California restaurants expect rebound that will take years
DON THOMPSON, Associated Press: " Nearly a third of California’s restaurants permanently closed and two-thirds of workers at least temporarily lost their jobs as the pandemic set in more than a year ago and Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed the nation’s first statewide lockdown, a legislative committee reported Tuesday.
Few business sectors were more battered than the dining industry, which before the pandemic included more than 76,000 eating and drinking establishments employing 1.8 million people, according to the California Restaurant Association.
But with the shutdown, as many as a million of those workers were quickly furloughed or laid off, the association told the state Senate’s Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response."
Rural California could lose thousands of jobs as prisons close. What can the state do?
Sac Bee, JEONG PARK: "Just days after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration announced a plan to close a prison in Susanville last month, dozens of “for sale” signs for homes began popping up in a rural Lassen County town.
“We went from a market where there were no homes,” said Patricia Hagata, executive director at the Lassen County Chamber of Commerce. “To where we have an overload of homes.”
According to the city’s latest financial statement, the closure of the California Correctional Center scheduled for June 2022 means Susanville could lose more than a quarter of its workforce — jobs that pay upwards of $90,000 in some cases. Some workers could find jobs next door at the High Desert State Prison, but many would have to move. The next closest state prison is more than three hours away in Folsom."
California’s rebound: COVID-19 declines dramatically even as normal life returns
RONG-GONG LIN II, LA Times: "With California set to fully reopen its economy in a matter of weeks, the state hit a key milestone as coronavirus-related deaths and new cases plummeted to dramatic lows.
On Monday night, the average number of daily COVID-19 deaths reported over the past seven-day period was 37 — the same number it has been for several days. It has been the lowest average number of daily deaths in more than 13 months, and a 93% drop from the peak of 553 deaths a day for the seven-day period that ended Jan. 27, according to a Times analysis.
The last time this number was so low was in the first few weeks of the pandemic; the week that ended April 6, 2020, also reported an average of 37 COVID-19 deaths a day."
Does California really have a $76B budget surplus?
Sac Bee, LARA KORTE: "California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state had an estimated $76 billion budget surplus when he introduced his May budget revision last week. But on Monday, the Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report that estimated the surplus at $38 billion, much lower than the administration’s figure.
The difference in estimates led his critics on social media to deride the governor, alleging he misled Californians about the state’s surplus.
So is it true that California has an extra $76 billion?"
After French Laundry dinner, a lobbying boom for Newsom adviser's firm
The Chronicle, ALEXEI KOSEFF: "Billings by lobbying firm Axiom Advisors rose by more than 25% last quarter, following an infamous birthday dinner held by partner Jason Kinney at Napa Valley’s French Laundry restaurant. Gov. Gavin Newsom attended the November event in violation of his own social distancing rules in effect at the time, helping to spur the recall drive currently underway against him.
The Sacramento-based consultancy logged revenues of $2,008,046 between January and March, according to lobbying reports filed with the state, an increase of $406,916 from the fourth quarter of 2020 and its second-best reporting period since the firm was formed two and a half years ago.
Among more than 60 clients during those three months were nine that had newly hired Axiom Advisors to lobby on their behalf, including a little-known Massachusetts-based technology company, the cellular telecommunications industry association and French cosmetics juggernaut L’Oreal."
It’s California wildfire season. But firefighters say federal hotshot crews are understaffed
ANNA M. PHILLIPS, LA Times: "As another wildfire season looms over California, the U.S. Forest Service is running short of the most experienced and elite firefighters in the country — the forestry crews known as hotshots, who travel the nation putting out wildfires, according to interviews with union officials and agency employees.
A combination of low pay, competition from state and local fire departments and exhaustion from fire seasons that are longer and more devastating than in the past has eroded the federal government’s ability to hire new firefighters and retain the most skilled. Nowhere is this more true than in California, where entry-level Forest Service firefighters in certain parts of the state earn less than the minimum wage of $14 an hour, and staffing levels have plummeted ahead of a fire season that scientists say could be especially active.
Roughly 30% of the federal hotshot crews that work on the front lines of wildfires in California are understaffed, according to the union that represents most Forest Service employees. Some of these typically 20-person crews have lost so many veteran firefighters that the remaining workers have been assigned to lower-ranking Type 2 crews, which don’t require as much experience, union officials said."
Should businesses ask customers about vaccination status? Majority of Californians say yes
Sac Bee, LARA KORTE: "A majority of California voters supports allowing some businesses to verify that their customers are vaccinated or have tested negative for coronavirus before allowing them to enter, according to a new poll.
Of the more than 10,000 registered voters polled between April 29 and May 5, two out of three said businesses like concert venues, sports stadiums, cruise ships and casinos should be allowed to check vaccination records of those who want to enter. About one-third disapproves of such a system.
The survey by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley sheds light on where Californians stand as the state begins to ease longstanding pandemic restrictions."
L.A. supervisors want sheriff to immediately name deputies in shootings
ALENE TCHEKMEDYIAN, LA Times: "The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday directed its attorneys to draft an ordinance that would require the Sheriff’s Department to publish the names of deputies who open fire while on duty within 48 hours of a shooting.
The move comes after a push by relatives of people shot by deputies and by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California along with reporting by The Times that revealed that the Sheriff’s Department’s practice of withholding the names is at odds with a 2014 California Supreme Court ruling that generally requires such disclosures be made.
The Times found the Sheriff’s Department is an outlier among some of California’s largest law enforcement agencies, which readily make the names of officers and deputies public following shootings."
Silicon Valley offices can reopen as Bay Area's most populous county moves to yellow tier
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: "Santa Clara County, the Bay Area’s most populous county with 1.9 million people, has joined San Francisco and San Mateo counties in the least restrictive stage of California’s color-coded pandemic reopening plan — allowing businesses to expand capacity, indoor bars to reopen and Silicon Valley companies to bring employees back to the office.
“We are in a very different and much safer place than we have been before,” Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County’s health officer, said in a briefing Tuesday. “As a result, we are able to make some significant changes in our county.”
The state advanced both Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties into the yellow tier, effective Wednesday. With the tier movement, Santa Clara County also rescinded an order issued in October that required all businesses to have as many people as possible work remotely instead of in the office."
In stunning reversal, Stanford will not cut any of the sports it said it would
The Chronicle, ANN KILLION: "In a stunning reversal of a decision that created national shock waves, Stanford University is reinstating all 11 varsity sports programs it had planned to eliminate.
The official announcement from the university came Tuesday. In a news release, Stanford said that “while the structural financial challenges facing Stanford Athletics remain very real,” changed circumstances have “provided a new path” for supporting the programs.
“We are all over-the-moon excited,” said senior men’s volleyball player Kyler Presho. “It’s obviously the right decision by the university. The message is that these 11 sports matter.”"
Alameda County DA's office declines to file charges in death of Dublin school board member
The Chronicle, LAUREN HERNANDEZ: "The Alameda County district attorney’s office has declined to file criminal charges against the motorist whose SUV fatally struck Catherine Kuo, a mother of two and a Dublin Unified School District trustee, district attorney’s officials said Tuesday.
Kuo, 48, was loading items onto a parked Tesla in March when she was struck by an SUV while volunteering at a food distribution event at Fallon Middle School in Dublin, Dublin police Capt. Nate Schmidt said in March. The person driving the SUV — whose name has not been released — was next in line at the food distribution event, Schmidt said at the time.
District attorney’s officials said Tuesday that “After a thorough review of all the facts and evidence,” they declined to file criminal charges in the fatal incident. Officials did not say when or how they came to that decision."
Bay Area home prices just hit a record high. Will the buying spree last?
The Chronicle, LAUREN HEPLER: "First it was a feared exodus from Bay Area cities fueling bidding wars in wine country and along the coast. Then it was a home buying boom in Oakland and surrounding suburbs. In recent months, home prices have soared again in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
Put all of that activity together, and is it any wonder the Bay Area’s median home price hit a record $1.3 million in April? The region’s eye-popping gains helped drive the entire state’s median home price above $800,000 for the first time ever, according to new data from the California Association of Realtors.
Among the counties in the region that saw sale prices jump the most between this April and last: Contra Costa, up 39% to a median $990,000; Napa, up 27% to $950,000; Alameda, up 26% to $1.3 million; and Santa Clara, up 19% to $1.7 million."
