homes. “Whether it makes economic sense or not is always the question.”
Davis said the firm has decided for that reason against buying raw land in Placer Vineyards, a potential zone of future home building southwest of Roseville’s current growth area. A plan approved by the Placer County Board of Supervisors last year there proposes 14,132 homes. But lawsuits have challenged the approval, adding to previous delays in readying the land for a new wave of housing.
“We’re not actively pursuing it,” said Davis. “We’ve looked at it a couple times. But it doesn’t make economic sense for us.”
Michigan-based Pulte Homes, though not buying new lots yet in the Sacramento region, plans to start soon after finalizing a merger next week with Dallas-based Centex Homes. That merger will make the combined entity the region’s market giant, accounting for almost one in five sales.
“We’re looking to buy. Inventory is shrinking,” said Chris Cady, Pulte’s Sacramento division president.
Also back in the hunt amid a run-up in lot prices is Kevin Carson, Sacramento division president for a startup builder, the New Home Co. That’s an Orange County-based venture launched by former executives of John Laing Homes, which crashed and closed earlier this year.
Carson, Laing’s chief Sacramento executive since 1999, said the firm aims to start at least one new-home community quarterly in the region, primarily in the “move-up” category. Among options: buying back some of the Laing land that went back to lenders after the company folded.
Carson isn’t thrilled about suddenly accelerating land costs at a time of cheaper home sales prices, saying, “It’s not a good trend. If the land keeps escalating in price it will take us right out of affordability.”
But bigger signals about the housing market keep him searching. He said, “Signs are certainly looking toward cycling out of this.”

Sacramento police suspect a young mother carved the first letter of her name into her 15-month-old daughter’s buttock.
Sergaye Lafeyette, 23, was booked into Sacramento County Jail on several charges, including willful cruelty to a child.
Police said that on July 13, Lafeyette had a visit with her children before they would be permanently placed with a foster family. However, police said, Lafeyette did not return the children to the foster parent.
On Aug. 10, she was stopped and arrested. The children were taken into custody and a medical exam by UC Davis Medical Center staff discovered what looked like an “S” cut into the toddler’s backside.
“The first initial of the name the mom is giving is ‘S,’” said Sgt. Norm Leong, police department spokesman.

More than 200 tons of dirt will be dumped on the streets of Old Sacramento to prepare for the annual Gold Rush Days, Sept. 4-7.

One of the oddities of the Sacramento market is that the radio homes for the Bay Area pro teams always seem unsettled.
For instance, we listen to Giants games on a San Francisco station, and A’s games on a station that often pre-empts them.
At least for this season, Northern California’s NFL teams have found Sacramento radio homes. The Raiders, who open the exhibition season tonight, will be on KTKZ (1380) when the regular season begins. The 49ers, who begin their exhibitions Friday, can be heard on KCTC (1320) this season.
The Raiders move from KHTK (1140) to 1380, which now airs the games of a number of NorCal teams. The conservative talk station also has Cal football and basketball and a limited A’s schedule.
The 49ers move from KFBK (1530) to 1320.
Making roots is a good thing. Let’s hope these teams stick with these stations for a while.
What to surf
www.espn1320.net: Sacramento’s ESPN station will carry many NFL games this fall.
What to watch
NFL exhibition, Cowboys at Raiders, Ch. 58, 7 p.m.: JaMarcus Russell will start at quarterback. Jeff Garcia is not expected to play because of a calf injury.
What to do
College football, UC Davis practice, Howard Field, 9:50 a.m.: Aggies practices, like today’s first shoulder-pad drills, are open to fans.
The last word
What you’re saying on sacbee.com comments: “This whole (Michael) Crabtree situation has become the supreme example of the tail wagging the dog.” – preacherman419 on “Crabtree becomes scapegoat for everything bad.”

Simon Baker stars in “The Mentalist,” assisting a fictional California Bureau of Investigation and an agent played by Robin Tunney.Sacramento is getting a swanky new riverfront restaurant.
It opens today – for one day only.
The outdoor cafe is the creation of a Hollywood crew that’s here shooting scenes for CBS’ “The Mentalist” and transforming an eighth-floor balcony of West Sac’s ziggurat building into a restaurant.
The local filming is a first for “The Mentalist,” even though the hit show is cinematically set here and features a supposed Sacramento-based crime-fighting organization.
The film crew’s base camp will be set up today outside the pyramid-like building now occupied by the state’s Department of General Services.
Cast and crew will take a freight elevator from the basement to the eighth floor, minimizing disruptions for employees, says DGS spokesman Eric Lamoureux.
“For 99.9 percent of our people, it will be business as usual,” he says.
But that’s not to say employees aren’t excited about Hollywood’s arrival. Lamoureux says women seem especially interested in catching a glimpse of “Mentalist” star Simon Baker.
“If you ask most females about him, they’ll give you a reaction,” he says.
Hollywood north?
Credit for luring “The Mentalist” crew to town goes to film commissioner Lucy Steffens of the Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau, who’s been lobbying for local shooting since the show debuted last year and became a surprise hit.
During the show’s first season, “they didn’t have the budget” to leave Los Angeles, she says.
But she pitched the show’s producers and directors again earlier this summer at an L.A. meeting. That led to three execs – including director Chris Long – spending a day here with Steffens scouting local sites.
More than 100 cast and crew members will be in West Sac today and at the state Capitol on Friday. They will generate a large – but as-yet-undetermined – boost for the local economy.
But Steffens wants even more.
“My hope,” she says, “is they do an entire episode (in Sacramento), with more locations.”
Growth spurt
Add Ross Stores to the short list of national companies expanding their Sacramento operations during tough times.
The Pleasanton-based clothing discounter is opening two new outlets next year, both in aging centers receiving long-needed face-lifts.
The most recent deal: a lease for 27,000 square feet of renovated space in the Rancho Cordova Town Center (on Olson Drive near Highway 50) where a new Target superstore is nearing completion.
The new Ross Dress For Less outlet will open early next year, replacing an existing store nearby on Zinfandel Drive, says Ken Noack Jr., a Grubb & Ellis broker who represented property owner Pacific Castle of Southern California.
About the same time, Ross will open a 30,000-square-foot store in a shopping center at Watt Avenue and Elkhorn Boulevard.
Remodeling work begins next week on the site, a former Ralphs supermarket building, says project developer Mark Engstrom. The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to approve a redevelopment agency loan for part of the project’s $7 million cost.
Noack says the retail market remains depressed. But “we’re starting to see some movement,” he says, partly because discounters such as Ross are taking advantage of rock-bottom lease rates.
Other retailers in expansion mode locally include Kohl’s and Forever 21.
Stay tuned for more: Noack reports that some large Southern California retailers have begun scouting local sites.

Film commissioner Lucy Steffens wants an entire episode of ‘The Mentalist’ filmed locally.

R.E. GraswichR.E. Graswich, former Bee reporter and a co-anchor on KFBK radio, has been named to the position of special assistant to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.
The announcement today in a press release quotes Johnson as saying that Graswich brings a wealth of knowledge about the city.
“He loves Sacramento, has a deep appreciation for our city’s history and knows how great Sacramento can become in the years ahead,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s spokesman, Steve Maviglio, said Graswich’s salary will be $80,000. The special assistant job is a full-time staff position.
Graswich spent 35 years at The Bee before leaving the newspaper two years ago. Since then, he has been a co-anchor on the KFBK afternoon news, written a column for Sacramento Magazine and produced commentaries for KOVR CBS 13 television.
Graswich said the special assistant job is a great opportunity. He called Johnson, whom he reported on when the mayor was a high school and college basketball player, the most dynamic and visionary Sacramento leader he has seen in three decades.
“I can’t wait to get started,” Graswich said.