Carlos Alcala: Money magazine applauds Roseville

We're No. 90: It doesn't have quite the ring of "We're No. 1," but Roseville boosters are happy to break the top 100 on Money magazine's latest list of best places to live. Roseville is No. 90, just ahead of Fountain Valley in So Cal and just behind Madison, Wis. Planning, city services, jobs and the people (long-timers and new arrivals) make the city good, said City Manager Craig Robinson. But he bristled when asked if the ranking was a surprise. "Of course not," he said. "We think Roseville has been an outstanding place to live for a long time." …

Time of the signs: Lincoln's E. Lincoln Parkway is no more. Now it's East Joiner Parkway. It may have been confusing for a day or so this week while the street was marked with both names. Smaller signs were changed right away Monday, but it took a while to swap out the big electrified signs at traffic signals. In all, roughly a dozen signs were changed, said Doyle Champlain, Public Works operations manager. Not many, considering that's about three miles of road. The move to eliminate E. Lincoln came about two years ago when the City Council decided it was going to rename the main road through town when the bypass goes in. Now known as G Street, or Highway 65, it will become Lincoln Boulevard. Which would cause confusion with E. Lincoln Parkway. We still wish they'd gone slightly more creative. Marla Hautala of Roseville had suggested calling the road through town "the Linc," the way Chicago has "the Loop." Link, Lincoln, the Linc. But now that we think of it, a link is a kind of joiner, isn't it? …

Going postal: Yours truly participated in a candidates workshop in Lincoln last week, educating would-be elected officials on dealing with the media. Inexplicably, at the end of the talk, some of them still wanted to run. I got an education, too. I learned about "ballot trapping." Thankfully, as Assistant Registrar Ryan Ronco later explained, this does not involve spring-loaded teeth snapping together when you cast your vote. It involves "runners" from the Placer elections office going to post offices throughout the county to collect mail-in ballots. Unlike filing taxes or registering to vote, voting by mail requires that the document (the ballot) be in officials' hands by the designated date and time: 8 p.m. Election Day. Having it postmarked is not enough. "People think that deadline is not particularly absolute," Ronco said. But it is, so officials go "trap" those wayward votes. "We are in the business of making sure we can count every eligible vote," he said. In the last election, they picked up about 700 additional ballots, enough to sway an election. And they literally go the extra mile. Because ballots can go to central post offices before coming back to Placer County, runners pick up ballots from West Sacramento and Reno mail routing centers. Thanks. …

Smoke gets in your ideas: We're glad it cleared up around here. Pollutants from fires and ozone generated by Valley cars seemed to concentrate the nasty haze on the Placer foothills last week. But it's transitory so, no, Auburn does not stand for auto/burn emissions. … And no, Colfax's boast will not change from "Above the fog, below the snow," to "Where metro ozone meets forest smoke." … And no, Placer Valley Tourism's "Come Out and Play" won't get an addition like, " … but Wipe your Feet and Brush Off the Ash Before You Come Inside." … And finally, no, Roseville's "Always Amazing" was not dropped so they could go with "Always Blazing."

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Carlos Alcalá at (916) 773-6847. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/alcala.