Ho Ho Nope: Sacramento’s naughty and nice lists, straight from Santa | Opinion
Santa made his list — and we checked it twice. So who’s been naughty and nice in Sacramento this year?
There’s plenty of fodder for the Nice List, from locals who made our community a little better and a lot safer, to creative zookeepers and a social media manager who works to get dogs and cats adopted at a local animal shelter.
The Naughty List is… a little spicier. It includes quite a few elected officials behaving poorly and even a former aide to the governor indicted on federal charges of bank fraud. (Even Santa is thinking “Yikes.”)
Read on to find out who’s getting a lovely present under the tree this year — and who’s getting a big ol’ lump of coal.
The Nice List
The heroes at NorCal Resist
The local non-profit helped free nearly 150 people from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention this year, and is one of the leading organizations in Northern California actively fighting against the ICE raids that have terrorized our communities for the last year. Santa — who is himself an immigrant and an itinerant worker — couldn’t be any prouder of NorCal Resist and their advocacy for the vulnerable immigrant populations being unfairly targeted by the Trump administration.
The Wong Family
Alena Wong, now a freshman in college, was nearly killed at the intersection of Sutterville Road and Mead Avenue in Land Park at the age of 12, after a driver struck her while she was riding her bike to school. Since then, she and her family have advocated for years to implement traffic improvements at the dangerous intersection. In November of this year, the city finally completed those changes: The road has been narrowed, and the curve tightened to decrease speed and increase driver caution as they approach the crosswalk. Santa is very impressed, and reminds everyone to drive their sleigh safely this holiday season.
Brittani Peterson
Bradshaw Animal Shelter’s social media manager, Brittani Peterson, has developed an increasingly manic list of strategies to get a dog or a cat to make eye contact for the ideal headshot: Peterson will whistle, speak in baby talk, dangle treats and deploy squeaky toys, all to get the cutest photo of the pet up for adoption. Then she pairs it with a funny caption on the shelter’s social media sites. Based on a study in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, higher-quality photos and photos where the animal looked directly at the camera led to faster adoptions, and Peterson’s unconventional tactics have led to dozens of adoptions for good boys and girls living at the animal shelter. Now that’s nice.
Rachel Winkler
Rachel Winkler, the Sacramento Zoo’s animal care supervisor, made edible bouquets for several animal moms living at the zoo earlier this year. Winkler prepared special Mother’s Day bouquets that went out to the parrots, giraffes, a Wolf’s guenon monkey and the zoo’s resident clouded leopard, Serai, a single mom. Serai actually got three bouquets of frozen edible flowers in a bowl, with a dead rat pup in the center. (Yummy.) Santa loves a caretaker who goes above and beyond the call of duty.
Everyone who donated to and volunteered at food banks during the SNAP shutdown
When the federal government paused all funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in late October, more than 270,000 Sacramento County residents were put in danger of food insecurity during the start of the holiday season. But Sacramento stepped up: “People are calling and asking, ‘How can we help?’” Genevieve Pyeatt, Yolo Food Bank director of programs, told CapRadio. “Our phone has not stopped ringing.” The holidays are about the gift of giving and the joy of sharing, and when Sacramentans were in danger, our community knew what to do. Nothing could be nicer than that.
The Naughty List
Dana Williamson (allegedly)
Would it even be a 2025 Naughty List if Dana Williamson didn’t (allegedly) top it? The former chief of staff to Gov. Gavin Newsom was indicted earlier this year on more than 20 federal charges including bank fraud, wire fraud and tax crimes, after Williamson (allegedly) funneled money from former U.S. Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s campaign fund and (allegedly) claimed more than $1 million in personal expenses as business deductions. Williamson has pleaded not guilty, but two accused co-conspirators have since taken plea deals. Both Santa Claus and the federal government are (allegedly) unimpressed.
Caltrans’ AI chief, Dara Wheeler
Caltrans’ AI chief, Dara Wheeler, exaggerated claims back in October that one of the company’s new AI robot guard dogs had helped catch a criminal “at one of the Southern California maintenance stations that was continuing to be hit with copper wire theft.” Turns out, Spot the Robot Dog merely “caught” a guy on camera innocently looking through a fence at the San Bernardino facility. That’s not quite the same thing, Dara.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty
Surprising perhaps absolutely no one, Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty has landed on Santa’s naughty list for the second year in a row. He’s had a whole year in the job at this point, and Santa’s struggling to think of anything the former assemblyman-turned-mayor has actually done, besides perhaps traumatizing the city’s homeless population?
McCarty’s banner “accomplishment” this year was a policy he unveiled back in June that prohibits people from sitting or lying down on the ground outside City Hall, which amended a former city policy implemented several years ago that allowed people to sleep on the property overnight, but not during the day. Santa would like to remind the mayor that City Hall is the people’s property, not his, and being Sacramento’s “Most Boring Mayor” — a title McCarty has publicly sought — doesn’t mean doing absolutely nothing.
Lincoln Mayor Holly Andreatta and Lincoln High School’s ‘Club America’
Lincoln High School has the dubious honor of hosting the region’s first Club America, associated with Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization. During the first meeting, Lincoln Mayor Holly Andreatta made a 26-minute welcome speech that amplified Kirk’s racist opinions of Martin Luther King Jr., and of diversity initiatives for pilots.
During that same speech, Andreatta shared a personal anecdote about her daughter, blaming her adult identity as a lesbian to an unspecified childhood trauma. While Andreatta made a public apology to her daughter some days later, she explicitly denied tying homosexuality to abuse, and said she was filmed without her consent. Remember, Santa sees you when you’re sleeping… and he also sees you when you’re throwing your daughter under the bus. I wouldn’t expect a gift from Santa — or from your daughter — this holiday season, madam mayor.
