The housing crisis is pushing both Bay Area landlords and tenants to the financial brink
LAUREN HEPLER, Chronicle: “In a quiet corner of Oakland, Pat McHenry Sullivan agonizes over taking out a life insurance loan to pay off rent debt for her and her husband, who lives with dementia.
A few miles north in Berkeley, Susan Marchionna is in the reverse predicament: She’s debating selling her house of four decades after a drawn-out dispute with a tenant who she says in state filings has not paid rent since the fall.
As a renter and a landlord, McHenry Sullivan and Marchionna are on opposite ends of California’s two-year effort to prevent a pandemic eviction crisis.
Judge halts 3,000-home project in San Diego suburb over wildfire concerns
BLAKE NELSON, LA Times: “A California court has temporarily blocked a long-planned project to build thousands of homes in Santee, a San Diego suburb, in a victory for environmental groups who argued the city hadn’t done enough to guard against wildfires.
San Diego County Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal ruled this month that the Fanita Ranch project failed to fully consider how an influx of people could affect a region at risk of fire.
It’s “not clear based on the information presented whether residents and those in the surrounding community would be able to timely evacuate,” Bacal wrote in the March 3 decision.”
Conservative PAC Reform California is recruiting candidates for San Diego school board races
DEBORAH SULLIVAN BRENNAN, U-T: “After two years of school closures, mask and vaccine requirements, and other hotly contested pandemic measures, voters may be closely scrutinizing school board races in the midterm elections this year.
A conservative political action committee, Reform California, is taking advantage of that, recruiting candidates to run for school boards throughout San Diego County.
Reform California founder and former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio said the organization aims to train and support candidates with a goal of slating a candidate for every school board.”
But both are still waiting for answers to months-old applications for $5.2 billion in statewide rent relief — two of thousands of Bay Area residents unsure where to turn as local eviction battles intensify and a March 31 deadline looms for a final layer of emergency state rental programs.”
Placer County was ground zero for COVID culture wars. How did its approach work out?
MOLLY SULLIVAN, SacBee: “At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Roseville restaurant owner Matthew Oliver practically challenged California Gov. Gavin Newsom into cracking down on his Placer County businesses.
Oliver is a pastor who owns three restaurants. In November 2020 he pledged to keep one open after a curfew in defiance of state public health orders. In a social media post, he promoted his plan as a “Newsom hour.”
Oliver could take that risk in part because local officials from Placer County and the city of Roseville didn’t appear to have any interest in enforcing Newsom’s orders. That left a gap, because the state depended on local cops, health departments and schools to uphold the rules.”
Bay Area Ukrainian priest’s wife heads to war zone to join daughter who refuses to leave
JULIA PRODIS SOLEK, Mercury News: “There was no debate. No wavering. No pleading.
The day the Russians invaded Ukraine, the Rev. Petro Dyachok knew that his wife, Natalya, had only one choice: to go back to their homeland. Their 31-year-old daughter, a registered nurse raising her two children there, refused to leave her husband who was preparing to fight.
Natalya needed to be with them.”
Column: This 101-year-old surgical pioneer still works every day. And he’s not about to retire
STEVE LOPEZ, LA Times: “When Dr. Bruce Gewertz arrived from Chicago 16 years ago to work at Cedars-Sinai, he took note of his new neighbor.
“When I moved in,” said Gewertz, Cedars’ surgeon-in-chief, “there was this 85-year-old guy in the office next to mine and I thought, ‘Well, how long can that last?”
At this point, there’s no telling.”
Man faces prison term measured in centuries for Sacramento County molestation conviction
DOMINIQUE WILLIAMS, SacBee: “A man faces 880 years in prison after being convicted of 41 counts of child molestation and exploitation, authorities said.
Michael Leonard had a 16-year-long history of luring young children into his home and molesting them, according to a news release that announced the jury verdict.
Prosecutors said that several of the victims were between the ages of 8 and 13, and Leonard met many of them at children’s events and venues he frequently visited.”
Crowds march in support of Ukraine in Santa Monica
STAFF REPORT, LA Daily News: “Members of the Ukrainian-American diaspora and their supporters marched through the streets of Santa Monica on Saturday, March 12, in the latest Southern California protest condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Hundreds of participants in the Stand with Ukraine Rally gathered to call for an end to the bloodshed, carrying blue and yellow flags of many sizes. Some toted signs bearing such slogans as “Hands Off Ukraine,” “No War” and “We Are All Ukrainians Now.”
Veronika Vozna, 23, a dance and gymnastics teacher, just arrived in Southern California from Ukraine.”
EBay suspends Russian shipments as Ukraine war sanctions spread
ROLAND LI, Chronicle: “Online auction company eBay has temporarily suspended transactions to Russian addresses in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, according to multiple reports.
The move follows major credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard suspending operations in the country, and it comes as shipping interruptions are complicating deliveries, according to NBC Bay Area.
“We stand with Ukraine and are taking a number of steps to support the Ukrainian people and our sellers in the region," the company said, according to NBC Bay Area.”
Marin races to distribute rental aid before evictions resume
RICHARD HALSTEAD, Mercury News: “Marin County is working to get millions of dollars in rental assistance funds out to tenants affected by the COVID-19 pandemic before a protection against evictions expires at the end of this month.
County supervisors approved a $347,500 contract Tuesday with LiveStories Inc., which will boost the number of case managers processing the applications from 20 to 30. The supervisors also approved a $123,846 contract with Neighborly Software.
“We’ve experienced some challenges with the software system we’re currently on,” Hyacinth Hinojosa, deputy county administrator, told supervisors on Tuesday. The county’s contract with Unqork Inc., a software company based in New York City, expires on Wednesday.”
Family, friends honor soccer star Katie Meyer at memorial
NATHAN SOLIS, LA Times: “As a goalie, Katie Meyer threw her body into more than a thousand unflinching dives to make game-winning saves. She helped lead Stanford University to a 2019 NCAA championship with several late-game blocks, but before that she made numerous saves at Newbury Park High School in Ventura County.
On Saturday, in the last light of the day, several hundred people gathered on the soccer field to remember Meyer, who died earlier this month. She was 22.
“She was just the life of the party, but in a good way,” Eileen Belanger, Meyer’s advisory teacher at Century Academy, said outside the memorial. Belanger’s voice cracked as she recalled writing a graduation speech about Meyer.”
New Biden wildfire commission looking for prevention experts to shape federal policy
ALEX ROARTY, SacBee: “The federal government on Thursday will begin accepting applications for a newly created commission designed to shape the nation’s management of wildland fires.
The Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission is seeking potential members with expertise in wildland fire prevention, federal officials say, and hopes to assemble a diverse collection of people from rural, urban and suburban communities.
Members will include representatives of tribal and state and local governments, especially those from areas like California that are at a high risk of wildfires.”
Ships are killing whales off the California coast. Here's what experts say will save them
TARA DUGGAN, Chronicle: “The towering container ships and oil tankers that sail in and out of San Francisco Bay have a little-known dark side: They are a leading cause of death for whales that migrate along the coast between Mexico or Central America and Alaska.
But there’s a way to reduce the number of whales that often wash up, bloated and mangled, on Bay Area beaches this time of year, experts say. A new report recommends slowing the speed of ships on a large stretch of the coast, from Pigeon Point in San Mateo County to Point Arena in Mendocino County. The idea is to give whales a chance to escape mortal injury.
“A lot of the time, mariners don’t know that they’ve even hit a whale. Cargo ships really are like skyscrapers,” said Jessica Morten, a resource protection specialist for the Greater Farallones Association, a conservation group that supports the National Marine Sanctuary of the same name. “On the surface of the ocean, a blue whale, even though it’s enormous to us, is really not enormous.”
LAUSD students won’t be taking off masks on Monday
LINH TAT, LA Daily News: “Students in Los Angeles Unified will have to wait until further notice before they can remove their masks inside the classroom.
The district said late Friday, March 11, that it’s still “working with labor partners and other stakeholders” to transition from requiring indoor masking to strongly recommending it, in accordance with state and county health guidelines.
“Los Angeles Unified needs to acknowledge where we are with health conditions in our District and in our school communities,” the district said in a statement. “The science that informed the on-ramp to the protective protocols currently in place, which have ensured the well-being of our students and workforce, must, too, inform the off-ramp as health conditions improve.”