Packing Sacramento County’s time capsule, and unpacking 25 years in our community | Opinion
It’s our “demisemiseptcentennial” — that’s 175 years since the founding of Sacramento County in 1850, when it was one of the state’s original 27 counties. Earlier this year, the county opened a 25-year time capsule from 2000, and now staff are gathering items for another time capsule, this time to be opened in 2050.
“Wouldn’t (it) be great to… put together another time capsule? One that’s opened in 25 years again, … on the county’s 200th anniversary — on our bicentennial,” said Kim Nava, the county’s communication and media director.
Nava said the time capsule will include an iPhone to symbolize “the powerful role of technology in our daily lives” and an assembly resolution honoring the county’s 175th anniversary. It will also contain a COVID at-home test kit and an N95 mask as a reminder of the pandemic. (And, at my own suggestion, Nava is going to include a copy of The Sacramento Bee’s print edition.)
“We’ve got a summary of water production in the region, and the amount of water used per day for residential customers,” she said. “We think that when it’s open in 25 years, people are going to be amazed about how much water we used.”
Other items include a growth chart for children from First Five, guides from waste management and recycling collection services, and something to commemorate the county’s new tax collection system, which hadn’t been updated since the ’80s. It will also hold tickets from the county’s annual music festival, Aftershock, and an engraved gavel with Board of Supervisors Chair Phil Serna’s signature.
There will also be a dose of Narcan, the powerful nasal spray that can help reverse opioid overdoses. It will be a stark reminder for future Sacramentans of our nation’s struggle with drug addiction, and the more than 1,400 drug overdose deaths that occur in our county every year.
It’s hard to believe it’s already been 25 years since the millennium — a year that feels defined by Tamagotchis, Pokémon cards and the Y2K bug. The public works department put together the last time capsule, and Nava said it focused more on the work being done by that department than as a representation of life in Sacramento County in 2000.
Nava said the 25-year-old time capsule included a Palm Pilot, the personal digital assistant that was the forerunner of iPhones and iPads; a roadworkers’ safety vest; a CD ROM disk; and a publication from the grand opening of Sacramento International Airport’s Terminal A; a utility billing statement and the summary budget for fiscal year 1999-2000, among other items.
I think we can do better in 2025 than some utility bills and a brochure.
A 2025 time capsule
So what would be representative of life in Sacramento County over the last 25 years?
First and foremost, we have to have some sort of nod to the county’s growing homeless population, an issue that really came to the forefront in the early 2000s, and has become an all-consuming topic in local politics. We need something that’s representative of our community trying to help get people off the streets and into housing and assistance, with little luck.
Maybe a broken tent would symbolize the more than 8,000 people struggling nightly to find housing?
We definitely need something to reflect the non-stop construction on every major freeway through town in the last 25 years — especially the gridlock currently tying up Highway 50 in the last few years, as well as the construction on interstates 80 and 5. I wonder if an orange traffic cone from Caltrans, pockmarked with black tire rubber from car crashes, would fit?
How about a ballot to represent the two recall elections of California governors in the last 25 years, Gray Davis in 2003 and Gavin Newsom in 2021? Or of our former state attorney general-turned-senator-turned-vice president-turned-presidential candidate, Kamala Harris?
We also need something that reflects the Sacramento Kings saga, from nearly making the NBA Finals in 2002, only to have it snatched away by the Los Angeles Lakers (and possibly some dodgy referees) in the Western Conference Finals. Then came the team’s decline, and the Maloof brothers’ attempted sale of the franchise to billionaire investors in Seattle, which prompted a huge community outcry and ultimately kept the team here in the capital city.
Maybe we can include 27 basketballs to represent all the unearned free throws given to the Lakers in the fourth quarter of Game 7? (Or maybe just a purple beam toy to represent the new Golden 1 Center stadium — that would probably be a lot easier.)
And while the Sacramento Board of Supervisors just approved the removal of more than 3,700 mature oak trees in the south county for a solar array, I propose the county’s time capsule include a seed from a Valley Oak. It is the largest of the California oaks, and the species is close to being endangered, thanks to climate change and poor conservation. The world itself won’t look the same in 2050 if we don’t make serious changes to our environmental policies. So maybe with some luck, that seed could be replanted in 25 years, and our grandchildren will get to know what a tree looks like.
It’s too late to add anything to Sacramento County’s time capsule, though county residents, both current and former, can still send in historical photos to Nava at NavaK@saccounty.gov, and be included in the county’s online slideshow for the anniversary. But it’s never too late to create a time capsule of your own.
For the last decade or so, I’ve carried around a simple list in my wallet that I wrote in my 20s of what I wanted from life before I turned 35. Last year, I opened it up, chuckled at a few of the items, but was proud to say I’d accomplished more than I’d thought. I wrote myself another list and tucked it away to open in another decade.
Time capsules don’t have to be large or fancy; they just need to be a reminder of a life that moves all too fast, a promise to your future self to slow down and remember.
This story was originally published December 12, 2025 at 9:44 AM.
