California power grid officials issue Flex Alert for Wednesday amid heat wave
GREGORY YEE, LAT: "Amid a heat wave that could push temperatures to 110 degrees in some areas of California, power grid officials issued a statewide Flex Alert for Wednesday.
The alert, which is a call for voluntary electricity conservation, will be in effect from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., officials with the California Independent System Operator said Tuesday evening.
“With above-normal temperatures in the forecast across much of the state tomorrow, the power grid operator is expecting an increase in electricity demand, primarily from air conditioning use, and is calling for voluntary conservation steps to help balance supply and demand,” according to the grid operator’s statement."
California has been in a megadrought for more than a decade, scientists say. When it will end?
DALE KASLER, SacBee: "Once it was an almond orchard, planted at the beginning of a boom time in California agriculture. Now it’s just scattered clumps of dead limbs and branches, the remains of trees brought down by California’s drought. Zach Dennis ripped up 527 acres of almond trees in May, laying waste to a portion of his farm near Maxwell in the utterly parched west side of the Sacramento Valley.
He’s in the process of abandoning another 100-acre orchard, and wonders what new misery the drought will inflict.
“If this happens again next year, then what do we pull out?” Dennis said as he trudged through the remains of one of his orchards. “The hits just keep coming.”
San Diego avoids water cuts as federal deadline passes for deal on Colorado River
JOSHUA EMERSON SMITH, Union-Tribune: "San Diegans on Tuesday continued to avoid any immediate repercussions from the 22-year megadrought that has ravaged the Colorado River, threatening the water supply of 40 million people across the American West. The region gets more than half its water from the river through a 2003 deal with farmers in the Imperial Valley, which has so far proved a prescient, albeit costly maneuver.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had threatened this summer to impose mandatory cuts across the Southwest — potentially upending a century of water law on the river — if the seven basin states didn’t agree on a blueprint to reduce consumption by 2 million to 4 million acre feet by Aug. 16.
However, with still no plan in place on Tuesday, agency officials talked more about collaboration than such hard-nosed tactics, which would have almost certainly triggered one of the biggest legal battles in the nation’s history."
Ex-Congressman TJ Cox blames politics for federal charges. He plans ‘vigorous’ defense
BRIANNA VACCARI, Fresno Bee: "Upon his release from Fresno County Jail Tuesday evening, former Fresno Congressman Terrance John “TJ” Cox said he looks forward to defending himself against a slew of federal charges.
Earlier Tuesday, Cox, 59, appeared in U.S. District Court in Fresno facing 28 charges, including wire fraud, money laundering, financial institution fraud, and campaign contribution fraud.
“I was facing charges today. We pled not guilty and look forward to vigorously defending those allegations,” Cox said.
Big heat wave scorches S.F. Bay Area. Next up? Dry lightning
The Chronicle, MICHAEL CABANATUAN/EMILY TALLEY: "Triple-digit temperatures seared portions of the Bay Area Tuesday, with the heat hitting the interior portions of the East Bay and the Central Coast the hardest.
Livermore recorded 102 degrees Tuesday afternoon, according the National Weather Service.
Fairfield reached 105 degrees, and Vacaville hit 102 degrees. Closer to the coast, San Francisco was predicted to garner a mere 76 degrees Tuesday."
London Breed made $351,116 last year. Here’s how much money all other S.F. government employees make
The Chronicle, NAM SUMIDA: "The government of San Francisco employs tens of thousands of workers across its 50 city and county departments. Last year, full-time S.F. government employees made anywhere between $36,000 and $601,000, with the average at around $127,000, which includes overtime.
That’s according to data provided by the S.F. Controller’s Office on the amount paid to public employees each year. Using this data, The Chronicle analyzed the earnings of those who worked at least 2,080 hours during the 2020-2021 fiscal year — equivalent to a position working 40 hours or more per week between July 2020 and June 2021. This comes out to about 21,000 employees. Because we filtered on actual hours worked, our data does not include full-time workers who, for instance, were out on unpaid leave or started midway through the fiscal year.
The data includes the pay of top officials, like Mayor London Breed ($351,000), Police Chief Bill Scott ($344,000) and former District Attorney Chesa Boudin ($308,000). But it also has information on other public employees. Among them are office clerks, police officers, firefighters, nurses in the public health department and transit operators at the Municipal Transportation Agency. Job titles used in this article are those provided by the Controller’s Office.'"
These are the least affordable housing markets in California and the Bay Area
The Chronicle, KELLIE HWANG: "Homeownership in recent months grew even further out of reach financially for most people in the Bay Area and across California, a new report says.
Housing affordability declined in all nine Bay Area counties in the second quarter of 2022, according to the report from the California Association of Realtors. Statewide, it dipped to its lowest level in nearly 15 years."
S.F.’s largest tennis club was demolished with a replacement promised. Here’s why ex-members are now suing
The Chronicle, ROLAND LI: "For more than four decades, thousands of recreation enthusiasts flocked to San Francisco’s largest tennis club, spanning two dozen indoor and rooftop courts in the heart of South of Market.
Today, the block-long site at Fifth and Brannan streets is a barren, empty lot after the courts were demolished to make way for a huge, 1 million-square-foot planned office campus. A new underground tennis club was promised within the 88 Bluxome project, but it was derailed after the pandemic pushed anchor tenant Pinterest to cancel its lease, and construction never started.
Last month, a legal battle that dates back to 2015 was rekindled, as tennis and recreation advocates sued property owner and developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities, which first sought to remove the tennis courts from the plan and then considered selling the entire property."
