Tag: Michael Bullington

Guest column by Citrus Heights resident Michael Bullington–
ONE SCORE and two years ago, our city fathers brought forth in Sacramento County the new city of Citrus Heights, fought for through the court system and dedicated to the proposition that county governments are not monarchical in power.

The date was Jan. 1, 1997. But over 12 years before that date, the movers and shakers of our beloved city put their shoulders to the plow of future cityhood by starting the process of proving economic feasibility and producing an environmental impact report to satisfy the requirements of the county and the state. Thus, Citrus Heights had declared itself independent of the County of Sacramento, but many were the battles that lay ahead.

The embryonic city’s struggle for independence would go all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which let stand a ruling by the State of California that our petition for full cityhood could go on the ballot as Measure R in November 1996. It passed with 62.7% support, and, less than two months later, Citrus Heights was birthed.

It became at that time a general law city (as opposed to a charter city), determining its own structure and hiring its own legal counsel. In this sense, the city’s creation could be likened to the federal Constitution which was approved by convention on Sept. 17, 1787, and then ratified by congress two years later by a super majority of the 13 states. 

On July 4, we don’t celebrate the creation of our country’s charter, i.e., Constitution. That wouldn’t come to fruition for another 11 years after “Independence Day.” Instead, we celebrate the day in history when we declared our independence from England.

We had already been sparring with the British since April 19, 1775, when the battles of Lexington and Concord had taken place to officially start the blood-letting. The Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston was in June of the same year.

The King’s army abandoned Boston in March 1776, thus clearing New England of British military presence for the rest of the war. Nevertheless, the cost in blood and property up to that point was small in comparison to what was to follow.

Our declaration had ignited the king’s full resolve to rein in his fractious American colonies. The following month a flotilla of over 400 British ships arrived and anchored in New York’s harbors, where they disembarked a large, well-trained army that chased our boys out of Long Island and Brooklyn and into Pennsylvania.

There, in the winter of 1776, George Washington’s sparse and bedraggled force would cross the ice-laden Delaware River to undertake successful attacks on Trenton and Princeton, that breathed life into the patriot cause in the new year of 1777.

Later that year the American army defeated Burgoyne’s army at Saratoga, New York. It is considered by many historians to have been the turning point of the war, thus convincing King Louis XVI to support our cause with money, men and materials.

The fighting would last into 1781, when Washington, with overwhelming help from the French, cornered the British general Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, and forced his surrender.

The Treaty of Paris formally ended the war in 1784 (sea travel back and forth across the Atlantic helped account for the long interval between the cessation of hostilities and the signing of the treaty). It would take yet another three years before nine of the original 13 colonies ratified the Constitution in 1787, and another two years until it went into effect in 1789.

It has been my hope that we have come to understand a little better how our country was established, by delineating the content and relationship between our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the twin pillars of our Republic.

Credit for information in this article about our city’s formation goes to Bill Van Duker, often referred to as the godfather of Citrus Heights, who was a key player in the establishment of our incorporation. He is currently putting a book together that details what happened over those formative years. Keep an eye out for it.

Michael Bullington is a 34-year resident of Citrus Heights and submits guest columns on various historic dates throughout the year. The Sentinel welcomes guest opinion columns from Citrus Heights residents. To submit an article for publication, click here.

Guest opinion column submitted by Citrus Heights resident Michael Bullington–
In our brief 21 years of cityhood, Citrus Heights has established itself as one of the most financially robust cities in the nation with a police force that may be second to none, but I was no more than a spectator during most of this period.

However, that changed in 2014, when the City’s Planning Division rolled out the Creek Corridor Trail Project (CCTP) at a community meeting in January of that year. It was to become a defining moment in the City’s history, and it helped familiarize me with all three of the incumbents running to continue serving on the City Council.

The CCTP proposed to build 16 miles of asphalt bike trails through residential areas that were already developed, crisscrossing Arcade, Cripple and Brooktree Creeks with an astounding total of 39 bridges. Detailed plans for each of the 11 areas in Citrus Heights were displayed on individual tables in the then-new Community Center. The consultants who helped develop the plans, as well as officials from the City, were on hand to answer questions.

The extensive environmental reports were completed. The grants to fund tens of millions of dollars were in place. And the cost to the city would be minimal, we were told. All that seemed to be needed was the approval of the residents.

The Planning Division was in for a big surprise.

The homeowners saw the CCTP as an attempt to exercise eminent domain and take advantage of liens adjacent to homes on the creeks. The threat to home values and the aesthetic enjoyment of their properties was menacing. The first meeting devolved into shouting and catcalls, as City officials reeled in shock.

Opposition was so strident, that in the next meeting before the Planning Commission on Feb. 12, the Police Department had officers stationed in each corner of the Council Chamber as a deterrent to civil unrest.

Opposition peaked in the final Planning Commission meeting on March 12 with an energized crowd of more than 400 people that flowed outside of the old Chamber facility at Fountain Square. It became evident that the longer the meetings continued, the greater the crowds were becoming.

Election 2018: Meet the 5 candidates running for Citrus Heights City Council

Nevertheless, despite overwhelming opposition to the project, a favorable outcome for the residents was still in doubt. I know, because I was there as one of the two organizers of the effort to defeat the project.

Our home became the starting point for tours of the affected areas, so that City officials, the Planning Commission and the Council could observe the project’s impact firsthand. All the Council members, most of the planning commissioners and two of the Planning Division staff toured the creek areas.

Everyone but the Planning Division would later act in favor of the residents.

I got a chance to interact with and know the key people. As I talked with Council members and Planning Commissioners, I became more and more confident that the residents would succeed. Indeed, we did, under Chairman Al Fox’s leadership of the Planning Commission, as it voted 6-0 to remove the affected residents from the short list for implementation of the project.

Chairman Fox stood up for me and the other residents, and he has my undying support.

Two months later, in May, the City Council confirmed the Planning Commission’s recommendation with a unanimous 5-0 vote. Among those voting were then-Mayor Steve Miller and Council Member Jeannie Bruins, along with Al Fox, all of whom are incumbents in this year’s City Council race.

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It was my first experience at involvement in governmental affairs, an area where I am still reluctant to engage. It became evident that I am not a politician, but then neither was Paul Revere. But along the way I did participate and got to see firsthand how a City works – how OUR City works! How it has come to be the envy of municipalities throughout the State and even the country.

Despite the contentious nature of the CCTP experience, I saw good people surface in my neighborhood and, in my government. Three of them are running to continue insuring the prosperity that we’ve enjoyed throughout our City’s history. I hope that we voters will insure that they continue to have the opportunity.

Michael Bullington is a 34-year resident of Citrus Heights and a 39-year student of history.

The Sentinel welcomes guest opinion columns on local issues from Citrus Heights residents. To submit an article for publication, click here.

Guest column submitted by Michael Bullington–
Perhaps you read in last week’s Sentinel about the seven must see Christmas displays in Citrus Heights. Yes, our wee city, playing Bethlehem to Sacramento’s Jerusalem, is filled with wonderfully lit displays celebrating the season.

Most of us delight to the magic of the moment and yearn for ever more majestic ways to commemorate the occasion. Santa’s twin-engine plane can be seen flying over Auburn Boulevard across from Walmart. Inflatable displays are popping up everywhere. And in some spots in the region, you can even tune into an FM dial that will pipe music into your car that is synchronized with flashing light displays.

By contrast, not a lot has changed in nativity scene visuals over the years and decades. But I still love seeing them included among the hordes of reindeer, rotund Santa’s and Charlie Brown-inspired characters. They represent for me the heart of the occasion.

It makes me wonder about what things really transpired 2,000 years ago on a supposed “cold winter’s night.” Here’s some of what I’ve found.

Shepherds in the arid environs of the Judean plain graze their flocks at night during the warmer months, to keep them from being exposed to the intense heat of the summer. Then they rest them during the day in the coolness of the many caves dotting the countryside of that region. By contrast, during colder periods of the year, they graze during the day and rest in the evenings. The caves and stables were empty when they were out grazing.

Accordingly, when Joseph and a pregnant Mary arrived in Bethlehem, finding an untended manger during the evening, it is only logical to presume that the time of the year was the warmer months, rather than December. Additionally, that Caesar had decreed a census which required Israelites to sometimes travel long distances to register in the places of their birth, again indicates a time of the year when the weather was favorable – not the winter.

How about the typical three kings in many nativity scenes? The biblical account makes no mention of the number or identity of the visitors, except to describe them as wise men, rendered in Aramaic as “Maji.” At the time of Jesus’ birth, there was a crisis of succession in Parthia (greater Persia). The Persians had a priestly tribe called the Maji, also referred to as wise men for their religious and astrological acumen. These men had been around during the exile of the Israelites to Babylon beginning in 597 BC, as had the prophet Daniel of lion’s den fame.

Daniel shared many looks into the future during this time, even predicting the successive rise of the Persian, Greek and Roman empires along with prophecies of a coming Messiah King. Based on his prophecies, it’s not beyond possibility that the wise men of Persia/Parthia knew the timing and location of the predicted king’s appearance and location. Considering that the Parthians were without a king, it is also conceivable that to these wise men was entrusted the responsibility of finding a king to lead their nation.

As to their number, a delegation comprised of royal emissaries sent to locate a king could have been considerable in number. 500? 1,000? Or more? One can only speculate, since no number is given in the accounts. However, we are told in Matthew 2:3 that when they showed up, King Herod and all of Jerusalem “were troubled.”

It strains the imagination that three solitary men on camels would cause this kind of ruckus, but entirely possible that 1,000 soldiers and royal emissaries on Arabian steeds could have had a profound and troubling effect on a king concerned for his reign and even his life.

Regarding the timing of their arrival, we are told that they went to the house where the baby was located and that Herod’s murderous rampage targeted the male children under two years of age. This leads to a possible time frame of the Maji arriving as much as two years after the birth of Jesus.

Related: 7 must-see Christmas light displays in Citrus Heights

In spite of my gumshoe fascination with the actual history, I still like to look at the nativity scenes. They represent what popular culture has grasped of the wonder of a two-millennia-old phenomenon.

Nevertheless, traditions that have sprung up over the years pale in importance to the well-attested reality of the historical birth of one Jesus of Nazareth, the son a carpenter and a virgin named Mary. Being both the son of man (human) and the Son of God (by the Holy Spirit) through a virgin, He stands as the only person in all of history to qualify as the mediator between God and Man. And to all that appropriate this reality by faith, is granted the promise of an eternity with Him.

From the carol “Noel, Noel:”

“Son of God and Son of Man
There before the world began
Born to suffer, born to save
Born to raise us from the grave
Christ the everlasting Lord
He shall reign forevermore”

May this Christmas be the brightest and merriest of all!

Michael Bullington is a history buff and 34-year resident of Citrus Heights. He also represents Guardian Life Insurance Company of America and Park Avenue Securities, LLC.

Want to submit a letter to the editor or guest article for publication? Click here

Guest column submitted by Michael Bullington–
I’m going to guess that most of us in Citrus Heights will be celebrating Thanksgiving this Thursday. But where did this tradition come from?

Some historians point to a day of fasting and thanksgiving in 1621 following the settlement at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts by Puritans and Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution in England. A favorable harvest after a harsh winter prompted a day dedicated to fasting and thanksgiving, in accordance with traditions they had practiced in England and Holland.

Others attribute the holiday to the 1619 arrival of 38 English settlers at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia, under the charter of the London Company. The Virginia settlers marked their arrival with a religious celebration, in fulfillment of their charter, which specifically required “that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned … in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

Over a century later, a day of thanksgiving was officially proclaimed by George Washington to occur on Nov. 26, 1789, marking it “as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God.” This followed the ratification of our Constitution a year earlier, after ten months of effort to garner the necessary three-fourth’s majority of the states, and his election as our first president in the same year.

The establishment of Thanksgiving as a national holiday did not gain traction until the middle of the Civil War, when Lincoln proposed dedicating the last Thursday in November of each year, in an effort to bring our war-torn country together. His proposal was not adopted until about a decade after his death, due first to the war and later to Southern opposition during Reconstruction, which ended in the mid-1870’s.

Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of a widely circulated women’s magazine in the mid-1800s, is credited as the driving force behind the establishment of the national holiday, as the result of a four-decade letter writing campaign to our government. President Franklin D. Roosevelt later modified the established date for the holiday to be the fourth Thursday in November, effective in 1941, just prior to our entry into World War II.

Two decades later, President John F. Kennedy addressed the discrepancy in regional claims between Massachusetts and Virginia about the origin of the traditional thanksgiving celebration by issuing Proclamation 3560 on Nov. 5, 1963, stating, “Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together, and for the faith which united them with their God.”

Michael Bullington is a history buff and 34-year resident of Citrus Heights. He also represents Guardian Life Insurance Company of America and Park Avenue Securities, LLC.

Want to submit a letter to the editor or guest article for publication? Click here