Ever since it got bought out, it's gone downhill...BIG TIME! Bill Hicks is gone...big loss!!!! He WAS the paper. I could really care less about what's happening in SoCal (eg: recent article about Coronado, CA) or anywhere else outside of the Rancho Cordova area. There is very little local about it now. I might just as well read the Sac Bee as it has more stuff relevant to the Rancho area than the Grapevine plus I can get all the other junk the Grapevine now has in it. Really too bad. I enjoyed reading the local stories about local people and places and especially the local sports. Good bye Grapevine...it was great while it lasted. I will miss you. read more

I love this small independent paper. With so few sources of independent news from a source that is so American, it is really a paper to cherish. read more

What a triumph for Rancho Cordova that the 47-year-old Grapevine newspaper survived the cowardly attempt to shut it down two years ago. But it's sad the paper has lacked great prose for so long, some poor, misguided folks reflect on a recent childish, babbling bigot cracker as some kind of standard. The Grapevine is 100% better now simply WITHOUT it's former "editors". That former hick sports guy with that awful column is the RC Poster Boy for racial intolerance, zip code envy, bad sportsmanship, narcissism, cowardice and dismal failure -- All things NOT Rancho Cordova. He seriously thought it would be cute to write about his own racial profiling. (Now here's an essay of truth to counter the 7-year lie). The once-great Grapevine, founded in 1968, a venerable RC institution, took a vertical nosedive in quality after RC sports icon Doug Hawkes retired in 2004, and Bob Ling and Shelly Blanchard sold it about 2006. Since then, an utter DISASTER, a farce, under the "leadership" of incompetent frauds, delusional novices, self-absorbed, pretentious Facebook bloggers. There was more chicken___, racist Rancho-bashing coming straight out of the Grapevine than heard anywhere. OUR OWN HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER! This is what happens when a home-grown product is invaded by hideous aliens from the Planet Amateur. One RC friend called the Grapevine during that time, "The Rabbit Hole," in an Alice In Wonderland allusion: Up is down, down is up, nothing makes sense. Rampant run-on sentences. Glaring inaccuracies. Buried leads. Tombstones. Misnamed streets, including the news office street. Worthless website. Complete ignorance of simple, recent local history, as if nothing happened in RC before yesterday. Columnists writing about anything BUT Rancho, yet repeatedly echoing "Rancho Cordova's bad reputation." An "editor," (no editing going on) an oblivious city council puppet, babbling of Wyoming relatives, including pets, like a psycho stranger shoving baby pictures in your face. No football kickoff time, place, or even day found posted on the sports page weekly in about five years, even with previews of upcoming opponents! (Like a schedule of weekly events is not important, doesn't belong). A ridiculous, 120-word (140?) sentence, ten inches, jumping from one column to another, all amid yammering in delusion about "Journalism Professionalism." Like Barney Fife dreaming he's Joe Friday. Prolific, but prolific poop. What fool would advertise in this holocaust, do business with these pitiful creatures? Circus Chimps on crack could do better... This is another example how an advanced communications degree means NOTHING if you never learn to write properly by junior high in the first place, are "taught" by fellow lackeys, judged and praised by fellow flunkies (CNPA, always reaching new heights in trite, socialist mediocrity) have no competition, lack common sense, project a cracker view of race relations, don't know what "news sense" even means, can't improve on a 6th-grade level, 1st-person narrative, and never learned anything from a real editor not afraid to tell you it's garbage. They did EVERYTHING wrong. When they ran out of journalism mistakes to make, they invented new ones. A comedy. Tried to close the newspaper down for good, but couldn't even do that right. Even publicly blamed RC for the paper's proposed closure. Real class...(It fortunately may have been the only way for us to punt those irresponsible hacks, extract the juveniles from their carnival carousel high horsey. Make-believe time is over kiddies, you burned the house down). It's no wonder Rancho Cordova has exploded with sports success almost the moment of their ignominious exit (slither, slink, crawl) from the stage. Defending basketball champs, baseball champs, little league Sacramento area champs, 6-0 football team. After a long dark age of bad taste, it feels like morning in RC without "Sports Soapdrop" insulting us every week, polluting RC with mindless, stinking, sophomoric drivel. In honor of MLK, Cordovans are now "Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are FREE AT LAST!" The tyranny of idiocracy finally broke itself. Goodbye to your pathetic, despicable 7-year inferiority complex about living in RC. That obsession. with what fellow shallow white people from elsewhere say about RC, wearing their racism on their sleeve. Who cares? What like-minded baboons, dumb jocks and always wise white teenagers from Lilly Whiteyville babble about RC on Facebook. Who cares? RC is 10% black, less than US average. Who cares... ."I just want you to go home." (A quote, what the above "professional" actually wrote in the Grapevine to ALL Latinos, as an "American In General" (White)....Que? Latinos -- 20% of the RC population, readership. ((Hitler's first rule: Consider your audience before making incendiary, openly-racist remarks. Fool)). Hear that, Dewey Guerra Family? Jordan? Leo? The Grapevine hick wants you deported. Adios, Muchachos! read more

Sad. The Grapevine has been bereft of good writing for so long, people hold that novice Hick up as some kind of standard. Laughable. He literally could not even "hold the jock" of the guy he replaced, Doug Hawkes - who wrote for 30 years...Downhill since. Also, probably not one dime of profit since Hawkes owned it, 1989.... That despicable column, "Soapdrop" or whatever, was an utter disgrace to journalism, disgrace to Rancho Cordova, Humanity. Ongoing, "important" theme: A self-absorbed, rabid inferiority complex about living in Rancho Cordova, what others say about RC on Facebook...Who cares. All RC-bashing is inherently racist trash, but Hick tried to give it merit just by mentioning it every week....Did not know RC had a "bad rep" until we read it in the Grapevine, over and over. Idiotic, senseless amateurism. Unreadable garbage since he arrived! It feels like "Morning" in RC now he's gone. Property values rose, Cordova sports exploded with success, People dance in the streets, food tastes better....RC citizens must no longer suffer insults from the perpetual, consumate "Out-Of-Towner"....Thank Gawd "Former Radio Personality" Hick is now "Former Grapevine Babbling Bigot"....Yeah, he was the whole paper, and the paper was ghastly garbage... ...Also, written in a pathetic, 7th grade, first person narrative every time...Incapable of writing a column (or a sentence really) without referring to himself at least 25 times. Pitiful. Simply would not have been allowed to write a column in a real journalism world....No business calling themselves editors....Editing has been a colossal joke. After they did every thing wrong, they invented new things to do wrong. As a publishers -- dismal, disgraceful failures. Attempted to close the Grapevine for good last year, but couldn't even do that right. Publicly blamed Rancho Cordovans for their own pitiful incompetence... While the Grapevine is now a shadow of what it was in the 1970s to early 2000s, at least it's still here. And improved without three terrible, worthless columns. It is more like a bulletin board now, but they do have some real reporters covering real news. (The former "publishers' where totally in bed with the city, and it looks to be the same jive now. The Grapevine can no longer be called a "government watchdog"...They will print letters, essays etc, so it passes one Newspaper test... read more

This paper has been appearing on my driveway for the past few months. All the articles are cheery propaganda from the Rancho City Council about how lovely It is to live in Rancho, where the panhandlers and homeless are roaming the streets! The best was the 4th of July article professing the wonders of fireworks while I sat in my house as my idiot neighbors set off ILLEGAL fireworks for 4 hours. I called and called the police and NOTHING was done. I felt like I was in Iraq! But the most obnoxious thing about this paper is, I have repeatedly called them and requested them to quit delivering it to my house! It doesn't seem to work! I AM SICK AND TIRED OF CALLING YOU AND ASKING YOU TO QUIT DELIVERING IT! Your paper just annoys me, and I shouldn't have to keep putting it in the recycle bin. Once again I will be calling you! I guess I will have to do it daily. I have time, I am retired!!! And writing here every time I get a paper as I freaking did today! What a waste of paper! Quit delivering it. read more