The modern era

The Sacramento-Yolo Port District was created in 1947, and ground was broken on the Port of Sacramento in 1949. On June 29, 1963, with 5,000 spectators waiting to welcome her, the Motor Vessel Taipei Victory arrived. The port was open for business. The Nationalist Chinese flag ship, freshly painted for the historic event, was loaded with 5,000 tons of bagged rice for Mitsui Trading Co. bound for Okinawa and 1,000 tons of logs for Japan. She was the first ocean-going vessel in Sacramento since the steamship Harpoon in 1934.

The Port of Sacramento has been plagued with operating losses in recent years and faces bankruptcy. As of 2006 the city of West Sacramento will take full responsibility for the Port of Sacramento. This severe loss in business is due to the heavy competition from the wealthy, healthy, Port of Stockton, which has a larger facility and a deeper channel.

The city's current charter was adopted by voters in 1920, establishing a city council-and-manager form of government, still used today. As a charter city, Sacramento is exempt from many laws and regulations passed by the state legislature.

The city of North Sacramento incorporated in 1924, and merged into the city of Sacramento in 1964.

Sacramento City and County (along with a portion of adjacent Placer County) are served by a customer-owned electric utility, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Sacramento voters approved the creation of SMUD in 1923. In April, 1946, after 12 years of litigation, a judge ordered Pacific Gas & Electric to transfer title of Sacramento's electric distribution system to SMUD. SMUD today is the country's sixth-largest public electric utility, and it has a worldwide reputation for innovative programs and services, including the development of clean fuel resources such as solar power.

Despite a devolution of state government in recent years, state bureaucracy remains by far Sacramento's largest employer. The City of Sacramento expends considerable effort to keep state agencies from moving outside the city limits. In addition, many federal agencies have offices in Sacramento.

In the early 1990s, Mayor Joe Serna attempted to lure the Los Angeles Raiders football team to Sacramento, selling $50 million in bonds as earnest money. When the deal fell through, the bond proceeds were used to construct several large projects, including expanding the Convention Center and refurbishing of the Memorial Auditorium. Serna renamed a city park for controversial farm labor organizer Cesar Chavez. Through his effort, Sacramento became the first major city in the country to have a paid municipal holiday honoring Chavez.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mayor Heather Fargo made several abortive attempts to provide taxpayer financing of a new stadium for the Maloof brothers, owners of the Sacramento Kings NBA basketball franchise.

Mayor Fargo's tenure also saw the passing of a resolution for immediate unilateral withdrawal from the War on Terror in Iraq, and a resolution condemning the Patriot Act.

Sacramento has been involved in lengthy litigation as the defendant in lawsuits by disabled activists demanding that all City facilities, especially sidewalks, be made wheelchair accessible. Costs are estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars for these improvements.

In 2003 the City Council required City contractors to pay a "living wage" to all employees.

Recently the City Council considered adopting a resolution that would regulate the operations of hospitals in the City. Of the proposed resolution, the Chamber of Commerce said it "vigorously opposed the resolution. A municipal resolution seeking to regulate hospital operations is not only redundant vis-a-vis existing federal and state law, it will likely introduce inconsistent standards to be created, applied and interpreted by persons having no particular knowledge or expertise in health care operations."

A proposal for a large city park called Gold Rush Park, that would be large enough to rival great parks in other cities, is being advocated by the Gold Rush Park Foundation.[1]

The 1980s and 1990s saw the closure of several local military bases: McClellan Air Force Base, Mather Air Force Base, and Sacramento Army Depot. As a result the U.S. armed forces have no military presence in the city except for recruiting offices.

In 1967, Governor Ronald Reagan became the last Governor of California to live permanently in the city. A new executive mansion constructed for Reagan remained vacant for nearly forty years and was recently sold by the state. The California Supreme Court normally sits in San Francisco.

In spite of major military base closures and the decline of agricultural processing, Sacramento continued to experience massive population growth in the 1990s and early 2000s. Primary sources of population growth are people migrating from the San Francisco Bay Area seeking lower housing costs, as well as immigration from Asia, Central America, Mexico, Ukraine and the rest of the former Soviet Union. From 1990 to 2000, the population grew 14.7%. The Census Bureau estimates that in four years (2000-2004), the population of Sacramento County increased from 1,223,499 to 1,352,445.

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