EAST BAY REGIONAL PARK DISTRICT BOARD LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE Friday, June 26 2020 12:30 p.m.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND STAFF WILL ATTEND VIA TELECONFERENCE

Pursuant to Governor Newsom’s Executive Order No. N-29-20 and the Alameda County Health Officer’s current Shelter in Place Order, effective March 31, 2020, the East Bay Regional Park District (“Park District”) Headquarters will not be open to the public and the Board Legislative Committee and staff will be participating in the meetings via phone/video conferencing.

Members of the public can listen to the meeting in the following way: Via the Park District’s live audio stream, on the Park District’s YouTube channel, which can be found at: https://youtu.be/L-bfOWmozjA

Public comments may be submitted one of two ways: 1. Via email to [email protected] , Email must contain in the subject line public comments – not on the agenda or public comments – agenda item #. 2. Via voicemail at 510-544-2002. The caller must start the message by stating public comments – not on the agenda or public comments – agenda item# followed by their name and place of residence, followed by their comments.

Comments received during the meeting and up until the public comment period on the relevant agenda item is closed, will be provided in writing to the Board Legislative Committee, included transcribed voicemails. All comments received by the close of the public comment period will be available after the meeting as supplemental materials and will become part of the official meeting record. However, to ensure that the Board Members will be able to review your comments prior to the close of the meeting, please submit your public comment by no later than 4pm on Thursday, July 16, 2020. Please try to limit your written comments to no more than 300 words. The Park District cannot guarantee that its network and/or the site will be uninterrupted. To ensure that the Park District receives your comments, you are strongly encouraged to submit your comments in writing in advance of the meeting.

For future meetings, the Park District is exploring additional ways for the public to submit comments.

If you have any questions about utilizing the audio stream, please contact the Recording Secretary of the Committee, Yulie Padmore at [email protected] or at 510-544-2002. To ensure the best opportunity for Park District staff to address your question, please contact the Recording Secretary prior to 4:00pm on Thursday, July 16, 2020.

The following agenda items are listed for Committee consideration. In accordance with the Board Operating Guidelines, no official action of the Board will be taken at this meeting; rather, the Committee’s purpose shall be to review the listed items and to consider developing recommendations to the Board of Directors.

A copy of the background materials concerning these agenda items, including any material that may have been submitted less than 72 hours before the meeting, is available for inspection on the District’s website (www. ebparks.org), the Headquarters reception desk, and at the meeting.

Accommodations and Access District facilities and meetings comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. If special accommodations are needed for you to participate, please contact the Clerk of the Board at 510-544-2020 as soon as possible, but preferably at least three working days prior to the meeting.

AGENDA

TIME ITEM STATUS STAFF

12:30 I. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR SUPPORT R Doyle/Pfuehler 1. AB 2076 (Bigelow R-O'Neals) – State Parks Wildfire Prevention Strategy 2. AB 2519 (Wood D-Santa Rosa) – Advance Grant Payments for Conservation Projects 3. AB 3074 (Friedman D-Glendale) – Wildfire Ember Resistant Zones 4. AB 3164 (Friedman D-Glendale) – Wildland Urban Interface Wildfire Risk Model

B. NEW LEGISLATION – RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR WATCH R Doyle/Pfuehler 1. SB 1300 (Skinner D-Berkeley) – Hercules Redevelopment Agency Dissolution Finding of Completion 2. SB 1431 (Glazer D-Orinida) – Property Tax Reassessment Due to Covid-19

C. OTHER STATE MATTERS R Doyle/Pfuehler 1. June 15, 2020 State Budget 2. Climate – Jobs Bond 3. Spilt Roll Ballot Initiative 4. Other Matters

II. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS R Doyle/Pfuehler A. NEW LEGISLATION – RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR SUPPORT 1. H.R. 2199 (Carbajal D-CA) – Central Coast Heritage Protection Act 2. H.R. 2215 (Chu D-CA) – San Gabriel Mountains Foothills and Rivers Protection Act 3. H.R. 6546 (Neguse D-CO) – Wildfire and Community Health Response Act of 2020 4. H.R. 7073 (Garamendi D-CA) – Special Districts Qualifying for Coronavirus Relief Fund 5. H.R. 7095 (DeFazio D-OR) – INVEST in America Act 6. S.3624 (Coons D-DE) and H.R. 6702 (Price D-NC) – Pandemic Response and Opportunity Through National Service Act 7. S. 3684 (Wyden D-OR) – 21st Century Conservation Corps for Our Health and Our Jobs Act

B. OTHER FEDERAL MATTERS I Doyle/Pfuehler 1. Federal Response to Covid-19 2. Land and Water Conservation Fund / Great America Outdoors Act 3. Other Matters

III. IMPACTS OF THE CORONAVIRUS ON EAST BAY PARK USERS I Pfuehler/Baldinger AND INFORMATION ANALYTICS

IV. ARTICLES & OTHER MEDIA

V. OPEN FORUM PUBLIC COMMENT Individuals wishing to address the Committee on a topic not on the agenda may do so by completing a speaker’s form and submitting it to the recording secretary.

VI. BOARD COMMENTS

(R) Recommendation for Future Board Consideration Future Meetings: (I) Information January 17 July 17 (D) Discussion February – NO MTG August 21 March 27 September – NO MTG Legislative Committee Members April 24 (Rescheduled) October 16 Dennis Waespi (Chair); Beverly Lane, Elizabeth Echols May 22 (Rescheduled) November – NO MTG Ellen Corbett, Alternate June 26 (Added) *December 11 Erich Pfuehler, Government Affairs Manager

TO: Board Legislative Committee (Chair Dennis Waespi, Beverly Lane, Elizabeth Echols, alt. Ellen Corbett)

FROM: Robert E. Doyle, General Manager Erich Pfuehler, Government Affairs Manager

SUBJECT: Board Legislative Committee Meeting WHEN: Friday, June 26, 2020 12:30 PM

WHERE: Members of the public can listen to the meeting in the following way: Via the Park District’s live audio stream, on the Park District’s YouTube channel, which can be found at: https://youtu.be/L-bfOWmozjA

Items to be discussed:

I. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR SUPPORT 1. AB 2076 (Bigelow R-O'Neals) – State Parks Wildfire Prevention Strategy This bill would require the Director of Parks and Recreation to develop and implement a wildfire prevention strategy for all property partially or wholly under the jurisdiction of the Department located within a high or a very high fire hazard severity zone. The bill would require the wildfire prevention strategy to outline the Department’s fire prevention goals and future projects for prescribed fire, defensible space and fire resilient restoration projects. It also requires the fire hardening of the Department’s structures. This would likely apply to Del Valle Regional Park, Mount Diabo State Park and Marsh Creek State Park.

2. AB 2519 (Wood D-Santa Rosa) – Advance Grant Payments for Conservation Projects This bill would require the Resources Agency, State Coastal Conservancy, Department of Water Resources and Water Resources Control Board to provide an advance payment of up to 25 percent of a total grant award if requested by a grant recipient. The intent of the bill is to help small and lower income communities who may not be able to cover the upfront costs needed to get a project off the ground. The District, however, could also request advance payments if it were deemed helpful.

3. AB 3074 (Friedman D-Glendale) – Wildfire Ember Resistant Zones This bill would strengthen California’s defensible space laws which currently require a person who owns, leases, controls, operates or maintains an occupied dwelling or structure in a very high fire hazard severity zone to maintain a defensible space of 100 feet. Assembly Member Friedman’s bill would require a person described as above to establish a five-foot “ember-resistant zone” around homes in high fire risk areas. During wildfires, most homes are destroyed by embers which can travel miles ahead of the flames and ignite flammable objects on or near a home.

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4. AB 3164 (Friedman D-Glendale) – Wildland Urban Interface Wildfire Risk Model This bill would require CAL FIRE, in consultation with an advisory workgroup, to develop a wildfire risk model to identify areas with the highest risk to property and health. This would help communities prioritize the use of wildfire hazard mitigation funds. The bill would require CAL FIRE to update the model and guidelines when fire hazard severity zones are revised.

B. NEW LEGISLATION – RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR WATCH 1. SB 1300 (Skinner D-Berkeley) – Hercules Redevelopment Agency Dissolution Finding of Completion This bill would allow the successor agency from the Hercules Redevelopment Agency (RDA) to re-finance its payments. In order to do so, the finding of completion for the RDA would need to be modified. That requires a special bill for the City of Hercules. The California Special Districts Association opposes this legislation because of the precedent it would set.

2. SB 1431 (Glazer D-Orinida) – Property Tax Reassessment Due to Covid-19 This bill proclaims the coronavirus pandemic is a disaster worthy of quick property tax relief, similar to wildfire or earthquake emergencies. The bill would provide building owners a disaster reassessment to help make up for pandemic-induced lost revenue.

C. OTHER STATE MATTERS 1. June 15, 2020 State Budget On June 15, 2020, the Legislature passed a “stopgap” budget to meet the constitutional deadline. A “deal” with Governor Newsom was reached on Monday, June 22, 2020. The deal avoids/delays the steep cuts to education and safety net programs in the Governor’s May revise. It does make reductions to other services and state worker pay unless additional funding from the Federal government becomes available. The Governor is looking to save about $3 billion, or 10%, in state employee compensation. The budget provides him the authority to freeze pay raises and impose furloughs on bargaining units which do not negotiate an alternative with the state by July 1, 2020. As of this writing, it appears the Habitat Conservation Fund and funding for nature education were retained, the proposed $30 million cuts to State Parks and the Fish and Wildlife Service were rejected, and member requests were intact. Given the June 22, 2020, budget deal still assumes additional Federal funding and tax receipts will be delayed, it is likely the Governor and Legislature will revisit the budget deal in August or this fall. If the Federal money does not materialize, lawmakers want to dip further in the state’s reserve accounts and defer some payments into future years to avoid most of the cuts altogether. The General Manager, Advocate Houston and Government Affairs staff will provide a verbal update.

2. Climate – Jobs Bond There continue to be ongoing conversations between the Speaker, Pro Tempore and supportive Legislators, including the bond authors Assembly Member Garcia and Senator Allen. AB 3256 will be held in Rules Committee. Attention is shifting to a broader economic recovery effort that may be considered after the July district work period. Elements of AB 3256 could be included in other potential investment packages the state is considering. Assembly Member Mullin is still advocating for Bay Area funding and policy

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needs. Although Assembly Member Garcia was responsive to Assembly Member Mullin’s suggested amendments to AB 3256, initially provided by the TOGETHER Bay Area Policy Committee, other Legislators have yet to support Bay Area-specific allocations.

3. Spilt Roll Ballot Initiative The qualified ballot initiative would amend the state constitution to require commercial and industrial properties, except those zoned as commercial agriculture, to be taxed based on their market value. The proposal to assess taxes on commercial and industrial properties at market value, while continuing to assess taxes on residential properties based on purchase price, is known as split roll. Residential market values in California tend to increase faster than two percent per year, meaning the taxable value of commercial and industrial properties is often lower than the market value.

The ballot initiative would create a process in the state constitution for distributing revenue from the revised tax on commercial and industrial properties. The revenue would be distributed to (a) the state to supplement decreases in revenue from the state's overall tax collection due to increased tax deductions and (b) counties to cover the costs of implementing the measure. 60 percent of the remaining funds would be distributed to local governments and special districts. 40 percent of the remaining funds would be distributed to school districts and community colleges (via a new Local School and Community College Property Tax Fund). If adopted by the voters, it could contribute up to $20 milllion to the District’s General Fund.

4. Other Matters

II. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION - RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR SUPPORT 1. H.R. 2199 (Carbajal D-CA) – Central Coast Heritage Protection Act This bill seeks to designate nearly 250,000 acres of land within Los Padres National Forest and Carrizo Plain National Monument as protected wilderness areas. The bill also creates a 400-mile long Condor National Recreation trail stretching from Los Angeles to Monterey County. The Los Padres National Forest provides habitat for around 468 species of unique wildlife, while the Carrizo Plain National Monument contains one of the highest concentrations of protected species in the continental U.S. Under the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act, these lands will receive wilderness designation – one of the highest forms of government protection for public lands. This language is included in Senator Kamala Harris’ bill, S. 3288 (Harris D-CA) – Protecting Unique and Beautiful Landscapes by Investing in California (PUBLIC) Lands Act – which the Board previously voted to support.

2. H.R. 2215 (Chu D-CA) – San Gabriel Mountains Foothills and Rivers Protection Act This bill would expand the San Gabriel Mountain National Monument to include portions of the Angeles National Forest, establish a new National Recreation Area, and designate 30,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountains area as wilderness and 45.5 miles of river as Wild and Scenic. This language is included in Senator Kamala Harris’ bill, S. 3288 (Harris D-CA) – Protecting Unique and Beautiful Landscapes by Investing in California (PUBLIC) Lands Act – which the Board previously voted to support

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3. H.R. 6546 (Neguse D-CO) – Wildfire and Community Health Response Act of 2020 This bill requires the Departments of Agriculture and Interior to submit a report to Congress about their efforts to mitigate wildfire risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, including activities to minimize the impact of wildfires on the respiratory health of communities. The report must identify methods for vegetation management. It must also identify how the Departments are working to slow the spread of COVID-19 between firefighters and emergency response teams. The report will include the recommendations of the Departments with respect to the Federal support necessary to carry out these activities.

4. H.R. 7073 (Garamendi D-CA) – Special Districts Qualifying for Coronavirus Relief Fund This legislation would ensure special districts are eligible for direct Federal local assistance funding from future coronavirus relief funds. This would not apply retroactively to the local assistance funding provided under the CARES Act in March. The CARES Act was silent about special districts, but did have a 500,000 population minimum. The District serves a population of 2.7 million and asserted it qualified. Rep. Garamendi’s legislation would ensure that the 2,700 special districts in California and 30,000 special districts nationwide are eligible for any additional Federal assistance provided by Congress to state, county and local governments to aid in the fight against COVID-19. East Bay Representatives Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee, Jerry McNerney and Mike Thompson were all original cosponsors.

5. H.R. 7095 (DeFazio D-OR) – INVEST in America Act The Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America (INVEST in America) Act is a broad reauthorization of the Federal transportation bill which typically occurs every five years. The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015 was the last reauthorization. FAST linked the recreational trail, active transportation, safe routes to school and transportation enhancement programs. It expires September 30th. H.R. 7095 would increase the amount of dedicated funding for trails and active transportation – increasing the amount of funding by 75% for two programs which together comprise the largest sources of Federal funding for trails and active transportation in the country: Transportation Alternatives (TA) and the Recreational Trails Program (RTP). The bill infuses $1.5 billion a year for four years into the Active Transportation program.

In further detail, the INVEST in America Act would also: • Increase the percentage of TA funds going directly to local governments, and increase the flexibility of the current local match requirements. • Reestablish an independent Safe Routes to School program. • Explicitly allow Surface Transportation Program funding to be used for development of Vision Zero plans (seeking to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries), which may include plans to develop active transportation networks. • Require states to develop vulnerable road-user safety assessments with strategies to address high-risk corridors for bicyclists and pedestrians. • Establish and fund a carbon-emission reduction program, which would fund projects expected to yield a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, including trails and active transportation.

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According to Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, active transportation generates $34.1 billion in annual economic benefits, with the potential to deliver $138.5 billion each year as the connectivity of trails and active transportation routes improves.

Overall, the bill authorizes nearly $500 billion over five years to address some of the country’s most urgent infrastructure needs, including: • Tackling the massive backlog of roads, bridges and transit systems in need of repair and replacement. • Building resilient infrastructure to withstand the impacts of climate change and extreme weather. • Designing safer streets for all road users, including pedestrians and cyclists. • Putting the U.S. on a path toward zero emissions from the transportation sector by prioritizing carbon pollution reduction, investing in public transit and the national rail network, building out fueling infrastructure for low- and zero-emission vehicles, and deploying technology and innovative materials. • Sharply increasing funding for public transit options in urban, suburban and rural areas in order to integrate technology and increase reliable routes. • Making transformational investments in rail and Amtrak in order to create a robust, reliable system. • Enhancing rail worker and passenger safety and helping communities address grade crossing issues. • Improving access to Federal funding to help communities around the country undertake transformative projects that are smarter, safer and made to last. The INVEST in America Act also accounts for the economic downturn caused by the global pandemic and ensures states, cities, tribes, territories and transit agencies can administer programs, advance projects and preserve jobs in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis. The INVEST in America Act authorizes a sharp increase in funding to continue current programs in the first year of enactment of the bill, FY 2021, with wider policy implementation occurring in FY 2022.

6. S.3624 (Coons D-DE) and H.R. 6702 (Price D-NC) – Pandemic Response and Opportunity Through National Service Act This bill would fund 750,000 national service positions over a three-year response and recovery period, in part to meet the projected need for as many as 300,000 public health workers. Under the bill, the number of AmeriCorps and national service positions could expand from 75,000 to 150,000 the first year and double to 300,000 in years two and three. The bill would also expand partnerships between AmeriCorps and Federal health agencies. Additionally, it would increase the AmeriCorps living allowance to ensure all Americans can step up to serve regardless of their financial circumstances.

The bill would prioritize funding for activities directly related to response and recovery, such as: • Public health services • Emergency logistics • Workforce and reemployment services • Education support (including for adult learners) • Services that combat nutrition insecurity

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The bill would also: • Fund new online tools for Senior Corps to safely move to a teleservice model. • Extend priority enrollment to Peace Corps, U.S. Fulbright and AmeriCorps participants whose service or grants was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. • Encourage participation by members of low-income and minority communities, those who have had contact with the juvenile justice system, and those of diverse abilities. • Invite participation from a diverse range of Americans by launching an awareness and outreach campaign about response service opportunities and supporting the Volunteer Generation Fund. In considering support for this legislation, a recent survey of East Bay residents found strong support (65%) for funding a summer jobs corps for local youth, to provide park and trail- related work in parks.

7. S. 3684 (Wyden D-OR) – 21st Century Conservation Corps for Our Health and Our Jobs Act This bill seeks to address the impacts of COVID-19 on health, the economy and, combined with high levels of drought throughout the West, the unprecedented wildland firefighting challenges in 2020. The sponsor also notes those who are at increased risk for adverse health effects due to wildfire smoke exposure – people who suffer from heart or lung diseases, like asthma – now suffer the double impact of also being particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. This legislation seeks to infuse funding and employment opportunities for wildfire hazard mitigation. Specifically, the legislation: • Provides an additional $3.5 billion for the U.S. Forest Service and $2 billion for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to increase the pace and scale of hazardous fuels reduction and thinning efforts, prioritizing shovel-ready projects. • Establishes a $7 billion relief fund to help outfitters, guides and their employees, whose work with the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior has been suspended due to COVID-19, stay afloat through the truncated recreation season. • Establishes a $9 billion fund for qualified land and conservation corps to increase job training and hiring specifically for jobs helping to restore public lands. • Provides an additional $150 million for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, the flagship program for community forest restoration and fire risk reduction. • Provides $6 billion for U.S. Forest Service capital improvements and maintenance to put people to work reducing the maintenance backlog on National Forest System lands. • Provides $500 million for the Forest Service State and Private Forestry program, which will be divided between programs to help facilitate landscape restoration projects on state, private and Federal lands – including $100 million for the Firewise program to help local governments plan for and reduce wildfire risks. • Provides $10 billion for on-farm water conservation and habitat improvement projects. • Provides full, permanent funding for the bipartisan Land and Water Conservation Fund.

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• Provides $100 million for land management agencies to purchase and provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to their employees, contractors and service workers.

B. OTHER FEDERAL MATTERS 1. Federal Response to Covid-19 Federal Advocate Peter Umhofer will provide a verbal update.

2. Land and Water Conservation Fund / Great America Outdoors Act On June 17, 2020, the U.S. Senate voted 73-25 to advance permanent full funding of $900 million annually for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The legislation also provides $9.5 billion annually over five years for the Great American Outdoors Act to address maintenance needs on public lands. The $47.5 million in funding would restore critical infrastructure – especially the Federal agencies’ deferred maintenance needs and expanding access for all forms of outdoor recreation. Funding from LWCF and the Great American Outdoors Act would help stimulate the economy and create natural resource related job opportunities.

3. Other Matters

III. IMPACTS OF THE CORONAVIRUS ON EAST BAY PARK USERS AND INFORMATION ANALYTICS Chief of Government and Legislative Affairs Erich Pfuehler and Legislative and Policy Management Anyalyst Lisa Baldinger will present the findings of a recent N=500 survey conducted from May 11 – May 18, 2020 along with recent analytics on District communications with the public.

IV. ARTICLES & OTHER MEDIA

V. OPEN FORUM PUBLIC COMMENT

VI. BOARD COMMENTS

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Board Legislative Committee June 26, 2020 – Articles and Other Media

COMMENTARY Why Cities Must Protect Their Parks From Funding Cuts

The coronavirus pandemic has placed a premium on access to nature, making urban parks more vital to the health of cities than ever before.

By Catherine Nagel, Contributor June 16, 2020, at 6:30 a.m.

People sit on The Great Lawn in Central Park on May 25, 2020 in New York City.(DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES)

IN THIS EXTRAORDINARY time, city parks have once again proved themselves to be critical public infrastructure, strengthening neighborhoods and building bonds among people from all walks of life. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a premium on access to nature and physical activity with appropriate social distancing, making urban parks more vital to the health of our cities than ever before. Simply put, our parks are essential.

When schools, businesses, houses of worship, libraries and other civic and commercial institutions closed their doors, park use surged as people sought respite from the quarantine. Parks help people to feel normal again, and serve as an outlet that is especially important in densely populated urban neighborhoods where indoor and outdoor spaces are precious.

The pandemic will continue to exact a heavy economic toll on state and local governments. We are already seeing examples of proposed budget cuts to parks departments from New York City to Spokane, Washington. Beyond affecting services like trash removal and landscaping, the cuts would also impact workforce development and child care programming, moves that would harm many of the low-income communities that need these services most. Now is the time to recognize how essential parks and public spaces are and invest in them – not cut them. Placing an undue share of the financial strain on these important public spaces, their recreational programs and their staff is short-sighted and may derail a more robust recovery.

America Now: All 50 States Reopen

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United States will eventually begin to establish new daily rituals, and green spaces will keep us connected to one another in ways that weren't always obvious before the age of social distancing. Nature is the one place among our urban settings where we can be together and apart at the same time – mutually protected and yet in solidarity. That fact is apparent in the way neighbors nod to one another from behind masks as they pass on trails or friends carefully arrange folding chairs on park lawns – with ample space between them – to reconnect after months of quarantine. In these gestures, we come to recognize how vital our parks are to us as social beings and to the close-knit networks that sustain us.

This is not the first time parks have leapt to the frontlines of public health. In response to the 1800s cholera outbreaks, city planners widened streets and added additional pathways and parks into their urban plans. Frederick Law Olmsted, leader of the 19th century urban parks movement, championed the idea that open spaces could improve the health of cities and their citizens. His vision led to the creation of New York City's Central Park; Louisville, Kentucky's park system; Boston's Emerald Necklace, and more than 100 other parks across the country that endure as tribute to his foresight.

Extensive scientific research backs Olmsted up. Study after study shows that immersion in nature has substantial physical and mental health benefits, and the closer you live to a park the more likely you are to use it for recreation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1-in-5 children and 1-in 3 adults are obese, and 90% of the nation's $3.5 trillion in annual health care expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions. It is time to embrace city parks and open spaces as part of our health care system.

The metaphor of parks as the lungs of a city is as true as ever. Humans need space – to breathe, to de-stress, to re-center their lives and to reconnect with others.

In response, cities of all sizes, from San Francisco to St. Louis, are harnessing public assets to help their citizens cope. They are closing parkways and streets to motorized vehicles in favor of foot traffic and bicycles. They are widening bike lanes and trails to allow more people to get outside. Schools and businesses are exploring shared-use agreements with parks. City halls and office grounds are being tapped as recreational locations. And spaces such as cemeteries – our original urban parks – are seeing increased use of their walking trails and green spaces.

When the pandemic is past, parks will spark a better way forward, helping cities emerge stronger, healthier, more equitable and more resilient than ever before. But parks departments can't do it if we fail to invest in their spaces, programs and people. Let's make parks the centerpiece of our national recovery from COVID-19.

Catherine Nagel, Contributor

Catherine Nagel is the executive director of City Parks Alliance, the only nationwide .

OPINION // EDITORIALS Editorial: Two imperiled GOP senators are rescuing a conservation money pot

Chronicle Editorial Board June 17, 2020

California brown pelicans fly near offshore oil rigs after sunset on July 21, 2009 near Santa Barbara, California. After months of partisan bickering over how to close the $ 26.3 billion deficit and begin paying the state's bills again, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders reached a tentative budget deal this week to keep one of the world's largest economies from falling into insolvency. Within the budget agreement, Gov. Schwarzenegger succeeded in having a proposal to expand oil drilling off the Southern California coast for the first time in more than 40 years. In 1969, the Santa Barbara Oil Spill from Union Oil Co. undersea drilling platform caused 200,000 gallons of crude oil to spread over 800 square miles of ocean and beaches and created a massive public outcry against drilling off the state's coast. During the 2008 presidential election, Republicans and Conservatives began pushing for renewed offshore drilling. The budget plan contains massive cuts in state spending and social services. Lawmakers can vote on the deal as soon as this week even as cities and conservation groups gear up to sue the governor and Legislature over emerging details that they disapprove of. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) Photo: David McNew / Getty Images

There’s nothing like political desperation to solve stubborn problems. Billions in federal conservation money is moving from orphan status to cherished ideal due largely to Republican worries about losing two Western Senate seats. The plight of the pair is moving the Land and Conservation Fund from a wobbler to sure thing. That will mean money from federal offshore drilling leases will be reliably spent on recreation, conservation and parks. In this state, the dollars will flow from Lake Tahoe to Golden Gate Park. Beaches, deserts and run- down national parks would get a slice on an expected $2.8 billion per year.

For years, lawmakers have cut into the fund for other causes and the pandemic crisis has done nothing to ease that worry. The House approved a plan to lock in the conservation funds amid concern that the plan would die in the GOP-run Senate.

But two Republican senators facing close races in November are changing the picture. Cory Gardner in Colorado and Steven Daines in Montana appealed to the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for help in passing the measure that would benefit the outdoor appeal of the two states.

Though the fund sprinkles money across the nation in a way that draws bipartisan support, Republicans have acted reluctantly until now, citing worries about a budget burden in a worrisome time. Now that concern is vanishing in the cause of political preservation.

That pressure in no way detracts from the importance of the issue. The funds will create jobs in rural areas with leaner economies. As cooped-up families look for nearby vacations, public facilities should be in top shape, not rundown. On another level there’s a plus: A bitterly divided country can find agreement on its natural heritage.

Spent wisely and steadily, the fund could create a legacy for the public. A dose of self-interest lies behind such lofty praise for the outdoors, but the mixed message doesn’t detract from the results that could last for generations.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

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STATEMENT: Passage of Great American Outdoors Act Shows Growing Power of America’s Conservation Movement

Date: June 17, 2020 | Contact: Sam Hananel | Email: [email protected]

Washington, D.C. — Today, the U.S. Senate passed the Great American Outdoors Act with broad bipartisan support. The bill will provide permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund as well as funding to address deferred maintenance on public lands and at the Bureau of Indian Education. In response, Kate Kelly, director of Public Lands at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:

The Senate’s decisive stamp of approval for this historic package demonstrates the growing energy and power of America’s conservation movement. This bill will provide a significant shot in the arm to our nation’s economy and help heal our public lands and waters at a time when natural areas are rapidly disappearing. The House should move quickly to pass this bill so that we can get to work protecting parks and open spaces and providing equitable access to nature for all communities.

For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at rg.

National parks: Historic vote to provide billions in new funding for trails, roads, campgrounds, new lands Due to election year politics, landmark bill has wide bipartisan support

A sunbathing squirrel perches on the Big Sur coastline, Tuesday, April 14, 2020. Public land along the scenic stretch of coastline in Monterey County was preserved in part with funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, whose revenue comes from offshore oil drilling royalties. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) By PAUL ROGERS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: June 17, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: June 17, 2020 at 8:19 a.m.

Driven by unusual alliances in election year politics, the U.S. Senate is expected Wednesday to pass what would be the most far-reaching new conservation law in 40 years: A bipartisan bill co-sponsored by California senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, and supported by President Trump and other Republicans.

The measure, sought for decades by environmental groups and the recreation industry, would provide billions in new funding to national parks. It would permanently shift millions of dollars every year in offshore oil drilling revenues to pay for city parks, swimming pools, sports fields, fishing piers, trails and campgrounds in all 50 states, including in urban areas with limited park resources.

Last week, the bill, known as the “Great American Outdoors Act,” passed the Senate 80-17 on a procedural vote. A final Senate vote is expected by mid-day Wednesday, with a House vote in the next few weeks. Trump has spent much of his presidency weakening environmental laws and appointing former industry lobbyists to top environmental jobs. But he is looking to burnish his environmental credentials and those of several endangered GOP senators before the November election, and has said he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

For environmental groups, the political dynamics are a rare window.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have the U.S. enshrine conservation as a core value for years to come,” said Tom Cors, director of government relations for lands at the Nature Conservancy.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund helped preserve land at Redwood National Park near the California-Oregon border. (Photo: Bob Von Normann, Humboldt County CVB) The bill would make two landmark changes.

First, it would provide $9.5 billion over the next five years to repair roads, restrooms, trails and campgrounds at America’s national parks — from Yosemite to the Everglades — and at other public lands where facilities have fallen into disrepair after years of neglect and funding shortfalls.

The money would come from royalties on oil, gas, coal and renewable energy that are already being paid to the federal treasury. Altogether, 70% would go to national parks, which have a $12 billion maintenance backlog. The U.S. Forest Service would receive 15%; and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and Bureau of Indian Education schools would receive 5% each.

Second and more enduring, the bill would guarantee $900 million a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund in perpetuity. That fund was first recommended by the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s as a way for the nation’s parks to keep pace with population growth. Congress created it in 1964, requiring that up to $900 million a year in offshore oil revenues go to buy new park land and maintain local parks.

Over the past 56 years, the fund has become the most important tool for preserving public land in the United States, helping protect 7 million acres, from Redwood National Park and Big Sur in California to Cape Cod to Martin Luther King Jr.’s boyhood home site in Atlanta.

The fund helped complete the Appalachian Trail, bought out old mining claims within Alaska’s Denali National Park and expanded public lands in Big Sur. It bought private tracts within some of America’s crown jewel parks — Yosemite, Yellowstone, Olympic and Grand Canyon.

The money also has funded state grants to build 40,000 swimming pools, soccer fields, baseball diamonds, playgrounds, fishing piers, jogging trails and other projects at local parks nationwide. Among those in California: new bike paths at Lake Merritt in Oakland, renovations at Pacifica’s fishing pier, public pools in Los Angeles, public trails and beaches at Lake Tahoe, land adjacent to Big Basin Redwoods and Mount Diablo state parks that would have been logged or developed, and wetlands restoration around San Francisco Bay.

But over the years, instead of providing $900 million as the law intended, Congress and numerous presidents have instead shifted more than half of the money to other uses. Trump’s original budget this year proposed just $15 million be spent on parks and public lands from the fund. The current bill would require the full $900 million to be spent every year on parks.

During the coronavirus pandemic people have rediscovered the value of parks and open space, said Roberto Morales, chair of Nature for All, a non-profit group in Los Angeles. In many ways, parks are a civil rights issue, he said, especially for children and families.

“Low-income communities don’t have equal access to parks,” Morales said. “Public outdoor spaces are not a luxury. They are essential. Having the ability to tap into these funds will help.”

Funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund helped preserve property at Mount Diablo State Park, shown here in March, 2020. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group) There is some opposition from conservative Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the cattle ranching industry and others. If passed, the bill will be America’s most significant conservation law since at least 1980, when President Jimmy Carter doubled the size of the national park system by establishing 157 million acres of new parks, wildlife refuges, scenic rivers and other wilderness areas in Alaska during his final weeks in office.

The bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, is trailing in the polls for his November re-election. With control of the Senate hanging in the balance, other GOP senators at risk of losing their seats are among the co-sponsors, including Susan Collins of Maine, Steve Daines of Montana and Martha McSally of Arizona — many of whom have sided with industry on other environmental measures.

“It’s a convenient opportunity for senators and an administration that has included historic environmental rollbacks to try to convince voters that they have now found a new conservation ethos,” said Jayson O’Neill with the Western Values Project, a Montana environmental group. “But any time elected officials see the importance of protecting the environment, we are going to be behind that so we can get some positive things done.”

By

Paul Rogers | Natural resources and environment reporter Paul Rogers has covered a wide range of issues for The Mercury News since 1989, including water, oceans, energy, logging, parks, endangered species, toxics and climate change. He also works as managing editor of the Science team at KQED, the PBS and NPR station in San Francisco, and has taught science writing at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. [email protected] Follow Paul Rogers @PaulRogersSJMN

Powell warns that long downturn would mean severe damage By MARTIN CRUTSINGER 6/16/2020

( AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned Tuesday that the U.S. economy faces a deep downturn with “significant uncertainty” about the timing and strength of a recovery. He cautioned that the longer the recession lasts, the worse the damage that would be inflicted on the job market and businesses.

In testimony to Congress, Powell stressed that the Fed is committed to using all its financial tools to cushion the damage from the coronavirus. But he said that until the public is confident the disease has been contained, “a full recovery is unlikely.” He warned that a prolonged downturn could inflict severe harm — especially to low-income workers who have been hit hardest.

Powell delivered the first of two days of semi-annual congressional testimony to the Senate Banking Committee before he will address the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. Several senators highlighted the disproportionate impact of the viral outbreak and the downturn on African-Americans and Latinos. Powell expressed his agreement.

“The way the pandemic has hit our economy... has been a real inequality-increaser,” the chairman said, because low-wage service jobs have been hardest hit and are disproportionately held by minorities. “That’s who’s bearing the brunt of this.” He noted that the pandemic also poses “acute risks” for small businesses and their employees.

“If a small or medium-sized business becomes insolvent because the economy recovers too slow, we lose more than just that business,” he said. “These businesses are the heart of our economy and often embody the work of generations.”

Several Democratic senators used their questions to Powell to press for a new congressional rescue bill that would provide increased aid for state and local governments, which face the prospect of mass layoffs because of diminished tax revenue, as well as an extension of enhanced unemployment benefits.

Powell agreed that while both Congress and the Fed have supplied record-high support, the severity of the downturn may require more.

“The shock that the economy received was the largest in memory,” he said, noting that the congressional response and the Fed’s response were also the largest on record. “Will it be enough? I would say that there is a reasonable probability that more will be needed both from (Congress) and the Fed.”

Without further help, states and cities could be forced to lay off more employees, Powell said, which also happened after the 2008-2009 recession and which, he added, slowed the recovery after that downturn. Similar layoffs now could “weigh on” the economy, he said.

Powell agreed that Congress should consider extending unemployment benefits beyond their typical six-month period, on the assumption that unemployment would likely still be quite high by the end of the year. He did not weigh in on the debate over whether the extra $600 in weekly federal unemployment benefits should be extended beyond its current July 31 cutoff date, as House Democrats have proposed.

“Some form of support for those people going forward is likely going to be appropriate,” he told the committee. “There are going to be an awful lot of unemployed people for some time,” he said, suggesting that workers in the travel and hotel industries, among others, will likely have to find work in different industries.

Kathy Bostjancic, a senior economist at Oxford Economics, noted that Powell reiterated the cautious message he had expressed at a news conference last week.

“While the economy seemingly has turned the corner, the road to full recovery is long and contingent on the public gaining confidence that the virus is contained,” Bostjancic said. “The outlook remains cautious despite ... initial signs of rehiring and a bounce-back in consumer spending.”

In his remarks to the lawmakers, Powell said he remains confident about the economy’s future: “Long run, I am confident we will have a full recovery.” Since March, the Fed has slashed its benchmark short-term rate to near zero, bought $2.1 trillion in Treasury and mortgage bonds to inject cash into markets and rolled out numerous lending programs to try to keep credit flowing smoothly. On Monday, the Fed announced that it will begin buying corporate bonds as part of a plan to ensure that companies can borrow during the pandemic. The Fed’s policymakers have also forecast that their key rate will remain near zero through 2022.

Collectively, the central bank’s actions are credited with helping fuel an extraordinary rally in the stock market, which has nearly regained its pre-pandemic highs after a dizzying plunge in March.

On Tuesday, Powell suggested that the drop in economic output during the current April- June quarter, as measured by the gross domestic product, will likely be the most severe on record. Many economists are forecasting that GDP could shrink at a record-setting 40% annual rate this quarter.

While the Trump administration is forecasting a V-shaped recovery with strong growth in the second half of this year, Powell was more cautious and sought to focus concerns on low-wage workers. In a semi-annual monetary report accompanying the testimony, the Fed noted that workers with lower earnings, including minorities, were being hit especially hard by the job market disruptions.

Employment has fallen nearly 35% for workers who were previously earning wages in the bottom fourth of wage earners, the Fed said. By contrast, employment has declined 5% for higher-wage earners. Because lower-wage earners are disproportionately African- American and Hispanic, unemployment has risen more sharply for those groups.

Powell had said last week at a news conference that a recovery could be painfully slow, with “well into the millions” of laid-off Americans unable to regain their old jobs. That downbeat assessment had helped trigger a plunge in stock prices and prompted President Donald Trump to issue a tweet criticizing the Fed’s views.

“The Federal Reserve is wrong so often,” Trump tweeted. “We will have a very good Third Quarter, a great Fourth Quarter, and one of our best ever years in 2021.”

In its projections, the Fed is predicting that the economy will shrink 6.5% this year before growing 5% next year, an assessment in line with the forecasts of private economists.

___

AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.

___

POLICY Supreme Court’s LGBT decision could shake up other laws and lawsuits

Ruling could have ripple effects on lawsuits on health care and military

Protesters rally in front of the Supreme Court on Oct. 8 as it hears arguments on whether gay and transgender people are covered by a federal law barring employment discrimination on the basis of sex. On Monday, the justices ruled, 6-3, that they were. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)

By Todd Ruger Posted June 15, 2020 at 4:24pm

The Supreme Court’s decision Monday that backed LGBT employment rights will reverberate through ongoing legislative and legal fights about anti-discrimination provisions in other federal laws and Trump administration policies — and in fights yet to come. Take the Trump administration rule, finalized just on Friday, under which sexual orientation would no longer be covered by a provision of the 2010 health care law that prohibits discrimination based on sex.

Civil rights groups such as Lambda Legal are all but certain to cite Monday’s Supreme Court decision in their forthcoming challenges to that new rule. The high court decided, 6- 3, that firing someone merely for being gay or transgender is discrimination based on “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“It’s hard to overstate how much this administration has staked its anti-LGB-and- especially-T agenda on its misreading of Title VII,” Joshua Block, a litigator at the ACLU's LGBT Project, tweeted immediately after the decision. “It’s now an achilles heel in built into almost every terrible regulation and enforcement action for past 4 years.”

And the groups expressed confidence that approach gives them powerful ammunition in that challenge and others, including an ongoing lawsuit on the Trump administration’s transgender military ban.

“Today’s ruling makes the military, so often a successful leader in ending discrimination in American life, an outlier amidst a national consensus that arbitrary discrimination is harmful and wrong,” said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center that researches military personnel policy. “With transgender workers protected by federal law in all other sectors, the military’s transgender ban is now even harder to defend.”

That military issue turns on different legal issues from the latest decision on Title VII. But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in a dissent, predicted that the decision “may exert a gravitational pull in constitutional cases” and cited the military ban challenge.

More directly, litigation on Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has also turned on the definition of the word “sex” when it comes to equal treatment in education and sports specifically, and so does the Trump administration rule issued Friday on the health care law, said David Flugman, a civil rights litigator at law firm Selendy & Gay.

“That line of case law is going to immediately be bolstered by this case,” Flugman said. “I think this case will be helpful in a number of ways, and just like Title VII itself, we’ll see this decision used in a number of ways we can’t predict.”

Alito, in his dissent, listed health care, education, freedom of speech and freedom of religion as areas he thought the ruling would affect in the near future.

“Although the Court does not want to think about the consequences of its decision, we will not be able to avoid those issues for long,” he wrote. “The entire Federal Judiciary will be mired for years in disputes about the reach of the Court’s reasoning.”

That includes transgender individuals’ use of sex-assigned bathrooms or locker rooms, or colleges that prefer not to have opposite biological sex roommates in housing. It could affect health care, such as insurance coverage of sex reassignment surgeries. Or it could boost the right of transgender school athletes to participate in sex-segregated sports — and maybe even women’s professional sports teams.

“The effect of the Court’s reasoning may be to force young women to compete against students who have a very significant biological advantage, including students who have the size and strength of a male but identify as female and students who are taking male hormones in order to transition from female to male,” Alito wrote.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the court was not addressing any of those issues in three cases covered in the ruling. Whether other policies might qualify as unlawful discrimination under other provisions of Title VII “are questions for future cases, not these.”

But Gorsuch did foreshadow that the Supreme Court might still curtail LGBT employee protection if it clashed with an employer’s religious convictions.

One of the employers sued in the cases decided Monday initially pursued a religious freedom claim at a lower court under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, but did not bring that claim in its appeal to the Supreme Court.

“But how these doctrines protecting religious liberty interact with Title VII are questions for future cases too,” Gorsuch wrote.

Democratic lawmakers, who advanced legislation to ensure LGBT workplace protections under Title VII no matter how the court ruled, had argued in a brief that “sex” already covered LGBT workers.

But backers said after the decision that the bill still needs to become law because it also expands LGBT anti-discrimination protections to housing, health care, financial decisions, education and more.

It has stalled in the Senate, and Republicans have said it could undermine the 1993 religious freedom law.

“We’re now protected from discrimination at our jobs, but we have much left to defend,” said Rep. Mark Pocan, an openly gay Wisconsin Democrat. “From housing to healthcare, we need equity in all areas of American life.”

Clyburn says he does not support defunding the police By Chandelis Duster, CNN Updated 2:16 PM ET, Sun June 14, 2020

(CNN)Democratic South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn on Sunday said he does not support calls to defund the police, saying instead to restructure law enforcement.

"Nobody is going to defund the police," Clyburn, the House Majority Whip and one of the leading African American members of Congress, told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of The Union." "We can restructure the police forces. Restructure, re-imagine policing. That is what we are going to do."

He continued, "The fact of the matter is that police have a role to play. What we've got to do is make sure that their role is one that meets the times, one that responds to these communities that they operate in."

Clyburn's comments come amid nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. There is a growing debate over defunding police departments and allocating resources into communities, which some activists have floated as a potential step toward end police brutality.

A charred Wendy's, an officer fired and a police chief steps down in the aftermath of Rayshard Brooks' death Clyburn told CNN's Ana Cabrera on Saturday that he believes pushing a "defund the police" slogan only gives "cover" to President Donald Trump and the people opposing change in the law enforcement system.

"Because you know all that will do is give Donald Trump the cover he needs. I've been saying to people all the time, 'If you allow yourself to play the opponent's game, you're going to lose and the opponent will win.' Let's not play his game," Clyburn said on "CNN Newsroom." "He is about violence. He is about sloganry. He is about what I like to say, really, insulting. That's not who we are."

Last week, former Vice President Joe Biden said that he does not support some calls to defund the police. "No, I don't support defunding the police," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said in an interview with CBS while in Houston to meet with Floyd's family. "I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community."

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has said police departments should be dismantled, defended her position to Tapper later on the same program.

"No one is saying crimes will not be investigated. No one is saying that we are not going to have proper response when community members are in danger," Omar said. "What we are saying is the current infrastructure that exists as policing in our city should not exist anymore. And we can't go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place. And so dismantling it and then looking at what funding priorities should look like as we re-imagine a new way forward is what needs to happen."

Asked about opposition from Democrats, including Clyburn, on defunding the police, Omar said it is not a federal issue, but a state level and local one. "I think for people who really are you know questioning and talking about this movement, they're not paying attention to what the people are asking for. And to me, you know, this is not for members of Congress, this isn't for the President, this is a municipality issue. This is a state level issue."

During the CNN interview Sunday, Clyburn also commented on the death of Rayshard Brooks, 27, who was shot dead by a white police officer in Atlanta on Friday night at a Wendy's drive-through in the city.

"I was very incensed over that," Cyburn said. "This did not call for lethal force."

"I don't know what's in the culture that would make this guy do that," Clyburn said, referring to the now fired officer. The officer who killed Brooks was terminated Saturday, police spokesman Carlos Campos said. He was identified by police as Garrett Rolfe. A second officer, Devin Bronsan, involved in the killing was placed on administrative duty, Campos said. Brooks' death reignited protests Saturday night in Atlanta, where hundreds blocked a major interstate, a fast-food restaurant was set ablaze and authorities responded with tear gas.

This story has been updated with Clyburn's previous comments on "CNN Newsroom" and comments from Rep. Ilhan Omar on "State of the Union."

CNN's Sarah Westwood contributed to this story.

LOCAL // WILLIE'S WORLD Willie Brown: ‘Defund the police’ is bad policy, terrible politics

Willie Brown June 13, 2020 Updated: June 13, 2020 4 a.m.

A message on 16th Street in Washington, near the White House, calls for defunding police. Photo: Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images

The call to “defund the police” as part of the anti-racism, anti-police-brutality movement is either one of the dumbest ideas of all time or the hands-down winner of the worst slogan ever.

I shouldn’t have to explain that actually defunding police is a nonstarter as a practical matter, let alone as a political one. But many defenders of the concept say they don’t really mean defund — they mean reimagine. Take away dealing with homeless people from police, for example, and re-steer the money for that to social services programs.

Fine. Let’s talk about how to do that. But we’re starting from a terrible disadvantage because of that “defund” slogan. It instantly moved the discussion from race and real police reform to disbanding police altogether. That gave President Trump the distraction he was desperately looking for to deflect attention from his disastrous handling of the race issue. He’s already hammering on Democrats for supposedly wanting to get rid of police.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d suspect that those calling for “defunding the police” are deliberately out to destroy whatever progress we’re making in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.

People are legitimately shocked by the police misconduct they see on TV and social media. But everyone still wants the assurance that when they dial 911, a cop is on the way.

You take away people’s feelings of personal safety, and you lose voters.

Demo dynamics: If the protesters throughout the nation can be channeled into voting come November, it could mean a Democratic landslide.

Not just for Joe Biden. Democrats could flip GOP-held U.S. Senate seats in Georgia, Arizona, Montana, Iowa, Maine and Colorado, and maybe even defeat Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

A net four-seat gain would guarantee Democrats a Senate majority. And I have every faith that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will ensure that Democrats hold the House.

If all that happens, and Biden wins the White House, we’ll truly be able to make America great again.

Great line: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a great comeback when asked whether she’s embarrassed the Ku Klux Klan was once allied with the Democratic Party.

“Of course,” she said. “We’re embarrassed Donald Trump was a Democrat as well, and for similar reasons.”

Back on: Ready or not, we are reopening. And I doubt that even a spike in coronavirus cases would get us back into shutdown mode.

That “toggle switch” that Gov. Gavin Newsom said might be needed has been disconnected. Many people are no longer afraid to go out, and they are not going to be as cooperative if asked to return to microwaving and bad TV seven nights a week.

Those of us who had to cook for ourselves during the shutdown lost a lot of weight. I for one am ready for a hot dog prepared by someone who knows how to do hot dog.

Race reality: I’ve been hearing for years that America needs to have an “honest conversation” about race, but I have yet to hear one.

Looking back, I’d have to say the last time I heard an “honest” response to a racial question was in 1968. I was the California co-chair of Bobby Kennedy’s presidential campaign, and we took him to Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church in Oakland.

The place was packed with ministers, activists, Black Panthers. You name it and they were there.

Bobby addressed the crowd. There was back and forth, and it got a bit heated.

Suddenly a booming voice came out of the crowd and said, “Senator?”

“Yes?” Kennedy said.

“Do you like black people?”

I was expecting the usual song and dance you get from politicians, but Kennedy just paused, took a moment to look over the crowd, then smiled and said, “Some.”

Now that was honest.

Want to sound off? Email: [email protected]

Willie Brown

Two-term mayor of San Francisco, renowned speaker of the California Assembly, and widely regarded as the most influential African American politician of the late twentieth century, Willie L. Brown, Jr. has been at the center of California politics, government and civic life for four decades. His career spans the American presidency from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush, and he’s worked with every California governor from Pat Brown to Arnold Schwarzenegger. From civil rights to education reform, tax policy, economic development, health care, international trade, domestic partnerships and affirmative action, he’s left his imprimatur on every aspect of politics and public policy in the Golden State. As mayor of California’s most cosmopolitan city, he refurbished and rebuilt the nation’s busiest transit system, pioneered the use of bond measures to build affordable housing, created a model juvenile justice system, and paved the way for a second campus of UCSF to serve as the anchor of a new development that will position the city as a center for the burgeoning field of biotechnology.

Today, he heads the Willie L. Brown Jr. Institute on Politics and Public Service, where he shares his knowledge and skills with a new generation of California leaders.

Fed Warns of ‘Extraordinarily Uncertain’ Path to Recovery

Assessing the pandemic’s impact, a Federal Reserve report sees strains on businesses and households and a fragile road back to steady growth and employment.

The Federal Reserve warned Friday of strains on financial institutions and households from the economic shock of the pandemic.Credit...Ting Shen for The New York Times

By Jeanna Smialek

June 12, 2020

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve painted a sober picture of the economy on Friday, declaring that the financial system remains under stress because of the coronavirus pandemic and that the path back to steady growth and a strong labor market is unsure.

In a semiannual monetary policy report to Congress, its first since the pandemic took hold, the Fed said the nation’s gross domestic product would probably contract “at a rapid pace” in the second quarter after “tumbling” in the first. “Global economic activity in the first half of the year has experienced a sharp and synchronized contraction greater than that in the global financial crisis” more than a decade ago, the Fed said. Domestically, it added, “the path ahead is extraordinarily uncertain.”

The worldwide slowdown came after governments locked down their economies to slow the spread of the virus. In the United States, states are slowly lifting stay-at-home orders that have been in place since mid-March, and the economy is beginning to recover after tipping suddenly and sharply into recession.

While the central bank has moved to blunt the fallout in financial markets from that shock — buying unlimited quantities of government-backed bonds and rolling out a series of emergency lending programs that go beyond even the response to the 2008 financial crisis — it noted that borrowing conditions remained tight for households with weaker credit histories. It also flagged lingering risks to banks and other financial entities.

“Financial-sector vulnerabilities are expected to be significant in the near term,” according to the report. “The strains on household and business balance sheets from the economic and financial shocks since March will likely create persistent fragilities.”

Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, will testify before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday and the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. Eric Baradat/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Trump has made it clear that he expects a rapid economic rebound, even criticizing the Fed on Twitter on Thursday for being too glum. But the central bank reiterated its recent caution in the report, highlighting that challenges to the economy remain even as states reopen.

“Importantly, some small businesses and highly leveraged firms might have to shut down permanently or declare bankruptcy, which could have longer-lasting repercussions on productive capacity,” the report said. “In addition, there is uncertainty about future labor demand and productivity as firms shift their production processes to increase worker safety, realign their supply chains or move services online.” The Fed noted that employers had cut about 20 million employees from payrolls since February, reversing a decade of job gains. While the unemployment rate eased to 13.3 percent in May after jumping to 14.7 percent in April, the Fed called that rate “still very elevated” and said workers in low- wage jobs, who are disproportionately from minority groups, had been hit especially hard.

“In the months ahead, labor market prospects for the unemployed and underemployed — both over all and for particularly hard-hit groups of workers — will largely depend on the course of the Covid-19 outbreak itself and on actions taken to halt its spread,” the report said.

It also suggested that the pandemic was probably costing workers more than their employment: Those still in the labor market are seeing weak pay growth.

“While reliable data are limited, anecdotal evidence suggests that the economic downturn is putting downward pressure on wages,” it said.

Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, will testify remotely before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday and the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday as part of the same legislatively mandated semiannual process that yielded the Friday report.

Mr. Powell has emerged as a voice of caution throughout the pandemic, warning repeatedly that the return to prosperity could be a long slog.

“We’re doing a fair job of getting through these first few months, more than a fair job,” he said at a news conference after the Fed’s regular policy meeting this week. “The question, though, is that group of people who won’t be able to go back to work quickly — what about them?”

Mr. Powell said that beyond the Fed’s monetary policy, support for the recovery might require further action by Congress and the White House, with their taxing and spending powers. “It’s possible that we will need to do more,” he said, “and it’s possible that Congress will need to do more.”

Jeanna Smialek writes about the Federal Reserve and the economy for The New York Times. She previously covered economics at Bloomberg News, where she also wrote feature stories for Businessweek magazine. @jeannasmialek

A version of this article appears in print on June 13, 2020, Section B, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Recovery Path Still Uncertain, The Fed Warns. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

East Contra Costa growth-control measure headed to voters Let Antioch Voters Decide initiative would preserve large swath of land, make development more difficult

Mount Diablo can be seen in the distance along the closed portion of Empire Mine Road, which some want to develop and others want to preserve in Antioch, Calif., on Thursday, March 23, 2017. (Susan Tripp Pollard/Bay Area News Group By JUDITH PRIEVE | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: June 10, 2020 at 2:38 p.m. | UPDATED: June 12, 2020 at 9:49 p.m. Voters will decide in November whether to make permanent the city’s growth boundary and preserve parts of a large swath of undeveloped land in southernmost Antioch.

If the initiative passes, only previously approved projects or those specifically approved later by both voters and the City Council would be allowed in the Sand Creek Focus area west of Deer Valley Road and east of Black Diamond Mines Preserve, or beyond in the nearby urban limit line.

Backed by environmentalists and some residents, the Let Antioch Voters Decide growth- control initiative aims to preserve open space, ridges, hills, streams and wildlife habitat in the Sand Creek area and beyond the urban limit line that would disappear at the end of the year unless retained by voters.

Save Mount Diablo’s Seth Adams, a spokesman for a coalition of Antioch residents and organizations that drafted the 17-page initiative, along with several others, asked the City Council on Tuesday to place it on the Nov. 3 ballot and formally endorse it.

He said 9,000 Antioch voters signed the Let Antioch Voters Decide initiative petition in 2018 to qualify it for the ballot. “The measure easily qualified and has strong community support. .. They love the city’s beautiful open spaces and they want to carefully manage development and traffic.” The Antioch City Council adopted the initiative that year, along with the developer-backed West Sand Creek initiative for the same general area. But in 2019 a judge agreed with a different developer that both initiatives weren’t properly adopted and ordered the environmentalists’ one to be placed on the ballot.

Adams also noted that the initiative was not invalidated but rather the courts changed the process for how it would go before voters.

To varying degrees, both initiatives would have blocked large-scale development not already approved in the Sand Creek Focus Area, which includes 2,712 acres of rolling hills and flatlands on the city’s southern border. Their focus had been on preserving open space between Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve and Deer Valley Road, but both also made it more difficult for The Zeka Group and Richfield/Oak Hill Park Co. on the western edge to develop land without voter approval.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, a dozen community members supported placing the environmentalist-backed initiative on the ballot despite the potential legal challenges from developers.

In addition to barring non-rural development in the Sand Creek Focus Area, the Let Antioch Voters Decide initiative would designate 1,850 acres west of Deer Valley Road as rural- residential, agricultural and open space and would designate as permanent the growth boundary. Changing the growth boundary’s designation after that would require voter approval.

“I grew up in Antioch and find the hills and open space throughout the town to be absolutely beautiful,” wrote Evan Gorman, who originally collected signatures for the initiative. “They have a deep connection to my life and to my parents who also grew up in…. Protect the land we love.”

Dave Sharp called the Sand Creek Focus area the “prettiest stretch of Antioch.”

“Please let the citizens decide,” he wrote of the scenic gateway to the city. “Sand Creek is important. Go ahead and develop all you want but not west of Deer Valley Road.”

But Andrew Bassak, the attorney who represents the Zeka Group, which sued to challenge the initiatives last year, said the city could face costly legal consequences if it places Let Antioch Voters Decide on the ballot.

“The terms of the initiative would materially and negatively impact Zeka’s property,” he said of the group’s 640 acres in the western area that would be affected by the measure.

He said this isn’t a good time for the city to put the initiative on the ballot, with legal appeals still pending.

Bassak said doing so will cost the city more than $100,000 and likely result in additional legal fees to fight court challenges.

Even so, Mayor Pro Tem Joy Motts and others were in favor of placing it on the ballot. “Not only did 9,000 of our citizens vote to put this measure on the ballot, but the courts ruled the initiative must be put on the November 2020 ballot,” she said.

Though the council unanimously decided to take the Nov. 3 ballot route, it chose not to include any city argument for or against the initiative.

Judith Prieve | East County journalist Judith Prieve is an East Bay journalist. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she has worked as a reporter, features editor and assistant metro editor at newspapers in Wisconsin and Northern California and has been at what is now the Bay Area News Group for more than 25 years.

East Contra Costa firefighters will only enter burning buildings to save lives, chief says Helmick: With district stretched to limits, new defensive strategy needed to protect responders

Jose Carlos Fajardo/staff archives East Contra Costa Fire Protection District firefighters battle a blaze Oct. 27 on East Cypress Road in Knightsen. Starting next month due to limited staff and funding, the district’s firefighters won’t enter burning structures unless lives are at stake, one of the “new urgent measures” district Chief Brian Helmick said he’s had to enact. By JUDITH PRIEVE | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: June 11, 2020 at 1:01 p.m. | UPDATED: June 12, 2020 at 9:31 p.m.

Beginning on July 1, firefighters in eastern Contra Costa County won’t enter burning structures unless lives are at stake.

That’s one of the “new urgent measures” East Contra Costa Fire Protection District Chief Brian Helmick said he’s enacted because of limited funding and staff.

“There are many realities and many forces that are driving the decision I am making,” Helmick said at a news conference on Thursday. “We really don’t have any choice, being underfunded and under-resourced.”

Helmick said having only three fire stations instead of the six needed to cover 250 square miles is “pushing (the district’s 30) firefighters to their limits as they respond to twice as many calls for help.”

“If there is not a life-safety issue — if there’s not somebody inside — you need to do the best you can to fight the fire from the exterior to the interior, but you cannot be aggressive and overextend yourself,” he said. “If we have a situation in which firefighters get trapped or we become hurt, we are our own 911 system. … Until we can address our resource issue and give firefighters the resources they need to do their jobs, we need to take a safe, effective approach.”

East Contra Costa Fire is the only agency in the county or anywhere that he knows of that has such a strategy. The chief, who took the helm three years ago, said in an interview that he had planned to seek an assessment fee to bolster the department’s revenue but that when the coronavirus pandemic hit, he decided to wait until later this year to consider a different tiered approach to funding new stations.

“I cannot dismiss the impact of COVID-19, monetarily, financially and economically,” he said. “… I have been trying to delay in taking this extreme measure (the defensive strategy), but I can’t wait until November. It’s the hardest decision I have made in my career.”

Helmick said another factor in his decision is that the district has leaned heavily on neighboring fire agencies for mutual aid but that these days they are financially strapped as well.

“We have great regional partners,” Helmick said. “They have subsidized us for a long time, and those agreements continue to be strained, and that is our problem. … As a fire chief, we have to further adjust and restrict the further drain on our outside neighbors because we do not have the adequate resources to do our job effectively, so that’s why I have to pump the brakes on how aggressive we are as a fire agency for firefighter safety.”

Helmick acknowledged the timing is bad because the wildfire season is getting underway. All public outreach events and station visits will be eliminated indefinitely, he added.

“These are not steps we want to take — and candidly, they may not be the last. We may have to consider other, even more drastic measures,” Helmick said. “The reality is, we have to live within our means and keep our firefighters safe.”

Helmick said the district’s six staffed fire stations were reduced to three in 2015 — not enough to protect a population of more than 128,000 people in Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Bethel Island, Knightsen, Byron, Marsh Creek and Morgan Territory. District board president Brian Oftedal and firefighters union president Vincent Wells said they support the new measures.

“If we only risk lives if lives are in danger, then that is what we have to do, and the fire board is backing that decision,” Oftedal said.

Though some residents questioned the decision on the Facebook live news conference and afterward and expressed concern about how it could lead to higher insurance rates, Bob Mankin, of Discovery Bay, agreed something should be done.

“I’ve advocated on this issue for more than 10 years, been in hundreds of meetings, invested probably a couple thousand hours of my personal time,” he wrote. “All viable options have been considered.” Sean McCauley, who owns 24 buildings in Brentwood, said he was not opposed to an assessment fee, especially if it is based on “a stair-step approach” to gradually build stations.

“If that (the defensive-stance policy) is what’s going to happen, we really need to think seriously about funding this tax initiative because that (approach) is going to be extremely detrimental to property damage and people’s homes and pets — you’re not going to go in there for a pet. People seriously need to think about it if that’s going to be the policy.”

Once served by volunteers and comprised of several city and town departments, the rural fire district was created in 2002 and had eight stations at its height. The district’s financial woes date back decades to when the area’s population was much smaller and volunteer firefighters provided service. In 1978, Proposition 13 cemented the property tax allocation for the fire district at about 7% — far less than the average 12 to 14% elsewhere, leaving the fire agency with less money than other area agencies.

Helmick said the rate made sense at the time but not now. In recent years, the district has tried to shore up its funding sources by pushing for a parcel tax, assessment fee and utility- user tax, but all those measures were defeated at the ballot box.

“The reason it’s a big issue is the fire district, the cities, the county, all of us collectively, have not addressed growth effectively over time,” Helmick said. “The funding was set to pay for a volunteer fire organization; growth has continued over the last couple of decades, and the fire district did not put in appropriate mitigation measures to increase the revenue incrementally, slowly over time; as growth continued, that created the existing deficit,” which is at least $10 million.

One Brentwood resident, Bryan Scott, has tried for several years through a group he founded, East County Voters for Equal Protection, to look for ways to increase revenue. Earlier this year he began gathering signatures for a voter initiative campaign, but the pandemic put a stop to that.

“The group is now seeking to have the city of Brentwood place the Initiative on the November ballot without signatures, due to the extreme emergency the region is facing,” he said.

“We will continue to explore all options as we move forward,” Helmick said. “No options are off the table.”

Judith Prieve | East County journalist Judith Prieve is an East Bay journalist. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she has worked as a reporter, features editor and assistant metro editor at newspapers in Wisconsin and Northern California and has been at what is now the Bay Area News Group for more than 25 years.

Restoring our national parks: Evangelicals support the Great American Outdoors Act

Published on June 8th, 2020

TAGGED: CONGRESS, CREATIONCARE, EVANGELICAL ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK, NATIONAL PARKS, PARKS With the current COVID-19 crisis, safe and easy access to the gift of America’s beautiful outdoors has never been more important for our spiritual, physical, and emotional health. Years of deferred maintenance have left our National Parks and other public lands with deteriorating infrastructure and crumbling trails, roads, and visitor centers. By establishing the National Parks and Public Lands Legacy Fund, the Great American Outdoors Act ensures safe access to the healing benefits and sacred experience of God’s creation for our children today and for generations to come. Immediate, shovel-ready jobs restoring our Parks’ aging infrastructure and preserving the natural beauty of God’s creation will provide a desperately needed economic boost to communities and workers across America.

By Dr. Jessica Moerman Evangelical Environmental Network

We thank and applaud Representatives Cunningham (D-SC), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Mike Simpson (R-ID), TJ Cox (D-CA), John Katko (R-NY), Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Kendra Horn (D-OK), Steve Stivers (R-OH), Jared Golden (D-ME), and Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) for introducing the Great American Outdoors Act to the House of Representatives. This important bipartisan legislation provides full and permanent funding for the Land Water and Conservation Fund (LWCF), addresses the backlog of much needed repairs and maintenance in our National Parks, and is a win for the economy, God’s creation, and everyday Americans.

Since its passage in 1964, LWCF has been a critical engine for developing new or revitalizing existing federal, state and local parks, playgrounds and recreation centers, and urban wildlife refuges and trails. By permanently and fully funding LWCF at $900 million per year, the Great American Outdoors Act ensures that funding intended to conserve and protect our vital resources, landscapes, and public green spaces is no longer diverted to unrelated projects.

As our country responds and seeks to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Great American Outdoors Act provides critical investment to communities throughout the United States, creates sustainable and immediate jobs in a time of great economic need, and protects and preserves unique and irreplaceable places in God’s creation. We are grateful to Rep. Cunningham and the other 11 original co-sponsors for their leadership. We call on all of Congress to support this critical legislation and urge President Trump to uphold his prior commitment to this bill by signing it into law.

(Originally appeared at CreationCare, the website of the Evangelical Environmental Network. Image by David Mark from Pixabay)

About the Author Evangelical Environmental Network EEN is a biblically based ministry dedicated to the care of God's creation. EEN is made up of both individual members who believe in and support our vital ministry and major evangelical organizations who work with EEN to help equip, educate, disciple, network, and mobilze the church for the care of God's creation. Creation-care means caring for all of God's creation by stopping and preventing activities that are harmful (e.g. air and water pollution, species extinction), and participating in activities that further Christ's reconciliation of all of creation to God. Doing creation-care fills us with the joy that only comes from doing the will of God.

Walters: A rift over closing California’s budget deficit Gavin Newsom and the Legislature must close the $54B deficit by the constitutional budget deadline of June 15

(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, Pool, File) Gavin Newsom, the Legislature must close the $54B deficit by the constitutional budget deadline of June 15. By DAN WALTERS, CALMATTERS | PUBLISHED: June 8, 2020 at 12:10 p.m. | UPDATED: June 8, 2020 at 12:13 p.m.

As the COVID-19 pandemic alters life in California in ways never before seen, one impact is on the annual ritual of fashioning a state budget.

With just a few days remaining until the June 15 constitutional deadline for enacting a 2020- 21 budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature are engaged in a fairly cordial debate over closing a deficit that Newsom pegs at $54 billion.

It’s essentially a conflict over how much direct relief, if any, California can expect from President Donald Trump and Congress to cover about $15 billion of the deficit that would remain after other actions have been taken.

Newsom had proposed a $222 billion budget in January and then discarded it after the pandemic struck. He ordered a widespread shutdown affecting economic and personal behavior to deal with it, thus triggering a recession that erased millions of jobs in just a few weeks.

In May, Newsom proposed a revision to his budget proposal that would cut spending to $202 billion and cover the remainder of the gap with some new revenues, some borrowing and some accounting maneuvers. He said $15 billion in cuts, mostly to K-12 education and colleges, would be automatically restored if the state received the federal aid that a $1 trillion House-passed relief bill promised. Clearly, he intended that cutting the most popular segments of the budget would help spur federal action. It was, however, too much for legislators to digest as they were hit with pleas from hundreds of advocates for services targeted in Newsom’s budget.

The Senate’s Democratic leaders proposed, and the Assembly’s leadership later supported, a 180-degree shiftfrom Newsom’s proposal. It would essentially retain the spending he cut on the assumption that Uncle Sam will cough up the additional relief, and make reductions in the fall if the money doesn’t materialize.

“Our economy has been pummeled by COVID-19, but thanks to a decade of pragmatic budgeting, we can avoid draconian cuts to education and critical programs, or broad middle- class tax increases,” Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins said in a statement. “Californians are counting on us to make the right call at the right time.”

Of course, there’s another option — raising taxes. In fact, tax increases of some kind have been used in every major budget crisis of the past half-century.

Both Newsom’s budget and the Legislature’s count on more than $4 billion from cutting back, but not eliminating, a couple of corporate tax breaks, but that’s pocket lint if the deficit is, as both budgets assume, $54 billion. There’s a lot of sentiment among Democratic legislators for a bigger tax increase of some kind, but there’s also concern that if enacted, it could backfire politically if seen as a drag on an already battered economy.

A new statewide poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, released last week, bolsters that concern.

“Asked whether Governor Newsom should have included tax increases in his budget plan, only one-third of Californians (32% adults, 34% likely voters) say he should have,” PPIC said. “Solid majorities (60% of both adults and likely voters) say that tax increases should not have been included. Across partisan groups, Democrats (43%) are much more likely than independents (29%) and Republicans (14%) to say tax increases should have been included.”

The only certainties are that a budget deal of some kind will be made by June 15, to protect legislators from losing their salaries, and that whatever they enact will be changed repeatedly over the next year as circumstances evolve.

Wall Street's rally zooms higher after surprise gain in jobs

Stan Choe and Damian J. Troise, Ap Business Writers Updated 6:09 pm PDT, Saturday, June 6, 2020

Photo: Eugene Hoshiko, AP IMAGE A woman walks past an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo Friday, June 5, 2020. Asian markets are mostly lower after Wall Street rally takes a breather, as investors parse unemployment data

For weeks, critics said Wall Street’s big rally made no sense when the economy seemed set for only more despair. On Friday, it got a bit of validation.

The S&P 500 jumped another 2.6% after a report said the U.S. job market surprisingly strengthened last month, bolstering hopes that the worst of the recession may have already passed. Employers added 2.5 million workers to their payrolls, when economists were expecting them instead to slash another 8 million jobs.

While economists cautioned that it’s just one month of data and that many risks still loom on the long road to a full recovery, the report gives some credence to the optimism that’s been building among stock investors that the economy can climb out of its current hole faster than forecast. That hope has been a big reason for the S&P 500’s rally of more than 40% since late March.

The S&P 500 is now down just 5.7% from its record set in February after being down nearly 34% earlier this year when recession worries were peaking.

“It looks like the healing process is underway in the jobs market and it looks like it’s happening sooner than expected,” said Todd Lowenstein, equity strategy executive of The Private Bank at Union Bank. “It looks like the worst is behind us.”

The S&P 500 rose 81.58 points to 3,193.93 for its eighth gain in the last 10 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 829.16, or 3.2%, to 27,110.98, and the Nasdaq composite rose 198.27, or 2.1%, to 9,814.08.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 0.88% from 0.82% late Thursday. This area of the market was much earlier than stocks to give warning about the coming economic devastation from the coronavirus outbreak. It had also been showing much more caution than stocks recently.

Now, the 10-year yield is close to its highest level since March, according to Tradeweb. It tends to move with investors’ expectations for the economy’s strength and inflation.

Stocks began their massive rally in late March after the Federal Reserve came to the rescue with promises of immense aid to keep markets running smoothly. Capitol Hill also agreed on unprecedented amounts of support for the economy. The actions helped convince investors that the worst-case scenario of a full-blown financial crisis was not likely.

More recently, it’s been hopes that economic growth can resume that have driven the market, as states across the country and nations around the world relax lockdown restrictions meant to slow the spread of the virus. Even as horrific and historic data continued to come in on the job market and economy, stocks largely remained resilient in their climb. If the optimism proves to be right, it wouldn’t be the first time. During past recessions, stocks have historically hit their bottom and turned upward months before the economy has. That’s because investors are setting stock prices now for where they see corporate profits heading months into the future.

After the financial crisis, stocks hit their bottom in March 2009, for example. That was three months before the recession ended, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. It was also seven months before the unemployment rate set a peak.

Analysts and economists warn, though, that a full recovery is still a long way away. The unemployment rate is still above 13%, nearly quadruple where it was at the start of the year, and on par with where it was during the Great Depression.

Economists warn that after an initial burst of hiring as businesses reopen, the recovery could slow in the fall or early next year unless most Americans are confident they can shop, travel, eat out and fully return to their other spending habits without fear of contracting the virus.

The biggest threat to the market is a possible second wave of coronavirus infections, which could derail all the improvement and push governments to tighten up on lockdown orders. Increasing tensions between the United States and China are also raising worries about a resumption in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Some investors are also worried about volatility that could be created by this fall’s U.S. elections.

Nevertheless, investors on Friday continued their recent trend of focusing more on companies that would benefit most from a growing economy, rather than those that had been earlier winners in the weak, stay-at-home economy.

Smaller stocks had the market’s biggest gains, as they often do when expectations for the economy are rising. The Russell 2000 of small-cap stocks jumped 3.8%.

Among the biggest stocks, energy producers, banks and industrial companies had the biggest gains. Their profits tend to be very closely tied to the strength of the economy.

Travel-related companies were also strong, after their stocks got pummeled early in the outbreak on worries that no one would want to fly or go onto a cruise ship for a long time. Security officers screened 391,882 people at U.S. airports on Thursday, the most since March 22. Year-over-year declines have moderated to 85% from 96% in mid-April.

American Airlines jumped 11.2%, tacking even more gains onto its 41.1% surge a day before when it said it would fly more of its regular U.S. schedule in a bet that fliers will return to the skies. Norwegian Cruise Line rose 14.5%, and United Airlines added 8.5%.

Retailers and owners of shopping malls rose on hopes that people may also head back to enclosed stores. Kohl’s climbed 11.5%, and Simon Property Group rose 15.5%.

Some of the stocks that had been the steadiest earlier this year when investors were searching for stay-at-home winners, meanwhile, were lagging the market.

Slack Technologies slid 14.2% even though it reported better results for the latest quarter than Wall Street expected.

European and Asian stock markets also rose.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil for July delivery rose $2.14 to settle at $39.55 a barrel Friday. Brent crude oil for August delivery rose $2.31 to $42.30 a barrel. ___ AP Business Writer David Koenig contributed.

OPINION // EDITORIALS Editorial: California lawmakers need federal bailout to plug budget holes

Chronicle Editorial Board June 6, 2020 Updated: June 6, 2020 4 a.m.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom visits Harun Coffee in Los Angeles on June 3, 2020. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/TNS) Photo: Genaro Molina, TNS California’s Legislature now has a pandemic-battered budget plan: Pray, wait and hope for the best. More seriously, Democratic leaders want to postpone the pain carried in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed spending cuts to meet a looming $54.3 billion shortfall.

Both the governor and his counterparts in the Legislature know the depth of the problem: a crashing economy, rising jobless and health bills, and no end in sight for the coronavirus threat. Both are leaning on the thin wish that more federal stimulus money will ride to the rescue though that brewing bailout is stalled in Washington. Thank the Republicans in the Senate for refusing to agree with House Democrats who want to send the funds to states that badly need it.

In Sacramento, the dispute isn’t over the towering deficit predicted to run into next year. It’s over how to read the future. Newsom presented his plan last month, a brew of reserves, heavy trimming and the wished-for federal money. But his cuts, totaling $14 billion for schools alone, are bringing on a fight with Senate and Assembly members closely moored to empty classrooms, growing welfare rolls and residents hunting for relief. Adding to the picture is the resentment felt by legislators that Newsom devised pandemic and budget decisions without their input, putting himself up as the go-to face of California leadership.

The leaders of the two chambers signaled their displeasure with Newsom two weeks ago and now are offering their plan. It calls for tapping reserves more quickly, shifting money from internal accounts, and postponing the worst of Newsom’s cuts until more economic results are known. Call it creative accounting, but it delays the worst and hopes for sunnier times.

What’s at risk is enormous. In January, lawmakers had the unheard-of luxury of a $6 billion surplus, a brimming rainy-day fund and payments on debt that accumulated in the last business downturn.

Nearly overnight the virus cratered tax collections, drove a 15% jobless rate, and shuttered schools, stores and public spaces. All of this exploded during a tightly scripted budget process that requires the governor to draw up a plan and the Legislature to approve one 10 days from now.

But the result of this financial fix will be a phony budget with penciled-in numbers and features. Legislators are headed toward devising what they want, not what they can guarantee.

Whatever budget is adopted for the coming fiscal year beginning next month will almost certainly need a heavy rewrite within months. Legislators may be forgiven for doing so given how unknowable a pandemic-damaged economy is.

But no one should think that California’s finances, once so strong, are in order.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

POLITICS California confident it can run November election smoothly even with coronavirus

John Wildermuth June 5, 2020 Updated: June 5, 2020 5:24 p.m.

Secretary of State Alex Padilla says he believes California can conduct the November election safely and efficiently because of mail-in ballots and precautions at polling stations. Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2018 The coronavirus turned what already promised to be an unprecedented presidential election year into a new test for California and its voting system, Secretary of State Alex Padilla said Friday.

The March 3 primary spotlighted the enthusiasm California voters were feeling, Padilla said in an hour- long online interview with Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

“We entered 2020 knowing this would be a big election year,” the secretary said. “We had record registration of nearly 20.7 million. We had a record number of primary ballots cast. We had the highest- ever percentage of eligible voters registered.

“Then COVID happened.” Less than two weeks after the primary, much of the state was shut down as officials tried to stem the spread of the coronavirus, which as of Friday has killed 4,481 Californians and sickened more than 123,000.

It also left Padilla and election officials around the state scrambling to ensure that the November election, with what could be a record voter turnout, would run smoothly and, just as important, safely.

Luckily, California had a head start on the needed changes, Padilla said.

“Some policies that California championed to get more access (for voters) will help during the pandemic,” he said. Online registration, easy ways for voters to verify that their registration information is correct, and the state’s “Where’s My Ballot” tracking program all make life simpler for voters who may be homebound during the pandemic.

And when Gov. Gavin Newsom said last month that all voters would receive mail ballots in November, it wasn’t a huge change for California. In the March primary, more than 72% of the state’s voters cast their ballots by mail. The governor’s call Wednesday for a statewide system of in-person voting centers that will be open days before the election also was designed to ease concerns of voters.

The revised November election rules aren’t about politics but public health, Padilla said.

“The more people who vote by mail or who vote early means less lines and a safer experience for everyone,” he said.

In addition to the work that has to be done preparing for a totally different type of election in the fall, the state also has to continue its effort to boost turnout, not only in total numbers but also from groups typically underrepresented.

“Lower-income groups, communities of color, young people especially” all are less like to register, Padilla said.

He has little patience for the attacks on mail voting by President Trump, who said its use in California will result in a rigged election, and Attorney General William Barr, who has suggested that counterfeit mail ballots produced by a foreign country are a real worry in November.

“The attacks by Barr or Trump himself are wrong,” baseless attempts to sow doubts about the November election results, Padilla said. Voting by mail “is the right things to do in the pandemic.”

Political attacks are far from the only worries voting officials are facing. The pandemic is also going to transform the physical face of the election.

The neighborhood garages and retirement homes that counties have used as polling places for decades don’t really work now, not only because of the danger from the virus, but also because of their size in this time of social distancing.

“We need bigger spaces,” Padilla said. “Some 25 to 30 voting machines can’t be next to each other anymore.” Then there are the people who help run the elections.

“Lots of the seniors and retirees who administer elections won’t be available,” because they are among those most vulnerable to the coronavirus, Padilla said. “We need to recruit a new generation of poll workers.”

California is going to be ready for the November election, but getting there hasn’t been easy, the secretary said.

“If I had to put it in one word, it would be ‘stressful.’”

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @jfwildermuth

Follow John on: https://www.facebook.com/SFChronicle/jfwildermuth

John Wildermuth is a native San Franciscan who has worked as a reporter and editor in California for more than 40 years and has been with the San Francisco Chronicle since 1986. For most of his career, he has covered government and politics. He is a former assistant city editor and Peninsula bureau chief with The Chronicle and currently covers politics and San Francisco city government.

Opinion: After George Floyd, oppose discrimination and violence I understand why some feel they have no recourse but violence, but I unequivocally reject that as the solution By FEDERAL GLOVER | PUBLISHED: June 5, 2020 at 6:10 a.m. | UPDATED: June 5, 2020 at 6:11 a.m.

Federal Glover (Dylan Bouscher/Bay Area News Group)

Over the past week, our nation, barely beginning to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, has been thrown into upheaval following the death of George Floyd. In an era where cell phones can quickly capture events and send them virally, Americans were soon playing and replaying with distress and disgust the video of Floyd dying on the street, his life snuffed out by one who had sworn to protect and defend.

The days following his death have brought about a resurgence of bitterness, anger, desperation and demands for justice that is not new to communities of color. Thousands across the United States are locking arms in solidarity and marching to seek justice for Floyd, but also to bring an end to the disparities that have left many young African-Americans dead at the hands of law enforcement. As the only African American who has served on the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors, I want to be crystal clear in saying I oppose violence. Violence begets more violence. I understand why some would feel they have no recourse but to resort to violence, but I unequivocally reject the idea that violence is the solution. Additionally, the opportunists who have co-opted legitimate protests and used the painful circumstances of Floyd’s death as an excuse for looting, theft and arson, should be held accountable for what they’ve done.

Even as we reject violence and the horrifying tactics of those opportunists, we cannot go back to the status quo. We cannot assume that once people have expressed themselves, they will simply go back to their communities and be ready to accept the practices that triggered this crisis. If for a moment we think that silencing legitimate protesters and ignoring the tragic circumstances that led to George Floyd’s death will restore a sense of balance, we are sadly mistaken.

The protests have drawn individuals with opposing goals. There are those who want America to understand their pain and fix the circumstances that lead to practices that victimize people of color. But there are also those who are anarchists, seeking every opportunity to fan the flames of discontent and destabilize communities for their own selfish gain. What is certainly noteworthy is that the faces of legitimate protestors are as diverse as America itself. People of all races, ethnicities and ages have come together to be heard and to demand that equality become the new norm.

As a county supervisor, I’ve spent the past 20 years assessing difficult situations and making critical decisions. I have never shied away from the hard conversations even when the most vociferous have disagreed with me. I bring to the conversation the reality that I am African American. My wife, my children and my grandchildren are African American. And, now, many of my constituents have called upon me to start the conversation about race, not only as an elected official, but as a person of color.

Good people across our nation have risen in solidarity with communities of color to say, “we cannot accept things as they are.” While many have never had the experience with law enforcement that persons of color have, they understand that if one part of our community is broken, then the entire community is broken. We are, after all, our brothers’ keepers. I call upon all Bay Area residents to be their brothers’ keepers. Reject discrimination. Demand equal treatment. Oppose prejudice. We are bigger and better than these things. It is time we begin listening to each other, communicating with and understanding each other. Honest dialog must begin today.

Contra Costa County Supervisor Federal Glover of Pittsburg is the only African American to serve on the Board of Supervisors.

POLITICS Coronavirus economy is hammering poor and nonwhite Californians hardest, poll shows

John Wildermuth June 3, 2020 Updated: June 3, 2020 9 p.m.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has seen his support rise dramatically in the past few months. His approval rating is now at 65%, up from 53% in the institute’s February poll and the highest of his term as governor.Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press

The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged California, but its physical and economic devastation has fallen heaviest on low-income workers and communities of color, according to a new poll.

In more than a third of California households, one or more members have lost their job, a number that rises to 49% among Latinos. Just over half the state’s households have someone who has had their hours trimmed or their pay cut. It’s 60% for African American families and 66% for Latinos.

And for California’s poorest, those with a family income of $40,000 or less, 47% have seen job losses and 63% cutbacks in hours, according to the poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

“It’s a public health crisis with uneven and unequal effects,” said Mark Baldassare, the institute’s president and director of the poll. “It’s an economic crisis like I’ve never seen before.” Those same low-income workers and communities of color are also the most worried about the physical effects of the virus, which has killed more than 100,000 people in the U.S. and sickened 1.8 million.

While 58% of California adults are at least somewhat concerned they will have to be hospitalized because of the coronavirus, that rises to 63% among African Americans, 64% of Asian Americans, 68% of Latinos and 65% of those with household incomes below $40,000.

Only 48% of white Californians have the same concerns.

Californians are split almost equally over whether the danger of the coronavirus is behind us (46%) or whether the worst is yet to come (48%). But 69% of African Americans, 53% of Asian Americans and Latinos and 55% of the poorest Californians take that more pessimistic view.

“They’re scared,” Baldassare said. “Many have seen their jobs go away, and the most vulnerable are the groups that are most vulnerable economically.”

That very public concern about what the coronavirus could bring shows up when people are asked if they are more worried the state will lift stay-at-home orders, business and activity closures and social distancing too quickly or too slowly. Californians overwhelmingly support a go-slow approach, 58% to 38%.

The question breaks along political lines, with 82% of Democrats fearing the state will try to return to normal too quickly and 70% of Republicans concerned the state won't move fast enough.

Californians also are in no hurry to change the coronavirus rules that are out there. Forty-six percent think the current restrictions are fine, compared with 25% who want more and 28% who want fewer.

Those numbers run against the drumbeat of calls for rapidly reopening the state, including impassioned pleas from businesses hit hard by the mandatory closures and demonstrators in Sacramento and across the state who argue that now there’s little to be concerned about. But that’s not a majority opinion, even among those who have taken the heaviest economic hit, Baldassare said.

Reopening: See what’s open, what’s still shut down by county

“Everyone wants the country to come back, but they’re worried that we’re not ready for it yet,” he said. “The findings suggest the priority is dealing with a life-or-death public health crisis.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has tried to balance the competing concerns of the state’s residents during the pandemic, has seen his support rise dramatically in the past few months. His approval rating is now at 65%, up from 53% in the institute’s February poll and the highest of his term as governor.

Among likely voters, 69% approve of Newsom’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, and 57% of likely voters think he’s doing a good job with the economy.

The coronavirus pandemic has had little effect on the way Californians view President Trump, Baldassare said, “with the naysayers and supporters unmoved” and the president’s 35% approval rating virtually unchanged from polls in February.

“It’s Gavin Newsom who’s viewed as someone who is out there doing something positive,” Baldassare said.

Newsom has at least 55% support in every region of the state, blue, red or purple. In the Central Valley, where the poll found likely voters split, 47% to 47%, between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden in the November presidential election, the governor’s approval rating soared to 64%.

Baldassare said the governor also should get much of the credit for what might be the most surprising finding in the poll. Despite the damage the coronavirus crisis has done to the state and the worries about the troubles yet to come, 58% of adults believe things in California are generally going in the right direction, up from 50% in a January poll.

By contrast, 70% of adults say the nation is heading into bad financial times over the next year.

The right direction/wrong direction question “is not about the economy as much as it’s about political direction,” Baldassare said. “Compared to where (Californians) see the country going ... they have confidence in the leadership.”

The poll is based on a telephone survey of 1,706 adults, including 1,048 likely voters, taken May 17-26. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for the entire sample and 4.6 points for likely voters.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @jfwildermuth

POLITICS California lawmakers pushing back on Gavin Newsom’s pandemic spending plans

Alexei Koseff May 22, 2020 Updated: May 22, 2020 7:29 p.m.

Gov. Gavin Newsom gestures during a news conference as CalVet Secretary Vito Imbasciani looks on at the Veterans Home of California on Friday in Yountville.Photo: Eric Risberg / Associated Press

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing growing resistance from the Legislature to his strategy for emergency spending on the coronavirus pandemic, just as he is seeking billions of dollars more to shore up the state’s response.

At an Assembly hearing Friday to review $4.4 billion in additional funding requests from the Newsom administration, lawmakers from both parties expressed frustration that the governor has largely sidelined the Legislature during the pandemic.

“The way legislative notification has gone in the past is, ‘Everything’s done. We’re going to be announcing this and we’re giving you 10 minutes advance notice,’” said Assemblyman Phil Ting, the San Francisco Democrat who oversees the budget process in the Assembly. “What is the point of a Legislature if we’re like the public watching TV to get information? It doesn’t feel very democratic to me.”

Newsom’s Department of Finance notified legislative leaders Thursday evening that it was moving another $1.8 billion into an emergency response fund, primarily to continue buying personal protective equipment for medical workers and other frontline employees. The governor also proposed $1.5 billion in his recent budget plan for equipment purchases, hospital beds to be reserved in case of a surge of patients, and a statewide testing and contact tracing program in the next fiscal year. Newsom is also seeking a $2.9 billion contingency fund that he could tap during a potential second wave of infections in the fall while the Legislature is in recess.

That would bring state spending on coronavirus response up to as much as $8.6 billion, three-quarters of which the Finance Department said would be reimbursed by the federal government because California received an emergency declaration.

The Legislature has just three weeks to pass a budget by a constitutionally mandated deadline of June 15 or forgo its pay.

Lawmakers said Friday they were concerned that the executive branch was infringing on their authority to make spending decisions for the state and had not provided enough information about how it was using emergency funds, fraying trust with the governor.

Ting lambasted the Newsom administration for showing “a disdain to properly communicate with the Legislature.” He said the new funding requests, which would allow the governor to decide how the money is spent with just a few days notice to the Legislature, represented a “huge overreach of authority.”

“In every legislator that I’ve talked to, there’s a significant amount of concern about the future of this process,” Ting said.

His comments amplified a simmering tension at the Capitol as the Legislature, which recently returned from a nearly two-month emergency recess, tries to wrest back some control over how the state is managing the coronavirus pandemic.

State Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, the Senate budget chair, said Monday that the governor’s budget proposal did not give legislators enough of a say in how pandemic money would be spent. Two Republican assemblymen also introduced a long-shot resolution this week to terminate Newsom’s state of emergency declaration.

Finance officials said at the Assembly budget hearing that they consistently briefed legislative staffers ahead of announcing major purchases.

The one exception was a controversial contract with the Chinese manufacturer BYD to buy 300 million N95 respirator masks and 100 million surgical masks for nearly $1 billion, Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer wrote in an email to The Chronicle. Newsom announced that deal on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

“That was an outlier in the sense that we had an immediate need to secure a reliable and ongoing supply of PPE at the outset of the pandemic for public health workers and front-line responders,” Palmer said.

The BYD deal has been deeply troubled. Although California paid $495 million upfront upon reaching the agreement in April, the company has not been able to deliver any of the N95 masks. Federal regulators with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health rejected certification for the respirators last month, leading California to claw back half the initial payment. Under a renegotiated contract, BYD must obtain certification for the N95 masks by May 31 or refund the rest of the state’s $495 million prepayment.

“We are in very, very close contact with NIOSH and keeping tabs on this,” Christina Curry, chief deputy director for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, told lawmakers Friday.

Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @akoseff

Alexei Koseff Follow Alexei on: https://www.facebook.com/SFChronicle/akoseff

Alexei Koseff is a state Capitol reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle, covering Gov. Gavin Newsom and California government from Sacramento. He previously spent five years in the Capitol bureau of The Sacramento Bee, reporting on everything from international recruiting by the University of California to a ride service for state senators too drunk to drive. Alexei is a Bay Area native and attended Stanford University. He speaks fluent Spanish.

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OPINION // EDITORIALS Editorial: California’s skewed tax system is harming economic recovery

Chronicle Editorial Board May 28, 2020 Updated: May 28, 2020 4 a.m.

In this Jan. 10, 2020 file photo California Gov. Gavin Newsom gestures toward a chart showing the growth of the state's rainy day fund as he discusses his proposed 2020-2021 state budget during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. But that was before the coronavirus pandemic shut down most of the state's economy. On Friday, May 8, 2020, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office, said state lawmakers can expect budget deficits until 2024, which could total $126 billion, depending on the severity of the recession. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press Once proudly prosperous, California is suddenly on its knees. A jobless rate topping 15%, empty downtown streets and a lockdown-weary population can do that to a once golden image.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has a plan, or at least the outline of one, to plot the state’s rebound. He’s picked a star-laden panel of savvy experts and interest group figures to suggest what steps to take. It’s more than measuring pandemic figures and green-lighting openings. It’s meant to take on the whole notion of recovery with the hint of rewriting the economic rules.

Or it could settle for less by offering tax breaks and wandering into the weeds on workplace fixes or regulatory shifts. That would be a cop-out.

That’s why it was refreshing to hear from four past governors, named to the panel. None has seen a predicament as bad as the COVID-19 pandemic. Earthquakes, recession, state debt: Nothing tops what California faces now, they opined. That should set the stage for broad thinking, difficult to pull off even in calmer times. The state is worried and uncertain, exactly the wrong mix at an historic low point. Sweeping trouble should encourage bold thinking.

The state has a projected $54 billion shortfall. Newsom is hoping to patch that hole with a mix of savings, federal money and postponed expenditures. This week legislators let the governor know how unhappy they are with his first-blush plan to cut social services and school programs. They didn’t offer any answers, unfortunately, but harped on a looming problem: Newsom is relying on billions more in aid from Washington, an idea that increasingly sounds like a long shot.

The state may then be left to its own devices. Along with unpopular cuts, budget makers will need to face a roulette wheel tax system that draws in money easily in good times and starves Sacramento when business sours.

This state has a hyperprogressive tax system, one that’s turned on its designers now. It’s built to soak the rich. The top 1 percenters pay nearly a quarter of state’s income via income taxes. It’s pure populism, and it’s paid off richly in the past few boom years.

But when dividends, stock profits and bonuses dry up as they are now, then the tax flows drop. Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, burnished California’s finances through tax bumps and savings and he had a surging economy that powered the volatile tax system to new heights. The exact opposite is happening now as the shortfall deepens.

This is where the recovery commission can prove its worth or turn tame. It should take on a string of front-burner topics such as alternative energy, medical coverage and school financing, all of them loaded and difficult. But none of it gets paid for without steady, reliable tax flows. If the commission dodges its job, then tax laws will get kicked to the ballot as a November measure to overhaul Prop. 13’s treatment of commercial property seeks to do.

The tax rules, dotted with perks and breaks, need modernizing for other reasons besides volatility. A knowledge-based economy is operating under assembly-line guidelines. Entire sectors ranging from legal advice to gym trainers aren’t taxed at the transfer point.

Talking up tax reform in the middle of a terrifying pandemic may sound misplaced and unrealistic. The recovery panel has a enormous challenge in finding creative ways to restart a giant, nation-leading economy, let alone rewriting the revenue rules. But California will only set itself up for more financial misery if it doesn’t develop a more stable structure to pay its bills. Don’t leave tax reform off the table in the rush for recovery.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

POLITICS Bay Area Rep. Mark DeSaulnier’s near-death ordeal: 4 weeks on ventilator

Tal Kopan May 26, 2020 Updated: May 26, 2020 7:23 p.m.

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier describes in a video his near-death experience after falling while running. Photo: Facebook WASHINGTON — Concord Rep. Mark DeSaulnier is getting back to work in Congress as he recovers from a near-death experience that hospitalized him for weeks, the Democrat revealed in a video posted late Monday.

A visibly and audibly weakened DeSaulnier detailed the ordeal in depth for his constituents in his first public remarks since March, when he contracted pneumonia unrelated to the coronavirus after a bad fall he took while running.

The longtime East Bay politician noted that while he was hospitalized, Congress and the rest of the world underwent a transformation into the age of COVID-19. He said he would be resuming his work on committees and in town halls with constituents in a largely virtual capacity.

The medical issues began March 4, when the 23-time marathoner went for a run around the National Mall as training for a possible race with one of his two adult sons. DeSaulnier was crossing a street when the light began to change. “My adrenaline was running and I sort of kicked it in to get through the intersection, and I took a fall,” he said.

He noted that most of the time for runners, such a tumble mostly results in damage to “your ego.” This time, however, DeSaulnier said he was holding his cell phone in one hand and tucked his arm, causing him to land on his side.

DeSaulnier, 68, broke multiple ribs and damaged his spleen, and his doctor prescribed pain medication and recommended resting at home. But due to a combination of his age and his weakened immune system related to chronic cancer, he said, he developed pneumonia.

On March 13, he was taken by ambulance to an area hospital.

“The infection was choking me, drowning me,” DeSaulnier said.

He would spend five weeks in intensive care, including four weeks on a ventilator. At one point, he said, doctors gave him just a 10% chance of survival.

One night, doctors called his sons and told them his organs were breaking down and there was “little they could do,” but wanted to attempt “a dated medical procedure” that could relieve the pressure, DeSaulnier said.

“The next day, my sons, expecting a phone call from the hospital saying I had passed away in the night, instead get a phone call that I was a little bit better,” DeSaulnier said. “Every day I got better. There were lots of challenges, (but) eventually my eyes opened.”

DeSaulnier spent two weeks in rehabilitation to work on his strength, speech and cognitive skills. He is still recovering, he said, and his voice is raspy because of damage from a tracheotomy.

But he said he is going back to work in Congress, including his four committee assignments, and will run for a fourth term this fall. DeSaulnier won the March primary with 68% of the vote and will face Republican Nisha Sharma in November.

DeSaulnier was already in remission for chronic lymphocytic leukemia when he began his ordeal. Surviving cancer “was amazing enough,” he said, growing emotional, “but I am so grateful every day for every breath, every day, and the people I love and care for.”

He said that as he re-enters daily life, he is wearing a mask and following social distancing because he would be very susceptible to the coronavirus, and encouraged others to do the same.

DeSaulnier, noting that he was recording his talk on Memorial Day, reflected on Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and the relevance of its message in the nation’s current crisis.

Lincoln, whose memorial DeSaulnier visited on that fateful run, said Americans must dedicate themselves in honor of the fallen to ensure “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” DeSaulnier pledged to follow that commitment.

“For reasons I cannot explain, we are at one of those moments, maybe not as serious as Gettysburg, but equally as threatening,” DeSaulnier said. “It’s up to us, the living in 2020, and our kids, to rededicate ourselves to shared sacrifice and individual sacrifice, to make sure this country continues (its) success, and with all its shortcomings continues to try, as Lincoln also said, to become a more perfect union.”

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @talkopan

Tal Kopan Follow Tal on: https://www.facebook.com/SFChronicle/TalKopan

POLITICS Rep. Barbara Lee proposes racial healing and truth commission amid pandemic, protests

Tal Kopan June 1, 2020 Updated: June 2, 2020 9:29 a.m.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) speaks during a news conference with members of the Democratic Women's Caucus prior to State of the Union at the U.S. Capitol on February 4, 2020 in Washington, DC. The group of women is wearing white to commemorate the anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Photo: Alex Edelman / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — As a spate of recent killings of black Americans and a weekend of intense protests have left the nation reeling, Rep. Barbara Lee is introducing legislation to create a racial healing commission.

The proposal would form a nonpartisan group of experts to confront the legacy of slavery and racism in the U.S. and propose ways forward, the Oakland Democrat and congressional colleagues said Monday in a call announcing the effort. “This is really about telling the truth,” Lee said.

She said she has been working on the idea for three years, and that the current pressures of the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest only make it more timely. “The environment that has been created makes this resolution and this effort more important,” Lee said.

Lee has been a longtime activist and advocate for addressing inequality, and her Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Commission was set for unveiling Monday before protests erupted in cities across the U.S. in response to the police killing of George Floyd last week.

Floyd, who was African American, died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes, during which Floyd pleaded repeatedly that he could not breathe. He lost consciousness and was pronounced dead a short time later. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired and has been charged with murder.

Video of the incident shocked the national consciousness. But Lee and her colleagues noted that the incident was only the latest example of African Americans dying in police custody, and said the fact that they have a higher rate of coronavirus infection than other groups highlighted their disadvantaged status in society.

“I know when we talked about this, Rep. Lee and I, several months ago ... neither one of us would have imagined we would be in the place we are right now,” said Rep. Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles. “Having a resolution like this that calls for healing, that calls for reconciliation, that calls for truth, is exactly what the country needs right now.”

Bass pointed to the importance of being honest about the nation’s beginnings as a way of confronting all of the issues, current and systemic, that face African Americans and other people of color.

“We don’t really know our history, our own history very well,” she said. “It’s very hard to identify oppression if you’re not aware of the origins.”

The bill does not get into specifics about the commission’s makeup, resolving only to form a group “to properly acknowledge, memorialize, and be a catalyst for progress toward jettisoning the belief in a hierarchy of human value, embracing our common humanity, and permanently eliminating persistent racial inequities.”

Lee said she also supports other legislation creating reparations to African Americans for slavery, but that is not the focus of her proposal. Her resolution has 28 Democratic co-sponsors, including civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, and the chairman of the Rules Committee, Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, whose committee would clear the way for legislation to come to the House floor. It’s unclear if the bill can pass Congress. Lee said in an interview last week she had mentioned it to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, but had not discussed it in depth. Pelosi listed Lee’s bill as being a way to “look at the full picture” on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, but was noncommittal on moving it forward.

Democrats have a majority in the House, but the Senate is controlled by Republicans, who have been critical of discussions of viewing American history through the lens of slavery as an original sin.

But Lee said she hoped the effort could be bipartisan, though no Republicans are signed on to sponsor it.

The commission should not be viewed as another in a long line of token panels, said Wade Henderson, former president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Lee’s effort could have a broad scope that looks to examine and then heal the deep wounds in society caused by racism and discrimination, Henderson said.

“This is not merely about equity and equality and fairness as we understand it. It’s also about the national security of the United States,” Henderson said. “We face three parallel crises that when taken together pose the greatest challenge that our country has faced in a century.”

Henderson said those three crises — coronavirus, police brutality and discrimination writ large — are “the fruit of a poison tree,” namely slavery and racism.

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @talkopan; https://www.facebook.com/SFChronicle/TalKopan

BREAKING NEWS

Coronavirus: New California cases set record, more than 115,000 infected Business Coronavirus: What is a V-shaped economic recovery and how likely is it really? What about a W-shaped or L-shaped or checkmark-shaped recovery?

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 24: The Crepe House on Polk Street is boarded up as the coronavirus shutdown enters its second week, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) By LEONARDO CASTAÑEDA | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: May 27, 2020 at 9:10 a.m. | UPDATED: May 27, 2020 at 3:09 p.m.

Leonardo Castañeda | Demographics reporter Leonardo Castañeda is a reporter covering demographics and the income divide as part of The Mercury News’ Living in the Bay Area team. He graduated from San Diego State University with degrees in journalism and economics, and previously reported in America’s Finest City. He also speaks Spanish, holds strong opinions about burritos and can be reached at 408-920-5012

With Gov. Gavin Newsom further easing California’s coronavirus restrictions, some economists are already talking about a speedy economic recovery.

The optimists call it a V-shaped recovery, in which the economy trampolines back up to normal as soon as lockdown restrictions are lifted. But others disagree about how likely that is, with some experts saying the coronavirus-induced recession is exposing deeper flaws in the U.S. economy.

The idea of a V-shaped recovery is simple: once the economy hits its lowest point and lockdown restrictions on businesses are lifted, workers will get rehired and shoppers will flock to stores like they did before COVID-19 — but with more social distancing and masks. “You’ll bounce back and your recovery will be as steep as your decline,” said Jack Rasmus, an economics professor at St. Mary’s College. “In other words, you’ll gain back everything you lost.”

But the likelihood of that happening is dependent on whether this is purely a coronavirus- driven economic slowdown.

“My view on that is, nonsense,” he said.

The economy will maybe bounce back some, he said, but not enough to make up for the 30 to 40 percent decline in GDP that some analysts, including the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, are predicting for the second quarter of 2020. Customers, he said, are not going to flood back into stores, restaurants and car dealerships. Airlines and hotels will take a long time to return to normal, and companies such as JC Penney and Neiman Marcus that were already teetering are starting to collapse. Only one in 10 global fund managers are anticipating a V-shaped bounceback, according to the Financial Times. Rasmus and others say the crisis has accelerated and worsened existing economic fault lines, like the decline in U.S. manufacturing, the trade war with China, and an all-time high in Americans’ personal credit card debt even before the crisis. Plus, history suggests we could be in for a second wave of infections, which could prompt another round of shutdowns. “There’s nothing on the horizon that suggests a robust economy, let alone a V-shaped recovery,” Rasmus said.

Chris Thornberg, founding partner at Beacon Economics, said the case for a quick recovery is obvious.

“When the mandates go away, people get back to work,” Thornberg said.

Restaurants that closed will reopen, and people who are still working — despite almost unprecedented unemployment rates, 84.5 percent of California workers still have a job — have built up savings that they’ll spend as soon as they can. Americans’ personal savings rate in March was the highest in 39 years. Even workers who lost their jobs are protected by a weekly $600 unemployment enhancement from the federal government.

There’s no sustained damage to the economy from the virus, Thornberg said, unlike during the Great Recession when the entire financial system buckled and major lending institutions either went bankrupt or required massive federal bailouts. “Everything says we’re already on the rebound, it’s already happening,” he said. “The faster the government gets out of the way, the better off we’ll be.”

A V-shaped recovery is not the only possibility. There’s a U-shaped recovery, in which the economy slowly picks up over years after hitting a low point. There’s the checkmark or swoosh recovery, which is essentially a slower V-shaped recovery. Then there’s the L-shaped model where the economy never recovers to pre-recession levels.

Rasmus favors another alternative: the W-shaped recovery. That’s essentially what happened after the 2008 Great Recession.

“There’ll be ups and there’ll be downs,” he said. “But this is going to take years to recover.”

POLITICS Newsom’s environmental budget cuts escalate tensions with state activists

Dustin Gardiner May 29, 2020 Updated: June 1, 2020 7:15 p.m.

McKITTRICK, CA - JULY 24, 2019: Gov. Gavin Newsom tours the Chevron oil field west of Bakersfield where a spill of more than 900,000 gallons of oil and brine water oil has flowed into a dry creek bed July 24, 2019 near McKittrick, California. Newsom said the state needs to be more aggressive in regulating oil drilling to avoid other major spills. (Photo by Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Photo: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times 2019

SACRAMENTO — Fewer rebates for electric-car buyers. No new oil and gas industry regulators. Less money to preserve wildlife habitats.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed spending cuts to balance a state budget mauled by the coronavirus pandemic have angered numerous progressive constituencies, but perhaps none more than environmental activists who were suspicious of him even before an estimated $54 billion deficit materialized.

“It’s not his priority,” said Kathryn Phillips, director of the Sierra Club California, one of the state’s largest environmental groups. “For whatever reason, and I’m still trying to figure it out, he isn’t what we expected.”

Newsom’s budget would cut funding for environmental protection by roughly $680 million from the current year. It also suggests a spate of cuts to related special funds, money earmarked to fight climate change and restore wildlife habitats. Environmentalists warn that his cuts could make it impossible for the state to reach its goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Administration officials said the state must make painful choices to keep funding intact for core environmental regulatory and safety programs. They also point out that the governor is proposing to boost spending for wildfire preparedness by $90 million and would preserve funding to enforce new clean drinking-water rules.

“We all realize that we have to adapt and make sacrifices that we didn’t think six months ago we would have to — we didn’t even contemplate,” said Jared Blumenfeld, California’s secretary for environmental protection.

He added, “We’re not going backwards — we are looking forward and understanding how we can adapt to a very different reality than we faced in January.”

Newsom was on shaky ground with environmentalists even before proposing this year’s cuts. They were incensed by his veto of a bill last year that would have adopted into state law the federal Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Fair Labor Standards Act and other regulations as they existed before President Trump took office.

Newsom said the bill wouldn’t have given the state any new authority, but his move stirred resentments that have carried over to this budget cycle.

“I know there are people within his horseshoe who are not fond of environmentalists,” Phillips said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom tours the solar panels atop the building housing the California Environmental Protection Agency. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press 2019 Among the cuts in Newsom’s proposed budget that have stirred the most opposition among environmentalists:

Cutting electric-vehicle rebates

Even in his first budget plan in January, before the pandemic hit, Newsom proposed to cut spending on rebates for electric-car buyers nearly in half, from $230 million to $125 million. His revised budget could shrink the funding pool even further and possibly end most rebates.

The state’s primary funding source for vehicle rebates, revenue from cap-and-trade credit auctions, is expected to shrink because emissions have dropped during the economic shutdown. And Newsom wants revenue that does come in to be spent in other areas first, including improving air quality in low-income communities, supporting forest health and fire prevention and providing safe drinking water.

Bill Magavern, policy director of the Coalition for Clean Air, said Newsom’s proposal is “disturbing” because the state could end nearly all incentives for people to switch from gas-guzzlers to zero-emission vehicles.

“It could end up being zero,” Magavern said of cap-and-trade money set aside for electric-car rebates. “Budgets are expressions of policy priorities.”

Emissions from the transportation sector are the largest source of greenhouse gases in California, accounting for roughly 40% of total output. The state has stoked electric-car sales in recent years by offering rebates to buyers.

Newsom’s administration also cut the size of rebates last year, when the state had a surplus of billions of dollars.

Blumenfeld, the environmental protection secretary, said Newsom is giving top priority to programs that promote emergency preparedness or environmental equity for vulnerable communities.

“We can stand proud and say even during these difficult times, we are committed to meet our ambitious goals,” he said.

Coronavirus Pandemic

California’s reopening: See what’s open and what’s shut...

Administration officials noted that the governor’s proposed budget includes $50 million to fund projects to expand the state’s patchy electric-vehicle charging infrastructure.

But the proposal to slash electric-car incentives faces deep-seated opposition from legislators.

Assemblyman Phil Ting, the San Francisco Democrat who chairs the budget committee, said Newsom’s administration has inappropriately tried to give itself extra control over spending cap-and-trade revenue.

Ting said lawmakers, who pass the budget, will push back hard to ensure there is still funding for clean car rebates, particularly as people avoid public transit during the pandemic.

“You’re not going to be able to have crowded Muni buses and BART trains as they normally are during rush hour,” he said. “We’re at a juncture where the clean transportation market is really starting to take hold.”

Newsom’s budget would also sweep $83 million from the state’s Air Pollution Control Fund, money that could be spent on clean transportation, and redirect it to offset cuts to clean water and toxic substance control programs.

“This account is for the remediation of air pollution,” Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, said at a hearing Tuesday. “Not to fix our general fund cash flow problem.”

Withdrawing climate bonds

In another blow to climate activists, Newsom has withdrawn his support for a $4.75 billion environmental bond proposal on the November ballot. The bond would have included projects to address immediate dangers of climate change such as wildfires, drought and sea-level rise.

Newsom’s administration has said projects could still move forward with funding from the federal government or private-sector investors.

However, some legislators have suggested they could push ahead with a bond proposal of their own. They say climate projects could stimulate the economy during a recession, and the idea to revive a bond proposal has drawn support from environmentalists and business groups.

Adrian Covert, vice president of public policy for the Bay Area Council, the business advocacy group, said losing Newsom’s support for a bond was disappointing, but that the governor faced “impossible choices.”

Covert said the council still hopes a plan can come together: “California has a great opportunity to put people back to work today to make the state more resilient for the climate changes of tomorrow.”

A Tesla Model S charges in San Francisco last year. Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle 2019 Scaling back oil regulators Newsom has abandoned a proposal to hire more regulators to police the oil and gas industry. He has withdrawn a plan for the Department of Conservation to spend $24 million a year to hire 128 more staffers, including geologists and engineers.

Those employees would have increased the state’s oversight of oil drilling and investigated spills. Newsom’s initial budget proposal said the department is “inadequately staffed” to handle all its responsibilities.

The oil industry would have paid for the positions through fees — they would not have been funded by the state’s general fund.

Wade Crowfoot, state secretary for natural resources, said the new positions were withdrawn “due to COVID-related economic issues impacting that sector and our fiscal health in our state.”

He added, “But rest assured that (the state) continues to ensure full regulatory oversight, including field inspection, witnessing of tests.”

Environmentalists accuse Newsom of bowing to pressure from fossil-fuel industry lobbyists.

“His failure to prioritize clean transportation is frustrating,” said Magavern of the Clean Air Coalition.

Cutting habitat conservation fund

Newsom has proposed a budgetary maneuver that could reduce how much land the state sets aside to preserve wildlife habitats.

The governor wants to take $19 million out of the Habitat Conservation Fund every year going forward and use the money to help avoid deeper cuts to the Department of Fish and Wildlife and support its enforcement efforts.

The fund, which voters created in 1990, has paid to preserve more than 542,000 acres of wildlife habitat. It expires this summer, but lawmakers agreed last year to continue it for 10 years.

Kim Delfino, an environmental attorney and former California director for Defenders of Wildlife, said the proposal to ax a popular program shows how Newsom has been a “little bit of a mixed bag” on the environment.

“It’s a rough budget year,” Delfino said. “There’s cuts to everything. The question is: Are we making the best cuts?”

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @dustingardiner

Walters: Recession freezes California’s ambitious agenda In January, the political and economic stars seemed to be aligned for California Democrats, unions and advocates

Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press Gov. Gavin Newsom has now slashed billions of dollars in spending in a much-revised budget — including nearly all of the enhancements he had proposed — and he is begging Congress and President Donald Trump for relief. By DAN WALTERS, CALMATTERS |

PUBLISHED: May 31, 2020 at 12:01 a.m. | UPDATED: May 31, 2020 at 4:47 a.m.

If one can muster sympathy for politicians, the Democrats who dominate California’s Capitol might be worthy recipients.

As the year began, the political and economic stars seemed to be in perfect alignment for them and their sycophantic allies, such as unions and advocates of health insurance for undocumented immigrants, expanding early childhood care and pre-school education, reducing homelessness, more generous social welfare benefits, and lower-cost college education.

The state’s economy was booming, generating many extra billions of dollars in tax revenues and Jerry Brown, who had been something of a skinflint as governor, had been succeeded by Gavin Newsom, who had ambitious plans to expand state-financed benefits.

Brown had ended his two-part, 16-year governorship with a semi-serious warning about California facing “darkness, decline, uncertainty and recession” in the years ahead. But Newsom, with an obvious yen for national political standing, assumed that California’s economic boom would continue indefinitely. He proposed a 2020-21 budget that was a cornucopia of new and expanded programs to confront poverty, homelessness and other social ills.

“California is stronger than ever today, and the budget found in the pages ahead reflects our fortitude,” Newsom wrote as he unveiled the $222 billion budget. “Our state has provided the rocket fuel for the nation’s economic expansion. We are the world’s capital of innovation. We have more people with access to health care and higher education than any other state. California is showing the nation and the world what big-hearted, effective governance looks like.”

Within two months, however, as California began to feel the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Newsom had declared an emergency, ordered a shutdown of much of the state’s $3.1 trillion economy and tossed his proposed budget in the wastebasket, seeing a $54 billion deficit over three years.

He’s now slashed billions of dollars in spending in a much-revised budget — including nearly all of the enhancements he had proposed — and he is begging Congress and President Donald Trump for relief.

Those adversely affected by the revised budget are pleading with their friends in the Legislature to modify the spending cuts, resulting in hours of criticism during an extraordinary “committee of the whole” session of the state Assembly last week.

However, as they express sympathy, lawmakers have little choice unless they can muster two-thirds votes for massive new taxes of some kind. The most important aspect of the situation, however, is that the severe recession, which has erased several million jobs, is likely to continue beyond 2020-21. In fact, Newsom’s revised budget sees the impact lasting at least through his first term.

“Personal income is not expected to return to 2019 levels until 2023,” the budget says. “In comparison, personal income fell by 3.3% during the Great Recession and recovered to 2007 levels by 2011. The forecast projects the impacts of the pandemic on personal income and its components to be larger in magnitude and in percentages compared to the Great Recession.”

State revenue will follow the same lackluster pattern, Newsom projects. “Total general fund revenues from (income, sales and corporate taxes) are expected to drop from $139.4 billion in 2018-19 to a low point of $114 billion in 2020-21. By 2023-24, it will only have grown to $128 billion,” his budget says.

With budget deficits projected for years to come, the expansive agenda Newsom and legislators desire will likely be stymied at least until mid-decade. They must tell their friends “no” now and for the foreseeable future — a very different scenario than what they had envisioned just weeks ago.

POLITICS

California measure to reform Proposition 13 qualifies for ballot John Wildermuth May 29, 2020 Updated: May 29, 2020 5:38 p.m.

A button commemorating the 1978 passage of Proposition 13 depicting its authors, Paul Gann and Howard Jarvis. Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

A revised state initiative that would boost property taxes on large commercial and industrial property by allowing it to be reappraised more frequently has qualified for the November ballot.

The measure, which supporters say will raise as much as $12 billion each year for schools and local government, would rewrite California’s landmark Proposition 13, a 1978 measure that set limits on property tax increases and allowed both residential and commercial property to be reassessed only when it was sold.

The new initiative, dubbed “Schools and Communities First” by its authors, would maintain the Prop. 13 limits for small business, agricultural land and residential property, including apartment buildings. But it would require that commercial and industrial real estate be taxed at its full market value, which would be determined by regular reassessments. Financial backing for the split-roll initiative comes from education groups, including the California Teachers Association, and public employee unions, along with a number of community groups and foundations such as the San Francisco Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Advocacy.

Community leaders across the state say the anticipated money is desperately needed, especially in the face of the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“When I look at our dire budget deficits over the next couple of years, and then I see these revenue estimates showing how much we can invest in our community without having to raise any taxes on residents, it makes it more important for me to give my full support on this initiative,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in endorsing the measure. Opponents of the measure, which include the California Business Roundtable and anti-tax organizations, argue that the initiative is a tax hike under another name and will raise prices for consumers.

Backers of the initiative that qualified for the ballot Friday turned in an estimated 1.7 million signatures in April, well above the nearly 1 million needed to qualify for the ballot.

It will replace a similar split-roll measure that was already on the November ballot. Besides cleaning up some technical problems in the original initiative, the revised version adds language to ensure that every school district receives a share of the anticipated windfall, strengthens tax relief for small businesses and toughens zoning language to keep large companies from avoiding the reassessments.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @jfwildermuth

POLITICS California lawmakers push back on Gavin Newsom’s budget cuts

Alexei Koseff May 29, 2020 Updated: May 29, 2020 5:49 p.m.

State Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, chairs the Senate budget committee, which approved its own fiscal plan. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press 2019 SACRAMENTO — The California Senate rejected billions of dollars in budget cuts proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that lawmakers said would harm the state’s most vulnerable residents, setting up a potentially contentious debate as they try to close a projected $54 billion deficit.

A plan approved Thursday by the state Senate budget committee would avoid severe reductions to education and safety-net programs by dipping further into state reserves and deferring payments to future years, while pushing off other program cuts for months in anticipation of a federal bailout.

That framework will become part of negotiations over the coming weeks with Newsom and the Assembly, which is expected to present its own proposal next week. The Legislature must pass a spending plan by June 15 or forgo its pay.

“I hope that the proposal and ideas that the Senate puts forward have a positive impact, particularly when it comes to addressing the budget shortfall in a manner that does not make conditions worse for our vulnerable California residents,” said state Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, the Senate budget chair.

The economic shutdown during the coronavirus pandemic obliterated California’s finances, pushing millions of residents into unemployment and erasing a multibillion-dollar surplus. Newsom unveiled his revised budget plan this month, tapping reserve accounts, using federal stimulus money, borrowing from special funds and temporarily limiting corporate tax credits to minimize the impact on public services. But his proposal would also slash $14 billion in funding for public schools, health care and social services programs, universities and state worker salaries, unless California receives additional aid from the federal government.

Legislators have criticized those cuts as a draconian solution that would disproportionately hurt poor, elderly and disabled Californians.

The Senate budget plan relies on many of the same financial mechanisms as the governor’s, but it assumes Congress will pass a stimulus package for states and local governments by the fall that would allow California to avert major cuts.

It would increase funding for schools, which have said they may not be able to reopen without additional money to pay for coronavirus safety measures. The Senate plan would also exclude Newsom’s proposed reductions to Medi-Cal, the state’s health care program for the poor, as well as in-home health services, preschools and child care facilities, centers for people with developmental disabilities and day programs to keep seniors out of nursing homes.

If the state does not receive that money by October, however, it would trigger an alternative solution that would tap an additional $2.7 billion of reserves and defer more than $5 billion in education funding to a future year. Schools could borrow against that funding or dip into their savings, with the state promising to pay them back later.

More than $1 billion in cuts would still take effect, including $400 million for the University of California and California State University.

State Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber (Tehama County), vice chair of the budget committee, warned his colleagues about saddling the state with more debt as it faces an economic recession that could last for years.

“I would admonish us to keep in mind not just kicking the can down the road, but the structural changes that are going to be required for us to get back on sound footing, no matter what happens with the economy,” he said.

Other major differences from the governor’s proposal include an estimate that hundreds of thousands fewer families will be added to the Medi-Cal and welfare rolls during the coronavirus pandemic than Newsom expects, saving the state $3.6 billion next year.

The Senate also proposes to expand Medi-Cal access to undocumented immigrant seniors, but delay the start of the change until 2022. Providing health care for undocumented seniors was in Newsom’s original budget plan, but the governor removed it after the economy crashed.

Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @akoseff

Coronavirus: What is a V-shaped economic recovery and how likely is it really? What about a W-shaped or L-shaped or checkmark-shaped recovery?

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 24: The Crepe House on Polk Street is boarded up as the coronavirus shutdown enters its second week, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) By LEONARDO CASTAÑEDA | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: May 27, 2020 at 9:10 a.m. | UPDATED: May 27, 2020 at 3:09 p.m.

With Gov. Gavin Newsom further easing California’s coronavirus restrictions, some economists are already talking about a speedy economic recovery.

The optimists call it a V-shaped recovery, in which the economy trampolines back up to normal as soon as lockdown restrictions are lifted. But others disagree about how likely that is, with some experts saying the coronavirus-induced recession is exposing deeper flaws in the U.S. economy.

The idea of a V-shaped recovery is simple: once the economy hits its lowest point and lockdown restrictions on businesses are lifted, workers will get rehired and shoppers will flock to stores like they did before COVID-19 — but with more social distancing and masks.

“You’ll bounce back and your recovery will be as steep as your decline,” said Jack Rasmus, an economics professor at St. Mary’s College. “In other words, you’ll gain back everything you lost.” But the likelihood of that happening is dependent on whether this is purely a coronavirus- driven economic slowdown.

“My view on that is, nonsense,” he said.

The economy will maybe bounce back some, he said, but not enough to make up for the 30 to 40 percent decline in GDP that some analysts, including the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, are predicting for the second quarter of 2020. Customers, he said, are not going to flood back into stores, restaurants and car dealerships. Airlines and hotels will take a long time to return to normal, and companies such as JC Penney and Neiman Marcus that were already teetering are starting to collapse. Only one in 10 global fund managers are anticipating a V-shaped bounceback, according to the Financial Times. Rasmus and others say the crisis has accelerated and worsened existing economic fault lines, like the decline in U.S. manufacturing, the trade war with China, and an all-time high in Americans’ personal credit card debt even before the crisis. Plus, history suggests we could be in for a second wave of infections, which could prompt another round of shutdowns. “There’s nothing on the horizon that suggests a robust economy, let alone a V-shaped recovery,” Rasmus said.

Chris Thornberg, founding partner at Beacon Economics, said the case for a quick recovery is obvious.

“When the mandates go away, people get back to work,” Thornberg said.

Restaurants that closed will reopen, and people who are still working — despite almost unprecedented unemployment rates, 84.5 percent of California workers still have a job — have built up savings that they’ll spend as soon as they can. Americans’ personal savings rate in March was the highest in 39 years. Even workers who lost their jobs are protected by a weekly $600 unemployment enhancement from the federal government.

There’s no sustained damage to the economy from the virus, Thornberg said, unlike during the Great Recession when the entire financial system buckled and major lending institutions either went bankrupt or required massive federal bailouts. “Everything says we’re already on the rebound, it’s already happening,” he said. “The faster the government gets out of the way, the better off we’ll be.”

A V-shaped recovery is not the only possibility. There’s a U-shaped recovery, in which the economy slowly picks up over years after hitting a low point. There’s the checkmark or swoosh recovery, which is essentially a slower V-shaped recovery. Then there’s the L-shaped model where the economy never recovers to pre-recession levels.

Rasmus favors another alternative: the W-shaped recovery. That’s essentially what happened after the 2008 Great Recession.

“There’ll be ups and there’ll be downs,” he said. “But this is going to take years to recover.”

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May 26, 2020

Corporations Pay Far Less of Their Incomes in

State Taxes Than a Generation Ago

As California faces a significant budget shortfall and policymakers are charged with helping people in the ongoing COVID-19 health and economic crisis, there is a substantial need for new funding and resources.

One place policymakers should look: corporate taxes.

A new fact sheet by Senior Policy Analyst Jonathan Kaplan finds corporations pay less of their income in state taxes today – even amid the COVID-19 economic crisis – than they did in the 1980s in part due to the reduction of tax rates and increased spending on tax breaks by state policymakers.

In addition to explaining why corporations can contribute more, the new report finds:

• California’s state budget would have received $11.2 billion more revenue in 2017 had corporations paid the same share of their income in taxes that year as they did in 1981. • Since increasing the corporate tax rate to 9.6% in 1980, the Legislature has cut the rate twice. • Corporations are also paying significantly less of their income in federal taxes due to the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by President Trump in 2017.

While the pandemic has dramatically altered our state's economy, Californians, businesses, and corporations did not come into this crisis equally. Policymakers should consider how tax rates and tax credits, exemptions, and deductions could be altered to more equitably target funding to benefit all Californians.

By increasing the corporate tax rate and reducing spending on corporate tax breaks, the state would have more resources available to move California forward and support families with low incomes who are struggling to afford the costs of living in California, COVID-19 crisis or not.

What We've Said on the 2020-21 State Budget

Commentary: What Californians Needs to Move Forward – It Doesn’t Start with Austerity – Executive Director Chris Hoene in CalMatters

Video: Why State Budget Decisions Matter for Californians – Policy Analyst Adriana-Ramos- Yamamoto

OPINION // EDITORIALS Editorial: Let’s hire the jobless to preserve and enhance our natural resources

Chronicle Editorial Board May 24, 2020 Updated: May 24, 2020 4 a.m.

A young seal is sprawled out and molting, or shedding its skin and hair, on the sand of the Aquatic Park at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park last year. Photo: Lauren Hernández / The Chronicle 2019

As the Depression deepened in the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt had an idea: put an army of eager job seekers to work improving federal lands, forests and parks. His brainchild, the Civilian Conservation Corps, revived the nation’s outdoors and created desperately needed employment.

It’s time to resurrect the concept with a fresh spin. In California’s case, the threat of wildfire is a near permanent worry in a state where 45% of the land is in federal hands. In addition, the soaring jobless rate brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting hardest those under 30, the prime age category to tap for the physical task of forestry work. Putting people to work on a needed assignment works both here and across the country.

Any plan to spend big on a federal project will run into political trouble, as Democrats are finding with a $3 trillion stimulus bill to aid cities and state finances. But this rebuilding proposal comes under the partisan-free heading of infrastructure. It’s public spending that can benefit everyone and should draw support from across the voting spectrum. The nation could use more of that spirit in a dire time. The plan, dubbed the Restoration and Resilience Jobs measure, is collecting congressional names for now. The $125 billion spending package is divided among a half dozen topics including wildlife habitat, land conservation and reclamation work. Abandoned coal mines, wetlands used by migrating birds and fish- rearing streams would get attention. The projects range from the Everglades in Florida to the Southern California desert. A total of 76 members of Congress have signed on, including 16 from California.

The possibilities are easy to see. In San Francisco, Aquatic Park needs an updating from improved beachfront seating areas to improvements to a row of seven historical ships that need maintaining. As stay-home rules give way to a more open city, visitors are flocking to this stretch of beach and pier fronts managed by the Park Service. An overhaul would be welcomed by the public.

But most of the federal land is in rural areas, where fires are fed by overgrown vegetation. The proposal takes note of both this problem and its potential solution. One fireproofing tool calls for prescribed or controlled burns to rid the landscape of undergrowth that can turn a blaze into an inferno as California well knows.

But that tactic needs plenty of prep work and careful oversight once the flames get going. It’s hard, even dangerous, work that young crews of firefighters could be trained to carry out. With a crushing state budget shortfall, it’s too much to expect Sacramento to take on the task as it has in the past. A bill to train and deploy crews working on federal land would be a more complete answer.

Along with controlled burns, additional workers could lower fire risks by thinning forests and widening fire-stopping breaks. It won’t be just young people swinging axes and shovels. There will be a need for heavy equipment operators and seasoned construction workers as well.

It’s not all backcountry basics. Federal entities such as the National Park System, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have shelves of postponed maintenance and improvements.

In the northwest corner of the state, a coalition of outdoors groups, tribes and local leaders in Del Norte County have developed plans for riverside work, improved camp sites, and tree trimming. In the eastern Sierra, there are other spending needs: dealing with wild burros that chew up the landscape, an updated visitors center in Mono County and improvements to the Manzanar National Historic Site that memorializes the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II.

Nationally, there’s plenty more to do. Droughts, hurricanes and floods have devastated millions of federal acres, robbing the environment of a chance to bounce back. It will take hard work to revive these estuaries, rivers and forests that span both red and blue states.

There are plenty of worthy causes and interest groups lining up for federal funds as the pandemic continues. The challenge requires a multitude of answers to the shattering damage. Renewing federal lands to keep them safe and accessible in a way that eases a jobless crisis should go on the priority list. FDR would likely agree.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

POLITICS California’s Proposition 13 ballot fight intensifies with coronavirus pandemic

Joe GarofoliMay 26, 2020 Updated: May 26, 2020 4 a.m.

Gov. Gavin Newsom looks on during a campaign stop in support of Proposition 13 at Manzanita SEED Elementary School in Oakland in early Photo: Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle

A proposed change to California’s sacrosanct Proposition 13 that seeks to raise $12 billion annually for schools and local government was already primed to be one of the hottest battles on the November ballot before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

But the financial damage brought on by the disease is transforming the fight over a measure that would raise property taxes for many businesses into a struggle over the future of California.

Passing the initiative “was critical a few months ago,” said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, whose city is one of many in California that are teetering on the edge of a financial abyss. “Now, it is a matter of life and death for many California families.”

The initiative’s opponents are sounding equally dire messages about how the pandemic has changed the political and economic climate. Changing Prop. 13’s formula to raise commercial property owners’ taxes is “tone deaf” at a time when countless small businesses are already dying, opponents say.

“It will increase the cost of living in California,” said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, which opposes the initiative as part of a coalition called Californians to Save Prop. 13 and Stop Higher Property Taxes. “People are already gravely concerned that California is too expensive a place to live.” The Schools and Communities First initiative would create a new stream of tax revenue for local governments and public schools by reassessing commercial and industrial properties in California every three years instead of whenever they are sold, the system voters put in place when they approved Prop. 13 in 1978. Now, property assessments are capped at 2% a year.

Properties now assessed at less than $3 million would be exempt from the initiative — an attempt by backers to shield smaller commercial property owners from higher taxes.

The proposed initiative wouldn’t touch residential property taxes. Many homes change hands every few years, so they’ve been repeatedly reassessed since Prop. 13’s passage. Large businesses, however, often remain under the same ownership for a long time. Some California businesses are paying property taxes based on assessments that haven’t changed in 40 years.

Proponents have submitted far more than the 997,139 signatures needed to qualify the measure for the November ballot, and should know by Friday whether enough of them have been verified as valid to put it before voters. An April survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that 53% of likely voters would support such a measure, nearly the same support that a similar survey found a year ago.

A new $12 billion revenue stream sounds great to many city and school officials. California’s estimated $54 billion deficit could lead to deep cuts in school budgets — as much as $19 billion. San Francisco is looking at a $1.7 billion shortfall, and Oakland has to solve a $122 million budget problem over the next 14 months — which is more than the cost of paying half the city’s police force for a year.

“The worst thing we can do in this crisis is to simply cut health and other vital services — it endangers our public health and a potential recovery,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California and a supporter of the initiative. Raising business property taxes would not only provide “an important lifeline for people who depend on the safety net, but frankly for all of us,” he said.

Sasha Cuttler a public health nurse in San Francisco, says nurses feel betrayed. The coronavirus pandemic is reshaping the campaign around the Schools and Communities First initiative and an adjustment to Prop. 13 that would change how commercial properties are assessed to provide funds for small businesses and public health facilities. Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Sasha Cuttler, a public health nurse in San Francisco, experiences the pandemic’s impact every day. Half the calls Cuttler fields on advice lines are from people who either fear that they have COVID-19 or need help finding services to treat it.

Cuttler worries about potential cuts to public health programs.

“For many nurses, the prevalent feeling is one of betrayal,” Cuttler said. “We’re constantly told that we need to save money. How are we supposed to save lives if we don’t have enough money?”

Opponents of the proposed initiative point out that the pandemic has hit small businesses hard, too.

An April survey by the Small Business Majority advocacy group found that 44% of small-business owners, most of whom employed fewer than 25 people, either had closed their operations or expected to by July.

A report last week by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that 56% of California small businesses have experienced “large negative” losses from the pandemic. Small businesses owned by women, Asian Americans and Latinos have been disproportionately hurt, according to the policy institute’s analysis.

Even though the initiative’s changes are directed at larger commercial and industrial property owners, Lapsley, the California Business Roundtable leader, predicted that its costs will trickle down to small- business owners who rent space in those buildings.

“They will pay for it and pass (the cost) along to consumers at exactly the wrong time,” Lapsley said.

Proponents say the $3 million floor for properties subject to higher taxes would assure that the burden would fall on wealthier owners. A February study by the University of Southern California found that 78% of the tax revenue generated by the initiative would come from properties valued at more than $5 million.

Nevertheless, representatives of California’s $50 billion agricultural industry are also fearful of the initiative’s impacts at a time when farmers expect upward of $10 billion in losses because of the pandemic, said Rob Spiegel, a policy advocate for the 36,000-member California Farm Bureau Federation, which opposes the initiative.

Although the proposed measure would exempt agricultural land from its provisions, Spiegel worries that it would not apply to what is planted on that land.

But those concerns “are completely distorting” the initiative’s provisions regarding agriculture, said Lenny Goldberg, a policy consultant to the supporters.

Lapsley said supporters are overstating how soon the proposal could provide help. If the initiative passes, the new property tax revenue wouldn’t start pouring in until 2022 at the earliest, by which time budgets might be recovering in a post-pandemic world. Schaaf, however, said the measure represents the kind of “fundamental shift” that California needs to make, pandemic or no pandemic.

“This is a moment to actually make people uncomfortable,” Schaaf said. “Businesspeople should be uncomfortable about the level of income inequality that we have.”

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @joegarofoli

Opinion Rep. Mark DeSaulnier reveals he was on a ventilator for four weeks Congressman describes running accident that almost killed him, pledges to seek re-election in November

(Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, shown above in a 2016 photo, broke multiple ribs in a March running accident and developed pneumonia, exacerbated by a weakened immune system resulting from his ongoing cancer treatment.

By DANIEL BORENSTEIN | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: May 25, 2020 at 9:58 p.m. | UPDATED: May 26, 2020 at 10:33 a.m.

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, speaking publicly Monday evening for the first time since he was released from the hospital three weeks ago, recounted the details of the running accident that nearly killed him, revealed that he had been on a ventilator for four weeks and pledged to seek re-election in November.

His doctors have told him that he’s a “medical miracle” and that he should expect a full recovery, he said. “I don’t know what providence or good faith or technology or talented doctors led me to be able to continue to live, but at one point I was given a 10% chance of surviving. I’m so grateful, and I can’t tell you what kind of impression this leaves on someone.” DeSaulnier, D-Concord, who represents most of Contra Costa County, plans to resume work this week by participating in House committee hearings, which are being held virtually to help prevent more members of Congress from contracting the novel coronavirus.

DeSaulnier’s hospitalization in the middle of a national crisis was not related to coronavirus — he tested negative for COVID-19. And while he missed most of the political drama in Washington over the pandemic, he is clearly mindful of the global health threat and encourages people to maintain social distancing.

“When I do go out, I wear a mask, I keep 6 feet,” he said. “I really have to because of my susceptibility to another infection and how deadly that would be for me if I get COVID.”

Looking gaunt and speaking from his Washington, D.C., condominium in a weak and raspy voice, the result of a tracheotomy tube used during his hospitalization, DeSaulnier recounted in an 11½-minute Facebook video the ordeal that began March 4. DeSaulnier, a former marathoner who lives with treatable chronic lymphocytic leukemia, had gone for an evening run to the Lincoln Memorial and back. On the return, about two blocks from his Capitol Hill home, he fell while going through an intersection.

Unfortunately, he said, he was carrying his cell phone in his right hand so he wasn’t able to break his fall with his hands. Instead, “I tucked my elbow as I flew through the air and landed on my ribs.” He walked the rest of the way home and saw a doctor the next morning.

He had hurt his spleen and broken multiple ribs. He was prescribed pain pills and told it would take time for the ribs to heal. But his condition worsened and he developed pneumonia, exacerbated by a weakened immune system resulting from his ongoing cancer treatment.

On March 13, he went to the medical center in the Capitol and was immediately put in an ambulance and taken to George Washington Medical Center, where he was placed in the intensive care unit for almost five weeks, four of which he was unconscious on a ventilator.

“On a key night, my doctors called my sons and told (them) that my organs were breaking down and that (there was) little they could do but they wanted to try a dated medical procedure to try to take pressure off my organs, particularly my kidney,” DeSaulnier said.

“They did it and the next day my son is expecting a call from the hospital saying that I had passed away in the night. Instead (he) got a phone call saying I was a little bit better.” The congressman eventually began to recover and was moved out of the intensive care unit.

He said he spent two weeks in rehab doing cognitive, occupational, physical and speech therapy “to find out what level of acuity I had, and what kind of time it would take to rebuild my health.”

DeSaulnier’s decision to seek re-election only affects his campaign plans, not the November ballot itself. Whatever his decision had been, his name would have appeared on the ballot because he won the March 3 open primary by garnering 71 percent of the vote. Under California’s top-two open primary rules, his name and that of the second-place finisher, Republican Nisha Sharma, a Danville Realtor, must appear on the general election ballot.

In his comments Monday, the congressman was clear that he plans to actively seek a fourth term.

“I love my work,” he said, adding that he hopes to see a new president elected at the same time so he can help work “to repair the damage of the last four years to this country.”

Daniel Borenstein | East Bay Times Editorial Page Editor Dan Borenstein is an award-winning columnist for the Bay Area News Group and editorial page editor of the East Bay Times. He has worked for the Times and its affiliated newspapers since 1980, including previous assignments as political editor, Sacramento bureau editor, projects editor and assistant metro editor. A Bay Area native, he holds master’s degrees in public policy and journalism from University of California, Berkeley. [email protected]

Follow Daniel Borenstein @BorensteinDan

Opinion | Opinion, Opinion Columnist Walters: Tax hikes for California in the midst of recession? With millions suddenly jobless, will Californians back new taxes to prop up state and local government services?

Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press

Newsom may be maximizing the state’s projected fiscal problem to bolster his plea, and that of other governors, for federal pandemic relief. But there’s no doubt that he and the Legislature have a big hole of some size to fill and with relief in Washington stalemated and a June 15 budget deadline looming, an option would be to boost state taxes.

By DAN WALTERS, CALMATTERS |

May 25, 2020 at 12:10 p.m.

It’s the multi-billion-dollar question of the moment:

In the midst of a sudden recession that has erased, at least temporarily, millions of jobs, would Californians support a batch of new taxes to prop up state and local government services?

Gov. Gavin Newsom implicitly posed the question in his much-revised 2020-21 budget. It assumes a $41.2 billion drop in revenues from the initial budget he unveiled in January, pegs the total deficit at $54.3 billion and makes wholesale reductions in K-12 schools, higher education and other popular services to close the gap.

Newsom may be maximizing the state’s projected fiscal problem to bolster his plea, and that of other governors, for federal pandemic relief. But there’s no doubt that he and the Legislature have a big hole of some size to fill and with relief in Washington stalemated and a June 15 budget deadline looming, an option would be to boost state taxes.

Last week, the Education Coalition — a collection of unions, school boards and other school groups — pleaded with Newsom and lawmakers to ease the revised budget’s $6.9 billion reduction in state aid to K-12 school districts.

“Schools and colleges cannot physically reopen safely with the funding level proposed in the May revision,” the coalition said in an open letter.

Noting that Newsom proposes to raise $4.4 billion by suspending some business tax breaks, the coalition added, “We look to the administration and the legislature to identify and agree on alternate revenue sources, in addition to supporting the suspension of tax credits, to ensure K-12 schools can provide quality and safe educational environments for California’s six million students.”

“Alternate revenue sources” is obviously a euphemism for new taxes of some kind, most likely additional income taxes on those at the top of the economic ladder. Tax-the-rich has been a deficit-closing maneuver in past recessions and earlier, before the pandemic struck, some members of the coalition had proposed such an increase to raise school spending.

That proposal, which was to have appeared on the November ballot, was set aside to avoid competition with another measure, backed mostly by public employee unions, to raise property taxes on commercial buildings such as warehouses, hotels and office buildings.

The Education Coalition’s plea for “alternate revenue sources,” the commercial property tax increase already on the ballot and dozens of pending local government tax proposals frame the question: Do concerns about cuts in schools and other services outweigh the personal economic stress that millions of voters feel as their incomes shrink?

Newsom and legislators would not have to seek voter approval of new taxes, which could be passed with two-thirds votes in both legislative houses. But enacting a package of new state taxes could make it more difficult to gain voter approval of the commercial property tax, which would raise $10-plus billion a year for schools and local governments, and the pending local government tax measures.

Moreover, with Californians already bearing one of the nation’s highest tax burdens, adding more levies could slow economic recovery. Opponents of the commercial property tax are already arguing that it would force property owners to raise rents and would thus hammer small businesses, such as restaurants, that are foundering due to forced pandemic closures.

Were Congress and President Donald Trump to suddenly cough up the additional trillion dollars in state and local government aid that Newsom et al, seek, the tax question might fade, at least until November. But the chances of that happening anytime soon, if ever, are slim.

Dan Walters, CalMatters Dan Walters is a CALmatters columnist.

OPINION // EDITORIALS Editorial: Why Congress still hasn’t spent enough on the coronavirus rescue

Chronicle Editorial BoardMay 19, 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, at the Capitol last week. Photo: Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images Republicans last week accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats of throwing every partisan priority at hand into a kitchen-sink stimulus bill. But if they persist in rejecting the legislation’s dramatic expansion of federal aid to state and local governments, they will be speeding the economy’s journey down the drain.

About a third of the House’s $3 trillion package would go to state, local and tribal governments, matching what Gavin Newsom and four other Western governors recently urged Congress to provide. It’s a justifiable request given the depth of the coronavirus crisis, the relatively paltry assistance granted to governments to date, the federal government’s unmatched power to support them and the risks of not doing so.

Opposition by President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cut state and local assistance out of last month’s nearly half-trillion-dollar stimulus. The previous month’s $2 trillion package included $150 billion for the purpose but restricted it to pandemic-related spending rather than shoring up devastated revenues. Even if that money were freed up for other uses, it amounts to about a twentieth of state and local revenues; California’s budget deficit through the summer alone would consume roughly a third of the allocation.

With unemployment as high as 25% forecast in California and nationwide, a level not seen since the Great Depression, the federal government has spent about 15% of gross domestic product to shore up the economy so far. That’s more than twice the stimulus passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis but less than half the spending enacted under the New Deal as a share of the economy. State and local aid to date, moreover, is roughly equivalent to what was provided by the much smaller Great Recession stimulus.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell took the rare step last week of urging Congress to spend more to support state and local governments as well as laid-off workers to answer “the biggest shock our economy has felt in modern times.” He also warned of the economic damage a resurgence of the pandemic could wreak, underscoring the danger of relying on a premature resumption of regular commerce to stem the fallout.

Despite McConnell’s disparagement of “blue-state bailouts,” California had a $22 billion surplus before the pandemic and its consequences replaced it with what’s expected to be a $54 billion shortfall. Governors across the country and political spectrum have sought assistance because almost all of them, unlike the federal government, must balance their budgets. Downstream of the states’ fiscal wreckage sit cities such as San Francisco, which is expecting a $1.7 billion deficit, and schools.

Forcing these governments, which employ 1 in 7 American workers, to cut their way to solvency will hobble their capacity to deal with the pandemic — a job the federal government has largely outsourced to them — while further swelling the ranks of the unemployed. Congress doesn’t have to bail out blue states so much as it does the United States.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

5

Editorial: Ease COVID-19’s impact on state, local governments Massive cuts would ‘destroy services and eliminate a whole bunch of jobs’

Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has shown no interest in offering state and local governments additional assistance to fight the pandemic. By MERCURY NEWS & EAST BAY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARDS | PUBLISHED: May 20, 2020 at 6:15 a.m. | UPDATED: May 20, 2020 at 3:08 p.m. The coronavirus pandemic is creating massive budget deficits for California cities and counties at a level exceeding that of the Great Recession.

It’s imperative that majority Republicans in the U.S. Senate negotiate with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a deal that provides a lifeline to the nation’s state and local governments. Congress has an obligation to support them in emergency situations. States, counties and cities are required by law to have balanced budgets. Their only alternative is massive cuts that will have devastating impacts on people and the economy.

“If you’re going to do a cut to the bone, you’re going to destroy services and eliminate a whole bunch of jobs,” said Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith.

The size of the projected deficits is staggering. Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week that California is facing a $54 billion hit. Closer to home, Santa Clara County is projecting a $285 million budget deficit. Alameda County is forecasting a 10% drop in sales tax revenues from its $3.1 billion budget. The city of Oakland is projecting an $80 million budget hole. San Jose announced in April that it is forecasting a $71.6 million deficit, but Mayor Sam Liccardo said that he expects it to hit $100 million and wouldn’t be surprised if it was even worse. The Bay Area’s smaller cities are faring no better. Richmond, for example, is forecasting a $27 million deficit, and Palo Alto’s anticipated shortfall is approaching $40 million.

The House narrowly passed a $3 trillion pandemic relief package on Friday designed to send $1 trillion in aid to struggling state and local governments. The legislation would also provide another round of direct $1,200 payments to taxpayers and include $100 billion for rental assistance and $75 billion in mortgage relief.

Republicans in the House, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Bakersfield, opposed the package.

“Instead of going big,” said McCarthy, “you went crazy.”

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is in no hurry to consider the House bill. Three weeks ago he said giving aid to states to help ease the pain from the pandemic would be a “blue state bailout” and that he would prefer to see them go bankrupt. But it isn’t just blue states feeling the pinch. In McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear’s state budget director projected a shortfall of $318.7 million to $495.7 million that would force cuts to education and basic public safety. And Kentucky’s largest city, Louisville, with a population slightly bigger than Oakland’s, is facing a $115 million budget deficit.

McConnell and Republicans are objecting to Democrats’ request for $3.6 billion to bolster election security. The Trump administration is threatening a veto if the package includes a $25 billion bailout for the U.S. Postal Service. Republicans have also said that any new stimulus package should offer more liability protections for businesses, nonprofits, and for “] government agencies and health care workers in the event of medical malpractice lawsuits.

Tough negotiations between Republicans and Democrats are to be expected. Both sides should be willing to compromise. But doing nothing to keep state and local governments from cutting essential services is unacceptable. Congress should pass a fourth stimulus package that helps offset the impact of the coronavirus crisis.

Mercury News & East Bay Times Editorial Boards

13

Editorial: COVID-19 offers lesson on risk of ignoring climate change Pandemic proves there is a heavy price to be paid for failing to heed scientists’ warnings

The impact of people sheltering in place during the coronavirus outbreak has made for clearer skies throughout California. (Vern Fisher/Monterey Herald)

By MERCURY NEWS & EAST BAY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARDS |

PUBLISHED: May 21, 2020 at 6:15 a.m. | UPDATED: May 21, 2020 at 3:24 p.m.

The coronavirus offers important lessons for the Bay Area and beyond on the need to reduce the threat of climate change.

For starters, we’ve learned there is a heavy price to be paid for ignoring repeated warnings from scientists with expertise in their field of study.

Researchers at the Global Carbon Project on Tuesday published a report revealing that the Earth can expect a drop of 7% in carbon dioxide emissions this year as a result of the pandemic. It’s the largest decrease in at least 75 years. That’s the good news. But the plunge in carbon emissions shouldn’t be perceived as a silver lining. The decline is temporary. At some point, business will resume and people will head back to work. The 7% drop will become a thing of the past. Here’s the challenge. The authors of the study, in an oped for Scientific American magazine, noted that the U.N. Environment program said emissions needed to drop 7.6% every year until 2030 for the global temperature increase to stay below the safer limit of 1.5 degrees C.

It’s a grim reminder that we shouldn’t wait another day to begin implementing innovative approaches to transportation and industrial challenges. Any new stimulus packages should seek ways of spurring clean energy programs and reducing emissions from cars and trucks. And climate change should be a front-burner issue in campaign debates this fall for elections at every level of government. The United States remains the only country to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, in which nearly 200 countries in 2015 made national pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Stanford University’s Rob Jackson is the chair of the Global Carbon Project. He said in an interview with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment that almost $50 billion of stimulus funding after the 2008 recession helped transform wind and solar power and energy conservation. “We have the same chance to reshape transportation now,” Jackson said. “We could start by freeing up the $40 billion in low-interest loans currently idled in the Department of Energy’s clean energy and advanced vehicle loan programs.”

Jackson noted that before the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, emissions of carbon dioxide were rising by about 1% per year over the previous decade. The study points out that it often takes months, or even years, to determine carbon dioxide emissions after the end of each calendar year. But the researchers were able to analyze data from 69 countries, representing 97% of global carbon dioxide emissions, from January through April and compare it to 2019.

The study shows that emissions fell an average of 26% during the peak period of pandemic lockdowns around the world. The United States, the second largest polluter in the world behind China, reduced carbon dioxide emissions by just over 30% in mid-April.

Indeed, Bay Area residents noticed almost immediately after the sheltering in place order was issued that the skies were noticeably clearer.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc throughout the Bay Area and around the world. But it’s possible that we can use the pandemic to help create a cleaner, healthier world. Finding innovative ways to fight climate change is a good place to start.

Mercury News & East Bay Times Editorial Boards

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