Opposition mounts against Newsom’s plan for court-ordered treatment of homeless people
LA Times, HANNAH WILEY: “Six weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a far-reaching effort to push more people into court-ordered treatment for severe mental illness and addiction, homeless advocates are calling it legally misguided and immoral as the proposal’s first public hearing at the state Capitol has been delayed.
More than three dozen organizations and individuals, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Disability Rights California and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, signed an April 12 opposition letter raising serious concerns with Assembly Bill 2830, one of two nearly identical measures moving through the Legislature to implement Newsom’s Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court. The groups often have significant sway among liberal legislative Democrats, the kind of influence that could hinder Newsom’s hopes for a new law to be in place by July 1.
Newsom touted the CARE Court framework last month as an innovative strategy to guide an estimated 7,000 to 12,000 people into housing and much-needed treatment. Under the proposal, family members, behavioral health care providers and first responders, among others, could petition a civil judge to initiate a CARE plan for eligible individuals who lack medical decision-making capacity.”
Voters will pick new Assembly member in race where housing has loomed large
The Chronicle, Dustin Gardiner: “Turnout in Tuesday’s special election to fill the open state Assembly seat in San Francisco is expected to be low, but don’t let that fool you: The runoff contest between David Campos and Matt Haney has been far from amicable.
More aptly, the contest between the two local heavyweights has been a slugfest. Campos and Haney have bitterly competed for support among progressive voters, as they routinely accused each other of deceptive campaign tactics and tried to claw out differences in their ultra-liberal records.
Whoever wins the election will represent the voters in Assembly District 17, on the city’s eastern side. The seat is open after David Chiu resigned last fall to become city attorney.”
Murderous brutality of Fresno’s 107 Hoover gang revealed in 82 pages of court documents
ROBERT RODRIGUEZ, Fresno Bee: “Forty-two suspected gang members and associates in 19 separate cases are expected to be arraigned Tuesday in Fresno County Superior Court as part of a multi-agency crackdown on criminal street gangs and human traffickers.
An 82-page criminal complaint filed by the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office on Monday details the brutal violence inflicted by members of the 107 Hoover gang.
During a two year period, from April 11, 2020 to April 11 2022, gang members and associates took part in a series of drive-by shootings and murders that had the city on edge with gun violence.”
Does it feel like everyone has COVID? Why some experts say S.F. is in a surge now even though cases are low
The Chronicle, SUSIE NEILSON: “Peter Chin-Hong doesn’t normally like relying on anecdotal evidence. But in the last few weeks, he said, it has become harder to ignore what feels like an undercounted COVID surge in San Francisco.
“There’s been so many people getting COVID,” Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF, told The Chronicle. “The amount of people and outbreaks I've been hearing about are not in sync with the official numbers.”
While San Francisco’s case counts are showing an increase as the omicron BA.2 subvariant spreads across the U.S., Chin-Hong said that he and other researchers do not believe current case rates reflect the scale of the increase, in part because fewer people are getting tested than before.”
S.F. Muni, Caltrain still requiring passengers to wear masks as Bay Area transit agencies relax mandates
The Chronicle, RICARDO CANO: “A patchwork of conflicting mask policies has emerged across the Bay Area’s airports and transit agencies after a Florida judge on Monday overturned the federal mask mandate for public transportation.
Airports and public transit were among the last places still affected by federal or local mask mandates, months after such requirements had been lifted in the Bay Area for grocery stores, restaurants and schools.
Transit agencies, in particular, are scrambling to decide whether to still enforce mask wearing on trains, buses and ferries. Several transit officials had described a fluid situation Tuesday morning with some agencies seeking input from public-health authorities on whether to keep their mask mandates.”
Opinion: Political leaders must lead fight against organized retail crime
Capitol Weekly, RACHEL MICHELIN/ROBERT APODACA: “It’s no secret that California is facing an epidemic of retail theft and crime.
We see the images on social media and on news sites. Brazen smash and grab thefts by large groups of individuals in malls and shopping centers throughout the state. Cargo trains that are broken into and ransacked, leaving behind empty packages that will never get delivered. What we don’t see is the organized criminal network that is behind the root of the problem.
Organized retail crime has a detrimental effect on our neighborhood stores and retailers. Oftentimes, stores find themselves the repeat victim of theft. Not only do the financial losses of stolen goods pile up, but they are often left with shattered windows and broken locks.”
How one California district invested its Covid funds in literacy, boosting student achievement — and morale
EdSource, CAROLYN JONES: “Alice Campbell is only 7 years old but already has definite opinions about books. Her favorite is “Cat in the Hat,” followed closely by “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” and “Fox in Socks.”
“I love reading and I’m very, very good at it,” she said during a recent break at her first grade classroom at Lockeford Elementary, amid the vineyards, almond orchards and horse ranches northeast of Lodi in the Central Valley. “It’s super-duper fun.
Alice is not an outlier. Thanks to federal Covid relief funds, she and many of her classmates are now participating in a reading program first introduced in the district in 2014.””
Angelenos are alarmed by air pollution and extreme heat. Poll finds they want action
LA Times, SAMMY ROTH: “Los Angeles voters are alarmed by deadly heat waves, destructive wildfires and dangerous air pollution — and they want politicians to take major steps to reduce the city’s reliance on fossil fuels and prepare for a hotter future.
Nearly two-thirds of L.A. voters say extreme heat poses a serious threat to their health and safety, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. Eight in 10 voters say the same about air pollution, which, like global warming, is caused largely by dirty fuels such as oil and natural gas.
Voters in America’s second-biggest city support action on air quality and the climate crisis, the poll found: Eighty-three percent said Los Angeles County should spend more money to add rail lines, and 60% said the city should convert more traffic lanes to bus only. Half said the City Council should ban gas heating systems and gas stoves in newly built homes, compared with 37% opposed.”
A gold rush in the deep sea raises questions about the authority charged with protecting it
LA Times, TODD WOODY/EVAN HALPER: “The startup’s pitch was simple and cinematic:
The mining company would send large robots to explore the bottom of the ocean and harvest minerals millions of years old that could be used to make electric car batteries.
A promotional video showed a machine gliding over the seabed and DeepGreen Metals company executives in deep contemplation along a dramatic shoreline. A big selling point at a time the company was courting investors, though, was the man shown walking on a massive ship and speaking of the need to mine the ocean floor: the secretary-general of the International Seabed Authority, the United Nations-affiliated organization responsible for regulating ocean mining companies and preserving the deep sea.”
Three current, former SFPD officers arrested for destroying evidence and possessing machine gun missing from evidence room
The Chronicle, MEGAN CASSIDY: “Two San Francisco police officers and one retired officer were arrested Tuesday in two separate incidents involving evidence, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
Retired San Francisco police officer Mark Williams was booked on charges of unlawful possession of a machine gun after allegedly being found with a firearm that was missing from evidence.
In a separate incident, Officers Kevin Lyons and Kevin Sien were accused of destroying or concealing evidence.”
Cases against LAPD officers accused of making false gang claims fall apart
LA Times, KEVIN RECTOR: “When Los Angeles police officers were accused two years ago of deliberately misidentifying people as gang members, the fallout was swift and sweeping.
Six officers were charged with crimes and police officials opened investigations into two dozen more, seriously tarnishing the reputation of the LAPD’s vaunted Metropolitan Division. Prosecutors also dismissed felony cases that had relied on testimony from the charged officers, while then-California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra barred police across the state from using any of the thousands of records LAPD officers had entered about alleged gang members in the CalGang database.
In the years since, however, the case has largely fallen apart.”
Looking back at the absolutely unexpected and totally wild origin of 420
LA Times, CHRISTIAN OROZCO: “What do the Point Reyes lighthouse, French chemist Louis Pasteur and the Grateful Dead all have in common? Well, they’re all part of the origin story of how 420 methodically worked its way from a secret code to mainstream weed lingo.
In 1971, five San Rafael High School students were tired of Friday night football games and searching for parties. The five students called themselves the “Waldos,” referencing the wall they would sit on at their school. The wall, located in the main courtyard in front of the cafeteria, was the perfect spot for the Waldos to work on impressions of their fellow classmates and teachers.
They began occupying their time with adventures called “safaris,” after Steve Capper took them to what is now Silicon Valley in search of a holographic city that he read about in Rolling Stone. Safaris were a way for the Waldos to challenge one another to come up with something out of the box to do. Most took place in the Bay Area, but sometimes they traveled farther afield in California. There were two rules to safaris: They had to go somewhere new, and participants had to be stoned.”
