More than 500 Bay Area Chevron workers go on strike, saying they need raises due to extremely high cost of living
JESSICA FLORES and MICHAEL CABANATUAN, Chronicle: “More than 500 workers at the Chevron refinery in Richmond went on strike Monday after their union rejected a recent company contract proposal and demanding a “Bay Area pay bump,” union officials said.
Several dozen workers, waving picket signs reading “Strike Against Chevron” stood in front of entrances to the company’s offices on Chevron Way and to gates to the sprawling refinery along Castro Street. Passing motorists — especially big-rig drivers — blasted their horns in support as they sat in traffic waiting to get onto Interstate 580 and the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
“We’re out here because Chevron has refused to bargain earnestly and instead gave us an offer with little chance of getting ratified for a contract,” said B.K. White, an operator at the Richmond refinery and spokesman for United Steelworkers Local 5.”
Southern California grocery workers prepare for a strike: ‘We’ve walked through hell’
LA Times, MARGOT ROOSEVELT: “Grocery workers across Southern California began voting Monday to authorize a strike against Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons and Pavilions in an effort to pressure the companies to raise wages.
More than 47,000 workers at 500 stores are eligible to vote over five days, with the result expected to be announced Sunday.
A three-year contract between the United Food and Commercial Workers and Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs, and Albertsons, which owns Vons and Pavilions, expired March 6.”
Davis voters to decide whether city will grow with research hub and new housing
ALEXANDRA YOON-HENDRICKS, SacBee: “A proposal for a scaled-down version of an east Davis research hub and housing project that voters rejected in 2020 will again appear on ballots this June.
Measure H would change the land-use designation of agricultural land in east Davis near Mace Boulevard and Interstate 80.
That would allow for the land’s annexation into the city, and pave the way for the construction of a 102-acre “mixed-use innovation center” that would includes labs and research space, offices, retail and hundreds of units of housing, according to city staff reports.”
Why California hunters are fighting a bill that would make it easier to kill wild hogs
RYAN SABALOW, SacBee: “A bill making its way through the California Legislature would make it easier for landowners and hunters to kill wild pigs doing damage to agricultural lands.
Yet hunting associations are lining up to fight Senate Bill 856, authored by Napa’s Democratic state senator, Bill Dodd.
The bill encapsulates the longstanding contradictions in how California manages the destructive feral pigs that have invaded 56 of California’s 58 counties.”
COVID’s severe risk to pregnant women is real, a large Kaiser study in California shows
The Chronicle, NANETTE ASIMOV: “Unvaccinated pregnant women infected with the coronavirus have more than twice the risk of having dangerous sepsis or other severe medical problems, than those who don’t have the virus, according to a study of thousands of Northern California women published Monday.
The analysis of 43,886 women who gave birth at Kaiser Permanente Northern California between March 1, 2020, and March 16, 2021 — before coronavirus vaccines were widely available — revealed that babies born to mothers who contracted COVID were also more likely to be born prematurely, placing them at greater risk for brain and heart problems.”
READ MORE NEWS RELATED TO COVID-19: Will BA.2 cause another COVID surge in the U.S.? Here's what Dr. Fauci said – The Chronicle, KELLIE HWANG; China is seeing its worst COVID outbreak of the pandemic. Should California be worried? – The Chronicle, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA
Yosemite worker dies after being forced to leave her longtime home outside the park
CARMEN KOHLRUSS, SacBee: “A moment of silence for Toni Covington grew increasingly heavy as a group of her longtime neighbors huddled together at a now-closed mobile home park where they had lived days prior near Yosemite National Park.
Covington was found dead Thursday afternoon in a rented employee dorm in Yosemite Valley, just a few days after she moved in there.
She was forced to leave the home she owned in the El Portal Trailer Park last week without compensation. Covington lived in the mobile home park for over 30 years throughout a 41-year Yosemite career.”
Capitol Weekly Podcast: Save the Capitol Annex -- or not?
CW Staff: “Lobbyist, professor and author Chris Micheli has published SEVEN books during the Pandemic. He checked in with the Capitol Weekly Podcast to talk with us about his two latest case books, and gave us a rundown on lobbying during the current phase of the pandemic as the capitol annex offices are relocated.
He also answered our questions about the ongoing legal battle over the capitol annex project and imminent destruction of the 1952 annex on the East side of the capitol building. Is this a done deal or do activists still have a chance to stop the bulldozers?
Plus, we tell you who had the Worst Week in California Politics.”
Midtown Sacramento’s biggest apartment building planned for this prominent intersection
RYAN LILLIS, SacBee: ‘A Sacramento developer has proposed building a 296-unit apartment building at the corner of 21st and K streets in midtown, a project that would likely be the neighborhood’s largest residential complex.
The eight-story building is the work of D&S Development, the firm behind several high-profile central city projects, including a luxury apartment building at 15th and Q streets and the redeveloped 700 block of K Street.
A company representative did not return an email seeking comment. According to a planning application filed with the city of Sacramento, the new building - called K21 - will replace a 1950s-era office building and parking lot at 21st and K streets. It’s one block away from the popular Lavender Heights and 20th Street entertainment district.”
Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Jackson vows to defend the Constitution and equal justice under law
LATimes, DAVID G SAVAGE/NOLAN D MCCASKILL: “Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s historic nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, promised Monday that if confirmed, she would seek to make the words “equal justice under law” a reality for all Americans.
She called herself an independent jurist who follows the law and pledged to “defend the Constitution and the grand experiment of American democracy that has endured over these past 246 years.””
“Backed by her family and a roomful of supporters, she spoke at the end of the first day of her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose Democrats said they were filled with hope by the nomination of the first Black woman for the post of Supreme Court justice.”
State and local governments can ban flavored tobacco products, court rules
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: “State and local governments can ban the sales of flavored tobacco products to protect young people from becoming addicted, a federal appeals court has ruled, rejecting tobacco companies’ arguments in a case from Los Angeles County.
In a 2-1 ruling Friday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a 2009 federal law regulating tobacco products does not prevent states, counties and cities from going further and prohibiting the sale of flavored cigarettes and other tobacco products. The ruling upheld Los Angeles County’s 2019 ban on all such products and would also apply to similar measures approved by San Francisco voters in 2018 and by the Berkeley City Council in 2019. Oakland outlawed flavored tobacco products in 2018 but exempted sales at adults-only tobacco shops;
California lawmakers approved a measure in 2020 to prohibit marketing of most flavored tobacco products, exempting sales of pipe tobacco and premium cigars, and exempting sales of hookah tobacco to those 21 and older. But industry groups collected enough signatures to qualify a referendum for the ballot and put the state law on hold until voters consider it this November.”
Biden warns US companies of potential Russian cyberattacks
AP, ALAN SUDERMAN: “President Joe Biden on Monday urged U.S. companies to make sure their digital doors are locked tight because of “evolving intelligence” that Russia is considering launching cyberattacks against critical infrastructure targets as the war in Ukraine continues.
Addressing corporate CEOs at their quarterly meeting, Biden told the business leaders they have a “patriotic obligation” to harden their systems against such attacks. He said federal assistance is available, should they want it, but that the decision is theirs alone.”
READ MORE NEWS RELATED TO THE ILLEGAL OCCUPATION OF UKRAINE: As Mariupol hangs on, the extent of the horror not yet known – AP, CARA ANNA
Proposal would force S.F. to provide shelter to all homeless people. Could it get more folks off the streets?
The Chronicle, MALLORY MOENCH: “On any given night, thousands of people sleep on San Francisco’s streets, according to the last estimate, and a revamped proposal would require the city to offer a place to sleep to all of them.
First proposed in 2020, the revised legislation will be introduced Tuesday by Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, and already has the backing of three colleagues, including Matt Haney, who was critical of the earlier proposal. It would need six votes to pass. Haney and others criticized the kind of shelter that would have been offered under last year’s plan, primarily tent villages. The revised legislation calls for more shelter options.”
“Supervisors backing the proposal expressed frustration that San Francisco, one of the wealthiest cities in the country, lets people deteriorate in street encampments instead of creating enough safe, temporary shelter while also working on permanent housing”
Investor home buying in the Bay Area is not at a record high — but it’s rapidly growing in these ZIP codes
The Chronicle, LAUREN HEPLER/SUSIE NEILSON: “When Kimberly Macias and her parents moved to the Central Coast farm town of Hollister in 1991, the big attraction in town was a new Target store.
The San Benito County city of around 42,000 people had been transformed into a new frontier for Silicon Valley commuters by the time Macias, a local real estate agent, was fielding 22 offers on a single house during the pandemic. On top of its old standbys, like producing olive oil, walnuts and apricots, Hollister is now home to an Amazon delivery station, a downtown craft beer taproom and an ever-increasing number of transplants looking for big houses on roomy lots.
“Hollister is really the up-and-coming place,” Macias, an associate with RE/MAX Gold, said of the recent real estate boom. “Ninety-nine percent of the buyers I’ve worked with have come from the Bay Area.”
