Nearly 40% of California state workers are unvaccinated against COVID despite Newsom order
Sacramento Bee, WES VENTEICHER: "The COVID-19 vaccination rate is lower among California state workers than among the state’s general population, according to data from the state Human Resources Department.
Fewer than two-thirds of state workers — about 62% — were vaccinated as of Oct. 7, according to preliminary figures provided by department spokeswoman Camille Travis. That compares to a rate of about 72% among all Californians, according to state data.
The employee data is incomplete, accounting for about 213,000 of the state’s 238,000 employees, Travis said. But the relatively low rate identified so far suggests many workers weren’t moved by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s July orders to workers to get vaccinated or submit to regular testing."
How this year's historic fire season compares to others in destructiveness so far
The Chronicle, YOOHYUN JUNG: "The 2021 calendar year is already the second biggest year on record for wildfires in California. As of Oct. 6, nearly 2.5 million acres burned in more than 7,800 fires across the state this year, with new and old blazes powered by dangerous conditions still igniting and spreading, according to Cal Fire data.
But despite historically dry conditions, this year’s fire season hasn’t been quite as destructive as last year’s record-shattering season. In 2020, 4 million acres had burned in 8,700 fires by Oct. 6.
However, 2021’s edge over 2020 — at least so far — is hardly evidence of improving climate conditions. Both years far surpassed the average of 1.2 million acres burned in the previous five years."
Battle over California fire insurance policies intensifies
ADAM BEAM, AP: "Massive wildfires are making it harder for some California homeowners to get property insurance, pitting the state’s insurance commissioner against the industry in an escalating conflict that will likely stretch into 2022′s statewide elections.
Private insurance companies often won’t sell policies to people who live in wildfire-prone areas because the risk is too great. When this happens, state law requires these companies to pool their money to provide coverage for people who can’t buy policies because of where they live.
That pool — the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan — only sells fire insurance, often forcing homeowners to buy a separate policy for things like liability. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, a Democrat, has ordered the pool, also known as the FAIR Plan, to sell more than just fire insurance. He says this will save homeowners the money and hassle of having to buy multiple plan."
A son's troubles, financial desperation brought USC dean, Mark Ridley-Thomas together
LA Times, MATT HAMILTON and HARRIET RYAN: "They seemed to have little in common. Sebastian Ridley-Thomas was a 30-year-old assemblyman from South Los Angeles trying to find his way out of his father’s towering political shadow. Marilyn Flynn, a widow five decades his senior, was a University of Southern California dean with a national reputation for training social workers.
But four years ago, a shared desperation about money and careers drove the pair together and ultimately into what authorities alleged was a criminal conspiracy led by one of Southern California’s preeminent powerbrokers.
L.A. Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, then a county supervisor, steered government contracts worth millions to USC to help Flynn shore up her financially shaky social work school, according to the indictment unsealed this week."
Black Angelenos express mix of cynicism, disappointment after Ridley-Thomas indictment
DONOVAN X. RAMSEY, LA Times: "Michael and Corey Whitted’s juice stand sits on a busy strip of Crenshaw Boulevard directly across from L.A. Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas’ former campaign field office. A huge sign proclaiming his candidacy still looms over the block despite the office being closed.
Between serving customers Thursday, the father and son, who reside in View Park−Windsor Hills, traded thoughts on the still fresh news that Ridley-Thomas, one of the city’s best-known and longest-serving Black officials, had been indicted on federal bribery charges.
“Anytime a Black guy is a politician, as soon as he takes office, the FBI opens a file,” said Michael, the father."
New, unplanned blackouts aim to prevent California wildfires. But has PG&E 'gone too far'?
Sacramento Bee, DALE KASLER: "Under investigation for the second-largest wildfire in California history, PG&E Corp. has dialed up the circuit breakers on vast stretches of its grid, enabling automatic shutoffs the instant something goes awry.
The result: More than 400 blackouts since late July, many lasting several hours, triggering a new wave of anger among customers and elected officials as California’s largest utility labors to reduce the risk of big wildfires. An estimated 460,000 homes and businesses have been affected, including those that have been hit more than once, said PG&E spokeswoman Mayra Tostado.
This new generation of blackouts is separate from PG&E’s public safety power shutoffs, or PSPS, in which customers are usually given about two days’ notice as fierce winds are forecast and fire danger increases. The most recent PSPS blacked out 24,000 homes and businesses starting Monday, while another one was scheduled to begin Thursday affecting 29,000 customers."
Smoke from Alisal Fire will drift into Bay Area on Friday, bringing hazy skies
The Chronicle, LAUREN HERNANDEZ: "Smoke from the Alisal Fire blazing in Santa Barbara County is expected to drift into the Bay Area on Friday with the help of shifting winds, meteorologists said.
NOAA’s High-Resolution Rapid Refresh model, which forecasts smoke activity among other conditions, projects that smoke from the Southern California wildfire will shift northward first across the Central Coast and then the Bay Area on Friday, said Roger Gass, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office.
Most of the smoke is expected to stay aloft, or above the surface, which means Bay Area residents should expect to see hazy skies instead of “crystal clear skies,” Gass said. The Saint Lucia Mountains near the Big Sur Coast are expected to see the most impact from the smoke, Gass said."
California AG Bonta meets with Sacramento leaders to discuss hate crimes
Sacramento Bee, ROSALIO AHUMADA: "Rabbi Mona Alfi of Congregation B’nai Israel was alarmed after learning someone last week left a plastic bag with rice and a leaflet with a printed swastika and the phrase “Aryan Nation” at several homes and an elementary school in a Carmichael neighborhood.
The rabbi said that incident was traumatic for that neighborhood and the families of students at that school but, unfortunately, it was just one of several hate incidents she’s heard of in the past six to eight weeks.
“For any minority group that’s been the victim of hate crimes, when you see something like that it’s re-traumatizing and it’s terrifying,” Alfi told The Sacramento Bee. “For parents who have kids in that school, they were terrified. Because who is this person? Is it going to stop with the flyer?”"
Inmates are more vaccinated against COVID-19 than guards at nearly every California prison
The Chronicle, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA/SUSIE NEILSON: "A federal judge’s order that California prison guards must get vaccinated — without the option for frequent testing instead — faced two separate setbacks this week: Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a notice to appeal the order on Tuesday, and a judge in Kern County temporarily blocked its implementation Wednesday.
The order — which still allows for religious and medical exemptions — was set to go into effect this week. It comes after significant coronavirus outbreaks in prisons like the outbreak in San Quentin in 2020 following a botched transfer of inmates to the prison which led to the death of 28 inmates and one prison guard. There is also an ongoing outbreak at North Kern, which was linked to a staff member. There are now 35 active cases at the prison.
In total, nearly 51,000 incarcerated people have been infected in California and 240 have died."
New mask rules take effect Friday in SF and Marin. Here's what to knowThe Chronicle, GWENDOLYN WU: "A limited loosening of COVID-19 mask mandates goes into effect Friday in San Francisco and Marin County, with Contra Costa County joining them Nov. 1.
A wider lifting of mask restrictions in most Bay Area counties is further off — though Marin is on track to meet the required coronavirus benchmarks soonest.
Here’s what you need to know about what has changed in Bay Area mask mandates, and what changes are expected down the line."
Longtime SF housing activist is now facing his own eviction, despite city's moratorium
The Chronicle, J.K. DINEEN: "For three decades Fernando Marti has been among the progressive political activists demonstrating outside the homes of families facing evictions.
The sometimes raucous anti-eviction protests — often featuring Aztec dancers and burning white sage to chase away bad juju — are a staple of the city’s leftist political community.
They’re a way to shame landlords, expand movements, and build momentum for new laws and policies that protect tenants.
They were protesting at the displacement of artists during the live-work loft craze in the dot-com boom of the 1990s, and the rash of tenancy-in-common conversions of the early 2000s. There were protests against a 2013 eviction of the family of 80-year-old Poon Heung Lee at Jackson and Larkin streets, and a few years later to save the home of 100-year-old Iris Canada at Page and Steiner streets."
previous five years.
