Sentinel Staff Report– The latest police logs show an increase in animal control calls and vehicle violations, while showing a decrease in traffic accidents. A summary of police incident logs from March 20-27, 2025, are listed below:
Animal control: 14 (up from 5)
911 hangups: 33 (up from 30)
Code enforcement: 76 (up from 20)
Traffic accidents: 34 (down from 51)
Vehicle violations: 300 (up from 199)
Theft: 33 (up from 26)
Homeless-related: 32 (up from 19)
Vandalism: 5 (down from 6)
Violent/threats: 30 (down from 34)
Disturbance: 105 (up from 97)
Suspicious circumstances: 177 (up from 162)
All incidents: 1,333 (up from 1,075)
Arrest logs can be viewed on the city’s website here. Full police activity logs can be viewed by date below:
The Citrus Heights Police Department notes that its logs “are not intended as a full and complete list of all police activity,” with some information not displayed for legal reasons, such as arrests of minors. As such, police advise that summary totals based on public logs may differ from weekly incident and arrest totals posted by police on social media.
The department notes on its website that: “All arrested suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty. Additionally, the original crimes, nature of offenses, and charges may be amended or dismissed as further information is made available.”
Editor’s Note: police log summaries are published with assistance from AI, but edited by humans. Please contact us if you spot an error.
An artist’s rendering of a new amphitheater planned for Rusch Park in shown from the Citrus Heights Community Marching Band’s website. // Citrus Heights Community Marching Band
By Sara Beth Williams– The Citrus Heights Community Marching Band is hosting an upcoming fundraiser in an effort to raise money for the construction of a memorial amphitheater in honor of the band’s late founder, Kathy Cook.
The Kathy Cook Memorial Amphitheater has been in the works since 2022, and community band leaders continue to be in discussion with Sunrise Recreation and Park District regarding constructing an outdoor band shell at Rusch Community Park.
The fundraising event, to be held Saturday, April 5, is labeled “All in for the Amphitheater” and will feature a lunch followed by a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament.
Tickets are $100 in advance and $120 at the door and include a lunch and buy-in at the tournament, according to the band’s event page. Players will have unlimited $60 repeat buy-ins for up to eight rounds in the tournament. Table sponsorships for businesses are available, and the event will also feature raffle prizes.
The proposed amphitheater will reside on the west end of Rusch Park near the Rusch Home and Garden, between the two baseball fields, close to bathrooms and the Lion Park, according to the community band’s website. The cost estimate for construction is between $300,000 and $500,000, and all funding will be 100 percent from donations from the community. Once fully approved the construction is estimated to take four to eight weeks, the band said, adding that construction plans do include resurfacing and restriping the existing parking lot on the West end of Rusch Park.
“Kathy was an amazing woman who loved everyone around her,” the band said on its website, noting that she convinced her husband Bill in 2005 to start a marching band. “Along the way, she touched the lives of so many and left a legacy we are proud to continue.”
The Texas Hold ‘em tournament will be held at the Bill and Kathy Cook Performing Arts Center located at 8436 Jewel Way. Donations for the amphitheater are also being accepted through PayPal and Venmo. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the band’s event page.
By Sara Beth Williams– National retailer Hot Topic has closed inside Sunrise Mall.
A visit last Saturday found most of the store’s clothing and accessories liquidated, with only a rack of shirts and a few shelves of miscellaneous merchandise left for shoppers to browse. Employees confirmed with The Sentinel that the store’s last day of operations was scheduled to be Wednesday, March 26. Staff were not able to comment on whether employees would be relocated to other Hot Topic stores.
Hot Topic has survived many store closures in Sunrise Mall over the years, including the shuttering of multiple restaurants and eateries and other national chain closures. Last year, Hot Topic relocated from across from T-Mobile to another storefront that was closer to JC Penney, where most of the two dozen open stores within the mall still operate. Hot Topic announced its closure in early March on the heels of other closure announcements, including Macy’s. Most recently, Spencer’s also announced that its location in Sunrise Mall would close in April.
Other major retailers outside Sunrise Mall are also winding down operations, including fabric giant Joann. Party City has already officially closed its Citrus Heights location.
Hot Topic still has locations in Roseville at the Galleria Mall, in Folsom at the Folsom Premium Outlets, and in Sacramento inside Arden Fair Mall.
Hot Topic specializes in graphic tees, band shirts, anime, and other pop-culture-approved merchandise, including clothes, goods, gifts, home décor, and more.
By Mark Dempsey– Zoning is a series of (necessarily) false promises, made in (unnecessarily) unclear zoning codes, at least as California’s local governments practice it now. While local zoning codes are as big as unabridged dictionaries, it’s worth remembering that Haussman rebuilt Paris for Napoleon III with the guidance of a six-page guide… and he got Paris!
Local governments in California typically have “use-based” zoning, specifying that we’ll build the residences here (on a specific site), the commerce there, multi-family yonder, etc. The map specifying these decisions typically originates in public meetings where civic minded citizens huddle to decide whether a particular parcel will be apartments, or a shopping center, or offices, or something else. These meetings often occur decades before any building occurs.
This writer has been to several such meetings. Only one discussed the costs and consequences of the zoning decisions. In one meeting, an elderly woman wished for a subway from her neighborhood to the downtown office where she worked–extremely expensive, and without the support of riders who might pay fares. But that’s literally how silly decisions are when they’re made without regard to costs or consequences.
Questions about use-based zoning: If developing that particular parcel is as much as decades away, will there be a market for the use decided then? In a current example, since remote work increased, there’s currently a glut of offices. Could we have anticipated that? More importantly: will banks agree to finance the construction of the use decided?
The answer is not just “We don’t know!” it’s “We can’t know!” The future is at least uncertain. All of the debate about the use for a particular parcel is at least a waste of time, if not an outright scam. Even worse, the public grows to expect the use designated, and if some future builder wants to vary from that use citizens are disappointed. At least half the many zoning hearings this writer attended exist to allow citizens to vent their disappointment–and the vast majority of such complaints were completely ignored.
The false promise of use-based zoning is the source of some large fortunes in the central valley. When land speculators purchase–or more likely option–agricultural land for a few thousand dollars an acre, then persuade the local government to change the zoning to uses like residences, or commerce, the price to builders (the people who actually build out the former agricultural land) is often as much as fifty or a hundred times what the speculator paid. There are even ways the speculators avoid paying income tax on that enormous profit.
There’s a cottage industry of attorneys, engineers, and other consultants constantly lobbying for zoning changes. Not only can zoning decisions not accurately anticipate the future, but that uncertainty is a source of enormous profits.
In some parts of Germany, the developers have to sell the agricultural land to the local government at the ag land price, then re-purchase it at the ok-for-development land price. All that 5,000 – 10,000 percent profit inures to the benefit of the local government. And Germans have some very nice local amenities. For example, the arts budget for the City of Berlin exceeds the National Endowment for the Arts for the U.S. of A.
There are alternatives to the uncertainty of use-based zoning. Form-based zoning does not specify the use, instead focusing on the size of the building. Build the big buildings in this spot, the medium-sized ones over there and the small ones yonder is what form-based zoning says. The use can even be mixed. One added bonus: pedestrian-friendly mixed-use cuts congestion and requires roughly half of the vehicle miles traveled of conventional suburban, single-use sprawl.
The plan for Sunrise Mall’s revamp is an excellent example of mixed-use. Residences and commerce would coexist, and with enough residents, the commerce would thrive. With mixed-density (single- and multi-family) the Sunrise Mall neighborhood could even accommodate a range of different incomes.
Unfortunately, the conspiracy of mediocrity wants to make business-as-usual the development pattern for that mall, with drive-through restaurants dominating the streetscape rather than residences that could patronize the local shops. The ball is in Citrus Heights’ court now.
Mark Dempsey was vice chair of a Sacramento County Planning Advisory Council for nearly a decade and has been a real estate broker and technical writer.
An Easter bunny greeted vehicles driving through a Kiwanis Club egg hunt at Rusch Park on March 30, 2024. // CH Sentinel
By Sara Beth Williams– Spring is in full swing this April, with Kiwanis’ annual Easter egg hunt planned, along with a yearly plant sale, a fundraising event for an amphitheater, a prom dress drive at the local library, and two theater productions.
San Juan’s Got Talent: San Juan High School is hosting a student talent show on Friday, April 4, at 7 p.m. inside the high school’s auditorium. For more information, contact the high school at 916-971-5112 or visit the high school’s Facebook page. San Juan High School is located at 7551 Greenback Ln.
Band Fundraiser: The Citrus Heights Community Marching Band is holding a Texas Hold ‘em tournament fundraising event to raise funds for the Kathy Cook Memorial Amphitheater, which the band wants to construct at Rusch Park. The event will take place Saturday, April 5, and begin with lunch at 11:30 a.m. and a Texas Hold ‘em tournament at 1 p.m. For ticket information, visit the band’s website at chcmb.org or the band’s Facebook page for more information.
The “All-in for the Amphitheater” event will be held at the Bill and Kathy Cook Performing Arts Center, located at 8436 Jewel Way, in Citrus Heights.
Prom Dress Drive: Sylvan Oaks Library is holding a prom dress drive where teens 13 to 19 can find a dress for their upcoming prom. Teens can come browse donated men’s and women’s formal-wear, including dresses, suits, shoes, and accessories, on Saturday, April 5, from 2-5 p.m. at the Sylvan Oaks Library. For more information and what to do before arriving, visit the library’s event page.
Sylvan Oaks Library is located at 6700 Auburn Blvd.
Theater productions: Royal Stage Performing and Visual Arts is putting on several productions in April, beginning with a spring showcase, and “The Play that Goes Wrong,” which runs from Thursday, April 10, through Sunday, April 13.
Afterward, “Tuck Everlasting” is slated to begin Thursday, April 24, and run through Sunday, April 27. For showtimes and ticket information, visit the theater’s website at royalstage.org.
Royal Stage theater is located at 6041 Sunrise Mall behind Macy’s Men’s.1
Plant Sale: A plant sale will be taking place at the Citrus Heights community garden beginning April 11 and running through April 13. Vegetables, herbs, and flowers will be for sale from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and all proceeds will benefit the community garden. The community garden is located at 7450 Stock Ranch Rd. at the corner of Sylvan Road and Stock Ranch Road.
Hop and Chalk: Sunrise MarketPlace is hosting a springtime “Hop and Chalk” celebration on Saturday, April 12, at the Citrus Town Center. The event will last from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and include photos with the Easter Bunny, stencils and chalk art, bubbles, face painting, and music for dancing. For more information, visit the event page here.
Citrus Town Center is located at 7925 Greenback Ln.
Paint & Sip Night: Sunrise Recreation is hosting a Paint and Sip night at Rusch Community Park. The event is planned for Saturday, April 12, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and includes wine and a guided painting lesson of spring flowers. Attendees must be 21 years or older. Registration in advance is required. For more information, visit the event page here.
Easter Egg Hunt: The Citrus Heights Kiwanis Club is hosting its 41st annual Easter Egg Hunt at Rusch Community Park on April 19. Festivities will last from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and will include vendors, games, music, food, and Easter egg hunts for all ages. Egg hunt participants should bring their own baskets for hunting. The event is free to the public and will take place on the west end of Rusch Park, located off Antelope Road. For more information, visit the event page here.
Earth Day Event: The City of Citrus Heights is inviting volunteers to chip in on Earth Day to help revitalize the bark in the planter area of the Citrus Heights Police Department. Water will be available, and a pizza lunch will be provided. The event will last from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. For more information, visit the City’s Volunteer website.
The Citrus Heights Police Department is located at 6315 Fountain Square Drive.
Neighborhood Associations: Several Neighborhood Associations throughout Citrus Heights hold regularly monthly meetings. To find out Neighborhood Association meeting times and locations, visit the city’s calendar of events page.
Macy’s Women’s at Sunrise Mall has officially shuttered, March 24, 2025. // SB Williams
By Sara Beth Williams– After over four decades residing in Sunrise Mall, Macy’s has officially closed its doors.
Both Macy’s Men’s and Women’s stores ceased operations early last week with final sales on store fixtures and merchandise occurring over the preceding weekend. A sign inside the store on Saturday, March 22 notified customers that only two days remained before closure.
By Tuesday afternoon, all entrances were locked, and exterior doors were blacked out. Earlier in March, employees had indicated that they expected to close to the public sometime in March while working to clear out merchandise and store fixtures through the end of the month.
Macy’s originally announced in a third-quarter financial earnings call in December that it planned to close 66 stores—an increase from the 50 locations it had previously slated for closure by the end of the fiscal year.
These closures are part of a broader strategy to eliminate approximately 150 “underperforming” stores over the next three years, according to the company. The retail giant hopes that its “Bold New Chapter” strategy will help “return the company to sustainable, profitable sales growth,” according to a Jan. 9 press release.
Macy’s at Sunrise Mall faced several challenges in the past year, including multiple instances of reported retail theft and, most recently, water damage inside Macy’s Men’s in mid-December due to a roof leak.
According to Citrus Heights Historical Society President Larry Fritz, Sunrise Mall opened in 1972, with Macy’s Women’s joining the more than 100 tenants after Liberty House closed in the 1980s. Later, when the Weinstock’s department store chain closed at, Macy’s Men’s relocated from its original site across the street to its current location.
The Citrus Heights location is one of nine Macy’s stores in California listed for closure, according to the press release. Other notable California closures include Macy’s locations in Downtown Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The closure list also notes that the Sunrise Mall closure includes “two boxes within the same location and therefore is counted as one location.”
Macy’s departure leaves JCPenney as the last remaining major anchor store at Sunrise Mall.
The corner of Sunrise Blvd. and Greenback Ln. is being considered for a future hotel site. // File photo CH Sentinel
By Sara Beth Williams– The Citrus Heights Rotary Club suffered a loss of $20,000 after the funds were reportedly withdrawn fraudulently from their bank account at the end of December.
Susan Powers, treasurer with the Citrus Heights Rotary Club, told The Sentinel in an interview that the club’s bank account was compromised twice, once in November 2024 and again the following month. The first instance of fraud occurred around Thanksgiving when someone accessed the club’s account and conducted electronic Automatic Clearing House (ACH) transactions totaling $11,000.
The bank issued a refund within a few days following a fraud claim submitted by the Rotary Club. Afterward, Powers, Bob Churchill, and Mark Duncan, both past presidents with the Rotary Club, said they met at the US Bank branch in Citrus Heights at the beginning of December. During the meeting, the club members closed the compromised account, and opened a new account with only three authorized signers.
“We were at the bank for two hours, auditing the account and who had access, signing papers, removing everyone else,” Powers said. Duncan also confirmed in an interview that he and Churchill were the only other individuals listed on the new account.
Powers, who also owns Powers Bookkeeping Service, was the only one authorized to grant online banking access to the other two signers. After a bout of illness, Powers returned to work in the New Year and discovered that $20,000 had been electronically withdrawn from the new bank account without the club’s knowledge or authorization.
It was reported that the online login used in this case to access the newly-opened Rotary Club bank account belonged to another Rotary member. However, Powers and Duncan stated in interviews that it has been determined that the member did not commit the fraud and both noted that the login credentials used were supposed to have been eliminated by US Bank.
“When this happened, we were under the impression that no one had online access at all. This was a big surprise,” Powers said.
The Rotary Club filed a fraud claim again, but unlike in November, US Bank denied the claim and declined to refund the $20,000. Powers said the club only learned about the rejected claim a week later through an official letter in the mail. According to Powers and Duncan, US Bank reportedly claims the Rotary Club was at fault for the $20,000 withdrawal.
“They’re trying to say that it is a difference between a business log in and a personal log in,” Powers said, adding that the withdrawal was made through a business log in while hers was a personal log in. “How is that even possible?”
In February, an assistant manager at US Bank’s Citrus Heights branch told The Sentinel he was not authorized to discuss the matter of a private account. The manager was reportedly out on maternity leave. A customer service representative of US Bank corporate told The Sentinel that account information could only be provided if the account holder was present to grant permission for media personnel to speak with the bank.
During a Citrus Heights Rotary Club board meeting on Feb. 27, Powers said the board discussed what steps to take next regarding the loss of $20,000, and opted to look into forwarding the case to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On March 4, Evan Lapiska, Vice President of Public Affairs and Communication with US Bank, told The Sentinel via email he was “unable to comment on a specific client’s accounts or transactions” but offered to have his small business team “look into the matter.”
In a follow-up communication with Lapiska several days later, The Sentinel was informed that no account associated with the Citrus Heights Rotary Club or its treasurer could be located. No further comment was provided regarding any potential further investigation by US Bank.
Powers and Duncan both confirmed the newly opened bank account affected by fraud was frozen but remained open while the Rotary Club continued fundraising for their annual Crab Feed event. Duncan said most of the money has been withdrawn, and the account wasn’t closed because the club was still hopeful of receiving a reimbursement through the fraud claims process.
Powers said the Citrus Heights Rotary Club has since opened another account with a new bank where they plan to conduct Rotary business moving forward. She also confirmed that the club filed a report with the Citrus Heights Police Department and plans to retain legal counsel.
By Sara Beth Williams– A Citrus Heights police vehicle was involved in a collision late Wednesday night that resulted in the closure of Sunrise Boulevard for about an hour.
Around 10:15 p.m. on March 26, a Citrus Heights police patrol vehicle was hit by another vehicle on Sunrise Boulevard at the corner of Woodmore Oaks Drive, according to local news reports.
A traffic advisory was issued indicating Sunrise Boulevard was closed in both directions from Sungarden Drive to Woodmore Oaks Drive. The closure lasted just over an hour.
Two individuals in the second vehicle involved in the collision were taken to the hospital and sustained minor injuries, according to local news reports.
The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident. No other injuries to officers were reported. Road closures were lifted once both vehicles were towed away.
City Scoop at Greenback Greenspace, 2023. // City of Citrus Heights
By Sara Beth Williams–
Voting for locations is now currently open for the third annual City Scoop ice cream social summer series, according to the city.
The city recently announced on social media seven location options for its annual City Scoop for the summer of 2025. Residents can vote for their top three favorite locations on the city’s website.
The seven locations residents can vote on include:
The deadline to submit votes is midnight on April 1.
The monthly ice cream social events are designed to encourage and facilitate community gatherings among neighbors, city staff, and other community members, according to the city’s website. Ice cream socials are held once a month for three months throughout the summer.
Last year, City Scoop was held at Sylvan Oaks Library in June and Lichen K-8 in August. An event scheduled to be held at Metro Fire Station 27 in July was canceled due to extreme heat.
In 2023, the inaugural City Scoop summer series featured ice cream socials at three locations, including Greenback Greenspace, Sylvan Community Center, and Westwood Park.
Once votes are counted, the top three locations overall will be announced later in the spring at a yet-to-be-determined date.
By Sara Beth Williams– Citrus Heights police were dispatched to a parking lot at the corner of Sunrise Boulevard and Antelope Road on Tuesday midmorning after reports of a man, allegedly under the influence of alcohol or drugs, inside a vehicle, officials said Tuesday evening. According to police radio transmissions, the caller was concerned that the driver would leave in the vehicle while under the influence.
Sgt. Dave Neher of the Citrus Heights Police Department stated that when officers made contact with the individual, he refused to exit the vehicle. Neher said drug paraphernalia “was at play,” and a K-9 officer was requested but arrived later.
Before the K-9 arrived, officers broke the vehicle’s window and used pepper spray to subdue the individual before taking him into custody, Neher confirmed.
“Pepper spray can be used when certain behaviors indicate that [the individual’s] level of compliance may result in harm to officers,” Neher explained, speaking generally about when its use may be warranted. Police radio transmissions indicated that the individual had made threats toward officers in 2022.
As a precaution, police advised both Walgreens and the nearby Mountain Mike’s Pizza to shelter in place. Neher stated that the shelter-in-place order was “potentially” requested by law enforcement for safety reasons. He added that businesses are sometimes asked to shelter in place to prevent bystanders from inadvertently putting themselves in harm’s way.
Officials did not confirm whether the individual was under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or both. No injuries to officers were reported.
