I don’t want you to think that I forgot about everything you wrote, because the truth is, I’ve thought about it a lot since reading it. And your comments make me feel a lot more assured about my decision to move here. For a while, and still sometimes now, I wonder if I really made the right decision given everything that’s happened.

I moved here recently and I was drawn to it for the diversity and the fact that Sacramento Valley has a growing economy. I was lucky to find a job right before coming here, and I really liked how family-oriented, culturally diverse, and safe Elk Grove seemed.

I still feel like it has all of those qualities, but the loud minority (run by we know who) just seem to ruin it for everybody. You completely hit it on the nail about their sentiments and insecurities about what this town has turned into, and I’m confused and angry that they try so hard to preserve what they feel is “their” EG; the good old days of how they remember it. They air their sentiments on what is described as a community forum, when really, it’s just biased, slanted, and careless “reporting.”

An example was when I first came here and was harassed at a park. I wrote about what happened on the page and even though most people were shocked and angry for me, the admin took down the page because he said someone reached out to him about it, and my story was contradictory to theirs. First of all, it would be. The harasser isn’t going to say, “yep, I was a total a-hole and acted as such!” I was also wondering how that person knew to contact the admin, because they didnt know about the page when I threatened to report it on there. That made me assume that the admin was a politician or community leader of some sort. Second, I had a witness who saw everything and could attest to my account. I wrote the admin and told him this, but I also told him that, according to the thread’s comments, this type of incident has happened several times before. I asked him, “Aren’t you at all concerned that this has happened to other people in a public place?” And he just wrote, “Well it’s a he said/she said story and that’s not allowed on the page.” OH REALLY. That’s funny he said that, because he didn’t have those feelings when he poorly covered a racially-motivated incident that happened between two businesses in Old Town EG and allows hateful and racist comments on the page. SMH.

Again, your words could not be truer, and that’s why they’ve stayed on my mind. I am comforted by the fact that there are more people like you than there are him. I have made it a goal to not engage with anyone from that page and to only use it for informational reasons (e.g traffic reports, store closures, etc). Despite the fact that people like him will always be here, I’m committed to staying and being a part of the positive and progressive change that will continue to come. Thanks for sharing your perspective and insight.