As California drought retreats, threat of spring flooding rises
LA TIMES, HAYLEY SMITH: "Though California may be ending its winter with quenched reservoirs and near record snowpack, meteorologists are warning that the state will face increased flooding risk in the coming months as Sierra Nevada snowmelt fills rivers and streams.
On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s spring flood outlook reported that drought conditions will continue to improve in much of the state, but the potential for flooding will worsen in the face of heavy snowpack and elevated soil moisture.
“Approximately 44% of the U.S. is at risk for flooding this spring,” said Ed Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center. “California’s historic snowpack, coupled with spring rain, is heightening the potential for spring floods.”"
Drone photos show dramatic rise in California reservoir levels over three months
LA TIMES, TERRY CASTLEMAN: "Winter storms across California have significantly improved drought conditions and filled state reservoirs that had held less than a third of their capacity.
Drone photos from the California Department of Water Resources show just how big a difference a recent series of storms, brought on by 11 atmospheric rivers, has made.
The image below shows Lake Oroville in Butte County, California’s second-biggest reservoir. The first image was taken Dec. 21. The second image was taken Jan. 12, after several storms had begun to refill the reservoir. The last image was taken March 8 and shows a dramatic improvement in the water level."
Here’s when the next round of rain showers is forecast for the Bay Area
THE CHRONICLE, GERRY DIAZ: "Bay Area residents have been basking in the sun for the past couple days, enjoying a break from the storms that soaked Northern California, while traces of fog help cool off some of the hillsides near the coast. This sunshine is on its way out by the end of this weekend, but the Friday and Saturday chance for showers from the forecast earlier in the week has been downgraded to patchy drizzles and morning fog.
Starting Friday morning, there’s a good chance fog will envelop the coastline of Sonoma and Marin counties and parts of San Francisco Bay. By Saturday morning, that fog could make its way toward parts of Santa Rosa and raise a few drizzles. These drizzles will then evolve into light showers by Saturday afternoon and evening, and scatter out to the wider Bay Area Sunday morning, delaying some of the flood recovery efforts underway.
The stage is set for a gradual return of Northern California’s wet pattern."
In Pajaro Gov. Gavin Newsom said $42 million was available for flood relief. The real amount is just over $300,000
BANG*MERCURY NEWS, ALDO TOLEDO: "In his pledge to aid the hundreds of families who have been evacuated from the farm town of Pajaro in Monterey County after recent floods, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that $42 million would be made available to help those impacted by flooding through the United Way — but the aid organization said the correct amount currently available is just over $300,000.
United Way of Monterey County Director Katy Castagna said Gov. Newsom may have “conflated” the $42 million in the statewide United Ways of California COVID relief fund with the smaller, local allocation of $300,000 given to Monterey County out of that fund, inadvertently adding to the miscommunication and confusion many Pajaro residents are growing frustrated with.
Governor’s office spokesman Alex Stack said in a statement that “while in Pajaro, the Governor highlighted economic relief for farm and food workers that is being distributed in real-time to storm-impacted communities, raising awareness of the availability of this assistance regardless of immigration status. The administration is also pursuing additional supports for individuals recovering from January storms who are ineligible for FEMA assistance due to immigration status.”"
“When can we go home?” Pajaro residents agonize as key question remains unanswered
BANG*MERCURY NEWS, ALDO TOLEDO: "Behind barricades and under the watchful eyes of armed police officers, dozens of frustrated Pajaro families gathered on the Main Street bridge with one question on their minds: “When can we go home?”
Desperately trying to convince police officers to let them through to check on pets, grab important documents or simply to see if their homes were flooded, Pajaro residents are growing more and more frustrated as Monterey County officials continue to caution that a return home is not likely for another week, even as floodwaters have receded in the past few days.
With no access to homes or jobs and no idea when they’ll be able to start rebuilding, many of the Pajaro residents — who were forced to evacuate after a levee breached in the wee hours of the morning Saturday — are feeling left behind."
What will happen to vital San Jose rain data?
BANG*MERCURY NEWS: "San Jose is overhauling its suspect rain measurement system — but the mystery around the data it’s been collecting hasn’t evaporated just yet.
Officials at the National Weather Service said Thursday that they replaced a rain gauge at San Jose Mineta International Airport — the source of the city’s official precipitation data — that previously had been reporting what were believed to be grossly inaccurate numbers. The swap came after intense public criticism of the meager totals in a historically rainy year, the agency said, even though a fourth inspection of the device this year showed nothing wrong with the existing weather instrument.
“It was kind of like, so many questions have arisen, why not just put in a brand new rain gauge?” said NWS’s Science and Operations Officer Warren Blier."
Nearly 40,000 still without power in Bay Area; most schools reopen for in-person classes
BANG*MERCURY NEWS, AUSTIN TURNER: "Crews sent by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company continued working throughout the day Thursday to reduce the torrent of Bay Area power losses, caused by a howling windstorm earlier in the week that left the utility with its most outages in a single day since 1995.
The utility said it began the day with fewer than 100,000 Bay Area customers still without power after Tuesday’s storm; by the noon update, that number had been cut to 37,365. The powerful storm, with gusts up to 97 miles per hour, had knocked out electricity service to some 367,000 customers at its peak Tuesday, damaging at least 217 power poles and 157 transformers, according to the utility.
The majority of the customers without power as of noon Thursday were the 21,868 in the South Bay; another 10,768 were without service on the Peninsula and 4,495 in the East Bay. Most of the service restorations that could be noted Tuesday morning were in the East Bay and on the Peninsula."
After major San Clemente landslide, officials warn next storm could force more evacuations
LA TIMES, GRACE TOOHEY, GABRIEL SAN ROMAN: "CJ Smith had just taken a video of his rainy view along the San Clemente coast Wednesday morning when there was an ominous rumbling sound.
“I heard a noise and felt the building kind of shake a bit,” said Smith, 41. When he looked back outside his oceanfront apartment, the hillside behind a neighboring unit was gone.
“A bunch of dirt and everything just went down to the [beach] trail” that sits below the bluff, he said."
Yosemite will reopen to the public but with limited service and hours
THE CHRONICLE, JORDAN PARKER: "The closure of Yosemite is nearly over. The beloved national park will partially reopen to the public Saturday but with limited services, officials said.
The park, which has been closed since Feb. 25, will reopen daily from “sunrise to sunset” and the only access to the park will be via Highway 140 and El Portal Road. Park officials said if conditions permit, the park will return to its 24-hour schedule on March 20. Hetch Hetchy will reopen from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will only be accessible from Highway 120 west of Yosemite and Evergreen Road.
However, all other roads and areas of the park, including Big Oak Flat and Wawona Road will remain closed, the park said."
UC Board of Regents discuss UC investment, access to healthcare in second day of meetings
DAILY CALIFORNIAN, STAFF: "The UC Board of Regents reconvened Thursday to discuss UC Berkeley’s library closures, UC investment assets and access to healthcare.
The meetings began with a public comment period where students and faculty across all UC campuses highlighted concerns over access to affordable medicine, protections for trans and queer students and the expansion of climate protections policies for all UCs.
However, the most prominent voices during the public comment period came from students and faculty from UC Berkeley, urging the regents to take immediate action to prevent the closure of the George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library, which is slated to merge with the Main Gardner Stacks Library by January 2024."
How LAUSD is scrambling to prepare for a three-day strike affecting 420,000 children
LA TIMES, HOWARD BLUME, DAVID ZAHNISER: "A day after unions representing both teachers and support staff announced a three-day strike starting Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District was scrambling to prepare for the looming shutdown of 1,000 campuses — while at the same time, trying to prevent the massive walkout.
School work won’t be graded. Breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner for children from low-income families might be provided — from some place yet to be determined. Child care? That will be a challenge. Nonprofit groups throughout the city are hastily moving to help, but they won’t fill the gap.
“We’re trying to see if we can minimize the consequences of a three-day strike on people for whom schools provide food and child care in addition to education,” school board President Jackie Goldberg said. “We are not sure we will be able to do so. But we are not going to stop making efforts because we have four or five days to work on it.”"
LAUSD families prepare for school closings in possible strike but hope for contract
EDSOURCE, KATE SEQUEIRA: "Los Angeles Unified schools, parents and students are preparing for campus closures and a major disruption to learning during a threatened three-day strike next week by its service workers union. However, many are still hoping that a contract settlement will emerge from last-minute negotiations and the strike will be averted in the 422,000-student district.
SEIU Local 99, which represents nearly 30,000 custodians, special education aides and other essential workers across the district, said it will move forward with a work stoppage Tuesday through Thursday if the district and the union do not come to an agreement within the next few days over pay and working conditions. United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing another 35,000 teachers and other employees, is planning to join SEIU Local 99 on the picket line, closing schools for the nation’s second-largest school district.
In the meantime, families and school administrators are preparing for a major disruption to instruction. Parents worry about finding child care and activities for their youngsters and want a quick contract settlement."
West Contra Costa Unified school board rejects layoff proposal
EDSOURCE, ALI TADAYON: "After public outcry, West Contra Costa Unified’s school board rejected proposals to layoff or reduce hours for dozens of playground supervisors, instructional assistants, food service workers and other school staff Wednesday.
The board did, however, approve a different proposal which reduces hours for school counselors and cuts a handful of mostly part-time positions for instructional coaches and other specialists. By moving staff around to positions that are currently vacant, none of those employees will be laid off.
The proposals at Wednesday’s school board meeting were only the latest challenge in West Contra Costa Unified’s ongoing struggle to maintain a balanced budget while offering staff pay that keeps up with the Bay Area’s high cost of living. The district submitted a longer-term financial plan earlier this month to the Contra Costa County Office of Education that anticipates having to cut nearly $20 million from its budget for the 2024-25 school year in order to afford the raises negotiated with the United Teachers of Richmond teachers union for this year and next."
Why California taxpayers could get an unpleasant surprise if they file for this deduction
THE CHRONICLE, KATHLEEN PENDER: "As short-term interest rates soar and banking fears rise, more investors are stashing their cash in short-term Treasury securities, either directly or through government money market funds.
Last month, yields on six-month Treasury bills topped 5% for the first time in 16 years only before a burst of panic buying in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure pushed yields below that threshold this week.
In addition to being backed by the U.S. government, the interest on Treasury securities is exempt from state (but not federal) income taxes. That’s a nice perk in California, where the top tax rate is 13.3%, highest in the nation."
S.F.’s First Republic receives $30 billion lifeline from nation’s largest banks
THE CHRONICLE, CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: "As San Francisco’s First Republic bank has seen its share price fall and credit downgraded, some of the nation’s largest banks deposited $30 billion into the bank amid concerns depositors would continue withdrawing money from the banks en masse.
In a statement, 11 banks said they would make uninsured deposits worth $30 billion into First Republic Bank to shore it up. The deposits came from Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BNY Mellon, PNC Bank, State Street, Truist and U.S. Bank.
“The actions of America’s largest banks reflect their confidence in the country’s banking system. Together, we are deploying our financial strength and liquidity into the larger system, where it is needed the most,” the statement from the group of banks said."
How first hearing on S.F. reparations proposal to pay some Black residents $5 million went
THE CHRONICLE, JD MORRIS: "San Francisco legislators have shown broad support for a draft plan to provide reparations to the city’s Black community, but they have not yet decided the fate of the most ambitious recommendation: $5 million lump-sum payments to an unknown number of eligible recipients.
After a lengthy hearing Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors unanimously accepted the wide-ranging draft reparations plan crafted by a committee tasked with proposing steps the city can take to remedy harms that Black residents endured over generations because of systemic racism and the legacy of slavery.
Yet supervisors did not not decide whether or when to act on any of the individual actions recommended in the plan. The board won’t decide on any specific reparations proposals, including potential cash payments, until after the committee submits its final report in June. Another hearing is planned for Sept. 19."
Newsom wants to reimagine San Quentin State Prison, will move Death Row inmates out
THE CHRONICLE, DUSTIN GARDINER, BOB EGELKO: "As the oldest correctional facility in the state, San Quentin State Prison has long had an outsize place in the way Californians and their leaders think about justice issues. The facility is home to the nation’s largest Death Row and has housed some of the state’s most well-known prisoners like Charles Manson.
So it’s little surprise that Gov. Gavin Newsom has chosen the prison as a symbolic backdrop for perhaps the most sweeping progressive criminal-justice reform proposal of his administration.
Newsom’s office announced Thursday that he plans to transform San Quentin from a maximum-security prison into a rehabilitation and education facility that will focus on preparing inmates for their transition back into civilian life."
Newsom vowed to pardon LGBTQ Californians. Only one living person has benefited
THE CHRONICLE, MACKENZIE MAYS: "Three years after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an initiative to pardon LGBTQ Californians who were prosecuted for being gay, only one living person has benefited from the program.
The governor launched the LGBTQ California Clemency Initiative in February 2020 and vowed to eradicate “historic homophobia” in the criminal justice system by offering pardons to people “subjected to discriminatory arrest and prosecution.” The program focuses on charges such as vagrancy, loitering and sodomy that were used to target LGBTQ people and may remain on their criminal records decades later.
But besides a posthumous pardon announced with its launch of renowned civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who died in 1987, only one other person has benefited so far. Henry Pachnowski, an 83-year-old man living in Maryland, was pardoned last year for a lewd conduct charge for participating in consensual sexual activity with another man in Orange County in 1967."
'No concern for safety': Deaths, allegations of abuse, controversy at Santa Rita Jail provoke community outrage
DAILY CAL, CAROLYN YU: "Candice “Cody” Vanburen, 33, was pronounced dead March 1, at Santa Rita Jail.
According to a joint March 6 press release from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Oakland Rising, Urban Peace Movement, Human Impact Partners, Anti Police-Terror Project, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice and TGI Justice Project, Vanburen’s death marks the fourth person to die in custody of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, or ACSO, in the last six weeks.
The other deceased included Elizabeth Laurel, pronounced dead Feb. 13, Charles Johnson, pronounced dead Feb. 4 and Stephen Lofton, pronounced dead Jan. 17."
#CAHOUSING: Affordable Housing
CAPITOL WEEKLY, STAFF: "CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at Capitol Weekly’s Conference on Housing, which was held in Sacramento at the California Endowment Conference Center on Thursday, March 9, 2023.
This is Panel 2: Affordable Housing
Speakers: Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, Mayor of Alameda; Peter Cohen, Sacramento Housing Alliance; Chione Lucina Muñoz Flegal, Housing California; Mark Stivers, California Housing Partnership"
Gavin Newsom announces 1,200 new tiny homes, 15% homeless reduction target
THE CHRONICLE, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to install 1,200 tiny homes throughout the state and plans to reduce homelessness by 15% at an event in Sacramento on Thursday.
The tiny homes will be placed in four cities starting in the fall. They will be used to house people who have been living in homeless encampments, according to Newsom’s office. The California National Guard will help cities place the homes, and local governments will operate them once they are installed.
Two hundred will go to San Jose, 500 to Los Angeles, 350 to Sacramento and 150 to San Diego County. Newsom said the state plans to spend about $30 million on the tiny homes."
Newsom says the state is on track to cut unsheltered homelessness by 15%
LA TIMES, HANNAH WILEY, TARYN LUNA: "After criticizing local officials for failing to adequately address the pernicious problem of homelessness in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced that the state is on track to cut the number of unsheltered people by an ambitious 15% in two years and vowed to provide 1,200 tiny homes to help achieve that goal.
The announcement kicked off Newsom’s atypical State of the State tour around California, which replaces a speech outlining his political agenda that governors traditionally deliver annually to the state Legislature at the Capitol. Newsom, who dislikes reading off teleprompters because of his dyslexia, is instead taking his speech on the road this year and intends to make policy announcements at stops in Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego through the weekend.
Three years ago and weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic forced a state of emergency, Newsom dedicated his entire address to homelessness and his commitment to ending it. Newsom called the crisis a disgrace to California and said it was his “calling” to alleviate that human misery."
State appeal ruling on Berkeley rent control draws celebration, criticism
DAILY CALIFORNIAN, MAYA JIMENEZ: "A state appeals court ruled Monday that Berkeley will be able to subject a property which the owner had bought in order to repair into new housing to rent control, as first reported by the SF Chronicle.
The case arose from the Costa-Hawkins Act of 1996, which prohibited local jurisdictions like Berkeley from placing rent control on properties such as single-family homes, condos and new construction.
The property, a previous housing unit which had fallen into disarray, had been turned into new housing which was then applicable to rent control under the act’s definition. The plaintiff had argued the rehabilitation of the unusable housing was to be considered new construction under the act."
Mayor Karen Bass says the city will house 4,000 homeless people during her first 100 days
LA TIMES, DAVID ZAHNISER: "Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Wednesday that she expects the city will have housed more than 4,000 homeless Angelenos by the time she reaches her 100th day in office.
Bass, appearing with her team at a City Hall discussion on homelessness, said she expects about 1,000 of those people will come from her Inside Safe program, which has been taking unhoused people off the streets and checking them into city-leased hotels and motels. Of the remaining 3,000, the vast majority are benefiting from housing programs put into motion before Bass took office, her team said.
The mayor reaches her 100th day on Tuesday."
Epic battle over a Bay Area housing project lasted 12 years. Now, it’s finally getting built
THE CHRONICLE, DANIELLE ECHEERRIA: "After a 12-year battle, the California Supreme Court declined this week to hear an appeal from a neighborhood group attempting to stop the development of a 315-unit apartment building in Lafayette, clearing the project’s last hurdle and allowing it to move forward.
The project, known as the Terraces of Lafayette, became the poster child of the Bay Area housing wars as it faced two lawsuits, a ballot referendum and over 100 public hearings that delayed the project for more than a decade after its initial application was approved by the city.
But now, with the court’s decision Wednesday, the project’s developers, O’Brien Land Co., said that they intend to see their building plans through."
A homeless housing nonprofit’s buildings are in shambles. City plans intervention.
LA TIMES, DOUG SMITH: "The degraded state of the Sanborn Hotel Apartments is apparent from the sidewalk. Holes have been smashed in the wire-reinforced windows of its front doors. And one of the latches doesn’t work, leaving the building open to intruders, who roam the halls at night turning doorknobs, trying to get into open apartments.
Inside, a rancid smell permeates the hallways, begging for Lysol. The manager’s office is dark and empty, as residents say it has been since the latest occupant left last summer. In bathroom No. 2 on the second floor there is no water in the toilet but plenty of human waste.
The Sanborn is one of the 29 buildings owned by Skid Row Housing Trust, a nonprofit that has for more than 30 years been a paragon of homeless housing. But the very model that helped it revive some of downtown’s oldest hotels is now bringing it down."
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