REVISED EAST BAY REGIONAL PARK DISTRICT BOARD LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE Friday, October 16, 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:
Public comments may be submitted one of three ways: 1. Live via zoom. If you would like to make a live public comment during the meeting this option is available through the virtual meeting platform: https://zoom.us/j/98767572198 Note that this virtual meeting platform link will let you into the virtual meeting for the purpose of providing a public comment. If you do not intend to make a public comment, please use the YouTube link at https://youtu.be/E8Ug-y-kl1g to observe the meeting. It is preferred that those requesting to speak during the meeting contact the Finance Committee Recording Secretary by 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 15, 2020 via email at [email protected] or voicemail (510) 544-2400 to provide name and the subject line public comments – not on the agenda or public comments – agenda item #. 2. Via email to recording secretary [email protected] by 4:00 p.m. Thursday, October 15, 2020. Email must contain in the subject line public comments – not on the agenda or public comments – agenda item # followed by their name and place of residence, followed by their comments. 3. Via voicemail at 510-544-2002 by 4:00 p.m. Thursday, October 15, 2020. 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. 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.
If you have any questions about utilizing the video 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 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 15, 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. CURRENT SUMMARY OF COVID-19 PARK VISITATION I Baldinger/ PATTERNS Boettcher
II. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS I Doyle/Pfuehler A. NEW LEGISLATION – N/A
B. OTHER STATE MATTERS 1. Review of Session Outcomes 2. State Budget 3. Plastics Ballot Measure 2022 4. Other Matters
III. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR R Doyle/Pfuehler SUPPORT 1. H.Res. 1139 (Kind D-WI) – Honoring the 50th Anniversary of the National Park Service Volunteers-In- Parks program 2. H.R. 8246 (Sires D-NJ) – Community Parks Revitalization Act 3. S. 4401 (Harris D-CA) and H.R. 5986 (Grijalva D-AZ) – Environmental Justice for All Act 4. S. 4538 (Durbin D-IL) – RENEW Conservation Corps Act
B. OTHER FEDERAL MATTERS I Doyle/Pfuehler 1. Federal Response to Covid-19, Federal Relief Funding, and Land and Water Conservation Fund 2. Update about S. 4308 (Sinema D-AZ) and H.R. 7073 (Garamendi D-CA) – Special Districts Qualifying for Coronavirus Relief Fund 3. Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development Transportation Discretionary (BUILD) Grant Program 4. Other Matters
IV. 2021 CONSULTANT CONTRACTS R Doyle/Pfuehler A. Houston Magnani and Associates B. E2 Strategies, LLC
V. ARTICLES AND OTHER MEDIA
VI. 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.
VII. BOARD COMMENTS
(R) Recommendation for Future Board Consideration (I) Information Future Meetings: (D) Discussion January 17 July 17 February – NO MTG August 21 Legislative Committee Members March 27 September – NO MTG Dennis Waespi (Chair); Beverly Lane, Elizabeth Echols April 24 (Rescheduled) October 16 Ellen Corbett, Alternate May 22 (Rescheduled) November – NO MTG Erich Pfuehler, Government Affairs Manager June – NO MTG *December 11
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, October 16, 2020 12:30 PM
WHERE: Members of the public can join or 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/E8Ug-y-kl1g or join via Zoom at: https://zoom.us/j/98767572198
Items to be discussed:
I. CURRENT SUMMARY OF COVID-19 PARK VISITATION PATTERNS Legislative and Policy Management Anyalyst Lisa Baldinger in cross-departmental collaboration with the District’s GIS unit has been researching ways to determine park and trail use visitation patterns. Cell phone data offers potential to determine use patterns both pre-Covid and currently. GIS Analyst Kara Boettcher will present Google COVID-19 community mobility trend data and SafeGraph daily mobile device counts on visitation patterns from March 16th through August 16th.
II. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – N/A
B. OTHER STATE MATTERS 1. Review of Session Outcomes During the 2019-2020 legislation session, the District took a position on over 60 pieces of State legislation. Sacramento Advocate Doug Houston will provide a review of the legislative session and outcomes as they relate to the District. Some highlights include:
AB 209 (Limon D-Santa Barbara) – Outdoor Equity Grants Program This bill seeks to establish the Outdoor Equity Grants Program within the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The intent of this program is to ensure all students have access to environmental education. The proposed grant program would prioritize students within underserved populations. Status: Signed into law 10-9-19
AB 834 (Quirk D-Hayward) – Freshwater and Estuarine Harmful Algal Bloom Program This bill requires the California State Water Resources Control Board to establish a Freshwater and Estuarine Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) Program to protect water quality and public health from algal blooms. The bill would require the state board, in consultation with specified entities, to coordinate immediate and long-term algal bloom event incident response.
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Status: Signed into law 9-27-19
AB 1945 (Salas D-Bakersfield) – Reclassification of Public Safety Dispatchers as First Responders This bill would recognize the work of public safety dispatchers by classifying them as first responders. Currently, dispatchers are described as an “administrative” occupation. Dispatchers, however, undergo extensive training and their work can mean the difference between life and death. Status: Signed into law 9-11-20
AB 3074 (Friedman D-Glendale) – Wildfire Ember Resistant Zones This bill would strengthen California’s defensible space laws to establish a five-foot “ember- resistant zone” around homes in high fire risk areas. Status: Signed into law 9-29-20
SB 367 (Hueso D-San Diego) – California State Coastal Conservancy Educational Grant Program This bill would authorize the California State Coastal Conservancy to award grants for educational programs. The educational programs can be for adults as well as for students in kindergarten to grade 12. Status: Signed into law 10-9-19
SB 576 (Umberg D-Santa Ana) – Coastal Climate Change Adaptation, Infrastructure and Readiness Program This bill establishes the Climate Ready Program within the California State Coastal Conservancy. The Conservancy would be responsible for developing and overseeing a coastal climate adaptation, infrastructure and readiness program. The program would seek to establish best practices and strategies for the protection of California’s coastal communities and natural habitats. Status: Signed into law 9-27-19
SB 1320 (Stern D-Canoga Park) – California Specific Climate Change Assessment This bill would require the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR), through the Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Program (ICARP), to develop the California Climate Change Assessment. The bill would require OPR to conduct the assessment no less frequently than every five years. Status: Signed into law 9-11-20
2. State Budget On June 29th, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the 2020 Budget Act – a $202.1 billion spending plan that strengthens emergency response, protects public health and safety, and promotes economic recovery while seeking to close a $54.3 billion budget shortfall caused by the Covid-19 recession. The spending plan includes a list of more than $11 billion in spending cuts which would have been reversed had a minimum of $14 billion in new Federal dollars arrived by October 15th. Given the President’s recent declaration about ending talks about another Covid-19 stimulus bill until after the November 3rd election, these cuts will proceed forward. This means State agencies who have laid off employees and reduced hours
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of operations will continue to absorb those impacts. Some agencies held off making sweeping changes while waiting to see if funding might be restore. Those agencies may now need to make cuts. The State also negotiated $2.8 billion in pay reductions with represented employees which are now likely to stand. Education programs dominate the list of areas of the budget most impacted. Others include cuts to housing programs, court operations and child support administration. Without Federal funds, deeper cuts are likely in 2021. The Federal funding for state and local assistance is among the most contentious in the negotiations between the U.S. House and Office of Management and Budget. It is uncleear if that funding would be included in any package before or after November 3rd.
3. Plastics Ballot Measure 2022 The “California Recycling and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act” (also known as the #PlasticsFreeCA ballot measure) is expected it to be on the November ballot in 2022.
The ballot initiative would require the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), in consultation with other agencies, to adopt regulations aimed at reducing the use of single-use plastic packaging and foodware, including:
• Establishing "mechanisms for convenient consumer access to recycling," such as take- back programs and deposits; • Establishing and enforcing labeling standards to support the sorting of discarded single-use plastic packaging and foodware; • Requiring producers to ensure single-use plastic packaging and foodware is recyclable, reusable, refillable or compostable by 2030; • Requiring producers to reduce or eliminate single-use plastic packaging or foodware CalRecycle determines is unnecessary for product or food item delivery; • Requiring producers to reduce the amount of single-use plastic packaging and foodware sold in California by at least 25 percent by 2030; • Requiring producers to use recycled content and renewable materials in the production of single-use plastic packaging and foodware; and • Prohibiting food vendors from distributing expanded polystyrene food service containers.
The ballot initiative would also enact a fee, called the California Plastic Pollution Reduction Fee, on single-use plastic packaging and foodware. CalRecycle would determine the fee amount with a maximum amount of 1 cent per item of packaging or foodware. Beginning in 2030, the fee would be adjusted based on changes in the California Consumer Price Index. Revenue from the tax would be distributed to CalRecycle, the California Natural Resources Agency and local governments. The initiative creates a “Local Government Fund (LGF)” in the California Plastic Pollution Reduction Fund (CPPRF). From the LGF, 25% is allocated to disadvantage communities, 5% is allocated to projects which benefit low-income households and 5% to projects that benefit low-income households outside of, but within one-half mile of, disadvantaged communities. Other allocations are defined through the budget process. Qualifying projects are those which:
• Protect groundwater and local clean drinking water supplies from the impacts of plastic pollution; • Prevent and clean up the impacts of litter and marine plastic pollution on
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communities and the natural environment; • Maintain local recycling and composting programs, and increase the amount of material recycled or composted; • Educate and provide outreach to residents and businesses on waste reduction, recycling and coposting; and • Provide grants to organiztions involved in litter abatement, public education, developing community recycling and composting infrastructure, or designing and deploying reusable system alternatives to single-use plastic foodware.
Additionally, thirty percent (30%) of the monies deposited into the CPPRF are made available to the Natural Resources Agency for grants to state and local public agencies to mitigate the impacts of plastic pollution. Additionally, grants are intended for projects to protect and restore habitat and wildlife. The grants also target protecting and improving public access to the state’s natural resources. Funding is similarly intended for projects to protect the environment including coastal and ocean ecosystems, streams, rivers and beaches. Monies for this Environmental Mitigation Account is to be continuously appropriated without regard to fiscal year.
Staff believe the District would be eligible for LGF monies. This initiative is similar to SB 54 (Allen D-Santa Monica) and AB 1080 (Gonzalez D-San Diego) – Plastic Pollution Reduction Act – for which the District took support positions. Neither bill made it to the Governor’s desk. The District also took a support position on the proposed 2020 California Packaging Waste Reduction Regulations Ballot Initiative which did not advance to the ballot. The lead supporters of the initative, Californians Against Waste, are seeking endorsements.
Staff Recommendation: Support
4. Other Matters
III. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION - RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR SUPPORT 1. H.Res. 1139 (Kind D-WA) – Honoring the 50th Anniversary of the National Park Service Volunteers-In-Parks program This resolution is a simple one sentence recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS) Volunteers-In-Parks program established on July 29, 1970. NPS offers a variety of volunteer opportunities for individuals and groups as part of the Volunteers-In- Parks program. Such opportunities include positions ranging from a one-time service project volunteer event to a longer term position, serving alongside park employees or with partner organizations. Opportunities are available at park locations throughout the United States, including the territories in the Pacific and the Caribbean. East Bay opportunities include at the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez, Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park in Richmond and Eugene O’Neil National Historic Site in Danville.
2. H.R. 8246 (Sires D-NJ) – Community Parks Revitalization Act Representative Albio Sires (D-NJ) reintroduced the Community Parks Revitalization Act to provide Federal support for parks across the country through matching grant programs and secured loans.
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This legislation would provide three types of Federal grants and technical assistance programs which must be matched with local funds.
• Rehabilitation and construction grants would aid local governments in rebuilding and expanding new and existing parks and recreational facilities; • Innovation grants would address personnel, facility, equipment and supply needs for parks and recreation facilities. In addition, the innovation grant would provide funds for new or existing programs which provide opportunities for returning veterans, active duty military and their families, or programs that provide constructive alternatives for at-risk youth; • Recovery action program grants would promote development of local park and recreation recovery action programs by involving the community and youth to develop priorities and goals. Recovery action programs have been used to rehabilitate inner-city playgrounds, tot-lots, recreation centers, parks, ball fields, tennis and basketball courts, and swimming pools. They can also include turning abandoned and surplus buildings into community centers.
The legislation specifically states “special purpose park and recreation” districts are eligible. The Park District has supported Rep. Sires’ previous itirations of this legislation.
3. S. 4401 (Harris D-CA) and H.R. 5986 (Grijalva D-AZ) – Environmental Justice for All Act This Legislation, among other items: • Establishes “Access to Parks, Outdoor Spaces and Public Recreation Opportunities” through the “Outdoor Recreation Legacy Grant Program.” It specifically cites a “special purpose district, including park districts” as being eligible. Projects the grant program can fund include acquiring land and water for parks and other outdoor recreation purposes. Grants can fund the development of new, or renovation of, existing outdoor recreation facilities. The grants can also fund the development of projects which provide opportunities for outdoor education and public lands volunteerism. The National Park Service would admister the grant program. Funding would come from oil leases. • Establishes a “Transit to Trails Grant Program” for projects which develop transportation connectors for underserved communities aimed at increasing access to public land, waters, parkland or monuments. The legislation again specifically states “a special purpose district (including a park district)” as an eligible entity. The grant program is administrated by the Department of Transportation. The program is authorized at $10 million a year. • Repeals the seven-year sunset provision of the Every Kid Outdoors Public Law 116- 9. The program provides free access to Federal lands and waters for all fourth grade students and accompanying individuals.
4. S. 4538 (Durbin D-IL) – RENEW Conservation Corps Act This legislation would create a civilian conservation corps aimed at providing valuable job training and work experience to Americans while also completing needed maintenance and restoration of parks, trails and natural areas. It is a modernized version of the Civilian Conservation Corps from the Depression-era which built a significant amount of infrastructure, including within the District’s original parks.
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The bill would create a new conservation corps run though the U.S. Departments of Interior and Agriculture. It authorizes more than $55 billion over a five-year period aimed at putting one million Americans to work to address the backlog of deferred conservation projects.
The bill provides anyone 16 years or older at least two weeks of training for positions lasting a minimum of twelve weeks, but no longer than one year. All participants will receive at least $15 an hour, with some wages determined based on work performed. In addition, those participating in the program who complete a full year of work would be eligible to receive up to $5,500 credit for post-secondary education. To ensure a diverse workforce, the bill requires participants be reflective of the demographics in the area where the project is being completed.
The bill would help fund and complete various projects, including: Tree planting; restoration and management of wildlife habitat; invasive species control; prescribed burns; restoration of streams wetlands and other aquatic ecosystems; monitoring water quality in streams and lakes; conducting fish and wildlife surveys; constructing trails, bridges, campgrounds, picnic shelters or other recreation amenities; maintenance and construction of park playgrounds; restoration of brownfield sites; creating rain gardens; creating pollinator gardens; construct green schoolyards; upkeep/creation of urban gardens and farms; plant native grasslands; and any other projects determined by the Interior and Agriculture Department secretaries.
The District and Civilian Conservation Corps have a shared legacy in the creation of the Park District.
B. OTHER FEDERAL MATTERS 1. Federal Response to Covid-19, Federal Relief Funding, and Land and Water Conservation Fund Federal Advocate Peter Umhofer will provide a verbal update. He will also touch on the Land and Water Conservation Fund implementation.
2. Update about S. 4308 (Sinema D-AZ) and H.R. 7073 (Garamendi D-CA) – Special Districts Qualifying for Coronavirus Relief Fund The District continues to advocate to include special districts as eligible for state and local aid in the next Covid-19 emergency relief package. While the negotiations have been called off until after the November 3rd election, staff and advocate Peter Umhofer continue to work for inclusion. Advocate Umhofer has made inroads with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Shumer and will continue to push.
Staff have also had conversations with the California Special Districts Assocation and California Association of Recreation and Park Distrcicts about shared advocacy for S. 4308 and H.R. 7073. S. 4308 is cosponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris. H.R. 7073 is cosponsored by East Bay Reps. Barbara Lee, Mike Thompson, Ro Khanna, Jerry McNerney and Mark DeSaulnier. Staff and Advocate Umhofer will provide additional verbal updates.
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3. Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development Transportation Discretionary (BUILD) Grant Program The Federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) transportation discretionary grant program is what was previously known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER). In 2010, the District was awarded $10.2 million from the TIGER program for active transportation paved trail projects. Funds for this program are appropriated annually and administered through a competitive grant program. For 2021, $2 billion has been appropriated which is twice the 2020 level of $1 billion. In 2020, 70 projects were approved including three projects with a trail component – $23 million in Ohio, $28 million in Wyoming and $11million in Montana. The 2020 criteria included safety and traffic congestion relief. District staff prepared a proposed project list for 2020, but recognized safety and traffic congestion data was not readily available for a competitive application. Staff is considering prioritizing an application for 2021. In order to move forward, staff will be in discussion with active transportation consultants to gather the appropriate transit use data. This information would not only benefit a BUILD application, but also future grant applications for state and local funding. In addition, staff will be in discussion with grant writing consultants. Funding may be needed to contract with either or both consultant(s). Government Affairs staff will be conferring with District Board Members about proposed projects aimed at prioritizing a possible 2021 application. Additional verbal updates by staff and Advocate Umhofer will be shared.
4. Other Matters
IV. 2021 CONSULTANT CONTRACTS A. Houston Magnani and Associates Houston Magnani and Associates has represented the East Bay Regional Park District in Sacramento for many years, and throughout that time has continued to provide very effective representation for the District. Board members and staff recognize the time and effort Houston Magnani & Associates dedicates to the District’s issues, such as bond measures, grants, budget negotiations and state agency contracts. Staff recommends retaining Houston Magnani with a three year contract from January 2021 through December 2023. The contract is not to exceed $14,166.67 a month and would include an annual CPI increase.
B. E2 Strategies, LLC For over ten years, the Park District has utilized the services of E2 Strategies LLC (Peter Umhofer, Principal), to help promote the District’s profile in Washington D.C., including the facilitation of meetings with U.S. Senate and House of Representatives staff, and key decision makers at several Federal agencies and departments. Considering his effective, ongoing advocacy, staff recommends retaining the services of Mr. Umhofer and his consulting company E2 Strategies LLC with a three year contract from January 2021 through December 2023. The contract is not to exceed $10,000 a month and would include an annual CPI increase.
V. ARTICLES AND OTHER MEDIA
VI. OPEN FORUM PUBLIC COMMENT
VII. BOARD COMMENTS
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Board Legislative Committee September 17, 2020 – Articles and Other Media
BIZ & TECH // NET WORTH - KATHLEEN PENDER California has applied for federal funds to provide extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits
Kathleen Pender Aug. 20, 2020 Updated: Aug. 20, 2020 7:07 p.m.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, pictured Tuesday with Sacramento’s mayor, said Wednesday he expects California “to be among the first cohort of states to draw down that federal money.” Photo: Paul Kitagaki Jr. / Sacramento Bee
California applied for federal money to provide $300 a week in extra benefits to unemployed residents Wednesday evening, hours after Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state was still “going back and forth on the details” of its application. Newsom did not say when the benefits could begin flowing if the application is approved. They could last only a matter of weeks, although they could be retroactive to Aug. 1.
The program is called Lost Wages Assistance because it’s outside the usual federal-state unemployment system. President Trump authorized the program in a memo Aug. 8 after Congress could not agree on a way to replace the $600 per week that everyone on regular state unemployment and federal unemployment was getting from April through July.
It will use up to $44 billion in funds set aside for federal disaster relief to provide an extra $300 per week to people receiving at least $100 a week in regular state unemployment insurance, federal pandemic unemployment assistance or federal extended benefits. To get the money, people must certify that they have lost work because of the coronavirus. That’s already a requirement for federal pandemic assistance, but not regular state unemployment. The expired $600-a-week federal supplement was not limited to people getting at least $100 in base benefits, but the new program is.
States must apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is running the program, by Sept. 10 to receive funds. In a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Newsom said, “We are still waiting for a little bit more clarity and guidance” on the state’s application. He said he hopes and expects California “to be among the first cohort of states to draw down that federal money.”
FEMA said it has already approved 11 states for the program: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah. South Dakota is the only state so far that said it won’t seek the assistance.
“We from day one asserted an interest” in the program, Newsom said Wednesday. When the plan was first announced, however, Newsom said it would be unworkable because California could not provide the matching funds required. Trump originally said the program would provide $400 a week in benefits, but states would have to put up 25% of the cost, or $100 a week, to participate.
Newsom said providing $100 per week would cost the state $700 million per week, money it didn’t have.
Last week, the Department of Labor issued guidance that said states could count money they are already providing in unemployment benefits as their share, but in those states, unemployed people would only get $300 a week, not $400. To provide $400 a week, states would have to put in $100 a week from their own funds, which could include federal money they received under the federal Cares Act.
It does not appear that California will be providing the extra $100. If the state’s application for Lost Wages Assistance is approved, “it would provide a supplemental payment of $300 per week for a limited period of time for claimants who are currently eligible to receive at least $100 per week in benefits, and who have provided a self-certification that they are unemployed or partially unemployed due to disruptions caused by COVID-19,” the Employment Development Department said in a news release Thursday. “Updates will be provided when they become available.”
We spoke with workers from San Francisco’s Mission District who continue to work — and potentially risk their health — amid the coronavirus shelter in place orders. These are their stories.
The application was submitted Wednesday evening, said Crystal Page, a spokeswoman for the Labor and Workforce Development Agency. Rather than awarding funds to states on a first-come-first served basis, FEMA said it will use state and federal data to “project the overall funding distributions. Approved grant applicants will receive an initial obligation of three weeks of needed funding. Additional disbursements will be made on a weekly basis” to make sure money remains available for all states that apply.
FEMA said that states “must adjust their unemployment insurance system to access these funds and accommodate program requirements, such as claimant eligibility,” and that implementation times will vary.
The program will end when the $44 billion is exhausted, the disaster fund balance drops below $25 billion, Congress approves a different plan for federal supplemental benefits, or Dec. 27 — whichever comes first. Some experts say the $44 billion could run out within six weeks and have questioned whether the program is legal under the law that allegedly allows disaster-relief fund to be spent this way.
Half of the states have applied for the FEMA grants or plan to, according to the Associated Press. Montana is the only state so far that said it will add the extra $100, bringing the payment to $400, it said.
Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @kathpender
Kathleen Pender Follow Kathleen on: https://www.facebook.com/SFChronicle/kathpender
Kathleen Pender writes the Net Worth column in The San Francisco Chronicle. She explains how the big business and economic news of the day affect a household's net worth. She covers saving, investing, debt, taxes, housing, mortgages, retirement plans, employment and unemployment with a focus on issues specific to California and the Bay Area.
When it comes to big financial decisions, she believes that the simplest answer is almost always the best and that people would stay out of money trouble if they didn't get involved in things they can't understand. Pender welcomes questions from readers and frequently answers them in her column.
She majored in business journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia and was a Knight-Bagehot fellow in business journalism at Columbia University.
Editorial: Prop. 15 won’t fix biggest California property tax problem The “split-roll” measure would apply more Band-Aids and layer more complexity onto an already- broken system By MERCURY NEWS & EAST BAY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARDS |
PUBLISHED: August 28, 2020 at 5:10 a.m. | UPDATED: August 29, 2020 at 8:13 a.m.
PDATED: August 29, 2020 at 8:13 a.m.
California’s property tax system is a mess. Proposition 15, the “split roll” measure on the Nov. 3 ballot, attempts to fix it. Unfortunately, it only makes matters worse.
The solution is not to apply more Band-Aids and layer more complexity onto an already- broken system. And it certainly doesn’t make sense to increase taxes on businesses when many of them can least afford it.
Rather, we should create a new system that taxes all properties in direct proportion to their values. Proposition 15 fails to do that. Voters should reject it.
Our current system dates to 1978, when voters, facing rapidly rising property taxes, approved landmark Proposition 13. Under those rules, the assessed value used for taxing properties can be increased no more than 2% annually. But when a property is sold, the assessment is reset to the market value.
This has created tremendous inequity because long-term owners of all types of properties pay disproportionately less than those who have recently purchased. So, for example, neighbors with identical houses will often pay vastly different property taxes. Proposition 15 does nothing to address that disparity for residential properties. What Prop. 15 does
Critics of our current system argue that there’s a second inequity — that Proposition 13 has placed increasing burden on residential properties while owners of commercial and industrial properties have reaped a windfall. That, they claim, is because taxes on residential properties are reset more frequently because they are sold more often than commercial and industrial properties.
It’s that claimed disparity that Prop. 15 seeks to address by splitting the property tax rolls. Under the measure, most owners of commercial and industrial properties would pay higher taxes based on the current market values of their parcels. Owners of commercial and industrial properties with a combined value of $3 million or less would continue paying under the current system, as would owners of residential properties. The higher taxes in many cases would be passed on to the tenants of those commercial and industrial property owners. In short, it’s a tax on businesses, often small businesses, at a time when they can least afford it. To help offset some of the impact, Prop. 15 would reduce a separate tax on businesses by reducing the taxable value of each firm’s equipment by $500,000 starting in 2024.
Nevertheless, the measure would increase the total property taxes collected statewide by an estimated $8 billion to $12.5 billion annually by 2025. Indeed, backers of Prop. 15 are pitching the measure as a way to raise more money for schools, even though schools would receive only about 40% of the new money available after administrative costs. The rest would go to cities, counties and special districts. Questionable rationale
But the rationale for the measure is questionable.
A 2016 study by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the assumption that residential properties statewide are sold more often and reassessed more frequently than commercial and industrial properties is wrong. Indeed, examining San Diego County, the analyst found that the opposite is true — that residential properties are reassessed less often. Residential properties statewide do bear a larger proportion of the total tax burden than they did before 1978, but there’s another explanation for it than Prop. 13: more rapid residential development.
The legislative analyst found that in 1979-80 homeowners statewide paid about 34% of property taxes. That share declined to a low of 32% in the mid-1980s, then increased to about 37% by 2015-16. The increase, the legislative analyst concluded, may be due in part to faster growth in the number of residential properties than the number of commercial and industrial properties.
For Santa Clara County, the assessor, using a different methodology, arrived at a similar conclusion. He also found a decrease after Proposition 13 passed in the proportional residential tax burden followed by an increase starting in the mid-1980s. In 1985, 52% of the county’s assessed value was borne by homeowners; today it is 64%. But, says Assessor Larry Stone, “the reason for this shift had little to do with Proposition 13 and a lot to do with the growth of residential properties. Between 1978 and 2020 the number of residential parcels grew 49% while the number of nonresidential parcels actually shrunk by 8%.”
In short, the big problem is not the disparity between residential and other types of property. It’s the disparity between the taxes paid by long-time property owners and those who purchased recently — an inequity that’s found for both residential and commercial properties.
That’s the problem tax reformers should address. And they should be doing it in a way that’s revenue neutral instead of trying to use reform as a vehicle to raise more taxes.
There are serious inequities in California’s property tax system that should be addressed. But Prop. 15 misses the mark. Vote no.
As virus rages, US economy struggles to sustain a recovery By PAUL WISEMAN August 27, 2020
FILE - In this April 30 ,2020 file photo, a barber shop shows closed and hiring sign during the COVID-19 in Chicago. On Thursday, Aug. 27, just over 1 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, a sign that the coronavirus outbreak continues to threaten jobs even as the housing market, auto sales and other segments of the economy rebound from a springtime collapse. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Home sales are booming. Stocks are setting record highs. Industrial production is clambering out of the ditch it fell into early this year.
And yet the U.S. economy is nowhere close to regaining the health it achieved, with low unemployment, free-spending consumers and booming travel, before the coronavirus paralyzed the country in March. Not while the viral outbreak still rages and Congress remains deadlocked over providing more relief to tens of millions of people thrown out of work and to state and local governments whose revenue has withered.
Every week, roughly 1 million new Americans are applying for unemployment benefits — a depth of job insecurity not seen in any single week during the depths of the 2007-2009 Great Recession.
Economists say that as many businesses have reopened and consumers have begun shopping and spending more, the picture is beginning to brighten, if only fitfully. Most say the economy is growing again. Yet scars are sure to remain from the catastrophic April- June quarter, when, according to the government, the economy collapsed at a 31.7% annual rate — by far the worst quarterly contraction since such record-keeping began in 1947.
Some industries, notably those involving travel and hotels and restaurants, could struggle for years. And while the number of confirmed viral infections has been declining, the threat of a major resurgence remains, especially as students increasingly return to schools and colleges. The consumers whose spending drives the bulk of the economy and the economists who analyze it are decidedly downbeat about the prospects for a return to prosperity.
“As long as we continue to see infection flare-ups, disruptions to activity — especially in sectors that are exposed to social distancing rules — will be ongoing,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “The risk of business failures from repeated closures is high, and the probability of permanent job losses rises with each successive shutdown which could result in permanent damage to the labor market and the economy.”
The Conference Board, a business research group, reported this week that consumer confidence has tumbled to its lowest level since 2014.
And in survey results released this week by the National Association for Business Economics, two-thirds of the economists who were polled said they thought the U.S. economy remains in recession. Nearly half said they didn’t expect it to return to pre- pandemic levels until mid-2022. Eighty percent put the likelihood that any recovery will give way to a “double-dip” recession at 25% or more.
Early this spring, the economy went into free-fall as millions of businesses suddenly closed and consumers stayed home to avoid infection. Employers slashed more than 22 million jobs — a record total, by far — in March and April.
Since then, the job market and the economy have been rebounding as businesses slowly reopened. Efforts by the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates ultra-low have helped fuel a record-busting binge in the stock market. Home sales have surged, thanks to super-low mortgage rates and pent-up demand. And a resurgence in auto production has lifted American industry. Altogether, employers added nearly 9.3 million jobs in May, June and July. Still, that hiring surge has replaced just 42% of the jobs lost in March and April. More than 27 million people are still receiving some form of unemployment aid.
Moreover, a summertime resurgence of confirmed COVID cases in the South and West forced many businesses to close again in July. The data firm Womply reports that business closures have mostly stabilized in the past four weeks. Still, 70% of Texas bars and 71% of California health and beauty shops were closed as of mid-August, Womply found.
After enacting a massive financial rescue package in March, congressional Republicans and Democrats have failed to agree on allocating more aid to the unemployed and to struggling states and localities. The expiration of a $600-a-week federal unemployment benefit — a lifeline to help the jobless survive the crisis — is leaving many families desperate.
“My income is basically cut in half,” said Taylor Love, a 34-year-old unemployed massage therapist in Austin, Texas. “Paying our mortgage is going to be a struggle. We’re going to have to dip into what little savings we have.’’
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Aug. 8 offering a stripped-down version of the expanded unemployment benefits. At least 39 states have accepted or said that they would apply for federal grants that let them increase weekly benefits by $300 or $400. But questions remain about how soon that money will actually get to people or how long it will last.
In a question-and-answer session after a speech Thursday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that “if we can keep the disease under control, the economy can improve fairly quickly.” But he cautioned that sectors of the economy that have been hardest hit, notably travel and tourism, will take longer to recover.
“That is a lot of workers — we need to support them,” Powell said.
Lou Carrier, president of Distinctive Hospitality Group, based in Natick, Massachusetts, had to close his five hotels for two months. His staff of 450 shrank to a skeletal crew of 27 people who secured and maintained the buildings.
The hotels have since reopened, and 125 employees are back to work. Leisure travel has picked up somewhat, and business at his beach hotels in Connecticut is running around 60% of what it was last year. But that will dry up as the weather gets colder. And in the meantime, his Boston-area hotels are seeing far fewer business travelers.
“To see everything in such an unstable place, it’s been a real tragedy,” Carrier said. “We are just dying for some government assistance and some guidance and some help.”
James Marple, senior economist at TD Economics, said he expects GDP growth to snap back from the second-quarter disaster. But in a research note Thursday, he cautioned that “this will not be enough to make the economy whole, and it will likely be well into 2021 and quite possibly later before the level of economic activity recaptures its pre-crisis level.
“Much will depend,” Marple said, “on the speed and effectiveness of a vaccine as well as the continuation of fiscal supports to bridge incomes until activity can return to normal.”
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AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger and AP Business Writer Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.
Higher PG&E bills: State lawmakers cook up new wildfire plan Consumer groups, agriculture, businesses, big utilities oppose measure that might increase monthly PG&E bills By GEORGE AVALOS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: August 28, 2020 at 1:36 p.m. | UPDATED: August 31, 2020 at 4:41 a.m.
Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group
Fire crews monitor wildfires near the Yolo County town of Winters, August 2020. A battle has erupted in Sacramento over a last-minute legislative measure that pits the interests of utility customers who don’t want to pay higher power bills against a quest to bankroll efforts to combat wildfires in a financially shaky state of California.
A battle has erupted in Sacramento over a last-minute legislative measure that pits the interests of utility customers who don’t want to pay higher power bills against a quest to bankroll efforts to combat wildfires in a financially shaky California.
The legislation, AB 1659, is being floated as an emergency measure in the state Legislature and would add roughly $1 to the monthly bills for customers of PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric for decades to come. The money would be used to finance a $3 billion fund to help reduce the risk of wildfires in California.
With a series of lightning-sparked infernos still blazing in California, some state lawmakers crafted the bill by gutting a stalled piece of legislation related to affordable housing and replacing it with the wildfire-related measure. The three largest Northern California blazes have consumed nearly 820,000 acres, damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 structures and forced tens of thousands of people to flee. Six people have been killed.
“The Legislature cannot end our session judiciously without taking immediate action to secure additional resources for battling wildfires in a historic wildfire season and mitigating the resulting environmental damage,” said Assemblymember Kevin Mullin, a San Francisco Democrat and principal author of the bill.
AB 1659 also would provide funds to help address climate change, clear vegetation, create more fire-safe communities, and train firefighters.
But this effort quickly drew fire from a diverse set of key players: a major consumer group, agricultural interests, business groups, and the state’s three utility behemoths. The bill is part of the torrent of last-second business being conducted in the final days of the legislative session.
“It is completely inappropriate to use utility bills as a piggy bank to pay for unrelated state expenditures,” said Mark Toney, executive director of consumer group The Utility Reform Network, or TURN. “This is asking utility customers to pay billions for non-utility-related wildfire mitigation.”
Critics say several components in the legislation appear to go beyond utility customers.
“The activities called for in the bill, including home-hardening, ecosystem restoration, workforce development, restoration of state parks damaged by wildfire, early warning systems, and increasing water supply reliability, benefit all Californians, not just, or even primarily, investor-owned utility customers,” executives with PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric wrote in a letter to the state Legislature.
If money is needed to battle wildfires, the funds should be extracted from California taxpayers and not lifted from the pockets of customers of PG&E and other big utilities, opponents of the legislation saidd.
“This bill would require PG&E customers to shoulder billions of dollars in costs to fund state agency and government projects that have nothing to do with electric service,” PG&E spokesman James Noonan said.
Since 2019, utility customers have been paying a fee on their monthly bills used to create a $21 billion insurance fund to pay for fire damage caused by utility companies. The legislation would extend that fee until at least 2045.
“AB 1659 will provide our state with the means necessary to address longer and more severe fire seasons to come,” Mullin said.
At present, a PG&E residential customer who receives both electricity and gas service pays an average of $181.21 a month. That includes an average residential electricity bill of $127.40 and an average residential gas bill of $53.81. Hitting ratepayers for more cash is especially difficult at a time when record-breaking layoffs have pummelled workers in California, TURN asserted.
“Bills for essential services should not be padded with costs more appropriately distributed through income taxes, especially at a time when so many lower-income ratepayers have lost their jobs,” Toney said.
$1 billion federal-state agreement seeks to reduce California wildfire risks
Peter Fimrite Aug. 30, 2020 Updated: Aug. 30, 2020 10:10 p.m.9
An inmate hand crew from Growlersburg Conservation Camp clears a preventive fire break in Bonny Doon, Santa Cruz County, on Thursday. Photo: Sara Gobets / Special to The Chronicle
As flames crackle across California, state and federal officials have launched a plan to disrupt the cycle of wildfires that regularly choke the region with smoke and have gotten more dangerous and destructive over the years.
Dozens of fires, sparked by unusually powerful lightning storms this month, have burned more than 800,000 acres from Santa Cruz in the south to Healdsburg in the north and over to the Point Reyes coast. The latest catastrophe has prompted a renewed effort to halt the annual tableau of smoke and flames. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the U.S. Forest Service announced a joint state-federal agreement this month to reduce wildfire risks on 1 million acres of forest every year. The bold plan will sink as much as $1 billion into fire preparedness in California by scaling up vegetation treatment to 1 million acres annually by 2025. It commits to establishing a 20-year program of forest and vegetation management by 2021, including wildland and watershed restoration.
The plan, called Shared Stewardship of California’s Forest and Rangelands, is the first major attempt by the state and federal governments to jointly improve public safety on the 33 million acres of forested land in the state. It addresses many of the fire safety problems facing California, including a lack of funding, poor collaboration between agencies and the need to better protect vulnerable communities — issues that fire scientists and forest ecologists have long flagged.
The initiative, signed by Newsom and Forest Service Chief Victoria Christiansen, emphasizes science- based forestry and rangeland management that would both improve the ecosystem and make money.
“It’s a great idea. It’s ambitious, but I think that’s a good thing,” said Scott Stephens, professor of fire science and the chairman of the division of ecosystem science at UC Berkeley. “It goes to the question of how do you change the fundamentals of fire safety — where do we live, how do we prepare for fire and take precautions.”
The plan is an effort to prevent the kinds of enormous fires that in 2017 and 2018 killed 135 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. More than 5.3 million acres have burned in California over the past five years, including catastrophic fires in Redding, the Wine Country, and the town of Paradise in Butte County.
And the annual drumbeat of smoky terror is continuing. Conflagrations known as the SCU Lightning Complex, which started on Aug. 18 in the East Bay, and the LNU Lightning Complex, which started a day earlier in the North Bay, are now the second- and third-largest fires in California history, respectively. They are still threatening communities and fouling the air all over the state.
The plan is for the state and federal governments to each reduce wildfire risk on 500,000 acres of forest and wildlands a year, including the removal of forest debris and using prescribed fire. These fuel treatments are expected to cost an average of about $1,000 an acre.
The U.S. Forest Service manages more than 20 million acres across 18 national forests in California and nearly 58% of the state’s 33 million acres of forest. That’s compared to nearly 14 million acres of private and state-owned forest lands.
The joint effort will encourage ecologically sustainable timber harvesting and recycling of forest byproducts. Under the plan, the Forest Service, Cal Fire and other state agencies will coordinate with cities, counties, environmental organizations, industry and landowners on fire-adaptation projects designed to make communities safer.
“Will the shared stewardship agreement be the silver bullet? I don’t know. But what I do know is we have to do something different than what we’ve been doing,” said Barnie Gyant, the deputy regional forester for resources and stewardship for the U.S. Forest Service. “California is an environment where fires are going to occur. The question is, can we all work together to protect communities, infrastructure and critical habitat over the landscape?” But the agreement is only a framework and lacks specifics about how to accomplish the goals it outlines. The only concrete strategy offered so far is to manage vegetation on a million acres.
Max Moritz, a specialist in wildfire with the University of California Cooperative Extension, said no plan will work unless it includes adaptations for climate change and develops strategies for vulnerable communities. He said hundreds of thousands of Californians live in the wildland urban interface — the outskirts of towns next to forests and grasslands that are considered high risk for fire. Much stronger urban planning guidance is thus needed for where and how we build on fire-prone landscapes, he said.
“We won’t ever get a grip on these fires and their associated losses through vegetation management. It’s that simple,” said Moritz, who is also an adjunct professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara. “The vegetation part of the problem is not a very strong causal factor in all of these wildland urban interface fires.”
Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @pfimrite
Congressmen Host Virtual Town Hall To Discuss Fire Response
Aug 28, 2020 Updated Aug 28, 2020
Congressman Eric Swalwell and Congressman Ro Khanna hosted a virtual town hall with Fremont Fire Chief Curtis Jacobson and Cal Fire Unit Chief Jake Hess on Wednesday, Aug. 26, to discuss the status of the recent fire response in their districts.
During the event, which came as a part of an ongoing, weekly series of virtual town hall meetings, Khanna and Swalwell touched on several key parts of the effort to get or keep the fires in the area under control, including the footprint of the fire.
“We're already starting to talk about what the long-term, fire-suppression repair is going to look like, because we're going to have to ramp up for those things,” said Hess. “I can't reiterate the success of the mutual aid system in Alameda County, Contra Costa County and Santa Clara County, where everybody worked cooperatively together. This fire is an example of a mega fire, so right now, we're the second-largest fire in the history of California.” As of Aug. 26, Cal Fire officials feel as though they are starting to turn the corner on getting a handle on the spread of the fires.
“The cooperation associated with a fire of this magnitude is absolutely instrumental in our good relationships with our private and public partner and law enforcement officers,” said Hess. “This fire has grown into seven counties now, and it's grown into this huge complex incident. I want to reiterate that we're not out of the woods on this – I've been messaging that this is considered a marathon. I look at (this fire) as a huge puzzle, and every day, we get into a rhythm here with the teams to reach out to the constituents and all of the communities that are affected. We really encourage anybody who would be considered a stakeholder to reach out to us here at the fairgrounds, so we can get them plugged in.”
For more information or to watch the meeting, visit https://bit.ly/2D7hMin.
Autonomous Shuttle Tests in Dublin Gear Up for Passengers
By Ruth Roberts
Aug 13, 2020 Updated Aug 13, 2020
An autonomous shuttle service hit the road in Dublin this summer as the Tri-Valley prepares to drive into the future.
The Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (LAVTA) began running the Shared Autonomous Vehicle (SAV) test shuttle in July on a route from the East Dublin BART station to nearby Persimmon Place, a retail center about one mile away. In 2018, LAVTA first cut the ribbon on an autonomous shuttle with the hopes of launching within a few years. Since that time, the shuttle tested runs in various situations without riders. But now, LAVTA will gear up to fill the seats.
LAVTA currently has one vehicle operating the pilot program, making a loop from the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station to Persimmon Place in Dublin and back again, on a 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily rotation. The tests under review include infrastructure communication, interaction with other vehicles and pedestrians, and vehicle conditions.
“It started driving in July and will operate through the end of August without passengers as we continue to test it,” said Toan Tran, LAVTA director of operations.
According to Tran, if all goes well and the COID-19 situation stabilizes, the shuttle may begin accepting passengers as soon as September. The shuttle can hold up to six passengers, but with social distancing, LAVTA plans to set the max capacity at two passengers.
“Safety is our No. 1 priority, so we would need to ensure all the safety measures are in place before we start carrying passengers,” Tran added. “That being said, there are no plans to delay the public opening, but given the fluid situation with COVID, that could change. We will continue to monitor the situation.”
The shuttle is designed to take additional vehicles off the road and mitigate parking congestion, while improving passenger safety and reducing carbon emissions. It travels at a maximum speed of 13 mph and is equipped with a safety operator on board. The shuttle also boasts cutting-edge cameras, sensors and GPS capabilities, as well as an access ramp.
“I’m proud to join the Alameda County Transportation Commission, the Metropolitan Transportation, and all my colleagues on the LAVTA Commission who unanimously support the autonomous bus pilot project,” Dublin Mayor David Haubert said.
A $966,600 grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District provided funding for the project – conducted in collaboration with the City of Dublin, The Bay Area Quality Management District, BART, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Transdev (a public transportation organization) and EasyMile (an autonomous vehicle company).
Michael Tree, executive director of LAVTA, shared his views on the benefits of the program in a previous statement.
“Transit agencies are facing growing public frustration with inadequate parking at major transit centers and a lack of reliable on-demand options for those all-important first- and last-mile connections,” he said. “Traditional fixed transit services are only an attractive option to choice riders if the route happens to travel within a reasonable walking distance of the commuter’s origin or destination.” Sensibilities aside, there is of course the ‘cool’ factor.
“It’s exciting,” Tran said. “Most of the big Fortune 500 companies are using this technology, such as Amazon, and we believe it is good to be at the forefront of the future. It’s also pretty cool.”
For more information on the project, visit www.wheelsbus.com.
Newsom names new California state parks director amid wildfires and budget challenges Armando Quintero, a veteran park ranger and water manager, succeeds Lisa Mangat
McWay Falls, on the McWay Waterfall Trail, plummets onto the beach at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur, Calif., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group)
By PAUL ROGERS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: August 31, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: August 31, 2020 at 10:44 a.m.
California’s state park system — an exceptional landscape of sandy beaches, redwood forests and landmarks from Lake Tahoe to Hearst Castle — has been damaged in recent weeks by raging wildfires, and hobbled by a decade of budget woes, and critics say, lack of direction.
Now the collection of 280 parks, 340 miles of coastline, 4,500 trails and 15,000 campsites visited by millions of families a year has new leadership.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has named Armando Quintero, 64, of San Rafael, as the director of the state Department of Parks and Recreation. He begins Tuesday.
“It’s an astonishing honor at an extraordinary time,” said Quintero, a former park ranger whose love of nature rose from reading National Geographic while working in his father’s auto shop. Since 2015, Quintero has worked as executive director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced. Before that, he was director of development there from 2008 to 2014. He also has served on the Marin Municipal Water District board since 2009 and the California Water Commission, where as chairman he oversaw awarding $2.7 billion in state bond funding for new reservoirs and other water projects.
Armando Quintero (Photo: UC Merced)
But what is drawing attention among rangers and parks advocates is Quintero’s history in parks. From 1977 to 1998 he worked as a ranger or supervising ranger at Sequoia National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, John Muir National Historic Site and Golden Gate National Recreation Area, as well as a stint in the National Park Service headquarters in San Francisco. He is trained in law enforcement, firefighting and scuba diving, and speaks Spanish.
“We’re really encouraged,” said Mike Lynch, president of the California State Park Rangers Association. “Armando is steeped in the values of parks from the National Park Service. It will be great to have a director who you don’t have to explain to what a ranger, a maintenance worker or a lifeguard does.”
The outgoing director, Lisa Mangat, is a former budget manager with the state finance department who was appointed in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. She is credited with streamlining and organizing the parks department’s budget systems after a prior director, Ruth Coleman, was forced to resign after officials discovered her department had $54 million of unspent money in its accounts that had gone unreported to the state Department of Finance. Audits found no money was missing, but the incident embarrassed Brown, who was threatening to close parks, telling the public that funding was short. Neither Mangat or Newsom’s press office responded to a request Sunday to discuss her removal as director.
In an interview, Quintero said his priorities will include helping state parks and park employees recover from devastating wildfires in recent weeks, which have destroyed the historic 1930s headquarters and other buildings at Big Basin Redwoods State Park, and blackened thousands of acres at others, including Henry Coe near Morgan Hill, Armstrong Redwoods in Sonoma County and Julia Pfeiffer Burns in Big Sur.
Quintero said he also hopes to expand access and open new facilities, particularly in communities where there are few parks.
“The San Joaquin Valley is almost devoid of state parks,” he said. “The people who are feeding us don’t have easy access to state parks nearby.”
Quintero, a Democrat who will supervise 5,000 employees and earn $186,389 a year, was born in San Francisco and grew up in Martinez, working in his father’s auto garage.
“My parents didn’t go to parks when I was growing up,” he said. “My interest came from National Geographic and Encyclopedia Britannica. Dreaming about these places, dreaming about exploring Mayan ruins, and finding exotic creatures and exotic places carried me through a lot of stuff as a kid. Those kinds of places exist across California.”
Long considered the best state parks system in the United States, California’s has struggled in recent years. Two governors, Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, both threatened to close dozens of parks to balance state budgets, proposals they dropped after massive public outcry.
California has not opened a new state park since 2009, when the U.S. Army donated four miles of beaches in Monterey County to become Fort Ord Dunes State Park. That 11-year drought is the longest stretch California has gone without a new state park since the department was established in 1927.
As a result, California’s state parks, beaches and historic sites — visited by 79 million people a year — are getting more crowded. Parking and campsites are harder to find. Some properties are being preserved, but by private groups that often can’t afford to offer public access. The system also has a $1.2 billion maintenance backlog.
“Morale at the department has been low,” said Rusty Areias, who served as state parks director from 1999 to 2002. “Even in the best of times with huge budget surpluses, state parks seems to have been last on the list in terms of funding priorities. That was a mistake.”
The number of visitors has increased during the coronavirus pandemic, as people take vacations close to home, and seek more outdoor recreation. Yet budget pressures from the pandemic could result in parks cuts.
“Parks are having a moment,” said Rachel Norton, executive director of the California State Parks Foundation. “Director Quintero’s job will be to really help us capitalize on that moment as a state.”
East Bay lawmaker brings newborn to Capitol after being told she can’t vote by proxy Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks was told that maternity leave did not make her eligible for proxy voting By EMILY DERUY | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: September 1, 2020 at 3:43 p.m. | UPDATED: September 2, 2020 at 4:19 a.m.
It was approaching midnight Monday night and East Bay Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks was in her Capitol office when she heard a bill that she wanted to weigh in on come up for discussion.
First, she had to scoop up her newborn daughter, Elly, and run with baby in hand to the Assembly floor.
“I was actually in the middle of feeding my daughter when this bill came up,” she said, wearing a mask and holding her fussy four-week old as she urged her colleagues to pass Senate Bill 1120, a proposal to make it easier to build duplexes.
It was one of the most unusual moments of the final night of one of Sacramento’s most unique legislative sessions: Wicks, who gave birth in late July, was told this week that maternity leave was not an acceptable reason to vote by proxy, even as Republican senators cast their votes remotely after being exposed to a colleague who tested positive for COVID- 19.
Wicks’ parental predicament — which she said led to plenty of “mom guilt” on her end — has sparked widespread outrage and prompted calls for policy changes that would make it easier for parents, especially nursing new moms, to participate in the legislative process in a state that prides itself on being a leader when it comes to family leave policies.
“I felt very compelled to be there,” Wicks told this news organization Tuesday, acknowledging that her situation is not unique and that — with a husband able to care for the couple’s other young daughter, 3-year-old JoJo, and financial security — she is in a position of relative privilege. “Many working moms have been there…different context, same situation.”
So on Monday, as the clock ticked toward the midnight deadline to move bills to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, Wicks loaded Elly — short for Eloise — and her gear into the car and drove to the Capitol, where lawmakers were weighing in on issues from housing to, ironically, family leave.
And while the duplex conversion bill that Wicks was so passionate about passed the lower chamber just a few minutes before the deadline, there wasn’t time for the Senate to take up the proposal, effectively killing the bill for now.
The family leave bill, which would make it easier for employees of small businesses to take paid time off to care for newborns or sick family members, narrowly squeaked by and Newsom is expected to sign it into law. Wicks cast one of the deciding votes in favor of the idea before loading her daughter into the car and heading back to the East Bay in the wee hours of the morning.
The irony of Wicks’ decisive vote was not lost on family leave advocates.
“The pandemic has exacerbated gender inequalities in the workplace and beyond, and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks is proof of that,” said Marisol Franco, director of policy programs at the Women’s Foundation California. “A parent shouldn’t have to choose between putting their newborn at risk for COVID-19 and doing their job. We need our elected leaders to make common sense changes so that we can see ourselves and our communities represented from the halls of the state Capitol.”
Wicks said she hopes her experience will prompt a conversation not only around accommodations for new parents and other caregivers in Sacramento but about family leave more broadly. Many service workers, she pointed out, take just a couple of weeks off after having a baby before heading back to in-person jobs at shops and restaurants where they risk exposure to the coronavirus.
Earlier in the summer, with the pandemic raging, the Assembly passed rules outlining when proxy votes — meaning designating someone to vote on a member’s behalf — are allowed, specifically when a member is at high risk from COVID-19. Wicks submitted a request to vote by proxy, but Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, the person who approves or denies those requests, refused. After initially defending the decision as a way to protect the legislative process, Rendon on Tuesday evening apologized.
“I want to make a full apology to Assemblymember Wicks. My intention was never to be inconsiderate toward her, her role as a legislator, or her role as a mother,” Rendon said in a statement. “Inclusivity and electing more women into politics are core elements of our Democratic values. Nevertheless, I failed to make sure our process took into account the unique needs of our Members. The Assembly needs to do better. I commit to doing better.”
Republican senators in the upper chamber, which operates under different rules, were allowed to vote remotely after Brian Jones (R-Santee) tested positive for the coronavirus.
While Wicks herself might not be at higher risk, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says her baby, with an immune system that’s not fully developed, may be.
According to the agency, “some reports suggest that infants under 1 year old and those with underlying medical conditions might be at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19 than other children.”
And because Elly is nursing, which the CDC says helps provide protections for babies against many illnesses, it’s difficult for Wicks to be away from her for long.
“My daughter has been literally on my body the last four weeks,” Wicks said.
There aren’t many parents of young children in legislatures around the country, Wicks said, because the work is demanding and difficult to do with little kids, or for people caring for elderly parents or immunocompromised spouses.
“I hope we have some lessons learned coming out of this year,” Wicks said. “I think it’s a false choice to say you either have to do your job or stay home. I think you can do both.”
Legislative plan to raise PG&E monthly bills to fight wildfires is killed in Sacramento Measure would have added $1 a month to utility bills
Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group
Wildfires burn near the Yolo County city of Winters, August. 2020. A legislative plan to raise bills for customers of PG&E and other utility behemoths in California in a quest to combat wildfires — and bankroll an array of pet projects — has been torpedoed and sunk in the state Legislature.
By GEORGE AVALOS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: September 1, 2020 at 10:38 a.m. | UPDATED: September 2, 2020 at 10:19 a.m.
A legislative plan to raise bills for customers of PG&E and other utility behemoths in California in a quest to combat wildfires — and bankroll other projects — has been torpedoed in the state Legislature.
The measure failed to receive a vote in the state Senate on the final day of the 2019-2020 legislative session, a marathon of votes and maneuvers that ended early Tuesday morning.
AB 1659 was floated as an emergency measure that would have added roughly $1 to the monthly bills for customers of PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric for decades to come. The money would have been used to finance a $3 billion fund to help reduce the risk of wildfires in California. “It’s very good news for ratepayers,” said Mark Toney, executive director of consumer group The Utility Reform Network, or TURN. “It was very good to see AB 1659 die the death it deserved.”
An unusual coalition of utilities that included PG&E, as well as consumer advocates such as TURN, business groups, and agriculture interests emerged to fiercely oppose the bill as a scheme to extract cash from utility customers.
With a series of lightning-sparked infernos still blazing in California, some state lawmakers crafted the bill by gutting a stalled piece of legislation related to affordable housing and replacing it with the wildfire-related measure.
“Immediate action to secure additional resources for battling wildfires in a historic wildfire season” was the primary reason for the legislation, state Assemblymember Kevin Mullin, a San Francisco Democrat and principal author of the bill, said last week in support of the measure.
The three largest Northern California blazes have consumed more than 800,000 acres, damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 structures and forced tens of thousands of people to flee. Six people have been killed.
AB 1659 surfaced just days before the end of the legislative session and was brought up as an emergency measure, which meant that it required a two-thirds vote of both the Senate and the Assembly, as well as the governor’s signature, to become law.
The bill failed to emerge from the Senate in that chamber’s final voting session before adjournment, even after it had been stripped down to a $500 million measure from its original scope of $3 billion.
“This bill would have mortgaged the future of ratepayers for expenses that had nothing to do with utility service,” Toney said.
Among the projects and issues that the bill would have bankrolled: wildfire mitigation, climate change, fire detection devices, cooling centers, back-up solar power, emergency shelters, early warning systems, home protection projects, healthy forests, firefighter training, and upgrades to the Friant–Kern Canal in Bakersfield.
“If the Legislature wanted to support this type of gravy train legislation that gives out little bits to dozens of agencies, organizations, and pet projects, they should do so with the general fund,” Toney said.
Major housing, police bills died when squabbling California lawmakers ran out of time
Dustin Gardiner and Alexei Koseff Sep. 1, 2020 Updated: Sep. 1, 2020 6:04 p.m.
Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park (Los Angeles County), talks with Assemblyman Chad Mayes, I- Yucca Valley (San Bernardino County), during the last session on the Assembly floor in Sacramento on Monday.
Photo: Hector Amezcua / Associated Press
SACRAMENTO — Leaders at the California Capitol tried desperately this year to keep business on track and set lofty policy goals despite the interruptions of a global pandemic. But in the end, 2020 had the last word.
The California Legislature adjourned at 1:29 a.m. Tuesday, ending a session that was repeatedly thrown off course by the coronavirus. Many of the biggest policy issues died without final votes.
“We have endured something unparalleled in our history and we did it exceptionally well,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood (Los Angeles County), told his bleary-eyed colleagues at the end of the night. But legislators, exhausted after debating behind face masks for 14 hours, watched several of their major proposals — bills to increase housing production, create a police decertification process and reduce plastic pollution — sink in the final minutes.
Those bills died, in part, because tensions among lawmakers exacerbated their pandemic-induced time crunch, and the state Constitution required them to stop working on all but a few exempt bills at midnight.
Much of the drama played out in the Senate, where 10 Republicans were barred from the Capitol and forced to vote remotely after they came into close contact with Sen. Brian Jones, a Republican from Santee (San Diego County) who tested positive for the coronavirus.
The chamber, where decorum is usually king, plunged into chaos as the quarantined Republicans accused Democrats of trying to silence them by limiting the time for debate on bills as the sun went down Monday.
As tensions boiled, GOP Sen. Melissa Melendez of Lake Elsinore (San Bernardino County) exclaimed, “This is bulls—.”
Democrats, in turn, accused Republicans of trying to run out the clock. Democrats later rescinded the debate-limiting move after an emergency recess, and Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, pleaded with her colleagues for a “reset” so they could get through more bills.
“I continue to be a little bit amazed, because we bent over backwards to allow for the participation,” she said later. “Far from not allowing a voice or disrupting their voice — that didn’t happen.”
Rendon said it was a complicated year for the Legislature after missing two months because of the pandemic. But he said the failure to deal with some of the biggest issues was the result not of lack of time — “I think a lot of those were just politics.”
Among those big issues:
Housing bills sink: Atkins’ SB1120, which aimed to build up residential neighborhoods by making it easier to split lots and convert homes into duplexes, fell just short. The Assembly passed the measure minutes before the midnight deadline, leaving no time for the Senate to take it up for final approval, even though Atkins said the votes had been lined up for days.
It was an ignominious end for a session that Atkins had promised in January would produce legislation to boost housing construction, after the failure of SB50, the controversial proposal from Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, to increase density around public transit and in suburbs.
Of the five bills in a legislative package Atkins introduced in May, none is headed to the governor’s desk.
Rendon blamed the slow place of the Senate for holding up the Legislature on the final night.
“If Sen. Atkins wanted the bill, she could have asked for it,” he said. “They didn’t ask for that bill. They didn’t prioritize it.” Police reform languishes: Legislators did not advance a spate of policing bills introduced following nationwide protests over racial inequality after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
The most far-reaching proposal, SB731 by Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena (Los Angeles County), sought to strip badges from police officers who break the law and eliminate their legal immunity for killing a suspect.
The bill, which would have created a statewide process to revoke the certification of problem cops, died without coming up for a final vote in the Assembly. It was opposed by law enforcement groups, which said it would set the standard too low for revoking an officer’s badge.
“To ignore the thousands of voices calling for meaningful police reform is insulting,” Bradford said in a statement. “Today, Californians were once again let down by those who were meant to represent them.”
A separate measure to open up investigative records about police misconduct, SB776 by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, also died when the Senate adjourned without giving it final approval. The bill would have made public the records for complaints of excessive force, sexual assault, dishonesty on the job, discrimination or wrongful arrests and searches.
Atkins noted that it took two years to reach a deal between activists and law enforcement groups on a bill raising the standard for use of deadly force, which California ultimately adopted last year. “We’ve gained great ground, but not enough in the time frame that we had,” she said.
Plastics pollution measures die, again: For the second year in a row, lawmakers narrowly rejected bills designed to combat plastic pollution, after fierce lobbying from industry.
AB1080 and SB54 were identical measures to require manufacturers to reduce the amount of plastic packaging and food ware Californians use once and toss in the trash. Companies would have been be required to make all plastic packaging and single-use food items, such as cups and utensils, recyclable.
About two dozen Democrats, mostly moderates, did not vote when SB54 came up in the final of hours of the session, effectively killing both measures.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, and Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, carried the bills for the last two years, and made numerous amendments to attempt to appease moderates. Before the vote, Gonzalez vented her frustration with legislators to consider the harm plastics cause the planet.
“I am tired of making the case,” Gonzalez said. “You either believe that plastics is a problem, that global warming is a real problem ... or you don’t.”
Industry lobbyists said the bills would destroy jobs in food processing and agriculture, and impose unrealistic mandates.
An industry group, operating under the name Californians for Recycling and the Environment, spent more than $3.38 million over the last two years to defeat the proposals, according to disclosure forms. Environmentalists have vowed to take the fight to voters, through an initiative expected to be on the 2022 ballot. The measure would be more restrictive on plastic producers.
Dustin Gardiner and Alexei Koseff are San Francisco Chronicle staff writesr. Email: [email protected], [email protected] Twitter: @dustingardiner, @akoseff
Editorial: California Assembly Speaker Rendon’s disrespect for new mother
Chronicle Editorial Board Sep. 1, 2020 Updated: Sep. 1, 2020 4:05 p.m.
Assemblywomen Buffy Wicks and Monique Limón
Photo: Twitter.com
Shame on Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon for rejecting a request by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, mother of a month-old daughter, to vote by proxy at the end of session. The so- called leader’s recalcitrance forced Wicks to drive from Oakland to Sacramento with newborn Elly to work until midnight on the Assembly floor.
Wicks gamely balanced her parental and legislative duties — engaging in debates, feeding her daughter — but it was so unnecessary. The state Senate, grounded in the 21st century and the reality of a pandemic, allowed remote voting on Monday. The Assembly did not let its members vote online, but it did have a provision for proxy voting for members “at a higher risk from the COVID-19 virus.” Wicks absolutely should fit in that category, considering the risk to newborns of the coronavirus identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the potential for postpartum mothers to experience health issues that could leave them immunocompromised.
A spokesperson for Rendon defended his decision Tuesday, saying the bar of eligibility for proxy voting “was always intended to be high, to ensure the protection of our legislative process.”
Keep digging, Mr. Speaker. Your move was oblivious to science and a newborn’s health, disrespectful to colleague Wicks, and contrary to the ruling Democrats’ rhetoric and mandates about creating family-friendly workplaces.
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.
CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES Big Basin Redwoods park, heavily damaged by fire, will stay closed for at least a year
J.D. Morris Sep. 1, 2020 Updated: Sep. 2, 2020 10:51 a.m.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom walks through the remnants of the headquarters building during a tour of fire damage at Big Basin Redwoods State Park.Photo: LiPo Ching / Special to The Chronicle The old lodge was burned to the ground in the wildfire.Photo: LiPo Ching / Special to The Chronicle
BIG BASIN REDWOODS STATE PARK, Santa Cruz County — California’s oldest state park will stay closed for at least a year to protect the public as the state takes a cautious approach to reopening the beloved forested enclave that was badly burned in a recent wildfire.
Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains suffered extensive damage from the CZU Lightning Complex fires, and while many of its most majestic trees are expected to survive, the area is riddled with hazards that will take a long time to fix, said Chris Spohrer, a state parks district superintendent.
Spohrer made the comments after he helped lead Gov. Gavin Newsom, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Peter Gaynor and a host of state officials on a tour through the burned park. The public won’t be safe at Big Basin for the next 12 months or more, Spohrer said, partly because parks officials still need to figure out exactly which trees must be removed and which will remain. They hope that stress from high winds in the coming months will show them which trees are best positioned to survive.
Additionally, parks officials are concerned that flames from the CZU complex may have left the soil at Big Basin unable to retain much moisture, thereby greatly increasing the risk of floods and debris flows when winter rains arrive. Those events could damage the trails and roads in the park, thereby demanding even more resources to restore the park.
Driving into the beloved park near the town of Boulder Creek is a dramatically different experience than it was for generations of visitors who went to the site since its founding in 1902.
What was once a constant green wall of redwood, Douglas fir and oak is now increasingly brown as one approaches the park. The entrance is barely recognizable in many ways, with the park visitor center and headquarters, the nature museum and store, and the old lodge all reduced to piles of rubble. Burned vegetation is everywhere, as are fallen or felled tree trunks. Everything smells like campfire.
“My heart really does break,” Spohrer said, his voice breaking with emotion. “The memories here. The generational commitment ... this is a really meaningful place to all of us.”
In addition to Newsom and Gaynor, the Big Basin tour also included Thom Porter, the head of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection; new state parks director Armando Quintero; state Office of Emergency Services director Mark Ghilarducci; California Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot; and others.
They arrived at the park several minutes past noon and began inspecting the damage with a handful of journalists observing at about 12:30 p.m. For the next 50 minutes, the group looked closely at the destroyed buildings and damaged trees while parks officials explained their significance. Newsom stood inside the hollow center of the “Auto Tree,” named for its ability to fit a vehicle backed into its center, and marveled at the giant’s apparent survival.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (left) listens as Santa Cruz District Superintendent Chris Spohrer (foreground) talks about the damage caused by the fire.
Photo: LiPo Ching / Special to The Chronicle
He and the other officials also walked through the badly damaged park amphitheater, where flames broke some of the log benches. And they walked to two of the most treasured trees, named the Mother and Father of the Forest, old-growth redwoods that are both still standing, though signs of fire are all around them. A portion of one nearby tree was still smoldering from the fire.
Newsom said it was an emotional experience.
“If this is not a gut punch, then you’re not truly conscious as a human being,” he told a reporter.
Quintero, who was at Big Basin just a few hours into his first day as state parks director, said California could use the devastation at Big Basin to set a global example. “I think we have an opportunity to show the world what the parks of the future could look like,” he said, suggesting that the state establish a new way of managing parkland for the next century.
J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @thejdmorris
Walters: California Legislature leaves much undone Lawmakers fail to address coronavirus, housing, wildfires and racial justice issues
Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press
Legislative leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom opted for risk-avoidance on the state’s major issues in the hope that Democrat Joe Biden will unseat Republican President Donald Trump in November and then provide California with many billions of dollars to buy its way out of difficulty.
By DAN WALTERS |
PUBLISHED: September 2, 2020 at 11:40 a.m. | UPDATED: September 2, 2020 at 12:27 p.m.
When the Legislature reconvened in January, the stage was seemingly set for a year of sweeping action on California’s most vexing political issues, such as a chronic housing shortage, homelessness and an embarrassingly high poverty rate.
Democrats enjoyed overwhelming majorities in both legislative houses, the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, was fond of pursuing “big hairy, audacious goals” in contrast with cautious predecessor Jerry Brown, and the state’s roaring economy was pouring billions of extra dollars into the state treasury.
However, the most telling fact about the 2020 legislative session, which drew to a fitful close Monday night, is the long list of issues that either didn’t get addressed or received just token attention, including those stemming from more recent traumatic events. The COVID-19 pandemic, the deep economic recession it spawned, terribly destructive wildfires and the furor over the suffocation death of a Black man, George Floyd, with a Minneapolis policeman’s knee on his neck changed the political narrative in mid-session. However, the Legislature didn’t respond to them any more satisfactorily than it did to older issues.
After COVID-19 erupted in March, the Legislature went on a two-month hiatus, content to allow Newsom to manage things under emergency decrees. But even after lawmakers returned to Sacramento, they fell into a defensive mode, adopting stopgap measures such as a debt-heavy state budget in June and a temporary, partial renter relief bill on the last night.
Bolder moves were proposed, such as a $100 billion economic stimulus package, raising income taxes on the wealthiest Californians, imposing a tax on their wealth, overhauling the economics of rental housing and home ownership, ending single-family zoning to allow more multi-family housing, and stripping violent cops of their legal status.
Some were justified, such as taking away the certification of miscreant cops, and some were outlandish and unworkable, such as a wealth tax. But all were shunted aside as legislative leaders — and Newsom — opted for risk-avoidance and hope that Democrat Joe Biden will unseat Republican President Donald Trump in November and then provide California with many billions of dollars to buy its way out of difficulty.
That hope was particularly evident in the half-a-loaf rent relief bill passed in the last minutes of the session and immediately signed by Newsom. It protects tenants who attest that they lost income due to COVID-19’s economic shutdown from eviction, as long as they pay at least 25% of their rent. But unpaid rent will still accumulate and evictions could resume early next year.
Repeatedly, as legislators debated the bill, they expressed hope that a Biden administration would offer new cash relief to the unemployed, allowing them to fully pay their rents. Newsom called it “just a bridge to a more permanent solution once the federal government finally recognizes its role in stabilizing the housing market.”
What happens if Biden loses, or a newly re-elected Trump doesn’t come through? There is no Plan B on the table.
Nor is there any Plan B for a state budget leaking red ink, for a housing shortage that pandemic has worsened, for supporting three million unemployed workers and their families, for armoring California against wildfires — or, finally, for stopping the spread of COVID-19 if Newsom’s latest management scheme fails.
The most sobering revelation of this annus horribilis of 2020 is that California is really not the globally powerful, semi-independent nation-state that Newson had been fond of boasting.
When disaster struck California, its economic and political limitations were laid bare, compelling Newsom and other politicians to beg Washington for help. And they still are.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.
Fed survey finds widespread pessimism about economic future By MARTIN CRUTSINGER September 2, 2020
Store closing signs are shown on a Stein Mart store Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020, in Salt Lake City. The latest Federal Reserve survey of U.S. economic activity found generally modest gains in August but also pessimism about the future given the threats posed by the coronavirus. The Fed report made public Wednesday, Sept. 2, said that a theme echoed across the country is the continued uncertainty stemming from the pandemic and its negative effect on consumer and business activity.(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) WASHINGTON (AP) — The latest Federal Reserve survey of U.S. economic activity found generally modest gains in August but also pessimism about the future given the threats posed by the coronavirus.
The Fed report made public Wednesday said that a theme echoed across the country is the lingering uncertainty stemming from the pandemic and its negative effect on consumer and business activity. The Fed’s Philadelphia regional bank said that businesses in that area reported that “uncertainty is extremely high” with households awaiting more “layoffs, evictions, foreclosures and bankruptcies while the coronavirus persists and the stimulus ends.”
The San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank called conditions in the consumer and business services sectors “precarious,” while the Dallas Fed said that increasing coronavirus infections in Texas had “disrupted the budding economic recovery in some sectors.”
The Boston Fed said, “Business contacts continued to cite the disruptive effects of the pandemic on all aspects of their activity, even as recovery began or continued in some sectors.”
The report, based on responses gathered before Aug. 24, found that economic activity had increased modestly from late July but remained well below levels seen before the pandemic hit in March.
The coronavirus outbreak has pushed the country into a deep recession and resulted in millions of people losing their jobs and thousands of businesses struggling to survive. This despite the Fed and Congress providing massive amounts of economic support.
The report, known as the Beige Book, is compiled from responses from business contacted by Fed’s 12 regional banks. The information will help inform Fed policymakers when they next meet to set interest-rate policies on Sept. 15-16.
Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services, said that the Beige Book reflects the economic risks posed by the potential for further increases in coronavirus cases and an inability of Congress to pass additional fiscal stimulus.
“Uncertainty will remain extremely high until the pandemic is contained,” he said.
At the Fed’s last meeting in July, the central bank kept its key policy rate unchanged at a record low near zero. It also pledged to keep rates low until central bank officials are “confident that the economy has weathered recent events” stemming from the pandemic- induced recession.
Last week, the Fed announced it had completed an 18-month review of its monetary policy and decided to switch from a 2% target for inflation to inflation averaging. Under the new system, the Fed will allow inflation to run above 2% for a time to make up for years in which it has failed to reach the Fed’s 2% target.
Economists believe this change makes it unlikely that the Fed will be tightening credit any time over at least the next two years.
The Fed report said that consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of economic activity, had increased, pushed higher by strong auto sales and some improvements in tourism and retail sales. But in a potentially troubling sign, the report noted a recent slowdown in consumer spending. It did not make a link, but the $600 weekly increase in unemployment benefits expired at the end of July. Congress took an August recess when it was not able to overcome wide differences between Democrats and Republicans over what a new economic relief package should look like.
The report also noted “rising instances of furloughed workers being laid off permanently as demand remained soft.”
The report said that firms that were hiring were having trouble finding workers, with day care hard to obtain and uncertainty remaining over the coming school year.
Wages were described as basically flat. Some companies have rolled back increases that had been linked to hazard pay or high-exposure jobs in the early weeks of the pandemic.
The report said that residential construction activity was a bright spot. Home sales and home prices have risen, reflecting increased housing demand. Manufacturing has also increased in most of the Fed’s districts.
Drilling, mines, other projects hastened by Trump order By MATTHEW BROWN September 2, 2020
FILE - This July 18, 2018, file photo, shows the Mountain Valley Pipeline route on Brush Mountain in Virginia. The Trump administration is seeking to fast track environmental reviews of the pipeline and dozens of other energy, highway and other infrastructure projects across the U.S. (Heather Rousseau/The Roanoke Times via AP, File)
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Trump administration is seeking to fast track environmental reviews of dozens of major energy and infrastructure projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, including oil and gas drilling, hazardous fuel pipelines, wind farms and highway projects in multiple states, according to documents provided to The Associated Press.
The plan to speed up project approvals comes after President Donald Trump in June ordered the Interior Department and other agencies to scale back environmental reviews under special powers he has during the coronavirus emergency. More than 60 projects targeted for expedited environmental reviews were detailed in an attachment to a July 15 letter from Assistant Interior Secretary Katherine MacGregor to White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow.
The letter, obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity through a freedom of information lawsuit, does not specify how the review process would be hastened. It says the specified energy, environmental and natural resource projects “are within the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to perform or advance.”
Included on Interior’s list are oil and gas industry proposals such as the 5,000-well Converse gas field in Wyoming, the Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas terminal in Oregon, and the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline in Virginia.
Other projects targeted for quick review include highway improvements in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and other states; storm levees and wetlands restoration initiatives in Louisiana; the Lake Powell water pipeline in Utah; wind farms in New Mexico and off the Massachusetts coast; and mining projects in Nevada, Idaho, Colorado and Alaska.
Environmentalist Brett Hartl said the move to expedite major projects represents a “giveaway” to industries that curried favor with Trump.
“Building an LNG (liquefied natural gas) plant is not going to solve the problem that’s happening in the country,” said Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is where we’re potentially going to see environmental harm down the road, because they are skipping steps in the process.”
The group sued the government in federal court to force it to release documents related to Trump’s order after the group’s initial request under the Freedom of Information Act was refused.
MacGregor’s letter noted that some projects had been placed on shorter schedules before Trump’s order. Some of those that were on the list were recently completed, such as last month’s approval of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Interior Department officials did not answer questions from the AP on how the environmental reviews are being expedited and whether any rules were being waived. The bid to speed up reviews is in line with the Trump administration’s greater emphasis on reduced regulatory burdens for corporations.
A spokesman for Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said in an emailed statement that the administration was taking steps to improve government decision making while still making sure environmental consequences are “thoughtfully analyzed.”
“For far too long, critically important infrastructure, energy and other economic development projects have been needlessly paralyzed by federal red tape,” spokesman Conner Swanson said. The president’s June order directed federal officials to pursue emergency workarounds of bedrock environmental laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, to hasten completion of infrastructure projects to speed economic recovery. Trump said the action was necessary because the virus had slowed down large segments of the society and brought massive unemployment.
Major proposals stalled by infighting 5 Sep 2020 By Alexei Koseff
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / Associated Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, Dsan Diego, lamented the “absolute needless delay of housing production bills.”
SACRAMENTO — When the state Senate leader’s priority housing bill died as the clock struck midnight on the Legislature’s annual session, it shone a spotlight on infighting that contributed to the stunning collapse this year of an agenda to tackle California’s most pressing problems. In a blearyeyed Zoom news conference two hours later, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins criticized the “absolute needless delay of housing production bills,” including her own SB1120, which aimed to address the state’s housing shortage by making it easier to split lots and convert homes into duplexes. The measure — which passed the Assembly three minutes before the legislative deadline Monday night, leaving no time for final approval in the Senate — would have paved the way to build out neighborhoods that are now limited to singlefamily housing. “That was impossible,” the San Diego Democrat said. “To lose a commonsense bill like SB1120 in the middle of a crisis because of running out the clock, that’s a little bit harder to understand.” After a night in which major proposals on housing, policing procedures and other top issues simply stalled for lack of time, fingers pointed to a legislative session shortened by the coronavirus pandemic and a quarantine that forced most Senate Republicans to vote remotely in the final week, a ponderous exercise that slowed the chamber down. But the failures were exacerbated by a longstanding friction between the two houses, which ratcheted up to new levels this year. Some lawmakers said the distrust was the worst they could remember. A fresh group of legislators will take office in December to sift through the fallout, but the leaders of the Senate and Assembly likely will still be there. “There was more dysfunction in this last week than I’ve seen in a long time,” said Sen. Nancy Skinner, Dberkeley, who lost two bills in the chaos. A measure enhancing the density bonus for housing projects never came up for final approval as frustrated Republican senators filibustered the session’s waning hours, while another opening police records didn’t make it back to the Senate at all after passing the Assembly too late. Legislative leaders are promising to address the procedural snafus before the next session begins. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, Dlakewood (Los Angeles County), apologized this week for making a new mother return to the Capitol, holding her baby, to vote in person and said he would revisit proxy voting rules for members at higher risk for the coronavirus. Secretary of the Senate Erika Contreras said she will look at technology and training improvements for remote voting “to help it work even better if it once again becomes necessary to use it.” Fixing the interpersonal drama will be harder — a rivalry between the Senate and Assembly is essentially built into how the Capitol operates. It can flare up when members seek revenge for slights, real or perceived, and is always at its peak during the end of the session, when important bills are held as leverage to ensure the rest of the docket moves. “Members of the general public would be amazed by some aspects of decisionmaking in the Capitol,” said Sen. Ben Allen, Dsanta Monica. “Some things pass into law for purely public policy reasons, but other things go into determining whether bills pass or not.” The pandemic amplified everything. Senate and Assembly leadership disagreed in March about whether to take an emergency recess as the state was shutting down and whether they could legally continue their business remotely. The Senate returned from the recess a week later than the Assembly and never made up the time, while senators complained that they dropped far more of their bills to fit the compressed schedule than their colleagues on the other side of the Capitol. The Legislature briefly ground to a halt in late July over the clash. By the final night of the session, as it became clear not everything could get done, patience had worn thin. While the Assembly sideeyed the sluggish pace of remote voting in the Senate, senators grumbled that the Assembly had met only once in the previous three days and wasted time on farewell tributes for departing members and staff. Atkins and Rendon “have a history of not working well together,” said Assemblyman Adam Gray, Dmerced, “and the stress and the tension and the friction of COVID have made it worse — not just for them, but for all of us.” At the end, the animosity was all but out in the open. After Atkins’ comments about her housing measure, Rendon blamed the Senate leader for mismanaging the clock. He said the Assembly was working at twice the speed of the Senate on the last night. “If Sen. Atkins wanted the bill, she could have asked for it,” he said. “They didn’t ask for that bill. They didn’t prioritize it.” Those who supported the measure cried foul, accusing Rendon of holding it until the last minute to ensure it would die. Even Gov. Gavin Newsom remarked at a news conference Wednesday that “there were some issues that were rather curious where both houses passed legislation we were looking forward to land on our proverbial desk for signature.” Assemblyman Robert Rivas, the Hollister Democrat who managed Atkins’ bill in the Assembly, said he had rounded up votes for it and let floor managers know he was ready to take it up as early as last week, but it was passed over until late Monday. He said he could not speculate on the politics of the decision, but expressed frustration that Democrats, who control nearly threequarters of the Legislature, have repeatedly failed to unify behind housing bills. “At the end of the day, it’s the hundreds of thousands of Californians that we failed,” he said. Gray said taking up numerous Senate bills, including Atkins’, so late they could not make it back over for final approval and then passing them anyway was a mockery. “Somebody made choices about what was going to come up and what wasn’t going to come up,” he said. “I don’t think you can walk away from the timing of some of those bills without the assumption that whoever scheduled those bills had no intention of getting them passed.” Perhaps no policy effort became more tied up in the friction than a pair of identical bills to reduce singleuse plastic packaging — Allen’s SB54 and AB1080 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, Dsan Diego — which moved through the legislative process handinhand. To get momentum moving again after the bills stalled at the end of last year, the Senate passed AB1080 last Saturday, which was seen as the easier lift politically. The fastest route from there to the governor’s desk would have been to send the amended bill back to the Assembly for final approval. But a deal was struck to hold it in the Senate until the Assembly passed Allen’s SB54 as a sign of good faith. Then the two measures would be traded and taken up again in the other house. “There was tension between the houses and that seemed the cleanest and fairest way of proceeding,” Allen said. “This was the deal that was struck. I would have been happy to see either bill go up, and to be honest, unfortunately, this policy, among other things, became the victim of interhouse problems.” Allen’s bill never passed the Assembly. When it finally came up Monday evening, the initial vote was 3718 — short of a majority in the 80member Assembly, but close enough that the measure might get over the line with some armtwisting. It didn’t get another shot until about two minutes before the midnight deadline, by which point it was too late. With so many big bills left to get through at the end, Gonzalez said she wasn’t able to work her colleagues the way she usually can. “In normal circumstances, I think I could have gotten that bill through,” she said. “But these weren’t normal circumstances.” Gonzalez, a close ally of Rendon who has clashed with senators in her role as chair of the powerful Assembly appropriations committee, noted that the Senate never took up bills she championed on workplace protections for garment workers and restricting police from using rubber bullets at protests. She said it was “ridiculous” to suggest Rendon intentionally held legislation, such as the plastics bill, until it was effectively dead. “The speaker was trying to do the best with a bad situation,” she said.
Lawmaker brings newborn to Assembly floor, highlighting plight of working parents
Nora Mishanec Sep. 1, 2020 Updated: Sep. 1, 2020 9:22 p.m.
Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks addresses lawmakers while holding her newborn.Photo: Still from California State Assembly video
Like many working parents during the pandemic, Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, faced an impossible choice Monday: go to work or care for her child. Wicks decided to do both, cradling her newborn on the Assembly floor during a marathon legislative session that lasted past midnight.
The move quickly went viral, eliciting a supportive tweet from Hillary Clinton and winning Wicks praise for her realistic depiction of new motherhood. It also touched off a conversation about the pressures of parenting in the time of COVID-19.
Wicks, who traveled to Sacramento after Assembly leaders denied her request for a proxy voter, said her decision to bring her breastfeeding daughter to the Assembly floor touched a nerve for many parents who are struggling to cope with the competing demands of work and family. The past six months have been especially hard on working parents, she said. The pandemic is “shining a light on our failed social safety net,” said Wicks, who also has a 3-year-old. “Parents are stressed. And this spoke to the point in time in our country where we need to rebuild our social safety net and support working families.”
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood (Los Angeles County), said he denied Wicks’ request last week to vote remotely because her maternity did not fall under narrow standards set by the Assembly to allow proxy voting only for members “at a higher risk from the COVID-19 virus.” Rendon said he was worried that it could put legislative priorities that he already expects to be challenged in court — like a measure to expand paid family leave — at even greater legal risk.
“We felt like if we allowed her to proxy vote and she didn’t fit in the definition, then every single thing that we passed, every single thing that we voted on, would be compromised,” he told The Chronicle Tuesday.
But Tuesday night, Rendon issued “a full apology” to Wicks.
“My intention was never to be inconsiderate toward her, her role as a legislator, or her role as a mother,” Rendon said in a statement. “Inclusivity and electing more women into politics are core elements of our Democratic values. Nevertheless, I failed to make sure our process took into account the unique needs of our members.”
Earlier, Rendon said that given the outrage over Wicks’ situation, he would be open to adopting broader criteria for remote voting in the next session.
“Will I consider it? Yeah, of course,” he said. “I honestly am feeling like the virus may not go away any time soon, so we’ll have to look at it again.”
Wicks said she felt “compelled” to attend in person after her proxy request was denied. She was following the Senate debate on a live feed while breastfeeding her daughter when housing bill SB1120, meant to spur the development of multiunit homes, came up for a vote.
The Oakland legislator threw a blanket over her daughter and sprinted down two flights of stairs from her office to the Assembly floor, where she cast her vote.
Her newborn “started crying in the middle of my speech,” Wicks said Tuesday. The dinnertime interruption, even for something as important as a Senate vote, did not sit well with the 4-week-old.
“She was hungry, and babies don’t like it when you (interrupt) them,” Wicks said.
Wicks used her time on the floor to press for what she called fair housing policy, an issue that she said is close to her heart — and also to draw attention to the plight of new mothers.
“Please, please, please pass this bill,” she said. “And I’m going to go finish feeding my daughter.”
Wicks said she hopes her moment of viral fame will serve as a “call to action” for advocates of paid parental leave who are fed up with the current system. The assemblywoman has been a vocal supporter of increasing access to child care services, and last year she campaigned for a state Senate bill that would have allowed candidates and elected officials to use campaign funds for child care expenses.
The lawmaker acknowledged her good fortune of having a job that allowed her to bring a newborn to work, an option that she said is not available to many, especially those in the service industry. Many moms must return to work soon after the birth of a child, she said, adding, “It is unconscionable that we allow that in our society.”
Wicks’ child care dilemma Monday also highlighted the importance of child care workers who “hold the economy on their shoulders,” yet often lack recognition for their essential work, said Ashley Williams, a senior policy analyst at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley who is studying the pandemic’s effect on early care and education.
Williams said she was heartened to see Wicks use her moment of acclaim to champion the importance of child care and said she hopes to see a broader conversation about the contributions of child care workers.
“We are missing the mark around ensuring that people doing the child care have sufficient support and compensation,” she said.
Chronicle staff writer
Alexei Koseff contributed to this report.
See which bills affecting California consumers and taxpayers did and did not pass
Kathleen Pender Sep. 1, 2020 Updated: Sep. 1, 2020 5:45 p.m.
FILE - In this July 9, 2020, file photo, California Gov. Gavin Newsom visits the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's McClellan Reload Base in Sacramento, Calif. Newsom and state legislative leaders have reached an agreement on a bill to temporarily protect people from evictions. Newsom announced the agreement on Friday, Aug.28, 2020. The bill would ban evictions for tenants who have not been able to pay their rent because of the coronavirus between the months of March and August. (AP Photo/Hector Amezcua, Pool, File)
Photo: Hector Amezcua / Associated Press
The California Legislature passed bills to beef up consumer financial protection and job protection for employees who take paid family leave. But it failed to pass bills that would have raised taxes on the wealthy and addressed some wildfire issues. Here’s a closer look at legislation affecting consumers and taxpayers that moved to the governor’s desk before lawmakers adjourned Monday — and some that didn’t make it. More consumer financial protection: The Legislature passed AB1864, which will create a state version of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by restructuring the Department of Business Oversight. That department will be renamed the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation and be given “broad general jurisdiction over providers of consumer financial products and services,” said Suzanne Martindale, senior policy counsel with Consumer Reports, part of a coalition backing the bill.
“To date, (the department) has had specific authorities under particular statutes or licensing schemes, but the law has been silent on whether, as a general matter, if you are a financial service provider, can they look at your books and try to stop violations of the law,” Martindale said. This bill “answers the question in the affirmative” and will give the department the “supervisory and regulatory tools it needs to ensure it has that kind of broad jurisdiction,” she added.
It will also give the department authority over certain companies that are not subject to state oversight, such as credit reporting agencies, debt collectors and certain financial technology companies such as those providing loan products.
More job protection: Most private-sector employees pay into California’s State Disability Insurance and Paid Family Leave program, which provides partial pay if they take time off work to tend to their own illness or care for a new child or sick family member. However, those who take Paid Family Leave are not automatically eligible for job protection. For that, “you have to be covered under separate job protection laws, which have strict eligibility requirements, including an employee threshold that leaves out millions of California workers,” said Sharon Terman, director of the work and family program at Legal Aid at Work.
Previously, there were different thresholds for different types of family care. SB1383 lowers it to companies with five employees for all types. Newsom is expected to sign the bill.
The rich are safe, for now: As expected, a last-minute bill that would have created the nation’s first state wealth tax failed to advance. Introduced on Aug. 13, AB2088 would have levied a tax of 0.4% of net worth, excluding directly held real estate, that exceeds $30 million for most taxpayers. People subject to the tax who moved out of the state would still have to pay it, in declining amounts, for up to 10 years, a provision critics said was unconstitutional.
Author Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, said when he introduced the union-sponsored bill that it would not be heard before the Legislature adjourned, but “it can be reintroduced on day one of the next session.”
A proposed “millionaire’s tax” also did not advance. AB1253 would have raised California’s top personal income tax rate — already the highest in the nation at 13.3% — to 16.8%, retroactively to Jan. 1. It would have add a surcharge of 1% to incomes between roughly $1 million and $2 million, 3% on income between $2 million and $5 million, and 3.5% on income greater than $5 million, bringing the top rate to 16.8%.
No deal on wildfire insurance: After moving swiftly through the Legislature, a pair of wildfire-insurance bills were pulled by their authors after being watered down. AB2167 and companion bill SB292 originally would have created a complex plan to let insurance companies request higher rates than currently allowed for homeowners’ and renters’ policies in selected wildfire-prone areas in exchange for promising to sell a certain number of policies in all those areas combined. The insurance industry, which backed the bill, said it would encourage insurers to write and renew policies in high-risk areas. Opponents, including consumer groups and California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, said it would lead to spiraling premiums without guaranteeing that residents in fire-prone areas would be able to get insurance from mainstream companies.
The authors pulled the bills after they were amended to simply require the insurance commissioner to study issues proposed in the bills.
“This is a near miss for California homeowners and renters who would have taken an enormous financial hit if this bill had passed,” said Harvey Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog.
Also no deal on wildfire prevention: Another wildfire-related bill that died would have continued a surcharge on electricity bills set to expire after 2035 for 15 more years — through 2050. The surcharge would have paid off $3 billion in bonds the state would have sold to finance wildfire mitigation projects. The fee would have applied only to customers of the state’s three large investor-owned utilities, including PG&E.
The fee has been on their bills since 2002, to pay off bonds sold after the state Department of Water Resources began purchasing power during the energy crisis. It was supposed to drop off this year, but it was extended through 2035 to help finance a wildfire insurance fund that will reimburse investor-owned utilities for payments they make to victims of wildfires caused by their equipment.
The bill, AB1659, was introduced in its current form on Aug. 25 and abandoned Sunday amid strong opposition. Its backers planned to come back with a plan to use $500 million in other state funds for wildfire prevention, but that idea died as well.
California bill requiring coronavirus disclosures at work headed to governor’s desk
Chase DiFeliciantonio Sep. 1, 2020 Updated: Sep. 1, 2020 5:24 p.m.
Luis Gutierrez works in April at La Reyna Bakery in S.F., with signs indicating safety precautions.
Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle
California companies and their employees have clashed throughout the pandemic over whether employers should tell workers if they have potentially been exposed to the coronavirus on the job. Now a bill passed by the Legislature and headed to the governor’s desk, AB685, seeks to clarify what companies must tell employees and state officials about such risks.
Workers’ advocates say the legislation is key to shoring up workplace safety and retaliation protections for employees when it comes to reporting a case of the coronavirus. But business groups are worried the bill is still too vague on what it requires of companies and amounts to a public shaming when an outbreak is associated with a company.
The bill is awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature after the Assembly included some amendments from the Senate.
AB685 would require employers to give written notice and instructions to workers who may have been exposed to the coronavirus at work. It also requires that businesses notify health authorities if infections become widespread, information that the California Department of Public Health can then make public.
The bill also creates anti-retaliation protections for employees who report infections, to encourage them to come forward.
Companies are already required to disclose cases of the virus to local health departments, but that information is not public. Companies are also required to report workplace-related injuries to state regulator Cal/OSHA, but there has been some disagreement on whether that includes cases of the coronavirus.
“The bill makes mandatory what many employers already are doing and what health authorities have been recommending that they do, which is notify employees when they’ve possibly been exposed and do contact tracing,” said Charles Thompson, a lawyer at the San Francisco office of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart.
How broadly a company notifies workers about a workplace infection has largely been up to employers and local health departments during the pandemic, however.
In the Bay Area, cases of the coronavirus at electric-car maker Tesla’s Fremont plant have led some workers to speak out about what they feel is a lack of transparency around potential infections from co- workers. Tesla conducts rigorous contact tracing but limits notifications to workers with close contact to an infected individual.
Business critics of the bill including the Western Growers, an Irvine association representing farmers in Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico, have questioned what “potential” exposure means and said that it is not clear what employers have to tell their workers when a case is identified.
“We are still very much opposed to AB685 primarily because we’re very unclear as to what this measure is going to do to make the workplace more safe,” said Matthew Allen, the group’s vice president of state government affairs.
Allen said that a host of amendments he hoped to see added to the bill had been left out but that a clearer definition of what constitutes a work site subject to the bill, particularly in agricultural settings where fields and indoor sites are involved, was added.
Despite the reputational risk to businesses of a disclosed infection, increased transparency about the virus in the workplace will help workers protect themselves, said Linda Delp, a UCLA professor and director of the school’s Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program. “I can’t tell you how many calls and questions we’ve gotten at (the program) about ‘My employer is not being up-front with me about what is happening,’” Delp said. “As much clarity as possible will help workers to feel like they are at least being told up front what’s happening in the workplace,” she added.
Delp said underreporting and the sheer number of virus cases make it almost impossible for local and state authorities to track and trace them in the workplace without the help of employers.
“I don’t see an alternative,” Delp said.
It is not clear if Gov. Newsom will sign the bill, but Allen of the Western Growers said he expects it will become law.
Layoffs continue: 881,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week
Chase DiFeliciantonio Sep. 3, 2020 Updated: Sep. 3, 2020 7:50 p.m.
Video producer Kim Salyer at his residence in Fairfax on Monday. Salyer has struggled to get promised unemployment benefits.
Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle
Another 881,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the economic shock from the coronavirus continued to reverberate through the job market with no additional federal rescue legislation in sight.
The fresh job losses come as the labor market sees tremendous turnover. Some e-commerce and delivery businesses are desperate for workers, while travel and tourism continue to feel the squeeze from the coronavirus. The apparent paradox is explained by the virus’ insidious effects on the workforce, drying up demand for some kinds of work, making workplaces newly risky, and knocking some out of the job hunt altogether.
Under the separate Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, 759,000 self-employed workers filed new claims.
Initial claims filed in California were well above the national rate for regular unemployment insurance and PUA claims, according to Michael Bernick, the former head of California’s Employment Development Department and now a lawyer at Duane Morris in San Francisco.
“This past week California had 236,874 new claims, over 28% of all claims filed nationwide,” despite only having roughly 11% of the country’s civilian labor force, Bernick said in an email. Claims in California rose 20.3% over the previous week.
He added that the state’s 405,878 PUA claims were more than half of the claims filed under the program nationwide.
“There are still very high numbers of layoffs taking place,” partly as businesses plan for the typically slower, colder months ahead, said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, an online employment marketplace.
“They are realizing, ‘If this is what the summer is like, I’m not going to survive the fall and the winter,’” Pollak said.
Last week was only the second time since March that national unemployment filings dipped below 1 million.
“The reason that unemployment claims are so elevated is that we’ve crammed an acute recession into just a few months,” said Daniel Zhao, a senior economist and data scientist at jobs and recruiting website Glassdoor. “We’re still seeing the effects of that trickle through the economy.”
According to recent Glassdoor data, job openings in San Francisco in August were down more than 28% compared to last year, while openings in the U.S. overall slipped more than 18% during the same period.
Backlogs at overwhelmed state unemployment agencies may also still be partially to blame for the consistently high unemployment filings, Zhao said.
A recent report found that many new claims filed with California’s Employment Development Department had been by workers laid off during the pandemic who were rehired, only to lose their jobs again.
For many Californians, long-term unemployment and work slowdowns have meant economic hardship.
Kim Salyer is a self-employed video and multimedia trade-show producer in Fairfax who filed for unemployment benefits in April under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for workers not normally eligible for benefits.
After weeks of no payments, Salyer, unable to get through to the EDD, reached out to his state senator’s office, where a staffer promised to look into the delay. Salyer even resorted to sending a fax to the EDD in hopes it would get through the overloaded system.
Finally, in August, he began receiving payments.
Salyer said he counts himself lucky and that the pandemic has not presented the kind of hardship for him as it has for many others.
“It hasn’t been so much about the financial hit,” he said, adding that he has been able to negotiate reduced rent on his business and secured a disaster loan to cover those costs and to upgrade equipment.
“I’m still worried about the future,” Salyer said.
For those who are struggling, the job market is a difficult place to be right now since the pandemic choked off not only demand for workers, but also the supply of labor said Pollak, the labor economist.
“The biggest conundrum for everyone in our industry is why aren’t there more job seekers looking for work?” Pollak said.
Her firm has seen a broad increase in job postings across sectors, but many potential hires are not looking for new work for a variety of reasons, including fear of the virus or increased child care obligations with many schools staying on distance learning, she added.
“You have both a withdrawal of employers and job seekers from the market,” which is unlike a normal recession when only job openings drop off, she said. “Getting everyone to come back will require confronting this disease.” For those actively looking for work, the end of increased federal unemployment benefits could have long- term effects on the economy, as some people rush to find any job they can, said Zhao of Glassdoor.
Research shows unemployment benefits can help improve the quality of jobs people ultimately find because they have a financial cushion and can take time to find the right fit, Zhao said.
“It might be true under a normal economic environment that cutting benefits can incentivize people to reenter the labor force,” he said, adding that decreasing benefits means job seekers may settle for mismatched positions or not find jobs at all in a ravaged job market.
With the pandemic dragging on and no robust federal benefits available, economic insecurity, even hunger, will become real problems for more American households, according to David Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“With the withdrawal of fiscal support there’s a significant possibility the recovery is either in the process of stalling or falling back,” Wilcox said.
A restoration of increased federal unemployment benefits would help ward off significantly more economic pain, he added. A stopgap plan unveiled by the White House may end up providing as little as three weeks of replacement benefits.
“In the last month or so … the base of support for tens of millions of households was allowed to drop out,” Wilcox said.
“Now these households are on the brink of economic disaster and in too many cases are experiencing economic disaster,” he added. “This damage will not be easy or quick to repair.”
Andrew Cuomo Takes Charge The governor of New York found himself at the center of a deadly crisis. His response has helped guide the nation By MARK BINELLI
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo gives a speech at the Javits Center on March 27th, 2020. George Etheredge for Rolling Stone This story appears in the May 2020 issue of Rolling Stone, on newsstands May 5th.
On March 1st, New York reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19, after a Manhattan health care worker in her late thirties, who had visited Iran, tested positive at a hospital in the city. Six days later, that number had jumped to 89, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency. Two days later, Donald Trump tweeted, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” As the country faces a national emergency that is graver, for most of us, than any in living memory, a surreal split-screen response has been unfolding in Washington and Albany, via Queens. The daily public briefings held by Cuomo, 62, the governor of the hardest-hit state, have become appointment viewing, not just for New Yorkers, but for all Americans feeling terrified, unmoored, and hungry for something resembling competent national leadership. For a politician never especially renowned for his bedside manner, Cuomo has emerged as an unlikely source of comfort in these supremely unsettling times, the blunt-talking adult in the room.
The debasement of standards in the Trump era has made even minimal gestures of statesmanship appear positively Churchillian, of course, and so the mere fact that Cuomo relies on data and scientific opinion and has the ability to display human empathy can feel disproportionately soothing. Though New York is unique among American cities in terms of population density and its status as an international travel hub — that, combined with a shambolic federal response, even after Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency, would have made any state- and city-level attempts at containment difficult — Cuomo’s decisions to close schools and issue a stay-at-home order came later than other states with less-significant outbreaks. Ohio, for example, closed its public schools three days before New York, despite having only five confirmed cases, and California’s shelter-in-place order came three days before New York’s, though New York had six times the number of confirmed cases.
Andrew Cuomo, photographed in Albany, New York, on April 3rd, 2020 by George Etheredge. George Etheredge for Rolling Stone
But as a communicator, in particular, Cuomo has risen to the occasion, proving especially adept at walking viewers through the nuances of the daily barrage of bad news, offering realistic glimmers of hope but never magical thinking. He’s shared personal anecdotes about his family, including his younger brother, Chris, the CNN anchor, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, and displayed a surprising degree of warmth and humor for someone who acknowledged in his own memoir that the Albany media referred to him, alternately, as the Prince of Darkness and Darth Vader. “Andrew has always had these two sides,” says Michael Shnayerson, author of The Contender, a 2015 biography of Cuomo. “One is charming and comes out in a time of crisis — he was brilliant during Superstorm Sandy, racing around the city late at night, checking each hot spot and earning the acclaim of people on either side of the aisle — but this is also a governor known for being brutal with underlings and ruthless with his rivals.” His father, Mario Cuomo, the late three-term governor of New York, was considered one of the great political orators of his generation, an intellectual whose bookshelves contained works by Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, and Teilhard de Chardin. Andrew, on the other hand, “favors short, declarative sentences and unvarnished imagery,” Jonathan Mahler wrote in a 2010 profile for The New York Times Magazine, when the younger Cuomo was on the verge of winning his own first gubernatorial race. “In contrast with his father, he doesn’t articulate values, summon ideals, or transmit visions. Like a mechanic poking his head out from under the hood of your broken-down car, he tells you what’s wrong with your engine and how he’s going to fix it.” The second of five children, Andrew Cuomo grew up in Hollis, Queens, a middle-class neighborhood where his grandparents, immigrants from the Campania region of southern Italy, settled and owned a grocery store. Like Trump, Andrew went into the family business, managing his father’s first campaign for governor and, once Mario was elected, serving as his top adviser at a salary of $1 per year. He was 21. Shnayerson says they had an “almost Shakespearean” father-son relationship: “Andrew was, from the beginning, trying to earn his father’s approval, and his father didn’t really give it to him.” In 1990, Cuomo married Kerry Kennedy, one of Robert F. Kennedy’s daughters. (They had three daughters and divorced in 2005; again, in shades of Trump, the messy split played out in the New York tabloids.) He became the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Bill Clinton. As governor, Cuomo embraced Clintonism, eschewing his father’s big-government, New Deal-informed liberal philosophy for a more transactional, triangulated Third Way. Critics on the progressive left loathe his austere budgets and aversion to raising taxes, pointing to the troubled New York subway system, which Cuomo effectively controls, and cuts in hospital reimbursements that have contributed to closures. New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out the governor for responding to the economic upheaval caused by the pandemic with a three-month freeze on mortgage payments, but no similar cancellation of rents. (The governor did enact a three-month moratorium on evictions.) Still, Cuomo’s approach to governance — micromanaging, single-minded, ruthless — has resulted in a number of substantial wins, including pushing a marriage-equality bill through the GOP-controlled state senate in 2011, as well as a fracking ban, tighter gun laws, raising the minimum wage, and making tuition for state colleges free for families making less than $125,000 a year. Rebecca Katz, a political consultant who worked closely with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a longtime punching bag of Cuomo’s, and who later served as a top strategist for the actress Cynthia Nixon when she challenged Cuomo in the 2018 primary, has never been a fan of the governor. Still, Katz acknowledges, “Cuomo benefits from understanding how communication works in a way that frankly no other elected official does right now. Trump understands why it’s important to be on TV. Cuomo understands how to tell people what’s actually going on in a way that’s both sobering and soothing.”
Shnayerson sees political calculus: “Cuomo saw right from the beginning that Trump is incapable of empathy,” he says. “And instinctively or deliberately — I’d suggest deliberately — he set out to carve out this turf, where on a daily basis he’d show how incompetent and downright dangerous Trump is. And Trump can’t really do anything about it. He can’t fire him! All he can do is grumble about how Andrew isn’t grateful enough about what he’s getting.” For all of his manifest ambition, the governor had surprised political observers by not entering the 2020 Democratic primary, instead all but officially endorsing Joe Biden quite early in the process. Now that the pandemic has positioned Cuomo as the perfect foil to Trump, and at the same time left Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, struggling to break into the news cycle, some are indulging in “Draft Cuomo” fan fiction, picturing how an abrasive New Yorker of their very own might work on a debate stage against the abrasive New Yorker-in-chief. Whatever his political future, Cuomo has become a trusted voice in a world of uncertainty. His homely PowerPoint slides are routinely memed. The slow, booming cadence of his sentences, once grating, could probably be marketed as a meditation app if we end up surviving this thing. Somehow, he’s connecting with millions of people at this time of extraordinary crisis and unimaginable loss. Cuomo spoke with Rolling Stone by phone from his office in Albany on Saturday, April 4th. ______The country has gotten to know you through your daily briefings, but can you walk us through what the rest of your days have been like during the crisis? Are you getting briefed at all hours of the day and night? Yeah. A situation like this is pretty much 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if you’re going to do it right. Because it’s evolving all the time. So, you work until you can’t work anymore, and then you close your eyes for 20 minutes and then you work again. Who have you been consulting with? You talk to everyone. Obviously, I have my state team, which manages things on a day-to-day basis. But then the federal government relationship is important, so the president and the vice president. And the health experts, so the World Health Organization, NIH, international health experts. And then you talk to the local officials, because you want to keep them calm and coordinated. The business community. You know, you’re doing two basic things, right? You’re managing the operation, which is a health operation. There are operational decisions like closing schools, closing businesses. And then the second dimension is a communication dimension. People need information. They need correct information. Everyone is out of control, right? Your life is out of control. You’re at a place you’ve never been before. You’re worried, you’re anxious, you’re out of work. You’re literally afraid of going out of doors. You’re afraid of contact with other human beings, which is probably the most isolating experience you’ve ever had. A hug now becomes a dangerous act. Right? You’re at a place you’ve never been. Who’s going to help me? Who’s managing this? Who’s in control when I’m out of control? With the briefings, was there a point where your team realized, “We have the responsibility to get the facts out and provide some reassurance, not only to New Yorkers but to Americans, period,” and a realization that you were filling a certain — you might not put it this way — leadership void at the national level? No. No. There never — No, Mark. I did the briefings the way I would always do the briefings. I understand your question. But I have done nothing different than I have always done. Forget the whole national perspective. The death toll in New York has been soaring. Even in terms of best-case scenarios, we’re talking about unfathomable tragedy. And your primary role is to keep the number of deaths as low as possible. But have you thought about how your job is also to comfort people — but in this case, you can’t do things you would normally do as a leader, like go to funerals or hug the families of the deceased? Well, look, nobody’s been here before, right? These are all uncharted waters. So you use your experience, you use your knowledge, you use your instincts, and you feel your way through the situation. Nobody can give you a chart. They can’t tell you the depths of the water. They can’t tell you where the rocks are. But if you’ve navigated for years, you develop an instinct that helps. But also keep it simple. Tell the truth. Give people facts. Explain what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. I don’t go out to impart confidence. You can appear confident, but you’re not going to fool New Yorkers, right? They’re going to hear what you’re saying and watch what you’re doing. They’ll make their own decision whether or not it makes sense. Here’s where we are, here’s what I’m doing, here’s what I’ve done, here’s what I plan to do, this is why I’m doing it. These are dramatic actions. I’m going to close the schools. “What? Why are you closing the schools? I want my kid to go to school.” I mean, that’s a normal reaction. “Well, this is why I’m doing it.” “OK, that makes sense.” Or they think it doesn’t make sense. But it’s the actions and the facts that ultimately win or lose here, right? They’ve been watching what I’m doing for five, six weeks. So far, I think people think the actions we’ve taken make sense and are logical. But I think it’s a function of the merits and the substance in the actions more than anything else. I don’t care how many times you go out and brief. If what you’re doing doesn’t make sense to them, they will lose confidence very quickly. You know, confidence is earned. It’s not declared. The pandemic reminds me of the response to climate change, in that it seems difficult to get people to change their behavior for a threat that’s looming but still largely invisible. Was there a tension between scaring the hell out of people so they would stay inside versus not wanting to create a mass panic? Well, look, there’s no doubt that government is only as effective as people allow it to be, unless you criminalize behavior. This is a democracy, and people have free will. And they’ll hear what the government says. And if they agree, they’ll follow it. If they don’t agree, they don’t follow it. What could counterbalance it? Criminalization could counterbalance it [laughs]. If you do it, you’re going to go to jail. But short of that, they make their own decision. But you’re right, this virus, it was hard to communicate, hard to accept, the reality. Because we’ve never seen it before. “Well, it’s like the Spanish flu of 1918.” OK, but I wasn’t there, really. And they have different medications now than they had in 1918. I can’t believe that what happened in 1918 is going to happen again. “Well, remember Ebola!” Yeah, but Ebola turned out to be nothing. “Well, remember H1N1.” Well, that turned out to be nothing. “Nah, I think I’m a little cynical and skeptical, and I think this is going to be overblown.” And, by the way, there were voices out there saying this is all overblown, that it was a political conspiracy. In hindsight, do you second-guess yourself as far as the speed of your response to the crisis? You and Mayor De Blasio initially resisted the calls to close the schools. And when the mayor began calling for New Yorkers to stay home, you held out a couple of days longer. What are your thoughts looking back now? No, every action, Mark, that I took, I was criticized for being hypercautious and premature. I decided to close the schools. It was very controversial at the time. And people criticized me. I did the containment zone in Westchester, which had a bad name. Containment was supposed to mean containment of the virus. It was interpreted to mean containment of people. They thought that they were being imprisoned in the geographic area. It was the number-one cluster in the country, and people criticized me. I closed the playgrounds last week in New York City, and people criticized me. So my way has always been to err on the side of safety. I would always rather be accused of having an unnecessary economic loss than an unnecessary death. So even in all the past situations, past storms — I’ve closed roads, I’ve closed subways, I’ve closed businesses. And sometimes the storm happens, and a lot of times the storm didn’t happen. And I was criticized. But I can live with that. I’d much rather live with that than “Had I moved sooner, we could have saved lives.” What would you say about the federal response so far? Yesterday, the president was asked if he could assure New Yorkers that they would have the ventilators they need, and he said, “No, they should have had more ventilators.” What’s your reaction when you hear things like that? Unless I can talk to you off the record, I can’t talk about this now. Understood. Well, on the record, what can you say? Trump is somebody you’ve known for 30 years. Do you have a personal rapport with him, when it’s just the two of you talking, that has helped you in terms of getting New York the help it needs? Look, there’s no governor in the United States who’s been more critical of this president than I have. There’s no governor in the United States who’s been more criticized by this president than I have been. What I said to him in this situation is, this is a bigger situation than politics, it’s biggerthan partisanship. It’s going to take the state doing everything it can, and it’s going take the federal government doing everything it can. Because, he’s right, when he says, we only have 10,000 ventilators. He doesn’t have the capacity. So it’s going to take federal efforts and state efforts. I said if he’s a good federal partner, I will say that. And if he doesn’t fulfill the federal partnership role, I will say that, Mark. And I have said both. And depending on the action of the day, I will say both, or either. And that’s the relationship. It’s transparent, open, and honest. Have you, as governor, done enough to stop the closing of hospitals? Sixteen hospitals in the past two decades have closed in New York City, and the state has lost something like 20,000 hospital beds. You’ve been criticized from the left for cuts you’ve made to Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals. What would you say to that? More people have health insurance in this state than almost any state in the United States. We’re at 95 percent covered. We had too many hospital beds in the health system. We still do. The health system has transitioned to more of a holistic system that focuses on wellness, community-based care, as opposed to hospital beds that are only intensive care. That’s where the health system is going. Now, to close a hospital is very hard. It employs a lot of people, it becomes an institution within the community. So it’s hard to make that transition. But it’s inarguable that you have too many beds in hospitals, and you need more ambulatory programs, community-based programs, et cetera. In Brooklyn, we started a national demonstration program, where we were closing hospital beds, opening community-based clinics focused more on wellness and on continuing health care. In other words, health care is not supposed to be that you get so sick that you need a hospital bed. Health care should be, “I’m going to keep you healthy so you don’t go into a hospital.” And that is a nationwide reorientation that we’re doing here in New York, and it’s the current thinking across the country. That’s inarguable. It’s very hard to do. Medicaid — we have more people on Medicaid now than ever before. Supporters of Medicare for All would argue that the way Obamacare depends on employee health plans doesn’t look good when millions of jobs have disappeared overnight. Look, people can use the crisis to make whatever point they want. But these facts don’t show anything other than the number of people who are now infected in this pandemic exceeds the capacity of the health care system, not the design of the health care system, or the funding of the health care system. The very capacity. We have 50,000 beds statewide. This is a multiple of that. Now you can argue, well, the 50,000 beds should have been paid for by Medicaid for All. The problem is the 50,000 beds in this crisis. Well, why didn’t you have 100,000 beds? Because you never should have needed 100,000 beds. And you probably will never need 100,000 beds again. I hope. And it’s not even the beds. The beds, we found. It’s these damn ventilators. Which, you normally never needed anywhere near this volume, until you have a pandemic that happens to hit the respiratory system, and if you don’t have a ventilator, you can’t really provide adequate care. But this is five times the number of ventilators the health care system has ever needed. How do you prepare for that, Mark? As governor, your father never had to deal with a crisis at this level. Are there things you learned from him that have been useful over these past weeks? Let me do it the other way. There is nothing that I learned from him that wasn’t useful [pauses]. No challenge is too great. Believe in the inherent goodness of people. Believe government done well is an art form. Believe government is the mobilizing vehicle for our better angels. Find support in family. I have my daughter here working with me the way I worked with my father. Speak honestly. Tell people the truth. They will respond to the truth, and logic, even if they don’t like it. The trust between an elected official and the people they serve is everything. Trust and respect is everything. If you have to make a tough decision and you believe it’s right, make it, and if people resent you for it, so be it, because you have to act in a way that fits your conscience and your heart. Yeah, that’s all my father. That’s everything I’m doing. And when you’re tired and you can’t work anymore, work harder. He famously said that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose, and it’s fair to say you’ve generally landed on the prose side of things. Have the briefings shown a more personal side? Were you thinking about your father’s ability to communicate? No, my father did not communicate that way, Mark. My father communicated aspiration, but he did it in a formal sense. He did not speak personally, in terms of himself or his family or his life or his experiences. He was a formal speaker. The expression I used to use was: He’s a big-room speaker. He’s a podium speaker. He spoke to large audiences, right? That was his art form. He would not talk about family experiences the way I’ve spoken about them here. You understand the distinction I’m trying to make?
Definitely. The way you’ve spoken about family experiences in the briefings, for instance, talking about what your brother has been going through, there’s less mystery when you have a face attached to these things. Yes. All I’m saying is, my father did not do that. He’s not comfortable with that. That’s not the way he communicated. You started by saying poetry-prose — he was a great speaker. Yes. The best. But not in what you’re talking about.
Cuomo welcomes the Navy hospital ship the USNS Comfort to New York. The city’s death toll has passed that of 9/11, with 799 dying in a single day in April. Photo credit: Darren McGee/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Darren McGee/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Right. The reason I did that is, this is stressful and disorienting in a lot of ways. But it’s probably most impactful on a human level. Yeah, you’re afraid about your job and your paycheck. But it’s the human level that is shocking here. The social level. And I want you to know you’re not alone in that. It’s not you. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t think that you are misperceiving the situation, or you’re hypersensitive, or you’re deficient in not being able to handle the situation. You’re not alone. Everybody feels what you’re feeling. I feel what you feel. I’m afraid. I’m hurt. I’m having trouble with the situation. It’s not just you. I believe that, and it’s important and helpful to communicate it. And by my relaying my feelings, I think it may have helped you to understand that your feelings are not unique in this situation. What’s been personally hardest for you? Outside of obviously the incredibly difficult job you have. But on the personal side, are there people you haven’t been able to see? I haven’t been able to see my mother. I’m not with one of my daughters. That on a personal level is very taxing. And I constantly say to myself, what else should I be doing? What else could I be doing? People are dying every day, and I don’t know what else to do. And I know that tomorrow more people will die. And I don’t know what else to do. And that is a terrible weight, and just an oppressive burden. Another thing about this tragedy that’s been very surreal is that, with disasters like a plane crash or an earthquake, you see faces and names. But here, because of medical privacy issues and because of the scale, so many of the people dying are somewhat invisible. It’s very haunting. How have you been processing this level of death? Have you reached out to families of those who have died? Yes, I have. Yes, I have. All of the above. And look, my daughter says to me the other night, “Why don’t you go to sleep? Why don’t you close your eyes? You look tired.” And I said to her, “Because there’s more to do. There’s more to do.” I’m just doing my best to fight to save as many lives as possible. I’ve accepted that people are going to die. This virus is very effective at what it does. It’s an expert killer, and it’s a killer of the vulnerable. That’s why it’s a coward in some ways. It doesn’t attack the strong. It attacks the vulnerable. And I’m here to protect the vulnerable. That’s my job. I fight for the vulnerable. I fight for people who need a voice. I fight for people who need justice. And they are being attacked by this virus. And I just spend every minute of every day saying, “What else can I do? What else can I do?” You endorsed Joe Biden very early in the Democratic primary. Have you been in contact with him during the crisis? Yeah, I never endorsed Joe Biden. I never endorsed anybody. I said what I thought about him, which is that he’s an extraordinary man, he’s an extraordinary leader. I speak to him quite frequently. He gives me advice. I bounce ideas off him. This is not the time for politics. I’m sure he’s talking to other governors and other mayors. Just be helpful. Just be helpful. This isn’t the time for anything else. Just be helpful. You’ve rejected any talk of national political ambition right now. But the discussion has been thrust upon you by the moment. Have you been hearing from Democrats trying to draft you for a role in the November election? I have real things to do, and real things to talk about. And that is not a real thing. I am governor of New York. It’s a job that I asked for. It’s a job that I believe I am prepared for. I believe I can make a difference in it. And everyone assumes, well, a politician just wants to take the next step on the ladder. Well, politicians always aren’t in it for themselves. Maybe, just maybe, sometimes there’s an elected official who actually means what he says. Or is going to do what he says he’s going to do. Wouldn’t that be refreshing? I said if elected, I will serve four years as governor of the state of New York. Period. And that’s what I’m going to do. Period. It’s all simpler than we make it. Say what you’re going to do. Do what you say. Do it with honor. Do it with integrity. Do it with skill. And that’s it. And you’ll sleep well at the end of the day, even if it is a very long day. Do you worry about politicians in this country taking advantage of this crisis in a dangerous or unconstitutional way? It’s happening in Hungary with Viktor Orbán. I worry about politicians taking advantage of people, manipulating people, manipulating opinion, manipulating feelings. I worry about that all the time. You mentioned my father [chuckles]. My father used to say, “As a class, I don’t like politicians.” And I know what he means. Some politicians I respect, and others I don’t respect. But am I wary of political power? Yeah. It can be abused, and manipulated. But it can also be used to do good. So we do what we can, and we give it our all, and that’s all we can do, Mark. I can’t save everybody’s life. But I can do everything that I can to save as many lives as I can. What could a return to normalcy look like? What do you see happening once we get past the apex and head into the summer? I think the economy reopens. The economic re-entry strategy is tied to a public-health strategy. So there’s a public-health strategy that has rapid testing, where people who are negative or had the virus and are immune start to go back to work. Younger people start to go back to work. We protect the vulnerable population. So it’s a public-health strategy and an economic strategy. And they both dovetail. I don’t think it’s a question of saving lives or making money. I reject that as a false choice. You have to do both.
Capitol’s dominant Democrats still bickering
BY DAN WALTERSSEPTEMBER 6, 2020
California Capitol. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters
IN SUMMARY Democrats may dominate the California Legislature but there’s plenty of political conflict, including a rivalry between its two houses.
One might think that when Democrats captured overwhelming control of the California Legislature — roughly three-fourths of its 120 seats — harmony would prevail. Nope. As the Legislature’s just-concluded, pandemic-truncated 2020 session demonstrated, one-party dominance is no panacea.
While Republican legislators may be largely irrelevant these days — although they did display some sly gamesmanship on the session’s final night — fault lines within dominant Democrats produced plenty of bickering and one of the Capitol’s most enduring traits, rivalry between the two houses, was particularly obvious.
Egocentric speakers of the Assembly — notably Jesse Unruh and Willie Brown — made their house dominant for decades, until legislative term limits, enacted by voters in 1990, undermined the speakership’s inherent powers.
Strong-willed Senate leaders such as John Burton and Darrell Steinberg stepped into the leadership vacuum and the “upper house” called the shots for two decades until term limits were relaxed. However, in recent years, the Assembly under Speaker Anthony Rendon has reclaimed at least parity and perhaps an edge vis-à-vis the Senate.
Although both are liberal Democrats from Southern California, Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins — a former Assembly speaker — also developed a personal rivalry, one that doomed major housing legislation.
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Just before midnight, the Assembly finally took up and passed Atkins’ Senate Bill 1120, which would have essentially erased single-family zoning and allowed property owners to build denser housing.
The far-reaching but highly controversial bill had languished in the Assembly for two months, but with just minutes remaining, the Assembly sent it back to the Senate for final approval — too late for action.
“To send over SB 1120 at 11:57, that was impossible and those (Assembly) votes were there days ago,” Atkins told reporters later. “If Sen. Atkins wanted the bill, she could have asked for it,” Rendon insisted. “They didn’t ask for that bill. They didn’t prioritize it.”
Atkins had a problem of her own — an effective effort by Republicans to stall action on bills by stretching out debate and voting, which was enhanced by having most GOP senators in personal quarantine and participating electronically, due to one having tested positively for COVID-19.
Six hours before adjournment, Atkins attempted to speed up the Senate’s snail’s pace by limiting debate, but Republicans objected and the conflict essentially shut down operations for more than two hours.
Atkins was fighting a two-front war, one with Rendon and another with Republicans. She later acknowledged that the debate limit attempt was a managerial misstep, saying “Clearly, it backfired.”
Rendon had problems of his own. His office had refused to allow Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who had just given birth, permission to participate electronically, even though the Assembly had set up such a system due to the COVID- 19.
Wicks came to the Assembly floor with her daughter, Elly, in her arms to back Atkins’ housing bill. The dramatic gesture became an instant social media sensation and on Tuesday, Rendon issued a public apology, saying, “My intention was never to be inconsiderate toward (Wicks), her role as a legislator, or her role as a mother.”
Remote participation had been one point of Atkins-Rendon friction and it backfired on both. While Atkins embraced it, only to have Republicans use it as a weapon, Rendon had publicly expressed concern that it was legally shaky — which is why, apparently, he refused to let Wicks use it.
The Capitol’s dominant party has clearly fragmented into an assemblage of quasi- parties defined by ideology, geography, ethnicity, economic class, sexual orientation and, as the Atkins-Rendon feud shows, by personality. The old saying about herding cats comes to mind.
John Lewis’ Fight Goes On The late congressman and civil rights icon risked his life for voting rights that are now slipping away. To honor his legacy, we don’t need statues. We need to take action and get to work By
JAMIL SMITH
Congressman John Lewis in his office, 2019 Wayne Lawrence for Rolling Stone
When the Rev. Dr. William Barber II saw that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was the first to eulogize the late John Lewis as he lay in state inside the Capitol rotunda on July 27th, the civil rights leader thought of Jesus admonishing the Pharisees. “We love the tombs of the prophets,” said Barber, paraphrasing Jesus in the New Testament. “We don’t need to be talking about how hard and how great it was that John Lewis stood so firm against injustice. What we need to be doing is repenting and saying, ‘We’re going to make it so nobody ever has to give their life for basic racial justice.’ ” It would be easy if McConnell, a man who was blocking a fix to the very Voting Rights Act for which Lewis had risked his life, could wipe his hands clean on the flag that draped the congressman’s coffin. The Kentucky Republican tried to do so, waxing on about how “history only bent toward what’s right because people like John paid the price to help bend it.” But McConnell, ideological heir to the cops who swung the nightsticks at Lewis in Selma, Alabama, on that bloody Sunday in 1965, remains one of the reasons that there is a price at all.
I worry, for this reason, about the rush to rename things after Lewis as a method of honoring him. In the wake of his death, there were many calls to re-christen Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge. Democrats renamed the voting rights bill after Lewis before trying once again to pass it. But as Barber noted, “He would want us to be careful of giving people who may diametrically oppose everything he stood for opportunities to stand at a bridge or a statue or something of that nature, and claim that they loved him and loved his legacy.” “The bottom line is,” Sen. Kamala Harris says, “if you really want to honor John Lewis on the issue of restoring the impact of the Voting Rights Act, pass the bill. I’m sure John Lewis would say, ‘Look, naming it after me versus passing it? Every day of the week, pass the darn thing.’ ” Lewis wasn’t about ceremony so much as he was about the work. “One of the biggest disappointments,” says former South Carolina state legislator Bakari Sellers, “is that a part of John Lewis’ legacy that’s not talked about often is his work as a young man between ’63 and ’66, when he was a member and chairman of SNCC [the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]. And they went to Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama and South Carolina, and they registered so many voters, which is why we have so many black elected officials throughout the South.” Before taking over the chairmanship of SNCC, Lewis had been one of the original 13 Freedom Riders in 1961, a multiracial group of activists challenging segregation on public buses. Already experienced with sit-ins in Nashville, where he went to college, Lewis was the first of the Riders to be attacked, in Rock Hill, South Carolina, when he tried to enter a whites-only waiting room. Just two weeks later, Lewis was on another Freedom Ride bound for Jackson, Mississippi, still nursing a beaten face and ribs. The same determination could be found in Lewis’ posthumous essay, published in The New York Times on the morning of his funeral, in which he issued a set of final marching orders to the American public. “When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act,” he wrote. He added, “The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.” The 2020 election is one that Lewis himself called the most important ever. Rep. James Clyburn said that he wanted Americans to honor his friend by “voting like we have never voted before.” That may be difficult in a nation still plagued with all manner of voting rights calamities. A 2019 report found that states had removed at least 17 million voters from their rolls between the 2016 and 2018 elections. According to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, 25 states have introduced measures that will make it more difficult for people to vote in 2020. Then there are the dangers created by the metastasizing pandemic. Few states have either universal vote-by-mail or have shown they have the infrastructure to carry it off efficiently, and congressional Republicans, led by McConnell, have blocked funding to help states prepare in time for the election. As Harris tells me, “The symmetry of this moment, where we are honoring the life of an American hero for his fight against injustice, and that injustice is front and center in America, as we were mourning his loss — that should not be lost on any of us.” So what needs to be done, now that Lewis, this patriot and American prophet, is gone? We first need to recall, on an elementary level, what elections are for. They aren’t only about showing up, particularly for marginalized communities; the people from those areas don’t get honorary mention in Congress if their candidate doesn’t win. It also is not about the mere honor of exercising the franchise. “Voting is not about participation. Voting is about power. And we have got to reframe that,” says Black Voters Matter Fund co-founder LaTosha Brown. We have seen truth and reconciliation about atrocities in other nations because there has been a change in power. The process helped South Africa strike down the political remnants of apartheid; Rwanda established a National Unity and Reconciliation Commission to heal the nation after the 1994 genocide. No such things happen in America, however. How do we ever get to our truth and reconciliation if all we ever do is celebrate the most moral of us, like a star we’ll never reach? “We never demanded that people actually be held accountable for the Native genocide, for slavery, for lynching, for segregation,” says Bryan Stevenson, executive director and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, which erected the memorial to the legacy of American lynching victims, in Montgomery, Alabama. It’s this American history, says Stevenson, that is so vital to understand in the context of continuing Lewis’ struggle. “The North wins the Civil War, but the South wins the narrative war,” he says. “Because the 13th Amendment doesn’t say anything about ending white supremacy. . . . What John Lewis does in 1965 is try to help America recover from a century of distortion and abuse and discrimination, and he got bloodied for it.” Of course, in 2020, blood is still being spilled in American streets in the name of black freedom. Lewis, suffering from stage 4 pancreatic cancer, made it out to Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., on June 7th, less than a week after the president had peaceful protesters tear- gassed — protesters carrying out Lewis’ marching orders: “Get in the way,” he would always say, and into “good trouble” for the sake of holding this nation accountable. But the change that he and modern organizers seek won’t come without the kind of political shifts that go well beyond electing a black president.
Lewis at Fish University in Nashville, with Martin Luther King Jr., CT Vivian (second from left), and activist Lester McKinnie (far right), in May 1964. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
“We’re in this unique role of trying to recover from systematic human rights violations without a change in power,” says Stevenson. “That’s the brilliance of people like John Lewis, Rosa Parks, and Dr. King, is that they engaged in a kind of moral reckoning. And they were able to use that moral witness to shift the assessment of what’s right. But because the power hasn’t changed, we have to carry forward this commitment to truth and justice. That’s, for me, central to what has to happen in America.” There are particular challenges to achieving that power shift. McConnell recently told The Wall Street Journal that Democratic complaints about voter suppression were “nonsense.” And the deployment of unmarked federal forces to suppress civil rights protests in cities like Portland, Oregon, are perhaps only a harbinger of what Trump is willing to do to stay in office. On July 30th, the morning of Lewis’ funeral, Trump even floated the decidedly unconstitutional idea of delaying the election. The severity of Trump’s threat is why the celebration of Lewis’ legacy cannot be limited to commemoration. “If you have a law that means black voters are having their ballots rejected at twice the rates of whites, that’s a problem,” says Marc Elias, a voting rights lawyer. “That’s a legal problem. That’s a moral problem. That’s a legislative problem. We need to start treating it as such.” Lewis understood better than most that the depth of the problem meant it had to be fought on multiple fronts — in the streets, in the statehouse, in the courthouse, everywhere. He realized shortly after the assassinations of his friend Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that he could pursue politics without disempowering his activist voice. “I think that’s what’s powerful about his legacy,” Stevenson says. “People hear Malcolm X say ‘By any means necessary,’ and they always assume something violent and destructive, when in fact, ‘by any means necessary’ means some of us have to actually become lawyers and advocate within the strictures of the legal system. Some of us have to become journalists and give voice to important perspectives that have never been heard. Some of us have to become teachers and help at-risk children.” Not only did Lewis model how to maintain an activist spirit on Capitol Hill — arrested twice for protesting the Darfur genocide and later leading sit-ins advocating for immigration reform and gun control legislation — but he also showed how to remain scrupulous, maintaining his integrity throughout his more than three decades in a town known for stripping it away. Moreover, Lewis was about refocusing Americans on the fact that there is, inherently, an idea worth saving at the root of this great and terrible nation, fraught with faults, created by people whose prejudices withheld the United States from maximizing its own potential. “The founders of this country created a new nation that was based on the ideas of this thing called a ‘democracy,’ ” says Brown. “When in fact, none of them had internalized the true meaning and value of democracy.” Spotlighting that contradiction and correcting it encapsulates Lewis’ work, and is why President Obama, in his eulogy at Lewis’ funeral, rightly said that “America was built by John Lewises. He, as much as anyone in our history, brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals. And someday, when we do finish that long journey toward freedom, when we do form a more perfect union — whether it’s years from now, or decades, or even if it takes another two centuries — John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America.” In the wake of his loss, we have a new standard by which to judge not just ourselves but the candidates who claim the intent to represent us. If we don’t have elected officials who understand and embrace the Lewisian framework of American redemption, one that demonstrates the conviction behind their words and prioritizes morality and compassion in the policy they create, then why support them? Rev. Barber said that we should apply a moral filter to forthcoming bills, “and if it’s killing people’s dreams and killing people’s hopes and killing people’s equal opportunities and civil rights, and literally killing people because that bill limits or destroys access to opportunities of justice, then like John Lewis, while we are living, we have to be against it.”
Lewis and then-Senator Barack Obama in 2007 at Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama, for the commemoration of the 1965 Voting Rights March . Scott Olson/Getty Images
The example of John Lewis was not set to invite idolatry, but emulation. He wanted fellowship, not followers. Elias, the voting rights lawyer, seemed a bit staggered, and rightfully so, when asked how we might all go about walking shoulder to shoulder with Lewis. “I sometimes ask what I would be willing to sacrifice to move the country forward,” he says. “Most people, it’s easy to be in the comfort of your home and air conditioning and internet service, [and] to say that you are committed to something. But what John Lewis taught us was that to really be committed, you need to be willing to sacrifice. Not in an abstract way, but a real concrete way. As we face down the fall election, that is what I think about. If he was willing to do everything that he did, then what are the rest of us doing that we’re willing to sacrifice?”
States plan for cuts as Congress deadlocks on more virus aid By DAVID A. LIEBSeptember 6, 2020
FILE - In this May 14, 2020, file photo, California Gov. Gavin Newsom discusses his revised 2020-2021 state budget during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. Spending cuts are compounding for schools and state programs, reserve funds are dwindling, and some governors have begun proposing new taxes and fees to shore up state finances shaken by the coronavirus pandemic. With Congress deadlocked over a new coronavirus relief package, many states haven't had the luxury of waiting to see whether more federal money will come their way. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, Pool)
Spending cuts to schools, childhood vaccinations and job-training programs. New taxes on millionaires, cigarettes and legalized marijuana. Borrowing, drawing from rainy day funds and reducing government workers’ pay.
These are some actions states are considering to shore up their finances amid a sharp drop in tax revenue caused by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. With Congress deadlocked for months on a new coronavirus relief package, many states haven’t had the luxury of waiting to see whether more money is on the way. Some that have delayed budget decisions are growing frustrated by the uncertainty.
As the U.S. Senate returns to session Tuesday, some governors and state lawmakers are again urging action on proposals that could provide hundreds of billions of additional dollars to states and local governments.
“There is a lot at stake in the next federal stimulus package and, if it’s done wrong, I think it could be catastrophic for California,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco and chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee.
The budget that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in June includes $11.1 billion in automatic spending cuts and deferrals that will kick in Oct. 15, unless Congress sends the state $14 billion in additional aid. California’s public schools, colleges, universities and state workers’ salaries all stand to be hit.
In Michigan, schools are grappling with uncertainty as they begin classes because the state lacks a budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.
Ryan McLeod, superintendent of the Eastpointe school district near Detroit, said it is trying to reopen with in-person instruction, “but the costs are tremendous” to provide a safe environment for students.
“The only answer, really, is to have federal assistance,” McLeod said.
Congress approved $150 billion for states and local governments in March. That money was targeted to cover coronavirus-related costs, not to offset declining revenue resulting from the recession.
Some state officials, such as Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb of Indiana, are pushing for greater flexibility in spending the money they already received. Others, such as Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, say more federal aid is needed, especially to help small businesses and emergency responders working for municipalities with strained budgets.
In mid-May, the Democratic-led U.S. House voted to provide nearly $1 trillion of additional aid to states and local governments as part of a broad relief bill. But the legislation has stalled amid disagreements among President Donald Trump’s administration, Republican Senate leaders and Democrats over the size, scope and necessity of another relief package. In general, Republicans want a smaller, less costly version.
The prospects for a pre-election COVID-19 relief measure appear to be dimming, with aid to states and local governments one of the key areas of conflict.
The bipartisan National Governors Association and Moody’s Analytics have cited a need for about $500 billion in additional aid to states and local governments to avoid major damage to the economy. At least three-quarters of states have lowered their 2021 revenue projections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
While Congress has been at loggerheads, many states have pressed forward with budget cuts.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, recently announced $250 million of “agonizing” cuts that he described as “just the tip of the iceberg” in addressing a $1 billion budget shortfall caused by the coronavirus and declining revenue from coal and other natural resources. The cuts will reduce funding for childhood vaccinations and eliminate a program to help adults learn new job skills, among other things.
“It is not likely that these trends are going to turn around rapidly or as significantly as we would like,” Gordon said.
In August, Rhode Island Management and Budget Director Jonathan Womer sent a memo to state agencies instructing them to plan for a 15% cut in the fiscal year that starts next July.
In some states, however, the financial outlook is not as dire as some had feared earlier this year.
Previous federal legislation pumped money into the economy through business subsidies, larger unemployment benefits and $1,200 direct payments to individuals. The resulting consumer spending led to a rebound in sales tax revenue in some states. Many states also delayed their individual income tax deadlines from April to July, which led to a larger than usual influx of summer revenue from taxpayers’ 2019 earnings.
In Vermont, where lawmakers are expected to work on a budget next week, a deficit that some had feared could reach $400 million now is pegged around $55 million. A predicted $518 million shortfall in Arizona for the current fiscal year has been revised to just $62 million.
Local governments in New Mexico said revenue has been propped up by surprisingly strong sales taxes. But “that sugar high from the federal stimulus will fall off, and our communities will be affected,” said A.J. Forte, executive director of the New Mexico Municipal League.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, is urging the Legislature to legalize and tax recreational marijuana as a way to shore up state revenue. Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf also wants the Legislature to legalize marijuana, with the tax revenue going toward grants for small businesses and criminal justice reforms.
State tax revenue often lags economic trends because individuals’ income losses aren’t reflected on tax returns until months later. As a result, experts warn that states might experience the lagging effects of the recession well into their 2021 and 2022 budget years. “The worst is still yet to come,” said Brian Sigritz, director of state fiscal studies at the National Association of State Budget Officers.
The 2021 fiscal year began July 1 in most states. But seven states have yet to enact a full- year budget, in some cases because they have been waiting for congressional action on another relief bill.
One such state is New Jersey, which shifted the start of its budget year from July to October because of the coronavirus pandemic. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy recently proposed a budget that would slash about $1 billion in spending, take on $4 billion in debt and raise taxes on millionaires, businesses, yachts, cigarettes and health insurance plans.
Murphy has said the initial federal aid didn’t provide enough “to deal with the variety of tsunamis that we’re facing.”
In New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration estimates the state will receive about $8 billion less in tax revenue than once expected this fiscal year. Cuomo, who recently became chairman of the National Governors Association, wants Congress to provide an additional $30 billion to New York to plug budget holes that he warns will compound in coming years.
“There is no combination of savings, efficiencies, tax increases that could ever come near covering the deficit,” Cuomo said, “and we need the federal government to assist in doing that. Period.”
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Associated Press writers Adam Beam in Sacramento, California; Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; Bob Christie in Phoenix; Tom Davies in Indianapolis; David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan; Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Wilson Ring in Stowe, Vermont; Andrew Taylor in Washington; Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio; and Marina Villeneuve in Albany, New York, contributed to this report.
Parsing the state’s propositions Unlike elections past, California voters have only 12 statewide ballot measures to vote on
The Mercury News 6 Sep 2020 By Emily Deruy [email protected]
MARIO TAMA — GETTY IMAGE Passengers wait to board Lyft vehicles at Los Angeles International Airport. Prop. 22 would essentially reverse AB 5, which requires companies like Uber and Lyft to recognize its drivers as employees, extending certain protections and benefits.
Election Day is less than two months away. And while the presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden — featuring California’s own Sen. Kamala Harris as the Democrats’ VP nominee — is the main attraction, voters have plenty of weighty issues to decide in November. From affirmative action to rent control, voters could have a dramatic impact on life in the Golden State. The good news: This year, there’s less homework: only 12 statewide propositions, five fewer than in 2016. Whether the drop is related to the coronavirus, lawmakers opting to go the legislative route or something else entirely, the Nov. 3 ballot still leaves voters with a hefty amount of information — and misinformation — to sort through. “The honest concern is that it’s just information overload,” said Bill Whalen, a research fellow from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Breaking down the propositions into a few different buckets can help. First up, money, money, money — also known as Proposition 15. Whalen thinks Proposition 15 is the most important measure on the ballot. It would raise taxes on many businesses by taxing property based on its market value instead of the purchase price. The upshot? More money for local governments and schools. But this one is no easy sell for advocates, including the California Teachers Association. It takes aim at the third rail of California politics: Proposition 13. That 1970s measure tied property taxes to the purchase price of a property, and critics have argued it has hamstrung cities and counties across the state. But it’s popular with homeowners. Proposition 15 aims to squelch opposition by being more limited in scope. It would apply to commercial landlords who are sitting on more than $3 million, not the average homeowner. Depending on the real estate market, the measure could bring in an additional $12 billion in property tax revenue each year. Not surprisingly, Proposition 15 is also one of the most expensive ballot fights. Supporters, including a nonprofit established by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have dumped roughly $30 million into the campaign, while opponents, including homeowner groups and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, have spent more than $10 million against it. Also on the subject of property: Propositions 21 and 19. Proposition 21 would allow more cities to create or expand rent control. They could apply new ordinances to homes built at least 15 years ago. The proposition would exclude single-family homes owned by landlords with two or fewer properties. It’s similar to an unsuccessful 2018 rent control measure from AIDS activist Michael Weinstein, who also is behind this new proposition, which is more modest in scope but still faces opposition from landlords and building trade groups. So far, Weinstein’s allies have spent more than $16 million, but opponents also have spent big, with the California Apartment Association and others kicking in roughly $30 million to kill it. Proposition 19, backed by the real estate industry, would create a tax break for victims of wildfires and natural disasters by letting them take advantage of and expanding a policy that allows older homeowners and disabled people to transfer their lower property tax burden to a replacement home. One of the most closely watched measures could overhaul higher-ed admissions: Proposition 16. This proposition would repeal California’s ban on affirmative action. If it passes, colleges and public agencies would be able to take race, in addition to other factors, into consideration when deciding which candidates to admit or hire, and in government contracts. Proposition 16, which Gov. Gavin Newsom and the leaders of all three California public higher-education systems have endorsed, would do away with Proposition 209, a controversial 1996 measure that sent the number of Black and Latino students at top schools plummeting. Opponents, including some Asian American groups, worry it could make it harder to gain admission for Asian Americans, who are overrepresented in proportion to their share of the state’s population at many of the state’s top public universities. Advocates say it would be a step toward undoing some of the systemic racism that has prevented Black and Latino young people from accessing higher education opportunities. Business roars back with Proposition 22. This one is pushback to last year’s Assembly Bill 5, which forced companies like Uber and Lyft to recognize its drivers as employees and provide the benefits and protections that come with that. Proposition 22 would essentially reverse that but guarantee drivers a minimum level of compensation and health care subsidies. Uber and Lyft say their futures depend on it, and the Yes on 22 campaign has spent more than $111 million, making it the most expensive issue on the ballot so far. Opponents have spent roughly $3.5 million. “This is going to be a serious fight,” Whalen said. Two measures are related to criminal justice: Propositions 20 and 25. Proposition 20, an effort backed by law enforcement agencies to roll back reforms championed by Gov. Jerry Brown aimed at easing prison overcrowding, would let prosecutors charge some current misdemeanors as felonies, restrict parole opportunities and require probation officers to go after tougher penalties for people who violate their parole three times. Proposition 25 is a referendum to overturn a 2018 law that got rid of a cash bail system and replaced it with one that instead looks at public safety and flight risk to decide whether to release someone before trial. The tougher- on-crime measures are in sharp contrast to growing calls for police reforms after the death of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests throughout the country. Dialysis clinics are back on the ballot with Proposition 23. In 2018, a health care union upset with for-profit dialysis clinics like Davita Kidney Care proposed Proposition 8, which would have capped their profit margins. The clinics helped defeat the effort by pouring north of $100 million into opposing the measure. Now SEIU United Healthcare Workers West is back with Proposition 23, which would impose new regulations, including requiring clinics to have at least one physician on site during treatment. The dialysis industry has dumped nearly $63 million into defeating the effort. Propositions 17 and 18 center on voting rights. Right now, convicted felons are not allowed to vote while behind bars or on parole. Proposition 17 would restore voting rights for prisoners once their prison terms are complete, so that they could vote on parole. Proposition 18 would let 17-year-olds vote in primary or special elections as long as they are 18 by the next general election. Proposition 14 would mean more money for stemcell research. The measure would boost funding for stemcell research by $5.5 billion through bonds that would fund grants to universities and other research institutions through the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which voters helped create by passing Proposition 71 in 2004. Silicon Valley real estate investor Robert Klein, who also championed Proposition 71, says it would keep badly needed research alive, but critics say it would produce more under-regulated stem-cell clinics that offer overhyped treatments. Proposition 24 would expand online privacy protections. California has the strongest consumer privacy law in the country, but Proposition 24 would strengthen it and create a new enforcement agency. The measure would let residents prevent businesses from sharing their personal information. On issues where there are entities with deep pockets, such as Uber or dialysis companies, voters can expect to be hit with a volley of political ads in the coming weeks. But it’s not clear that will make much of a difference, since many voters already have entrenched views. “I know the conventional wisdom says big-spending propositions can spend their way to victory one way or the other,” said ballot measure expert and UC Riverside professor Shaun Bowler, “but the statistical evidence on that is pretty fragile.” Overall, Bowler said, “there’s a lot there for people to think about and respond to that will affect the lives of tons of Californians.”
Hopes fading for coronavirus deal as Congress returns By ANDREW TAYLOR September 7, 2020
FILE - In this Aug. 3, 2020, file photo dark clouds and heavy rain sweep over the U.S. Capitol in Washington. At least a government shutdown is off the table. But as lawmakers straggle back to Washington for an abbreviated pre-election session, hopes are fading for a pandemic relief bill, or much else. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — At least there won’t be a government shutdown.
But as lawmakers straggle back to Washington for an abbreviated preelection session, hopes are dimming for another coronavirus relief bill — or much else.
Talks between top Democrats and the Trump administration broke off last month and remain off track, with the bipartisan unity that drove almost $3 trillion in COVID-19 rescue legislation into law this spring replaced by toxic partisanship and a return to Washington dysfunction. Expectations in July and August that a fifth bipartisan pandemic response bill would eventually be birthed despite increased obstacles has been replaced by genuine pessimism. Recent COVID-related conversations among key players have led to nothing.
Democrats seem secure in their political position, with President Donald Trump and several Senate GOP incumbents lagging in the polls. Trump is seeking to sideline the pandemic as a campaign issue, and Republicans aren’t interested in a deal on Democratic terms — even as needs like school aid enjoy widespread support.
Poisonous relationships among key leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows give little reason for confidence about overcoming obstacles on the cost, scope and details of a potential relief bill. Pelosi recently referred to Meadows as “whatever his name is,” while the Meadows-run White House during a press briefing ran a video loop of Pelosi’s controversial visit to a San Francisco hair salon.
Trump said Monday that Democrats “don’t want to make a deal because they think that if the country does as badly as possible ... that’s good for the Democrats.”
“I am taking the high road,” he told reporters at the White House. “I’m taking the high road by not seeing them.”
All of this imperils the chances for another round of $1,200 direct payments delivered under Trump’s name, the restoration of more generous unemployment benefits to those who’ve lost their jobs because of the pandemic, updates to a popular business subsidy program, and money to help schools reopen and states and local governments avoid layoffs.
“I personally would like to see one more rescue package, but I must tell you the environment in Washington right now is exceedingly partisan because of the proximity to the election,” said GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at an appearance in Kentucky last week. “We’ve been in discussion now for the last month or so with no results so far. So I can’t promise one final package.″
McConnell had been a force for a deal but does not appear eager to force a vote that exposes division in his ranks.
Many Senate Republicans are also wary or opposed outright to another major chunk of debt-financed virus relief, even as GOP senators imperiled in the election like Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner of Colorado plead for more. Republicans are struggling to coalesce around a unified party position — and that’s before they engage with Democratic leaders, who are demanding far more.
The relationship between Pelosi and her preferred negotiating partner, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, is civil but isn’t generating much in the way of results, other than a promise to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month by keeping a government-wide temporary spending bill free of controversy. That measure is likely to keep the government running into December. It’s likely to contain a bunch of lower-profile steps, such as an extension of the federal flood insurance program and a temporary reauthorization of spending from the highway trust fund.
The decision for a “clean,” controversy-free stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, means that both sides will forgo gamesmanship that uses the threat of a government shutdown to try to gain leverage. Trump forced a shutdown in 2018-2019 in a failed attempt to extract money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall, while Democrats lost a shutdown encounter in 2017 over legislation to help immigrants brought illegally to the country as children win permanent legal status.
“Now we can focus just on another relief bill, and we’re continuing to do that in good faith,” Vice President Mike Pence said Friday on CNBC.
But if talks continue to falter, there’s little to keep lawmakers in Washington long, particularly with the election fast approaching.
The Senate returns on Tuesday to resume its diet of judicial and administration nominations. The House doesn’t come back until Sept. 14 for a schedule laden with lower- profile measures such as clean energy legislation and a bill to decriminalize marijuana. Some Democrats are expected to continue to take advantage of remote voting and may not return to Washington at all.
2 dozen bills on pandemic go to Newsom for signature
9 Sep 2020 By Rachel Bluth, Angela Hart and Samantha Young
SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers convened this year with big plans to tackle soaring health care costs, expand health insurance coverage, and improve treatment for mental health and addiction. But the pandemic abruptly reoriented their priorities, forcing them to grasp for legislative solutions to the virus ripping through the state. Legislative deliberations this year were defined by quarantined lawmakers, emergency recesses and chaotic video voting — plus a latenight partisan dustup that led to the death of dozens of bills by the time lawmakers gaveled out early Tuesday morning. Nonetheless, legislators managed to send Gov. Gavin Newsom nearly 430 bills, roughly 40% of the number they’d send in a typical year, according to Sacramento lobbyist Chris Micheli. Among them were about two dozen COVIDrelated bills that addressed a range of challenges, including dire shortages of protective gear, sick leave for workers and the administration of a hopedfor COVID19 vaccine. The measures broadly fit into three categories: dealing with the current crisis, protecting workers and consumers, and preparing for future pandemics. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign the bills into law or veto them.
Immediate action Narrowly focused bills that targeted realtime Covidrelated problems — and avoided big price tags — were among those easily winning approval. AB685, by Assemblywoman Eloise Gómez Reyes (Dsan Bernardino), would require employers to notify their workers of COVID19 infections at work — and would mandate the reporting of infection data to state and local public health authorities. A different measure, AB2164, would require Medical, California’s Medicaid program, to cover more telehealth visits in underserved areas by eliminating an existing requirement for patients and providers to establish an inperson relationship first. But this wouldn’t be a permanent change: If signed, the law would sunset 180 days after the official COVID19 state of emergency is over. Assemblyman Robert Rivas, Dhollister (San Benito County), who introduced the bill, said he had to scale back the cost of the measure by applying it only to the pandemic to get it passed. Another bill written with precision is AB1710, which would allow pharmacists to administer a COVID vaccine once one is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. “We want to make sure we can gear up as quickly as possible,” said Assemblyman Jim Wood, DSanta Rosa, who authored the bill. Wood also authored AB2644, which would require nursing homes to have a fulltime “infection preventionist,” and to report deaths from communicable diseases to the state during an emergency. Wood said the bill was written after he “watched with horror” as COVID19 killed thousands of nursing home residents in the spring.
Consumer and worker protections Lawmakers took on powerful business interests to boost protections for essential workers. A bill introduced by Sen. Jerry Hill, Dsan Mateo, would make it easier for some employees infected with COVID19 to file a workers’ compensation insurance claim until January 2023. Should Newsom sign SB1159, for instance, state law would presume that certain frontline workers — from health care workers in hospitals to firefighters who go into people’s homes — were infected on the job unless their employers prove otherwise. The California Chamber of Commerce, which opposed the measure, questioned whether an employee’s illness could be traced to their job when the virus is so widespread. By varying degrees, at least 14 states have extended workers’ compensation to include Covidrelated scenarios, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Frustrated with outbreaks at meatpacking plants, lawmakers also advanced legislation calling on foodprocessing companies with at least 500 workers to provide two weeks of paid sick leave to those exposed to COVID19 or advised to quarantine. The measure, AB1867, spearheaded by Assemblyman Phil Ting, Dsan Francisco, also would close a loophole in the federal emergency paid sick leave benefit that Congress authorized this spring, which excluded health care workers and emergency responders. If Newsom signs the bill, they too would qualify for two weeks of paid sick time. And in what would be the biggest expansion to the state’s family leave program since it began in 2004, lawmakers extended job protections to more workers who wish to take time off to care for a new baby or a sick relative. California’s family leave program currently exempts smallbusiness workers from the job protections, leaving millions of workers without the benefit. For example, an employee who works for a company with 20 or fewer employees does not qualify for job protection to bond with an infant. Employers with 50 or fewer workers aren’t required to guarantee someone’s job if they leave to care for a sick parent or other family member. In both cases, that would change to employers with five or more workers if the governor signs SB1383, introduced by Sen. Hannahbeth Jackson, Dsanta Barbara.
Lessons learned Inadequate personal protective gear emerged early on as one of the biggest impediments to California’s coronavirus response — and measures advanced by the Legislature could prepare the state for future threats. “We can be more prepared to protect our state in the next health crisis,” said Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, DLakewood (Los Angeles County). California lawmakers approved a pair of highprofile bills to address protective equipment shortages. The more ambitious proposal, authored by Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez, DPomona, would require hospitals to stockpile a threemonth supply by April 2021. “We’ve already lost far too many members to COVID19,” said Stephanie Roberson, lead lobbyist for the California Nurses Association, which sponsored AB2537 . “It’s something that could have been prevented,” Roberson said, adding that “it’s the responsibility of employers to protect their workers.” Newsom also must decide whether the state government should maintain a supply of protective gear for essential workers. SB275, from state Sen. Richard Pan, DSacramento, and sponsored by the Service Employees International Union California, would mandate that the California Department of Public Health within one year establish a PPE stockpile for health and other essential workers to last 90 days during a pandemic. It also would require major employers of health care workers — such as dialysis clinics, nursing homes and hospitals — to establish by 2023 or later an additional 45day stockpile of PPE. Rachel Bluth, Angela Hart and Samantha Young write for KHN (Kaiser Health News), which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
‘This is a climate damn emergency,’ California’s Gavin Newsom says
Alexei Koseff Sep. 11, 2020 Updated: Sep. 14, 2020 9:40 a.m.2
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks Friday after touring the North Complex Fire zone in Butte County with California Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot, left, and California Secretary for Environmental Protection Jared Blumenfeld.Photo: Paul Kitagaki Jr. / Associated Press
A visibly angry Gov. Gavin Newsom warned the rest of the country Friday that California’s record wildfire season is a glimpse into its future if political leaders do not start taking the climate crisis more seriously.
“I’m a little bit exhausted that we have to continue to debate this issue. This a climate damn emergency. This is real and it’s happening. This is the perfect storm,” Newsom said during a visit to the Lake Oroville State Recreation Area in Butte County, where he surveyed damage from the North Complex Fire.
Newsom decried the “ideological BS” that he said is preventing swift action to combat climate change, which scientists generally agree has intensified the severity of natural disasters. California is the midst of the worst wildfire season in its modern history, with more than 3 million acres already burned this year, and the August Complex Fire in Northern California this week became the largest the state has ever recorded.
“California, folks, is America fast forward,” Newsom said. “What we are experiencing right here is coming to (communities) all across the United States of America unless we get our act together on climate change — unless we disabuse ourselves of all the BS that’s being spewed by a very small group of people that have an ideological reason to advance the cause of a 19th century framework and solution. We’re not going back to the 19th century.”
Newsom toured the destruction with several members of his cabinet, including Secretary for Environmental Protection Jared Blumenfeld, who checked the air quality index for the area on his phone. It registered at 508, about about 10 times the threshold for healthy air, which Newsom compared to “the equivalent of cigarette smoke.”
The governor said he is directing his administration to accelerate California’s transition to clean energy and other climate policies the state previously adopted. He offered few specifics, but suggested that the state’s target of getting 100% of electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045 was too slow. He also cited California’s efforts to put more electric cars on the road.
“Our goals are inadequate to the reality we’re experiencing,” Newsom said. “We’ve got to fast-track all of that if we’re going, I think, to be judged well in the future.”
Recalling a recent conversation in which he had to explain to his 4-year-old son why he could not play soccer outside because of the smoke-filled air, Newsom added, “That’s not the world I want to leave to my kids.”
The governor slammed one leader in particular — President Trump — albeit indirectly. While he acknowledged a phone conversation with Trump this week in which the president “reinforced his commitment” to fighting the California wildfires, Newsom also pointed out the dozens of lawsuits the state has filed “against an administration that doesn’t see eye-to-eye with us” on environmental protections.
“As the rest of the nation moves in one direction, we are moving in a more enlightened direction,” Newsom said. He later made a closing call for Americans to reject politicians who don’t believe in climate change, which may as well have been an unspoken pitch for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, whom Newsom has endorsed.
“If people are still in denial and they’re leading the charge of keeping you protected and keeping you healthy and safe,” he said, “they’re not truly, I think, positioned to be the kind of leaders we need.”
State and federal legislators who represent Oroville criticized Newsom for focusing his remarks on climate change. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale (Butte County), said in a statement that the governor “used our destroyed land for a photo op” while “offering zero solutions to alleviate the pain of our people or get these fires under control.”
In a joint statement, state Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber (Tehama County), and Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Nicolaus (Sutter County), said, “The excuse of climate change cannot be used to deflect from the fundamental failure to address the fuels build-up in our forests that are the cause of these devastating fires.”
During his visit, Newsom signed AB2147 by Assemblywoman Eloise Gómez Reyes, D-San Bernardino, which will allow formerly incarcerated people who have trained at state fire camps to more quickly expunge their criminal records.
While thousands of inmates work every year alongside full-time firefighters, doing dangerous and low- paid jobs digging fire lines and thinning forests, their criminal records have prevented them from seeking employment in the field upon release.
Editorial: California Prop. 15 would cause businesses to pay fair share of property taxes
Chronicle Editorial Board Sep. 11, 2020 Updated: Sep. 11, 2020 12:50 p.m.
The newest tower to rise near San Francisco's Transbay Transit Center (officially named Salesforce Transit Center), is 500 Folsom St. -- a 42- story residential highrise designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. People began moving in to the lower floors early in 2020.
Photo: John King, The Chronicle
For more than 40 years, California has endured a contorted property tax system that punishes home buyers, chills housing construction and rewards businesses who skate by when assessments are set.
Proposition 15 would ease the worst of these abuses while protecting homeowners and small businesses. It sets a path that should continue in overhauling an out-of-whack tax code. For all its progressive image, California has a lopsided revenue system that has evolved since a fateful vote in 1978 that redrew the rules on property taxes. That measure, known as Proposition 13, largely froze homeowner taxes, but it did the same for business holdings. When property changed hands, taxes could be reset, but that happened less often with commercial and industrial land when deals could be structured to avoid reassessment. The result: Businesses enjoyed low taxes while new homeowners faced higher levies as housing was resold.
Prop. 15 offers a solution to this unfairness. It calls for splitting the rolls, with residential property staying within the present protections while it sets more timely assessments for large business holdings. The heart of the original law that protects homeowners from sharp tax boosts will be saved. Businesses won’t get an undue break.
The proposed change may net $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion to be split 60% for local government and 40% for schools. In a bow to small operators, it would exempt commercial properties worth $3 million or less. That feature helps protect tenants such as restaurants and stores scraping by on thin profit margins.
Opponents claim that now isn’t the right moment for a tax increase, given a pandemic-ruined economy and 13.3% jobless rate. But the changes in Prop. 15 would take place beginning in July 2022 and could be delayed longer if the Legislature chooses. That flexible timetable will allow for the economy to recover.
The measure comes to the ballot through a signature gathering supported by unions and policy groups. They were fed up with a Legislature fearful of enacting reforms to the original Prop. 13, regarded as sacrosanct. Instead lawmakers have devised other tax schemes to compensate, saddling the state with higher taxes and more volatility.
California has a chance to end a glaring unfairness in tax rules. Vote yes on Prop. 15.
Poll: Pandemic takes toll on mental health of young adults By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY and JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHERSeptember 11, 2020
FILE - In this June 1, 2020 file photo, a woman looks through a window at a near-empty terminal at an airport in Atlanta. The coronavirus pandemic has taken a harsh toll on the mental health of young Americans, according to a new poll that finds adults under 35 especially likely to report negative feelings or experience physical or emotional symptoms associated with stress and anxiety. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
PHOENIX (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has taken a harsh toll on the mental health of young Americans, according to a new poll that finds adults under 35 especially likely to report negative feelings or experience physical or emotional symptoms associated with stress and anxiety.
A majority of Americans ages 18 through 34 — 56% — say they have at least sometimes felt isolated in the past month, compared with about 4 in 10 older Americans, according to the latest COVID Response Tracking Study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Twenty-five percent of young adults rate their mental health as fair or poor, compared with 13% of older adults, while 56% of older adults say their mental health is excellent or very good, compared with just 39% of young adults.
In the midst of the pandemic, young adults are navigating life transitions such as starting college and finding jobs, all without being able to experience normal social activities that might be especially essential for people who are less likely to have already married and started their own families. Some young people are just beginning their adult lives amid a recession, and older members of the group are already experiencing their second.
Christina Torres, 32, a middle school teacher in Honolulu, had to postpone her June wedding and was not able to travel to her grandmother’s funeral in California because of the pandemic. She misses being able to deal with stress by going to the gym and getting together with friends.
“And so it’s hard to not feel really hopeless sometimes, especially because the numbers keep going up,” she said. The study found that younger Americans also consistently show higher rates of psychosomatic symptoms, like having trouble sleeping, getting headaches or crying, compared to other age groups. The likelihood of experiencing such symptoms decreases with age.
One possible explanation for the age gap could be that young adults have less experience dealing with a public health crisis, said Tom Smith, who has directed NORC’s General Social Survey since 1980. Smith, 71, says he grew up being told not to play in the dirt because of the risk of contracting polio.
“This experience facing a pandemic is completely new for most younger adults,” he said.
Torres thought some of the hardship her generation is experiencing now could be attributed to their lack of historical context, compared with her parents’ generation.
“So it kind of feels like, oh my God, can this get any worse? When is it going to get better?” she said. “It doesn’t feel like it’s going to get better.”
Young adults also face constant exposure to social media, which could make negative feelings about the virus even worse. The survey found that frequently watching, reading or talking about the virus is consistently linked with higher rates of negative mental health symptoms.
Wayne Evans, 18, a freshman at North Carolina State University studying remotely after being sent home because of virus cases at the school, said social media provided daily reminders of COVID-19.
“In some ways social media has added to my stressors, yes. Just the information overload that’s unavoidable on social media platforms can be distracting,” he said.
The survey found 67% of young adults, but just 50% of those older, say they have at least sometimes felt that they were unable to control the important things in life. And 55% of 18 to 34 year olds say they have felt difficulties piling up too high to overcome, compared with 33% of older adults.
In Arizona, Desiree Eskridge, 17, decided to study remotely in California for her first year at Northern Arizona University partly because she did not want to risk spreading COVID- 19 to her family, which is prone to sickness. She also worried she would get sick and have to pay back a student loan for a semester she could not finish on the campus.
She did move into her grandparents’ house so she could still be more on her own. She relies on friends who are living on campus and taking the same classes to explain things she did not quite understand during lectures and has to schedule extra Zoom appointments with her professors for additional help. “It’s extremely stressful, but me being home makes it a little easier because I can do it all in my own time and my own space and I don’t have to be in this new environment where I have to learn everything all over,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Colleen Slevin in Wheat Ridge, Colorado contributed to this report. Kelleher reported from Honolulu.
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The survey of 2,007 adults was conducted July 22-August 10 with funding from the National Science Foundation. It uses a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Newsom rails against climate change as historic wildfires rage across California “What we’re experiencing right here is coming to communities all across the United States of America unless we get our act together on climate change,” governor said
BERRY CREEK, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 9: The Butte County sheriff’s department investigates a fatality that occurred during a late evacuation from the Bear Fire, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020, near Lake Oroville in Northern California. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
By FIONA KELLIHER | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: September 11, 2020 at 1:50 p.m. | UPDATED: September 13, 2020 at 6:10 a.m.
Historic wildfires continued to rage across California on Friday with nightmarish abandon, toppling all previous acreage records, clouding the skies with a dangerous smoky pall and prompting a rare outburst on climate change from Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Four smaller fires burning on the northern edge of Mendocino National Forest merged into the August Complex overnight, increasing its scope to nearly 750,000 acres — the biggest fire in California history by nearly 300,000 acres — and threatening communities from Lake Pillsbury to Covelo.
Visiting the fire lines in Oroville, where thick smoke hung like tule fog, the governor said that decades of inadequate climate policy — along with the flat-out refusal from some politicians and residents to accept scientific evidence — has pushed California into the mounting tragedy it now faces.
“I’m exhausted that we have to continue to debate this,” Newsom said, in some of his strongest statements ever on the issue. “This is happening. It’s happening in unprecedented ways. Year in, year out. You can exhaust yourself with your ideological B.S. … but the reality here is the mega-fires that we’re experiencing come from these mega-droughts that we’re experiencing.”
Already this year, wildfires have torn through about 3.1 million acres of California land — 26 times more than last year — and forced tens of thousands of residents to flee. Nine people have died in Butte County’s West Zone of the North Complex Fire, bringing the state’s total wildfire death toll for the year to 19.
The smoke was so thick in Oroville that it obscured the damage from the blaze. Burned, crumpled homes and melted cars became visible only upon driving right up to them, while the black skeletons of trees stood out sharply against the smoke.
Meanwhile in the Bay Area — where some residents only just returned to their homes after another set of blazes threatened the region a few weeks ago — unofficial air readings throughout the region hovered in the purple “unhealthy” zone, the worst readings of the week in many places. A Spare the Air alert issued by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District remained in effect for the 25th consecutive day, a streak that has shattered the old record of 14, set during the Camp Fire in 2018.
As awful as the smoke is for residents, it has actually proven useful for firefighters battling the Mendocino flames, said Kimberly Kaschalk, spokesperson for the Great Basin Incident Management Team that took command of the August Complex’s southern portion starting Friday.
Over the weekend, crews will evaluate damage and form tighter control lines near natural firefighting barriers such as the Eel and Black Butte rivers. The Lake Pillsbury area northeast of Ukiah has emerged as a priority, Kaschalk said, along with campgrounds between the Eel and the fire’s edge.
“I know a lot of people hate the smoke, but it helps us, because it shields the ground from the direct rays of the sun,” Kaschalk said. “It helps bring the humidity up, and more moisture is better.”
By early next week, temperatures are expected to level off into the mid-70s while a gush of offshore wind blows off the smoke — providing a potential reprieve to both firefighters and smoke-choked Californians, according to the National Weather Service. But that’s not soon enough for anxious residents. Alicia Adams-Potts evacuated her Forbestown home Tuesday to stay with her elderly mother in Dobbins while she awaits word on her home. Her native Maidu-Nisenan family, which has lived in the area for 10 generations, attributes the worsening of the fires to a mismanagement of resources and lack of good land stewardship.
“It’s horrific,” Adams-Potts said.
For his part, Newsom acknowledged that the state could do more prescribed burns and forest management to reduce the dry-timber fuel propelling these fires. Last month, he signed a major agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to thin 1 million acres of forests in California — more than double the current rate — by 2025. The state is also doing much to address climate change, with about 34% of its electricity currently originating from solar, wind and other renewable resources. Although he did not specify who, exactly, he meant by climate deniers, Newsom at one point criticized the federal government for rolling back environmental protections. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, though, he has been scrupulous at not singling out the Trump administration, whose help the state needs, for blame.
“California, folks, is America fast-forward,” Newsom said. “What we’re experiencing right here is coming to communities all across the United States of America unless we get our act together on climate change — unless we disabuse ourselves of all the B.S. being spewed by a very small group of people that have an ideological reason to advance the cause of a nineteenth century framework.”
Plastic waste cuts probably headed to California ballot as advocates give up on Legislature
Dustin Gardiner Sep. 12, 2020 Updated: Sep. 12, 2020 4 a.m.
Assemblyman Evan Low, D-San Jose (left), speaks with Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, on the Assembly floor in August. Low has received $46,200 in contributions from Dart Container since 2014.Photo: Randall Benton / Associated Press
SACRAMENTO — After the California Legislature killed bills designed to combat plastic pollution for the second year in a row, environmentalists say they’ve concluded the fight might be unwinnable at the heavily lobbied state Capitol.
Instead, they’ve resolved to take the battle to voters, with an initiative aimed at the 2022 ballot.
A pair of identical bills, AB1080 and SB54, died as lawmakers squabbled with hours left before they adjourned for the year. The bills were designed to phase out some of the most commonly nonrecyclable plastics: flimsy single-use packaging and items such as cups and utensils. Activists say that while legislative infighting didn’t help with a close vote as the session ended, the numbers were never on their side. They note that even though the Legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic, some of the more moderate party members have been intensively courted by the plastics and oil industries, which spent heavily to kill the bills.
One manufacturer, Dart Container Corp., has contributed nearly $3 million to California campaigns in the past six years. Several of the largest recipients were Democratic legislators who abstained from the Aug. 31 vote in the Assembly in which the proposals effectively died.
Industry groups said the bills would have imposed unrealistic mandates in a time of economic strife. They added that California doesn’t have enough recycling facilities to meet the goal of phasing out single-use plastics.
Large amounts of trash and plastic refuse collect in Ballona Creek in Los Angeles County after a rainstorm. Photo: Citizens of the Planet Environmentalists said the defeat shows that even with Democrats holding a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature, industry can block significant progress on eco-friendly policies. They have vowed to take the fight to voters, through a plastics initiative they hope to qualify for the November 2022 ballot.
Geoff Shester, a marine biologist in Monterey and California campaign director for Oceana, an environmental group, said legislative leaders have fallen out of step with Californians when it comes to plastic waste.
“Because of the power of special interests, the will of the people has really been subverted,” Shester said. Polling suggests that pollution from plastics has become a pressing concern for many in the state. In a 2019 survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, 72% of residents said plastic and marine debris along the coast was a “big problem.”
But the bills faced a gantlet of opposition. In addition to millions in campaign contributions, the plastics industry spent heavily to lobby against the proposals.
An industry group called Californians for Recycling and the Environment spent more than $3.38 million to defeat the bills over the past two years, according to disclosure forms. The group is headed by executives from Novolex, a South Carolina plastics company. A spokesman for the industry lobby did not respond to requests for comment.
Kathryn Phillips, director of the Sierra Club California, an environmental group, said the repeat defeat of plastics legislation was the result of a methodical effort on the part of the oil and plastics industries. Plastics manufacturers need oil to make their products, and large oil firms, including Chevron and Exxon Mobil, also lobbied against the bills.
Column: Forget a special legislative session. California lawmakers first need to get their act together
A the end of a chaotic session in the California Legislature amid the COVID-19 pandemic, legislators failed to smooth over internal turmoil to act on important legislation, columnist George Skelton writes. (Robert Greene / Los Angeles Times)
By GEORGE SKELTONCAPITOL JOURNAL COLUMNIST SEP. 10, 2020 12 AM SACRAMENTO —
This was the ideal time — politically and policy-wise — for the Legislature and the governor to authorize loads of extra spending on wildfire prevention and helping victims. But they botched it.
Shame on them. The people’s representatives couldn’t get their act together amid internal turmoil to agree on a stripped-down $500-million wildfire appropriation before they were forced by law to adjourn the two-year legislative session at midnight Aug. 31.
The shelved wildfire bill was just one of several very important measures that were victimized by legislators fractured by rivalries and bitterness, and a governor apparently spread too thin managing a pandemic and infernos to exert his political muscle in the Legislature.
Other major bills that were scuttled — some even without a vote — involved housing production, police reform and broadband expansion for schoolchildren forced to attend classes from home.
It was the most discombobulated end of a legislative session — putting it politely — in the memory of everyone I talked to. It certainly was for me, and I’ve covered dozens.
“It was a hard year — the worst year I can remember to get things done,” says Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), a former Assembly speaker. “The pandemic didn’t help.”
What happened? Many things, according to legislators and aides, some of whom asked for anonymity because they feared offending colleagues.
Start with COVID-19. Because the Legislature tried to follow state public health guidelines, lawmakers couldn’t “work” the chamber floors as they normally do, persuading and dealing.
No face-to-face camaraderie — not even mask-to-mask. Physical distancing was strictly observed. Seatmates weren’t even allowed. All that made for difficult legislating.
There has always been tension between the Assembly and Senate, but the bad blood was abnormally poisonous this time. Many believe it started when the two houses couldn’t agree on uniform rules for remote debating and voting on bills.
The Senate allowed for remote participation in floor action over Zoom. In fact, Democrats forced it on Republicans because one GOP member tested positive for the coronavirus. The Assembly leadership wouldn’t allow Zoom participation but permitted proxy voting for lawmakers considered to be at high risk for COVID-19. None wound up voting by proxy.
Lack of agreement on how to protect against the virus is what set off Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) and Atkins on their separate ways, ending in bitterness between two leaders who used to be close allies. Rendon was accused by Atkins and other senators of “running out the clock” on the last night, preventing several major Senate bills from being voted on by the Assembly until it was too late for them to be passed before the midnight deadline.
One such bill was Atkins’ housing measure that would have allowed duplexes to be built on lots zoned for single-family homes. It wasn’t debated in the Assembly until late on the final night and didn’t pass that house until shortly before midnight. There was no time left for the Senate to approve the Assembly’s amendments.
I asked Atkins whether she thought Rendon had purposely run out the clock.
“I do,” she replied. “Clearly, sending the bill back over [to the Senate] at 11:57 p.m., I don’t know how else I’m supposed to take it.”
She cited other bills that got similar treatments.
Rendon told me: “The argument that we were running out the clock is preposterous. It’s absurd.”
When chaos began on the final night, the speaker says, he asked the Senate for a list of priority bills to expedite. And Atkins’ housing bill wasn’t on it.
“That’s just crazy,” Atkins says. “It’s internal gamesmanship. He knew it was important. I consider everybody’s bill important.”
Especially one from the Senate leader. The speaker shouldn’t have to look at a list to know that a pro tem’s bill is a high priority.
Another senator told me Atkins didn’t put her bill on the priority list because she doesn’t like to “bigfoot” colleagues. And that segues into another reason things didn’t get done as they should have.
Both legislative leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom — and their senior aides — avoid playing old-fashioned political hardball. Maybe they don’t know how. Or maybe they feel it’s beneath them. But it’s required for success.
Threatening, coercing, trading favors — it’s all part of winning American politics. Many past legislative leaders, governors and their staffs excelled at it. Forcing Senate Republicans into home-confined Zoom voting also greatly slowed floor action. Atkins accuses Republicans of delay tactics.
Back to the wildfire bill:
This was the perfect time to pass it with the state ablaze north and south and dense smoke polluting the skies. Newsom and Senate Democrats had agreed to spend $500 million for such things as cooling centers, emergency shelters, warning systems, home-hardening projects and forest cleanup.
The governor would have had to set a bad precedent by using his emergency power to waive a state law that requires amendments to be in print 72 hours before a bill can be voted on for final passage. But under these horrific fire conditions, who would protest?
Rendon quashed the proposal, however.
“For me, $500 million out of the general fund without budget hearings doesn’t seem very democratic,” the speaker says.
Senators counter that the speaker was irked because he wasn’t in on the deal with the governor.
Some lawmakers think Newsom should call a special legislative session to pass wildfire and housing legislation.
The governor should forget about it until after the pandemic and legislators get their acts back together.
Trump dismisses Newsom’s climate warning, Biden goes on attack over California fires
Alexei Koseff Sep. 14, 2020 Updated: Sep. 15, 2020 10:54 a.m.
Gov. Gavin Newsom briefs President Trump on the extraordinarily destructive wildfires burning across the state.Photo: Andrew Harnik / Associated Press
SACRAMENTO — President Trump resisted calls to confront the reality of climate change during a brief visit to California on Monday — a position that his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, signaled he may focus on as wildfires burn across the West. During a two-hour stop at an airfield near Sacramento, Trump met with state officials for a briefing on the fires. Gov. Gavin Newsom took the lead, urging the president to consider how “the plumbing of the world” has changed, intensifying hot and dry conditions that have pushed California into a record wildfire season.
Trump cast doubt on that analysis — and climate science as a whole — instead renewing his concerns that the state has not done enough to thin out trees and other vegetation fueling devastating fires.
“We’ll talk about forest management. I’ve been talking about it for a long time,” Trump told reporters at McClellan Park, a decommissioned Air Force base outside Sacramento that is now a hub for state firefighting operations. “They have to do that. You go to other countries and they don’t have this problem.”
Biden slammed Trump during a speech Monday in Delaware as a “climate denier” and a “climate arsonist” who was failing his most basic duty to keep Americans safe.
“If he gets a second term, these hellish events will continue to become more common, more devastating and more deadly,” Biden said.
Newsom has praised the president for providing disaster aid to California, but he has become increasingly critical of Trump’s record on climate change, which Newsom blames for worsening the severity of wildfires.
The governor tried to drive home that point during their meeting, telling Trump that “we’ve known each other too long and, as you suggest, the working relationship I value.”
“Something’s happened to the plumbing of the world, and we come from a perspective, humbly, where we submit the science is in ... that climate change is real, and that is exacerbating this,” Newsom said. “Please respect, and I know you do, the difference of opinion out here as it relates to this fundamental issue on the issue of climate change.”
Trump replied, “Absolutely.”
But when Wade Crowfoot, California’s natural resources secretary, later urged Trump not to “ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management,” Trump said, “OK. It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch.”
“I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot responded.
“I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump said.
Trump asked during the briefing how many fires are burning at the moment and whether the heat has ever been this bad in the state. Newsom, who wore a mask, and Trump, who did not, sat at a horseshoe table with Crowfoot and several other officials.
“I think we’re totally in sync,” Trump said as reporters were led from the room, according to a pool report. Later Monday afternoon, while visiting fire evacuees on the grounds of the Camelot Equestrian Park in Oroville, Newsom said the conversation presented an opportunity to remind Trump that 57% of forested land in the state is under federal jurisdiction, and that forest management is a collaboration between federal and state governments.
“I wanted the President to know that we have established an engagement we would like to build on,” Newsom said. “And yes, frankly, to state in a way that wasn’t trying to take a cheap shot, wasn’t trying to score political points, but to make the argument, we believe in climate change out here. We don’t believe it just because science says it; we observe it, we experience it, and that was an opportunity to remind him of a point he’s very familiar with, but to do so in an honest and forthright way.”
At the Democratic National Convention last month, Newsom touted the state’s dozens of environmental lawsuits against the Trump administration. During a news conference in Oroville (Butte County) on Friday, he encouraged people to reject politicians who are “still in denial” about the reality of climate change.
Neither he nor any other official was on hand to greet Trump as the president disembarked from Air Force One. But scores of Trump’s supporters and protesters lined the roads outside the airfield, and confrontations turned tense as the day wore on. NBC Bay Area filmed an incident in which a man appeared to be injured when he climbed onto a California Highway Patrol car and fell from it as it sped away.
Trump, who once called climate change “a hoax,” had said little about the dozens of wildfires that have burned more than 3 million acres in California, killed at least 20 people and covered the state in smoke. He broke a three-week public silence at a campaign rally in Nevada on Saturday, when he briefly mentioned the fires and said, “It’s all about forest management.”
Trump made similar assertions after the Camp Fire in November 2018, which destroyed much of the Butte County town of Paradise and killed 85 people. Although the federal government controls more than half the forestland in California and state and local agencies oversee just 3%, the president blamed California for logging restrictions and not doing more to thin out forests.
Trump returned to the subject Monday. He said he had recently talked to “the head of a major country” in Europe who he said told him, “‘We have trees that are far more explosive than they have in California, and we don’t have any problem because we manage our forests.’ So we have to do that in California, too.”
Trump’s assessment of the problem has been disputed by many forestry experts in the past. While clearing forests of heavy timber would help reduce the fire threat in some places, many of California’s most disastrous recent fires have been in grasslands and on oak-studded hillsides.
Last month, Newsom announced a state-federal agreement to reduce wildfire risks on 1 million acres of forest every year. Under the deal, governments will spend as much as $1 billion on fire preparedness in California by scaling up vegetation treatment over the next five years. The pact commits to a 20-year program of forest and vegetation management, including wildland and watershed restoration.
Trump said Monday that “forest management is not only the leaves that have been sitting there for many years that are dry as a bone. But there are also the trees that go over. Anything over 18 months, that’s just a matchstick. It’s absolutely a matchstick. “The federal government is now starting to do it in a very big way, but the state has to really do that,” he added.
The president dodged questions about the role of climate change and Newsom’s assertions that it is worsening the severity of wildfire season. “That’s up to him. Look, he does agree with me on forest management,” Trump said.
But he forcefully pushed back on criticism that he was too slow to publicly acknowledge the disaster unfolding in California, calling it a “nasty question.”
“I got a call from the governor immediately. I called him immediately. In fact, he returned my call. And on that call, I declared it an emergency,” Trump said. “A lot of presidents wait for months and months and months. They wait until after it’s all over, and then they consider it and then oftentimes they don’t do it. I did it right at the beginning.”
Biden, in a speech about his climate agenda in Delaware, said Trump was not treating the wildfire disaster with the urgency it demanded. He flipped a criticism of Trump’s — that Biden wants to abolish the suburbs by forcing low-income housing into more communities — on its head.
“You know what is actually threatening our suburbs? Wildfires are burning the suburbs of the West,” Biden said. “If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires?”
As California burns, Trump blames forest management, Biden calls president “climate arsonist” ‘It will start getting cooler. Just watch,’ president tells California official who warned him of warming planet
President Donald Trump participates in a briefing on wildfires at Sacramento McClellan Airport, in McClellan Park, Calif., Monday, Sept. 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
By JOHN WOOLFOLK | [email protected] and EMILY DERUY | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: September 14, 2020 at 9:07 a.m. | UPDATED: September 14, 2020 at 6:43 p.m.
SACRAMENTO — California’s plight took center stage Monday in the race for the White House as President Donald Trump visited the Golden State in the midst of an epic wildfire season that has ravaged Western states, blaming “forest management” and discarding a warning that a warming planet is making the fires worse. “It will start getting cooler,” Trump told California officials during a briefing on the wildfires in Sacramento. “You just watch.”
Meanwhile, in a speech from his home state of Delaware, Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee and former vice president, said Monday that Trump’s refusal to accept and address climate change is intensifying fires and other disasters such as another hurricane barreling toward the Gulf Coast.
“If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze?” Biden said, as California Sen. Kamala Harris, his vice presidential running mate, headed to her home state to assess the destruction.
The dueling visions of what’s behind the myriad catastrophes were on display as Trump touched down in Sacramento to meet with Gov. Gavin Newsom and other fire officials before honoring National Guardsmen who rescued 242 campers trapped over Labor Day weekend by the Creek Fire. That blaze just south of Yosemite National Park is one of dozens in California that have killed 24 people and burned a record 3.1 million acres, even before the traditional heart of wildfire season begins next month.
Supporters and protesters gathered outside McClellan Park, a former Air Force base that closed in 2003, where Trump touched down “to pay our respects” to those who lost their lives in the recent wildfires.
He dodged questions about whether climate change is affecting the state, saying, “I think this is more of a management situation” that requires more cutting and the removal of years of leaves and fallen trees “that become like a matchstick” and “explode.”
The president said he acted quickly to declare an emergency and speed federal aid to California, and he lauded Newsom, who has been careful not to alienate Trump through the coronavirus pandemic.
“I want to thank the governor for the job he’s done,” Trump said. “We actually have a very good relationship. He’s a good man.”
Newsom and many of the state fire and emergency officials wore COVID-19 masks during Monday’s wildfire meeting, while the president, sitting alone at the center of the gathering did not. In one of the most telling exchanges during the meeting, Newsom told the president that 24 people have died and 44,000 people have been evacuated because of the fires.
“We come from a perspective humbly … that climate change is real and that is exacerbating this,” Newsom told Trump. “Please respect the difference of opinion out here when it comes to climate change.”
“Absolutely,” Trump responded.
When California Natural Resource Secretary Wade Crowfoot insisted the federal government needed to recognize climate change’s role in recent record-breaking temperatures — 130 degrees in Death Valley, 121 in Greater L.A., Trump responded, “It will start getting cooler. You just watch.”
“I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot told the president.
“I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump said.
The fires have injected forest management and climate change into the burning hot 2020 presidential race that is at its peak but mostly being fought in battleground states back east, with the West Coast expected to vote solidly Democratic.
“Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden would like to see the problem addressed but also recognize political opportunities that the fires present for them,” said Dan Schnur, a political scientist at the University of Southern California.
“Trump gets to play the role of concerned commander in chief today, and then he can go back to other parts of the country to ridicule California to his most loyal supporters. Biden gets the chance to reinforce his climate-change credentials to swing voters and also to paint Trump as uncaring and out of touch.”
Following the briefing, the governor headed to Butte County, one of dozens of active fire areas burning in California, Oregon and Washington. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said five of the state’s largest fires on record have burned this year, many triggered by a freak lightning storm and “extreme weather conditions.”
Asked at a press conference in Oroville what message was conveyed at the briefing, Newsom said he told Trump “in a way that wasn’t trying to take a cheap shot, wasn’t trying to score political points, but to make the argument, we believe in climate change out here.
“We don’t believe it just because science says it; we observe it, we experience it, and that was an opportunity to remind him of a point he’s very familiar with, but to do so in an honest and forthright way,” the governor said.
While Newsom has generally avoided criticizing Trump directly, last week he pointedly criticized “climate deniers” who dismiss the role that burning coal, oil and gas for heating, power and transportation plays in warming the planet — something the state has been trying to fix by aggressively pursuing renewable solar and wind energy, though its policies drew some criticism last month after power shortages and rolling blackouts.
Last month, California officials signed a major agreement with the federal government that aims to reshape how forests are managed. Under the plan, California agencies and the U.S. Forest Service will use brush clearing, logging and prescribed fires to thin out 1 million acres a year by 2025 and roughly double the current rate of thinning, which already is double rates from a few years ago. The Forest Service and the state Natural Resources Agency also committed to drawing up a 20-year plan by next year to identify which areas of the state will get priority for thinning projects.
“I want to thank you,” Newsom told Trump during their meeting, “for the work that you’ve done to be immediate in terms of your response.”
But Trump’s Democratic rival said the president would do nothing about the climate while Biden would have the U.S. rejoin the Paris climate agreement that Trump said disadvantaged the country, make the federal government buy electric vehicles and set a goal of eliminating coal, oil and gas from the power supply in 15 years.
“Donald Trump’s climate denial may not have caused these fires and record floods and record hurricanes,” Biden said, “but if he gets a second term these hellish events will continue to become more common and more devastating and more deadly.”
Staff Writers Julia Prodis Sulek, Maggie Angst, the Sacramento Bee and the Chico Enterprise-Record contributed to this report.
Editorial: After months of inaction on coronavirus relief, it’s crunch time for Congress
Chronicle Editorial Board Sep. 16, 2020 Updated: Sep. 16, 2020 6:47 a.m.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Capitol Hill Monday.
Photo: Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press
Congress’ inaction on the coronavirus-stricken economy is growing older but not wiser. Nearly five months after lawmakers passed the last of four stimulus measures, unemployed Californians have seen the end of the supplemental aid they provided and are at or near the end of the stopgap measure ordered by President Trump. Nearly a third of respondents to a federal survey last month reported struggling to cover basic expenses. And the demand for food assistance has tripled in parts of the Bay Area.
The House returned from a summer recess this week, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly told colleagues Tuesday that they aren’t leaving until they provide more economic relief. Amid loose talk of letting the issue lie until after the election, it’s a welcome pledge.
An expansive bill passed by the House in May would have more than doubled the $3 trillion in stimulus measures enacted over the previous two months, including $1 trillion in sorely needed aid to states and cities. But the Republican-controlled Senate and the Trump administration showed no interest in further action for months. Negotiations between the administration and Democratic congressional leaders resumed in July but to no avail.
That allowed nearly $600 a week in supplemental unemployment payments included in the flagship stimulus to expire at the end of that month. Disaster funds redirected by the president allowed states to provide half as much for another five weeks, but California has paid out those benefits and expects to provide one more week’s worth at most.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and most of his fellow Republicans at long last backed a response to the House bill last week. With about $300 billion in new spending, including funding for $300 in weekly supplemental unemployment payments, it was less than a tenth of the funding passed by the House four months ago. Drawing no Democratic support, it failed to emerge from the upper chamber.
Partisan hobbyhorses naturally found their way into both bills: The Senate Republicans included corporate liability protections and tax credits for private schools, while House Democrats floated a restoration of the federal deduction for state and local taxes, which primarily benefits taxpayers in California and other Democratic-leaning states.
That being said, the Senate bill is impossibly inadequate, leaving out aid to states and cities entirely and even measures favored by the administration. Its stinginess reflects some Republican lawmakers’ absurd insistence that people are out of work because of generous federal benefits and not the mass closures and layoffs stemming from the pandemic and the president’s botched response.
Given the scope of the crisis and the federal government’s unmatched ability to prop up the economy, Pelosi’s position is far closer to correct. But as members of her own caucus are arguing, being of some help to their constituents will ultimately prove more important than being right.
Newsom backs reform for California’s Proposition 13, opposes tax-the-rich plans
Alexei Koseff Sep. 16, 2020 Updated: Sep. 16, 2020 10:58 a.m.
Gov. Gavin Newsom visits the Camelot Equestrian Park on Monday in Oroville, a shelter for animals whose owners had to escape the North Complex West Zone fires.
Photo: Carin Dorghalli / Associated Press SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom has endorsed an initiative that would overhaul California’s iconic Proposition 13 by changing how commercial property taxes are calculated — a measure likely to be one of the hardest-fought issues on the November ballot.
After months of declining to weigh in on the ballot measure, Proposition 15, Newsom announced his support as he also pledged not to sign any of the proposals to increase income taxes on the wealthiest Californians that were floated at the end of the legislative session.
“California, like every state in America, is currently experiencing the severe financial aftershocks of global pandemic,” Newsom said in a statement Friday. Prop. 15, he said, is “a fair, phased-in and long-overdue reform to state tax policy.”
The measure would change Prop. 13, the 1978 voter-approved initiative limiting property tax increases. It would create a “split roll,” maintaining a strict cap on annual tax hikes for homeowners, but lifting it for most large commercial properties.
Under the initiative, those commercial properties would be reassessed every three years instead of when they are sold. Critics have long complained that Prop. 13 — which sets the tax rate at 1% of the price when a property is sold and restricts increases to 2% annually — has deprived the state of revenue from large businesses that rarely change hands and are still paying taxes based on assessments from decades ago.
Organized labor, a major ally of Newsom, is behind Prop. 15, which could raise an estimated $12 billion annually for schools and local governments. The campaign celebrated the governor’s endorsement as “another watershed moment in the push to close corporate tax loopholes.”
But business groups and other opponents of the initiative warned that it would only deepen the economic recession. The California Chamber of Commerce said in a statement that “Proposition 15 will tank our recovery, hamstring small and minority businesses’ ability to rehire laid-off workers, and cost every consumer hundreds of dollars every year” when companies pass on the cost of their higher taxes.
Both sides have already raised tens of millions of dollars for the campaign, which will have significant implications for local budgets.
Searching for new revenue to offset a massive state budget deficit, many supporters of Prop. 15 have also pushed lawmakers to raise the top state income tax rate and create a first-in-the-nation wealth tax. Both of those proposals died at the end of the legislative session in August without a vote. Newsom said Friday that “in a global, mobile economy, now is not the time” for those types of tax increases.
Newsom also made endorsements on several other measures Friday, and now has weighed in on nearly all the initiatives on the Nov. 3 ballot.
He supports Proposition 14, to renew a bond funding stem cell research; Proposition 16, repealing a ban on state affirmative action policies; Proposition 17, restoring voting rights for parolees; Proposition 18, allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they turn 18 before the general election; Proposition 19, letting older Californians and victims of natural disasters keep their property tax rate when they move to a new home, and reassessing inherited homes if the late owner’s child or grandchild doesn’t use it as a principal residence; and Proposition 25, to end cash bail. He opposes Proposition 20, which would roll back an earlier expansion of parole for some crimes, and Proposition 21, allowing local jurisdictions to adopt more expansive rent control policies.
Walters: Newsom’s battle against climate change vs. reality There is a practical limit to California’s conversion into a carbon-free nirvana
Gov. Gavin Newsom Newsom is fond of making sweeping declarations of noble intent, but most have collided with reality. (Carin Dorghalli/Enterprise-Record)
By DAN WALTERS |
PUBLISHED: September 16, 2020 at 12:40 p.m. | UPDATED: September 17, 2020 at 3:43 a.m.
While visiting the scene of one of California’s many horrendous wildfires last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that climate change is the culprit and promised to step up the state’s already vigorous effort to reduce greenhouse gases. “This is a climate damn emergency,” Newsom said while standing among some burned out trees near Oroville. “This is real, and it’s happening.”
“Mother Nature is physics, biology and chemistry,” Newsom continued. “She bats last and she bats 1,000. That’s the reality. The debate is over around climate change. Just come to the state of California. Observe it with your own eyes.”
The governor vowed to increase the number of electric vehicles on the road and otherwise green up the state, saying he had directed administration officials “to dust off our current processes, our current strategies and accelerate all of them across the board.”
“We have to step up our game,” Newsom declared. “As we lead the nation in low carbon green growth, we’ll have to fast track our efforts.”
Newsom is fond of making sweeping declarations of noble intent, but most have collided with reality, such as an unconditional pledge to build 3.5 million housing units and solve California’s chronic shortage of housing that he later scaled back to “an aspirational goal.”
There’s a stark reality about Newsom’s new pledge about battling climate change.
First and foremost, however successful California may be at reducing greenhouse gases, it will have virtually no impact on global emissions. This year’s wildfires will more than cancel out whatever progress the state might be making.
Moreover, to “step up our game” would impose new burdens on an economy that’s in deep and perhaps prolonged recession. Californians already shoulder electric utility rates, fuel prices, rents, home prices, state and local taxes and other living costs that are among the nation’s highest.
The state is falling well short of its ambitious goals for replacing cars and trucks with electric vehicles, so how would the state accelerate even more? With more subsidies from a state budget that’s already leaking red ink?
His latest pronouncements notwithstanding, Newsom seems to understand that there is a practical limit to California’s conversion into a carbon-free nirvana. The state was utterly dependent on natural gas electric generation to avoid extensive blackouts during summer heat waves and with Newsom’s tacit support, state regulators temporarily extended the life of several Southern California power plants that had been ticketed for closure.
The state’s most fundamental duty is to protect its 40 million residents from calamities such as deadly wildfires, and we’ve not been very diligent about that.
While climate change contributed to the ferocity of the wildfires, there were plenty of warnings about the dangers of allowing housing developments in fire-prone regions and the buildup of combustible fuel in forests — warnings that were largely ignored.
The Legislature adjourned without acting on proposals to direct more money into fire prevention and firefighting, but they should top the agenda for 2021, if not sooner in a special legislative session. A good beginning would be to stop wasting money on the state’s ridiculous bullet train. The project consumes a large chunk of the proceeds from the “cap-and-trade” auctions of greenhouse gas emission allowances on the fiction that it will make a big dent in those emissions.
In fact, by the High-Speed Rail Authority’s own data, it would reduce automotive travel by, at most, just 1% when fully built-out. Shifting cap-and-trade funds to fire prevention and protection would imply that we’re getting real about climate change and not just indulging in feel-good virtue-signaling.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.
Wave of Bay Area tax measures on Nov. 3 ballot could be a hard sell because of coronavirus Low support for school bonds in primary could hint at voter reluctance
By JOSEPH GEHA | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: September 21, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: September 21, 2020 at 2:49 p.m. Like many cities, counties and school districts in the Bay Area, Union City is in a pickle and hoping against hope taxpayers will vote to bail it out.
The city faces a multimillion-dollar budget deficit that’s getting worse by the day because of the coronavirus pandemic and the parcel tax that’s been its lifeblood since 2004 to help fund police and fire services is about to expire because residents voted in March to not renew it.
In desperation, the City Council is going back to voters on Nov. 3, this time asking them to pass a new 5% utilities tax. Never mind that a poll this summer showed only 44.5% of informed likely voters would support it — short of the simple majority needed to pass.
“Personally, I never like having to ask people to kick in more money,” Mayor Carol Dutra- Vernaci said Thursday. “We know that we have a financial challenge, and we know that we keep getting phone calls with residents who say, ‘I want this service, I want that service.’ So this is their opportunity to weigh in. Should they choose no, then those cuts will be made.”
Throughout the region, local governments, schools and special districts whose revenue streams have been pinched by the pandemic are dangling a plethora of ballot measures pushing new or extended parcel taxes, sales tax increases, higher hotel room taxes and new or additional utility users taxes with the underlying message that their defeat threatens basic services.
Across Alameda, Santa Clara, Contra Costa and San Mateo counties, about 65% of the tax measures are general taxes, meaning they need approval of only a simple majority vote and can be spent however elected leaders decide, even for employee salary increases, regardless of what they promise.
Some of the measures don’t have expiration dates. While elected officials say the money is badly needed, some political observers note that voters — many of whom have seen their jobs vanish and income dwindle from shelter-in- place orders — aren’t as likely as in better days to pass the hat.
“It’s going to be a harder sell than usual this year for tax and spending measures,” Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California, said Tuesday. “Most voters are going to be looking at these measures carefully and thinking about, ‘What do we actually need most to get by?’ ”
In Concord, the City Council is asking voters to double a half-cent sales tax in place since 2010 to one cent and make it permanent.
Mayor Tim McGallian said Tuesday the money is needed to maintain basic services, especially repairing and maintaining streets, though he acknowledged it also could be spent on pension and benefit debts.
“Those types of things are a part of our general fund no matter what,” McGallian said.
He also defended asking voters to remove time limits on the tax. “Not having this silly sunset allows us to bond against certain things, to be able to make things happen sooner,” he said.
Concord is reducing its budget by about $10 million this year and has cut more than 200 staff positions since the last recession, McGallian noted. “Definitely we can keep cutting, but to what detriment?”
But in San Jose, Santa Clara County supervisors last month couldn’t muster up enough votes to place a 5/8-of-a-cent sales tax measure on the ballot, in part because of the bad timing. It needed four votes to get on the ballot and fell short by one.
Supervisor Joe Simitian, who voted to halt the proposed tax in its tracks, said he was concerned about the ballooning county budget and lack of a guarantee that the money would be used as promised. Plus, he couldn’t get behind a regressive tax measure during an economically difficult time for so many.
“The people who can least afford to bear the burden end up shouldering the cost. These are working people who are hanging on by a thread,” Simitian said Thursday in an interview.
“Governments have to make very difficult choices between raising taxes on people who may be in more difficult situations, as opposed to cutting spending in some cases on groups that also may be suffering more,” said Alan Auerbach, an economist and director of the Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at UC Berkeley.
“I don’t think there’s a simple answer to it,” he said.
In Alameda County, the Board of Supervisors is asking voters to approve a new half-cent sales tax for 10 years.
Supervisor Wilma Chan said the money is needed to continue crucial safety net services during the pandemic such as testing, distribution of food and personal protective equipment, and leasing motels to house homeless people to help them avoid getting COVID-19. “Is this the best time to try to tax people? No,” Chan said Tuesday.
“But unless the federal government or the state are able to come forward with ongoing money, we have an obligation to not let people die on the street, so that’s why we’re doing it,” she said. “It’s a very dire situation.”
“I think that all of these taxes would have been here anyway” if the pandemic didn’t happen, Marcus Crawley, head of the Alameda County Taxpayers Association, said Tuesday.
“All of the governments around here have a huge pension deficit problem. They’ve got to either reform the pension deficit, or like a Ponzi scheme, keep getting more and more taxes, and diverting more and more taxes,” Crawley said.
“I don’t think that’s the intention of the board in terms of this tax,” Chan said when asked whether some of the sales tax money could end up going toward pension and benefit packages.
“Obviously if we have extra money to spend on these services then it makes it easier for us to deal with our employees,” she said.
In Daly City, the council is asking voters to approve a new half-cent sales tax to raise about $6 million annually, calling it a “recovery and relief measure” that would “provide emergency funding” for a host of city services.
That doesn’t have an expiration date, however, and the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association in its written opposition argument called it “an ordinary bait-and-switch.”
“Emergencies do not last forever, but this tax will if passed,” the association wrote.
Asked on Thursday why the tax needs to be permanent, Mayor Glenn Sylvester said he wasn’t aware the measure lacked a sunset date.
“I haven’t really read it completely. It was my understanding that if after a few years, if we want to maintain this tax, then we would have to come to the voters again,” Sylvester said.
He said if the measure passes, the city would use the money to restore some fire and police staffing, as well as paying toward several projects
“Rahm Emanuel, when he was in the Obama administration, he said something about how you shouldn’t waste a crisis,” Auerbach said.
But even voters who completely trust their local representatives and believe the stated need is real may still balk at raising taxes.
“These are truly unprecedented times in terms of the fiscal and economic uncertainty generated as a result of the pandemic,” Baldassare said.
“People are going to be selective.”
Letters to the Editor: Justice Ginsburg’s passing brings out GOP hypocrisy
San Francisco Chronicle Sep. 20, 2020 Updated: Sep. 20, 2020 1:29 p.m.
Flowers, candles and signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court pay tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday.
Photo: Jose Luis Magana / AFP / Getty Images The loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg strikes deeply and personally. She was a miracle and leaves an indelible mark on the United States of America and beyond. While at first I was bereft, I remember that she is a miracle, so even her death can lead to something miraculous. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on the other hand, is already showing hypocrisy to be his first and foremost political trait.
How can he, with a straight face, say that he will confirm a Trump Supreme Court nominee with the election less than a month and a half away? Four years ago he emphatically stated the Senate would not consider an Obama nominee using exactly the same reasoning.
RBG = miracle.
McConnell = hypocrisy
Mona Palacios, Oakland
Time for mourning
The most fitting tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg would be for all those invited to replace her to say: Thank you, I am so honored to be considered, and I will entertain your request after a respectful six- month period of mourning.
Carol Denney, Berkeley
Play back that tape
Surely there is an audio recording. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell early in 2016 declared that the next Supreme Court justice should be chosen by the president who is elected that November. Fair- minded senators of both parties should play this recording in the Senate repeatedly — until the message sinks in and is acted upon.
Edith Drewek, Mountain View
Honor RBG’s wish
Put all politics aside. A very special woman who spent her whole life trying to bring what was right to the people of the USA has passed away. She is anything but forgotten. She struggled with cancer for many years, and for the last few she fought it hard so her replacement wouldn’t be a political statement.
On her dying bed her last request was not to be replaced until the election was over and whoever won would replace her. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg earned the right to make a decision on her replacement, so for once let’s put politics aside and respect the wishes of a woman that gave so much of her life for the USA.
Robert Nice, Redwood City
Suggestion for Biden Joe Biden has expressed his commitment to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court. I respectfully suggest: Anita Hill.
Vicki Thompson, Hayward
The lame duck factor
With all the hue and cry demanding that the Senate wait until after the election, even in the light of two Republican senators saying they won’t vote in a nomination until then, we must remember there will be a lame duck session, during which time the GOP leadership can vote in an extreme right-wing judge to the high court as a last act of defiance before the new Congress is sworn in in January.
John Cepelak, San Francisco
Let’s make a deal
Joe Biden is winning in the polls. President Trump says he cannot lose. So here’s the deal: both agree to name a Supreme Count nominee before the election and the winner’s selection gets the seat. As Mitch McConnell said in 2016: It’s an election year; let the people decide.
Albert Sukoff, Berkeley
A champion for justice
With the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, America has lost an important advocate for women’s reproductive freedom and voting rights on the nation’s highest court. And if the president succeeds in replacing her with another right-wing ideologue, I fear that the Supreme Court’s ability to render fair verdicts regardless of a plaintiff’s race, gender or sexual orientation will be lost for generations.
Rest in peace, Notorious RBG, and thank you for your being a champion of citizens whose problems have too often been marginalized by political leaders.
Julian Grant, Pacifica
Test of GOP integrity
Now is the perfect time for Republican senators to demonstrate whether they are honest, upstanding conservatives or just cowardly, corrupt Trump robots. In 2016 they argued successfully that a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia should be deferred until after the soon-to-be held presidential election. Now that the same situation has arisen again with the death of Justice Ruth Ginsburg, will they remain true to their own argument or will their words prove to be nothing more than self-serving politics to be adjusted to suit their convenience?
Hopefully enough Republican senators will have the integrity to let common decency and fair play prevail. Joseph Chance, Emeryville
Checks and balances
It seems that R.I.P. does not apply to RBG.
I fear that the constitutional provision for three branches of government that relate to one another in a system of checks and balances holds no interest for the senator from Kentucky or his leader. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seems determined to remain on his knees, in total obeisance to a corrupt, heartless president.
An act of more craven, opportunistic proportions than Trump and McConnell’s rush to replacement is hard to imagine, but, then again, almost every day brings some new, previously unimaginable insult to the conscience and soul of our nation.
Bill Nichols, San Francisco
CalMatters Commentary: Some 42 years after Proposition 13, another property tax battle Dan Walters CalMatters Commentary
It’s been 42 years since California voters sharply altered the state’s political dynamics by overwhelmingly passing Proposition 13 to slash property taxes, ignoring virtually unanimous opposition from leaders of both political parties.
It’s also been 42 years since Proposition 13’s opponents — public employee unions and others with stakes in government spending — first began plotting how to overturn it.
They assumed, or hoped, that the state Supreme Court would invalidate it. But a generally liberal court refused to do so. They hoped that voters would quickly change their minds once the reduction of revenues affected local government services and schools. That didn’t happen either.
In fact, in polling year after year, Proposition 13 proved to be enduringly popular with voters, despite criticism that it unfairly favored some homeowners over their neighbors and was a windfall to owners of commercial properties, such as office buildings, warehouses and hotels.
Even when California began its historic political evolution from a somewhat conservative state to one of the nation’s bluest bastions, Proposition 13 seemingly remained untouchable, as demonstrated by Jerry Brown’s attitude towards it.
He was a governor seeking his second term when it appeared on the June 1978 ballot and, like other political figures of the time, opposed it, calling it “a ripoff.” But as soon as it passed by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, Brown declared himself to be a “born-again tax cutter” and sponsored a state income tax reduction to align himself with what the media called “a tax revolt.”
Thirty-two years later, when Brown returned to the governorship and faced a severe state budget crisis, he was frequently asked whether it was time to repeal Proposition 13 but consistently ducked it. He did, however, sponsor a state income tax increase that, in spirit, undid the tax cut he and the Legislature had quickly enacted in 1978.
Meanwhile, the union-led anti-Proposition 13 coalition continued to seek ways to attack it, finally settling on what’s called a “split roll” to partially remove some of the tax limits on commercial property while maintaining those for residential real estate. After many false starts, the coalition decided that the 2020 presidential election, with anti-Donald Trump sentiment likely to spark a big turnout of Democratic voters, would be the moment.
That’s how Proposition 15 came to appear on November’s ballot. If passed, it would raise taxable values on commercial property to current market levels, raising as much as $12 billion a year for local governments and schools.
However, the measure’s backers had no way of knowing that the COVID-19 pandemic and the severe recession it spawned would visit themselves on California, changing the tenor of their battle with business groups over the issue.
While proponents argue that the new revenue is needed to keep vital public services, including schools, from being slashed, opponents argue that with businesses already suffering, this is the wrong time to saddle them with more taxes.
Gov. Gavin Newsom lent his support to the measure this month, saying “it’s a fair, phased- in and long-overdue reform to state tax policy (and) it’s consistent with California’s progressive fiscal values…”
However, a few days later, the Public Policy Institute of California released a new poll indicating that support is, to say the least, tepid with just 51% of likely voters inclined to vote for it before opponents unleash a multi-million-dollar advertising barrage against it.
Both proponents and opponents know that Proposition 15 is a proxy battle over whether Proposition 13 is still an untouchable icon. It’s showdown time after 42 years of skirmishing.
A Message from General Manager Robert E. Doyle Corps, Jobs, Wildfires, Smoke and Health
Sep 24, 2020
The continued heavy pressure on park agencies as an essential service and limited staffing coupled with the out of massive control fires in the west is not sustainable without a greater investment in public lands stewardship
As one of the largest employers of youth in the East Bay, the East Bay Regional Park District supports recent Federal legislation to expand national service jobs programs. Two bills specifically will help large land management agencies, like the Park District, address the challenge of managing large urban forests safely to avoid catastrophic wildfire.
The Cultivating Opportunity and Response to the Pandemic through Service (CORPS) Act (referred to in an opinion piece on Sept. 4) and the 21st Century Conservation Corps for Our Health and Our Jobs bills will fund job corps teams in urban areas with high youth unemployment to assist with important and necessary work benefitting the community while receiving lifelong learning and marketable job skills.
In addition to fire-related funding in the 21st CCC legislation, the CORPS Act would help address the challenges experienced by park agencies during the pandemic. Given the limited options for essential outdoor activity, park visitation has surged well beyond the expected annual increase as observed over the last 86 years. The Park District continues to invest in the necessary work to keep parks open and safe for communities of the East Bay and greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Recent Park District commissioned surveying revealed 96 percent of East Bay respondents believe accessibility to parks and trails has been significantly important for maintaining the mental and physical health of East Bay communities during this pandemic. Additionally, 89 percent of respondents supported providing safe, outdoor jobs for youth.
The Park District has historically provided the largest number of jobs for youth in the East Bay at nearly 400 positions per year. Expanding national service opportunities through AmeriCorps and other programs can provide East Bay youth jobs for a variety of important functions. EBRPD is currently working with the Student Conservation Association to repair, maintain and improve the more than 1,330 miles of trails within the district’s trail network. Projects for the preservation of natural habitats and expansion of accessible recreation areas continue to move forward across the two-county jurisdiction – investing in the local economy and supporting a variety of jobs.
The work of the East Bay Regional Park District and East Bay communities would all directly and indirectly benefit from additional national service jobs.
When asked if parks are an essential service during a pandemic, 89 percent of respondents said yes. Parks have always been important, but never so much as now. Parks and other public lands have remained largely open during the pandemic and will still be there after COVID-19. Proper and ongoing stewardship of public lands, particularly with extreme weather and climate change, is as important now as ever and will continue to be more so in the future.
The CORPS Act and the 21st Century Conservation Corps legislation would benefit jobs, the economy, parks, and our communities at a crucial time.
Let’s invest in the health of our community and our young people by providing jobs -- environmentally, through parks and national service.
((ITAL))Robert Doyle is general manager of the East Bay Regional Park District. Doyle has been with the Park District since 1975 and has served as General Manager since 2011. The East Bay Regional Park District is the largest park district of its kind in the United States with 73 regional parks on over 130,000 acres of open space.((ITAL))
Manjoo: A dive into the 1960s offers insights into today’s world Even under a president as mendacious as Nixon, the political universe was still bounded by a shared sense of reality
In this Aug. 9, 1974 file photo, President Richard Nixon waves goodbye from the steps of his helicopter outside the White House, after he gave a farewell address to members of the White House staff. Nixon was taken to nearby Andrews Air Force Base where he boarded Air Force One for a flight to California. On Aug. 7, 1974, three top Republican leaders in Congress paid a solemn visit to Nixon at the White House, bearing the message that he faced near-certain impeachment due to eroding support in his own party on Capitol Hill. Nixon, who had been entangled in the Watergate scandal for two years, announced his resignation the next day. (AP Photo/Chick Harrity)
By FARHAD MANJOO |
PUBLISHED: September 24, 2020 at 6:15 a.m. | UPDATED: September 24, 2020 at 6:36 a.m.
After the 2016 election, I was deeply shaken not just by the outcome, but by the terrifying sense that I did not understand the nation as well as I’d thought I did. To blunt the shock, I went on a bender through American history. I dove into books about the Civil War, the Progressive era and, finally, Robert Caro’s titanic biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, where I washed up on the shores of the turbulent 1960s. I discovered something amazing: After 1960, much of history as many Americans experienced it — through popular culture on TV, on the radio and at the movies — is preserved and easily accessible online. With a few clicks around YouTube, history leaps into the present, often in ways that deepen and complicate the narrative.
For instance, Caro ably describes Johnson’s stirring first presidential address to Congress. It was five days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the new president pressed lawmakers to pass civil rights legislation in Kennedy’s honor. “Everywhere you looked, people were crying,” the journalist Hugh Sidey wrote.
Watching the speech is something else. “All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today,” Johnson begins, and the hairs on the back of your neck tingle. You feel the weight of the hushed chamber and Johnson’s labored delivery. And then, the trauma that enveloped the audience is transformed, over the 24-minute address, into cheering determination, even hope.
That was the speech that hooked me, and soon I found myself living a second life in the past. I’d spend my days as a journalist covering the raucous present; but on and off over the last few years, on nights and weekends and vacations, I’d jump into my digital DeLorean and take up residence in earlier times.
It is a project I commend you to try. I promise it will give you fresh perspective on a present as nutty as ours.
My method was straightforward; I began by reading. In addition to Caro’s Johnson biography, the historian Rick Perlstein’s excellent books on the rise of modern conservatism — which take readers from Barry Goldwater through the treacheries of Richard Nixon to, in the latest volume, the political era dominated by Ronald Reagan — are a perfect place to start.
Then, as you read, seek out videos online. There’s Johnson’s 1965 speech introducing the Voting Rights Act, in which he invoked the anthem “We Shall Overcome,” a speech that made Martin Luther King Jr. cry. You will find King’s own thundering speeches — not just the most famous one, but also many others worthy of your time, including the last one he gave.
Here is Walter Cronkite telling Americans the truth about the war in Vietnam, which pushed Johnson not to run for reelection. By the time you get to Nixon you are overwhelmed with video — from his slick 1968 campaign ads to the testimony in the Senate’s 1973 Watergate hearings as it unfolded.
The Trump era has drawn numerous comparisons to the 1960s and early ’70s. Both periods have had protests, riots, police brutality, political turmoil and corruption and endless war. And both have been consumed by unsettled questions over race, gender and equality.
The basic grammar of political media was different from what we see today: The questions were longer and more complex, the answers more detailed and nuanced. Even under a president as mendacious as Nixon, the political universe was still bounded by a shared sense of reality. Facts mattered, and documentary evidence had weight. If a politician said something today that contradicted what he (or, rarely, she) said yesterday, or there were recordings of a president disclosing something in private that undermined what he’d said in public, the inconsistencies were considered damning. Broadcast news, which the TV networks offered as public service, also had little room for cheap punditry and outrage in search of profits. As a result, the coverage was more serious than anything on the dial today — no shouting talking heads, no montages of precisely edited sound bites, nothing engineered to drive you to share with your million friends. But because broadcast news was the only game in town, it was also more trustworthy, and more influential — perhaps explaining why both Johnson’s and Nixon’s presidencies ultimately collapsed under the weight of their own distortions.
In the fishbowl of 2020, where the news is fragmented and none of us can remember yesterday, we are not at all so lucky.
California faces dire consequences if climate change unaddressed, report warns
Tal Kopan Sep. 24, 2020 Updated: Sep. 24, 2020 8:18 p.m.2
The Golden Gate Bridge, shrouded in dark orange smoke from multiple wildfires burning across California and Oregon, on Sept. 9.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle
WASHINGTON — More than 500,000 Californians could die prematurely and the state could lose $4.5 trillion in the next 50 years if rising climate temperatures go unchecked, a new congressional report warns.
If the planet’s warming is kept below 2 degrees Celsius, however, those deaths could be avoided, and in 10 years, premature deaths caused by climate-change-fueling air pollution could be cut by a third. Those are the conclusions in a report unveiled Thursday by Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on environment, which is chaired by Rep. Harley Rouda, D-Laguna Beach (Orange County). The report is based on research by noted Duke University climate scientist Drew Shindell. It was released to coincide with the panel’s hearing Thursday on climate change, one of several that Democrats have held to make the case for taking action to limit greenhouse-gas emissions.
The report focuses on the possible benefits from restoring the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set a target for its member nations to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius, the equivalent of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. President Trump withdrew from the agreement upon taking office.
Rouda and fellow Democratic House Oversight and Reform Committee members Reps. Mark DeSaulnier of Concord, Ro Khanna of Fremont and Katie Porter of Irvine, called the report a “call to action” in a joint statement to The Chronicle.
“The unprecedented wildfires that have continued to burn throughout California over the past few months have devastated the West Coast and illustrate the life-shattering harms of climate change,” the lawmakers said. “What is currently happening across California has shown the rest of the country that climate change isn’t a problem for future generations to solve — our constituents are living this reality right now.”
The analysis released Thursday used models developed by Shindell that calculate different climate outcomes based on the amount of effort governments put into reducing carbon emissions. While a previous study by the subcommittee looked at the effect nationwide, the research released Thursday focuses on California alone.
The study used epidemiological data to calculate the health effects and a system used by the Environmental Protection Agency to tally the economic consequences. It compared the 2-degree benchmark to a scenario in which the climate is allowed to warm 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
In addition to avoiding 555,000 premature deaths over 50 years in California alone, adherence to the Paris Agreement goals would avert 400,000 hospital visits, including 4,900 for children with asthma, the congressional study said.
By 2040, interventions could prevent 147,000 early deaths and 300,000 of those hospital visits, the study said.
The Democratic-led congressional report takes aim at the Trump administration, accusing it of taking actions that risk making climate change worse — including its attempt to roll back the Obama administration rule strengthening fuel economy standards for cars.
That effort has spurred a legal battle with California, which has its own emissions standards that exceed the federal government’s and has made agreements with car manufacturers to stick to them. The Trump administration is trying to revoke California’s ability to set its own standards, prompting another court fight.
This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom moved to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles in the state by 2035. The Trump administration has argued that its emissions rule will be better for people’s health by keeping car prices down, thus reducing the number of older, less safe cars on the road than would be the case if fuel economy requirements continued to rise.
Republicans in general, and Trump in particular, have dismissed the global scientific consensus that human behavior is causing rising temperatures and thus shifts in climate patterns.
At the committee’s last hearing on climate change, Republicans invited a witness who testified that the societal and technological advances brought on by fossil fuel energy consumption outweigh and mitigate the health costs of pollution.
Mnuchin and Powell back jobless aid and small business loans By MARTIN CRUTSINGERSeptember 24, 2020
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin testifies during the Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing examining the quarterly CARES Act report to Congress on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2020, in Washington. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post via AP, Pool) WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday that the government’s top priorities in any new economic relief package should be to provide affordable loans to small businesses and further support for millions of Americans still unemployed.
With the prospects for any new federal aid package appearing dim, members of the Senate Banking Committee pressed both officials to list improvements that could be quickly made in the nearly $3 trillion in support that Congress has passed to fight the pandemic-induced recession that has nearly 11 million people still jobless.
Democrats on the panel urged Mnuchin, one of the administration’s top negotiators, to work harder to persuade Republicans in Congress to raise the amount of money they would be willing to support in a new bill. And Republicans urged Democratic members to consider a lower amount that might clear both the House and Senate with Election Day less than six weeks away.
Mnuchin agreed that business loans and enhanced unemployment support would be good priorities for Congress to back in any new package.
Pressed to state what the top priorities should be, Powell cited providing more support through the popular Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses and boosting unemployment benefits. The PPP still holds around $130 billion that had not been allocated when authorization for the program expired.
The original relief package provided a $600-a-week federal unemployment benefit, on top of whatever jobless aid a state provides. But the $600 benefit has expired. Many Republicans have argued that amount was so large as to dissuade some unemployed people from looking for a job.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to provide $300 in weekly benefits, with states supplying $100. But that program has not been widely supported by states and has now expired.
Powell and Mnuchin testified this week before committees in both the House and Senate that are providing oversight of programs created to deal with the economic fallout from the pandemic.
Mnuchin said that in addition to the $130 billion that has not yet been spent from the Paycheck Protection Program, he would support reallocating $200 billion that Congress gave to Treasury to serve as a backstop for potential loan losses in various emergency programs being run by the Fed.
Many of those Fed programs are operating far below the levels that had been expected, so Treasury has not had to use the money provided to cover losses.
Powell repeated his view that providing more support was essential to keep the economy on a sustained upturn. He said that a big risk is that many unemployed people will have a hard time finding new jobs because they work in areas of the economy where job losses have been the largest, such as restaurants and bars.
Mnuchin was pressed by some senators to further simplify government forms that businesses need to provide to qualify for having their Paycheck Protection Program loans forgiven. He said that Treasury and the Small Business Administration had made the forms easier to fill out but that he could support legislation that has been proposed to automatically forgive loans below $150,000. That, with the caveat that government auditors be allowed to go back and review any loans in that category where questions were raised about whether the money was obtained fraudulently.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., praised Powell for the Fed’s decision in August to modify its policy and allow inflation to run above the central bank’s 2% inflation target for a period of time. That would allow the Fed to concentrate for a longer period on pushing unemployment lower. Before the pandemic hit, unemployment in February was down to a half-century low of 3.5%.
Warren called this a “good first step” in reorienting Fed policies to deal with the income gaps between white and Black Americans but she said more Fed action is needed.
She said she has drafted legislation to require the Fed to report on what it is doing about income gaps between different segments of the population as part of the regular monetary policy reports it must make to Congress.
California passes first-in-nation plastics recycling law Measure will require billions of soda, juice and other bottles to contain 50% recycled plastic
Michael Lujano dumps plastic bottles into the hopper to be weighed as he handles a customer’s recyclables at the Tri- CED recycling facility in Union City, Calif. on Friday, June 9, 2017. (Kristopher Skinner — Bay Area News Group archives)
By PAUL ROGERS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: September 25, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: September 26, 2020 at 9:35 p.m.
In a move aimed at reducing huge amounts of plastic litter in the ocean and on land, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a first-in-the-nation law requiring plastic beverage containers to contain an increasing amount of recycled material.
Under it, companies that produce everything from sports drinks to soda to bottled water must use 15% recycled plastic in their bottles by 2022, 25% recycled plastic by 2025, and 50% recycled plastic by 2030. Supporters of the new law say it will help increase demand for recycled plastic, curb litter in waterways and along roads, and reduce consumption of oil and gas, which are used to manufacture new plastics.
“This is the most ambitious, aggressive recycled plastics content law in the world,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a Sacramento-based environmental group.
In a legislative session hamstrung by the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout, the bill, AB 793 by Assembly members Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, and Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, was considered to be among the most significant environmental laws that passed this year. In California, roughly 12 billion plastic bottles are sold every year. Although about 70% are recycled, often into other types of plastic packaging, more than 3 billion bottles are not recycled at all, according to state statistics. Most of those are dumped in landfills or discarded as litter in the outdoors.
After China stopped accepting many waste plastics two years ago, there has been a glut.
“We are doing a really good job of collecting things for recycling,” Murray said. “The difficult part has been finding an end-use market for it. This new law is about closing the loop. Now companies that manufacture the plastic bottles have to buy them back. They’ll have the responsibility.”
California already requires 35% of glass bottles sold in the state to be made of recycled content, and 50% of newsprint to be made from recycled content.
Some industry groups opposed the plastic content bill when it was first introduced two years ago, helping kill it then. But with an increasing number of companies committed to making recycled bottles as scientists report more and more alarming facts about plastic pollution in the oceans, and European nations imposing similar rules, their opposition has largely melted away.
“The time has come for companies to step up and help us be good environmental stewards,” Ting said. “By boosting the market for used plastics, fewer containers will end up as litter.”
Naked Juice, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, uses bottles made with 100% recycled content for all of its juices. Evian has announced that it will make all its water bottles from 100% recycled plastic by 2025.
Rather than fighting the bill, the plastics industry, container manufacturers and retailers focused efforts on a more controversial plastics pollution bill this year in Sacramento, SB54. That would have required companies to reduce the waste generated from single-use packaging like utensils, plates, cups and straws in California 75% by 2030. That drop could come through recycling, composting or reduction in the amount of packaging.
That bill failed this year and last year. Last month, environmental groups and the San Francisco garbage and recycling company Recology submitted more than 870,000 signatures for a statewide ballot measure to place a similar measure before voters in November 2022.
Plastic waste has become one of the world’s major environmental problems.
Half the plastic that has ever existed on Earth was made in the last 13 years. Only 9% of the plastic sold every year in the United States is recycled. Up to 13 million metric tons of it ends up in the world’s oceans each year — the equivalent of a garbage truck-full being dumped into the sea every minute — where it kills fish, birds, sea turtles, whales and dolphins that eat it or become entangled by it. Plastic lasts for hundreds of years. Making it consumes large amounts of petroleum products, which contributes to climate change. And at the current rate, one recent study found there will be more plastic by weight in the ocean in 2050 than fish, most of it broken into trillions of tiny pieces of toxic confetti. Newsom signed the plastics law late Thursday. He also signed two other significant environmental bills.
One, AB 3214, by Assemblywoman Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara, doubles fines for oil spills to up to $1 million a day and also up to $1,000 per gallon spilled when oil companies cause spills or cover them up. It is the first time the state’s oil spill penalties have been increased in 30 years. The measure was written after a major oil spill in Santa Barbara County in 2015, when a pipeline ruptured, sending 140,000 gallons of crude oil along the coast and killing birds, dolphins and sea lions, and closing commercial fisheries for more than a month.
Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline was convicted of one felony and eight misdemeanors for failing to maintain the pipeline, along with mishandling the response to the spill. The company paid a $3 million penalty, which critics said was far too low.
The other bill, SB 1320, by Sen. Henry Stern, D-Calabasas, directs the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research to issue a study every five years documenting how climate change is affecting California, including the economic costs, as a way to inform future legislation.
Back from brink of death, Mark DeSaulnier is ready to work and run again
Tal Kopan Sep. 27, 2020 Updated: Sep. 27, 2020 4 a.m.2
U.S. Representative Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) poses for a portrait outside of his home in Concord, Calif. on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2020.Photo: Marissa Leshnov / Special to The Chronicle
WASHINGTON — The last thing Concord Rep. Mark DeSaulnier remembers is a voice telling the ambulance driver to turn on the sirens. He spent the next month unconscious.
It was March 13. The Democrat was being rushed to a hospital in the nation’s capital, where he would be put on a ventilator as he battled pneumonia and a virulent infection. He suffered a mild heart attack and faced multiple organ failure. Doctors at one point gave him a 10% chance of surviving. But survive he did. Now he’s back to work, back to hopes of someday finishing another marathon, and back in the East Bay district he has represented at the local, state and federal level for decades.
It was his second victory over death, after the chronic cancer that was diagnosed in 2015. He’s keenly aware that exposure to the coronavirus would all but ensure that in a third battle, death would win. That gives the 68-year-old DeSaulnier the clarity to be thankful for the days he has left — and intensifies his fury at politicians he thinks trivialize the danger of a disease that has killed 200,000 Americans.
“Burning in hell isn’t enough” for that, he told The Chronicle in his first interview about his illness, his continued recovery and his redoubled belief in the importance of his work.
DeSaulnier has gained strength and weight since making his first public comments about the ordeal in a video he released when he returned to work in May. He believes in being open with his constituents about his condition, as he was with the chronic cancer and treatment for it that makes him extremely vulnerable to infection. That condition is why his fall while running, in which he broke his ribs and scraped an elbow, resulted in life-threatening pneumonia.
DeSaulnier, a veteran of 23 marathons and several half marathons, embarked on that March 4 run as part of training for a race he intended to do with one of his sons. Near the Capitol building, he picked up the pace to make a changing traffic light, tripped over his feet and went down.
“I was going through the air and I thought, goddamn, this is going to hurt,” DeSaulnier said. And it didn’t stop hurting — the next day he went to a doctor, who found he had broken four ribs.
DeSaulnier only has fuzzy memories of the next nine days, as his condition deteriorated. His chief of staff, Betsy Arnold Marr, colleagues and doctors have helped him piece it together: His pain intensified and he had trouble breathing, which he and his doctor attributed to allergies. He spent the weekend at home in the East Bay, where he later found a collection of medicine that revealed futile attempts to find relief at the drugstore.
By March 12 — the day schools across California began to close in response to the pandemic — DeSaulnier was back in Washington. Colleagues could tell he was in bad shape.
“Normally, we would joke with each other, but I could tell right away he was in no joking mood and was in substantial pain. He looked gaunt and ashen,” recalled Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo.
The next day, Arnold Marr took DeSaulnier to the House physician, who quickly called an ambulance.
The congressman’s son Tucker DeSaulnier, 35, whose marathon hopes had spurred his father’s training, had set out to visit him in the Bay Area. The elder DeSaulnier had turned him around, saying allergies were giving him trouble. By the time Tucker got back to his home in Los Angeles, DeSaulnier was in the intensive care unit at George Washington Hospital.
He was suffering from pneumonia; fluid was filling his lungs. He was sedated and put on mechanical ventilation. Doctors soon diagnosed methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — a superbug bacteria that is particularly difficult to treat — and sepsis, a blood condition brought on by infection. DeSaulnier later tested negative for the coronavirus, and throughout his hospital stay he was treated by a team that had no contact with COVID-19 patients. DeSaulnier’s doctors told Tucker and his brother, Tristan DeSaulnier, that they should fly to Washington. Tucker recalls being allowed to see his father only through the window of the door. COVID precautions were already in place, and Tucker says the only people being allowed to visit non-coronavirus patients were relatives of the dying.
“Possibly the weirdest part of it was the wonderful staff of the George Washington ICU had combed his hair, and he doesn’t usually do that,” Tucker said, laughing. “He does it with his hand very casually. So the most jarring thing was that he looked like an 8-year-old boy whose mom had combed his hair for church.”
The two sons and Tucker’s wife, Claudia, walked more than 3 miles from the hospital across a deserted city to DeSaulnier’s apartment near the Capitol, convinced he was not going to make it. The next day, California would advise residents to stay mostly at home and shut down much of public life.
“It felt apocalyptic and eerie,” Tucker said. “As things were sort of fully calamitized personally, it was becoming clear that we were in a global calamity. ... Those things happening simultaneously was very surreal and strange, but also weirdly appropriate.”
DeSaulnier’s family was called back to the hospital on March 21 and seated in a windowless room. His doctor explained that DeSaulnier’s lungs, brain, heart and kidneys were all failing.
As a “Hail Mary pass,” Tucker recalled, doctors would try an outdated procedure of inserting tubes into DeSaulnier’s chest to drain the fluid and relieve the pressure, in the hope that helping one of the organs would allow the others to heal. The next day, instead of a call telling him it didn’t work, Tucker got news that his father’s condition was slightly improved.
It began a long recovery, when the pendulum would swing between positive signs and setbacks. But slowly, DeSaulnier showed signs of stronger brain function, including responding to nurses calling his name.
He was taken off the ventilator April 11 and was discharged three weeks later. DeSaulnier spent about a month at his home in Washington being administered intravenous antibiotics by family members. In what Tucker likened to a “military operation,” they got his dad back to his home in the East Bay, where the regimen continued.
DeSaulnier’s memory after the ambulance ride resumes in the rehabilitation ward at George Washington, where loved ones and doctors filled him in on the previous five weeks — including how the world had changed amid the pandemic. On one weekday, DeSaulnier asked why his son wasn’t at the office. Tucker explained that no one was.
Through it all, DeSaulnier’s family was highly aware that any exposure to the coronavirus would probably be deadly for him. When Tucker visited his unconscious father’s bedside, he wore a mask and spoke from 8 feet away. That mentality continues to this day, with the small family bubble following rigorous precautions.
“You’re sort of always conscious of the fact that breathing on him could be the thing that kills him,” Tucker said. “He didn’t spend the last six months going through what he went through in order to get sick and die because someone didn’t wear a mask or didn’t behave responsibly in this situation.” DeSaulnier is still working through physical and emotional effects from the ordeal. He has gained back 30 of the 50 pounds he lost, and has raised his walking endurance from mere footsteps to 5 to 6 miles daily. He and his family are working through complex feelings about the randomness of the incident, as well as DeSaulnier’s guilt for the stress it caused his loved ones.
He recalls one day sitting in his home with Tucker and Claudia and trying to grasp everything that had happened to him.
“I looked at them and I said, ‘I am alive, right? This isn’t heaven?’” DeSaulnier said. “The appreciation for being alive, the effect it has, particularly on your relationships with your family and the people you love. ... There was this pain in trying to figure out what happened, and then on the other side, these wonderful sort of really transcendental moments where you’re thinking, ‘Goddamn, what a wonderful existence.’”
He has resumed work remotely, including voting by proxy and holding virtual town hall meetings.
He also feels rededicated to his job — he is running for re-election to keep it — and furious at politicians whom he sees as not taking the pandemic or the health of the American people seriously enough.
“Why can’t I walk down the street without worrying about some clown who doesn’t care about science?” DeSaulnier said. “The breakdown of our social contract, I can see (it) very clearly when I see people who don’t wear masks. ... I mean, that’s not a big sacrifice.”
He continued: “If people aren’t willing to wear a mask and socially distance to protect themselves, their families and their neighbors, what does that say about the American culture? And the fact that we have a president of the United States who — people died because of him, because he lied about the risk. I mean, burning in hell isn’t enough.”
In response, White House spokesman Judd Deere cited measures by President Trump, including restricting travel and using executive powers to speed testing and vaccine development, as “bold actions” to save lives that “stand in stark contrast to the do-nothing Democrats who just complain and obstruct.”
DeSaulnier is also angry at House GOP Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, who has led Republicans in criticizing Democrats for changing the chamber’s rules to allow for proxy voting during the pandemic. He says no Republican colleagues have reached out to check on him.
“He’s politicizing something to me that presents an existential threat to my existence and to being able to do my job. I want to be alive, and I think I do a damn good job at what I do,” DeSaulnier said. “I very much resent it, personally and professionally. He’s risking lives while he does that, and he’s also making it harder for the federal government to function.”
McCarthy stood by his opposition to proxy voting, saying that when lawmakers have to miss votes for “personal health reasons,” they can enter a statement in the Congressional Record on how they would have voted. He said Congress has gathered in person through wars and other pandemics.
“This time should be no different. And we have already seen questionable practices of proxy voting,” McCarthy said in a statement. “Proxy voting weakens the voice of our constituents and serves to consolidate power in fewer individuals.” DeSaulnier, who was a Republican before switching parties in 2000, also accused the GOP of undermining the nation’s public health infrastructure and infectious disease response through funding cuts and second-guessing scientists.
“It’s killing people; it’s putting people at risk,” DeSaulnier said. “What’s the point of being in office if you’re going to put Americans at risk and kill them? You’re supposed to be protecting them, irrespective of whether you’re conservative or liberal.”
DeSaulnier’s 2015 cancer diagnosis coincided with the beginning of his tenure in Congress and prompted him to focus his work on the health care system. The garrulous Democrat is well-known among his colleagues but rarely makes headlines, which he says is by design. This year’s near-death experience has only heightened his belief in what DeSaulnier calls “ordinary virtues.”
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, an avid runner, is pictured in an undated photograph participating in the San Francisco Marathon.
He says the value in helping people in even small ways was affirmed when he awoke to thousands of messages from constituents, including many who were helped by his office.
One was Isabel Bueso, a Concord woman with a life-threatening disability who was allowed to stay in the U.S. after DeSaulnier helped bring attention to the Trump administration’s threat to deport her. Bueso was frequently checking on the congressman and encouraging everyone she knew to pray for his health, said Arnold Marr, the chief of staff.
“We helped save her life, and she helped save my life in her own spiritual way. ... I believe that,” DeSaulnier said.
Tucker said his father became more introspective after his cancer diagnosis, and that effect has been multiplied this year.
“He becomes increasingly meditative each time, and also oddly more earnest,” Tucker said. “He seems most interested in saying the thing that is true to him and less interested in baggage or strategy around that.”
DeSaulnier says he intends to spend the time he’s won back doing work he finds meaningful.
“If I go through the two things I’ve gone through and I don’t give everything I can every moment I have the opportunity to do it,” he said, “then what kind of fool would I be?”
Opinion: Contra Costa growth boundary threatened by development plan Proposed Tassajara deal includes proposed $6.5 million payoff to county to bust voter-approved Urban Limit Line
Undeveloped land is seen in Contra Costa County near Danville in 2016. The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors might soon decide whether to approve a new housing project in the Tassajara Valley. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)
By RICHARD FISCHER and GRETCHEN LOGUE |
PUBLISHED: September 27, 2020 at 6:10 a.m. | UPDATED: September 27, 2020 at 6:20 a.m.
Contra Costa County’s Urban Limit Line has successfully defended against unrestrained urban sprawl over most of the last two decades. It has saved the remarkable and beautiful land of the county from overdevelopment, allowing for agriculture and open space for the enjoyment of residents.
When voters adopted the ULL, it provided significant protections. The terms required a countywide vote for housing developments outside the ULL that exceeded 30 acres in size. However, it did provide a mechanism whereby a development of 30 acres or less could be approved without a countywide vote. Such a development could be approved by a vote of four of the five members of the county Board of Supervisors and a finding of at least one of seven narrowly restrictive exceptions.
Today, such a proposed 30-acre exception is before the county’s Planning Commission on Wednesday and may soon go to the Board of Supervisors for approval. It doesn’t meet any of the seven exceptions, and it should be rejected.
In the history of the ULL, there has only been one such 30-acre approval granted by the county. The Bay Point Waterfront project moved approximately 21 acres of undeveloped open space and commercial recreation lands inside the ULL in exchange for moving 22 acres of regional parkland outside the ULL. Approval for the change was possible because the board used one of the exceptions, that the change would more accurately reflect topographical characteristics or legal boundaries.
The project under consideration today for approval is known as Tassajara Parks. The project’s sponsor has claimed that by dedicating a substantial amount of acreage for park usage it would qualify for an exemption known as an “Agricultural Preservation Agreement.” However, the area is already preserved because the ULL prevents urban development. An analogy might be helpful. One needs a pair of shoes to protect the feet. Adding another pair of shoes on top of the existing shoes does not add needed protection.
County voters who overwhelmingly approved the adoption of the ULL wanted strict protections against sprawl. The ULL is subject to review every five years and adjustments made if the county determines it needs to provide more space for housing and job growth. In fact, such a review was conducted in November 2016, and it concluded that the county had enough developable land within the ULL to last until 2036. Since developable land exists within the ULL and there is no valid exception for approval of Tassajara Parks outside the ULL, the county should reject it.
In the Final Environmental Impact Report prepared by the county’s Conservation and Development Department, it reported that the project’s sponsor will dedicate land for park usage and write a check for $6.5 million to a county fund, an increase of $2.5 million over the offer made in 2016. If this methodology results in approval, future developers could use this sort of payoff as a blueprint for future 30-acre developments — dedicate some land and write a large enough check to the county. These developments could be coming to previously reserved open space near you.
The Tassajara Valley Preservation Association has been an advocate for controlled growth that follows the rule of law. We know that all of us believe in fair play and trust that our government officials follow the letter and spirit of our laws. Time is short. Please join us and over 3,600 county residents who have signed a petition to our county supervisors to protect our ULL. More information can be seen on our organization’s website, Tassajaravalleypa.org.
Judge removes Trump public lands boss for serving unlawfully By MATTHEW BROWN September 25, 2020
FILE - In this Aug. 14, 2020, file photo, William Perry Pendley, acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, speaks to the media on the Grizzly Creek Fire in Eagle, Colo. A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration's leading steward of public lands has been serving unlawfully and blocked him from continuing in the position. U.S. District Judge Brian Morris said Friday, Sept. 25, 2020, that U.S. Bureau of Land Management acting director William Perry Pendley was never confirmed to the post by the U.S. Senate and served unlawfully for 424 days. Montana's Democratic governor had sued to remove Pendley, saying the the former oil industry attorney was illegally overseeing a government agency that manages almost a quarter- billion acres of land, primarily in the U.S. West. (Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily via AP, File)
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s leading steward of public lands has been serving unlawfully, blocking him from continuing in the position in the latest pushback against the administration’s practice of filling key positions without U.S. Senate approval.
U.S. Interior Department Bureau of Land Management acting director William Perry Pendley served unlawfully for 424 days without being confirmed to the post by the Senate as required under the Constitution, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris determined.
The ruling came after Montana’s Democratic governor in July sued to remove Pendley, saying the former oil industry attorney was illegally overseeing an agency that manages almost a quarter-billion acres of land, primarily in the U.S. West.
“Today’s ruling is a win for the Constitution, the rule of law, and our public lands,” Gov. Steve Bullock said Friday. Environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers from Western states also cheered the judge’s move after urging for months that Pendley be removed.
The ruling will be immediately appealed, according to Interior Department spokesman Conner Swanson. He called it “an outrageous decision that is well outside the bounds of the law,” and he said the Obama administration had similarly filled key posts at the agency with temporary authorizations.
The agency will abide by the judge’s order while the appeal is pending, officials said. It will also have to confront questions over the legitimacy of all decisions Pendley had made, including his approval of land use plans in Montana that Morris said Pendley was not authorized to make.
The land bureau regulates activities ranging from mining and oil extraction to livestock grazing and recreation. Under Trump, it has been at the forefront in the administration’s drive to loosen environmental restrictions for oil and gas drilling and other development on public lands.
Pendley has been one of several senior officials in the Trump administration running federal agencies and departments despite not having gone before the Senate for the confirmation hearings that are required for top posts.
Last month, the Government Accountability Office, a bipartisan congressional watchdog, said acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and his acting deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, were improperly serving and ineligible to run the agency under the Vacancies Reform Act. The two have been at the forefront of administration initiatives on immigration and law enforcement.
Trump agencies have defended the skipped deadlines for Senate hearings for administration nominees, saying that the senior officials involved were carrying out the duties of their acting position but were not actually filling that position, and thus did not require a hearing and votes before the Senate. Pendley had been formally nominated by Trump to direct the land bureau in July, after being given temporary authorizations to the acting position several times by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.
But the nomination was withdrawn earlier this month after the confirmation process threatened to become contentious, potentially disrupting key U.S. senate races in Montana, where Bullock is seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Steve Daines, and Colorado, where Republican Sen. Cory Gardner is being challenged by former Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Pendley continued to hang on to the post despite the withdrawal, under an arrangement that Pendley himself set up months ago. In a May 22 order, Pendley made his own position, deputy director, the bureau’s top post while the director’s office is vacant.
After establishing that succession order, Pendley’s actions included approval of two sweeping land resource management plans in Montana that would open 95% of federal land in the state to oil and gas development, attorneys for Bullock contended in court filings.
Administration officials had insisted in public statements and court filings that Pendley was not in fact the acting director, but rather “exercising the authority of the director.”
Morris rejected the administration’s argument, saying they were “evasive and undermine the constitutional system of checks and balances.”
“Under the federal defendant’s theory, a president could ignore their constitutional appointment responsibility indefinitely and instead delegate authority directly or through cabinet secretaries to unconfirmed appointed officials. Such an arrangement could last for an entire presidential administration. In fact, the case before the Court presents that scenario,” he wrote.
The bureau’s holdings are sweeping, with nearly 1 out of every 10 acres nationally under its dominion, mostly across the U.S. West.
Pendley was a longtime industry attorney and property rights advocate from Wyoming who had called for the government to sell its public lands before joining the Trump administration.
After joining the government, he declared that his past support for selling public lands was irrelevant because his boss, Bernhardt, opposes the wholesale sale of public lands.
Trump’s actions to bypass the confirmation process has raised serious questions about the legitimacy of people in acting roles.
The GOP-led Senate typically is falling short of the votes needed from its ranks to confirm some of Trump’s choices. But as Trump bypassed the chamber, chipping away at its advise-and-consent role, the Republican leadership has also allowed the acting positions to stand.
Shortly after the GAO questioned the DHS officials, Trump formally nominated Wolf to the secretary post. A hearing was held last week in the Senate on his nomination, but it’s unlikely Wolf will be confirmed before the election.
Why we need redwoods to fight climate change
Gregory Thomas Sep. 25, 2020 Updated: Sep. 28, 2020 2:06 a.m.
A trail through the Childrens Grove of old-growth redwoods after the recovery of the 2003 wildfire in Humboldt Redwoods State Park
Photo: John Harvey / Special to The Chronicle
On Sept. 10, Sam Hodder drove the winding highway into Big Basin State Park to see the damage of this season’s vicious wildfires with his own eyes.
Approaching the park, he saw plots where homes had been leveled by fire adjacent to houses that appeared untouched by the flames. But Hodder, president of Save the Redwoods League, wasn’t there to observe structural damage. He went to survey the damage to redwood forests, which have been particularly hard-hit by the latest series of wildfires sweeping across Northern California’s wooded landscape.
He looked for signs of survivors. The canopy above him, he noted, was still intact — the fires hadn’t burned all the way to the crowns of the magnificent trees, which can rise up to 300 feet tall. He spotted green needles and fire-hardened bark on trees that remained standing — positive indicators of the redwoods’ resilience.
“As I walked through, I noticed some green pushing through the ashes in some places, and I was reminded again that these redwood trees have seen fires many times before and they will come back again,” Hodder said.
As firefighters work to contain wildfires across the region during California’s worst year of wildfires on record, many believe the state is at a pivotal moment with regard to how it manages its forests. Fires are a normal, natural occurrence for the state’s ecology. But the scope and scale of the megafires that have wreaked catastrophic damage across the state in recent years are unprecedented. The issue raises difficult questions about how close to nature we can safely live, as well as whether we are taking appropriate actions to curb climate change.
Redwoods are capable of sequestering orders of magnitude more carbon from the atmosphere than other species of trees, making them important tools in the struggle to mitigate global warming. In the past year, however, research on the trees has revealed a troubling development: Giant sequoias, among the hardiest of trees on Earth, are beginning to succumb to California’s climate-fueled wildfires.
“We’ve not seen that anywhere in our recorded history,” Hodder said. “That led us to believe that we’re facing a whole new moment in the millions of years of history of the sequoia and coast redwood forest.”
According to Hodder, this season’s fires have torn through 10 giant sequoia groves in the Sierra, which account for about 31% of the tree’s existing habitat.
Hodder notes that climate change is not the sole culprit. For more than a century, the United States’ approach to forest management has centered on extinguishing fires as quickly as possible, rather than allowing some low-impact fires that would help to effectively cleanse the forest floor. That has in turn led to an accumulation of surplus fuel sources in forests across the West. The new fire threat to redwoods is “largely due to the fact that we’ve been suppressing forest fires in a fire-dependent landscape for 160 years,” Hodder said.
Hodder, like many Californians, would like to see smarter forest management policies put into place and a broader re-examination of our relationship to the natural environment. That starts, he says, with protecting and nurturing California’s redwood stock.
Hodder recently discussed his views on the Chronicle’s “Fifth and Mission” podcast. The following excerpts from that conversation have been edited for length and clarity.
On the fire damage to redwood forests this year: We have not yet been able to get in (to the forests) and do even a modest — let alone complete — assessment of the impacts of these fires, just because it’s simply not safe yet. We don’t have the data to determine yet whether these were high-intensity fires and are thereby posing more risk to the more vulnerable forests of today or whether they were slow- to moderate-intensity fires, (which) in certain places, ironically enough, could actually be healthy in managing the fuel load and bringing back the natural cycle of fires in these redwood forests.
On the circumstances that led to the current megafires and their effect on redwoods: We eliminated that burning that Indigenous people had been doing in these landscapes for thousands of years. All of a sudden, the fuel loads grew up to be mature, and what used to be a slow-burning, low ground fire became catastrophic and got up into the canopy of these giant sequoias and burned every last needle. And, unlike the coast redwood that can sprout again after a fire as long as most of their bark is intact — giant sequoias, not so much. If the crown is destroyed, it can’t grow back again.
So the realization that the fires were not only catastrophic but so catastrophic as to kill giant sequoias that had been through hundreds of fires in their lifetime was a terrible awakening and spoke to the importance of getting the fuel load in the Sierra Nevada under control and getting the forest to a stage where we could reintroduce prescribed fire at times of the year where it can be more controlled and less risky.
On his organization’s Redwood Genome Project: The redwoods have an incredibly complex genome, so we really had to wait for the science to catch up to us to even make this possible. But now that it’s been mapped for both the sequoia and coast redwood genome, there are all sorts of opportunities that can grow from that. … Part of making sure that the forest has the resilience it needs to withstand the changes that are already here as a result of climate change, we want to be able to restore some of that genetic diversity.
On building homes in the wildland-urban interface: Subdivision and development is a very real threat to the redwood forest. … As we realize that we’re not going to — nor should we — prevent fires from happening … we have to figure out how to live with fire. One of the most important ways to do that … (is) to stop putting houses where the fires want to be. In many cases it’s not that simple, where communities have done their very best in establishing defensible space and hardening the edges around the built environment. But in many cases we can make better choices about where we put human infrastructure.
Once again, a pandemic has stoked Americans’ love for national parks
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM “The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone” by Thomas Moran (1893-1901)
By Michael J. Coren & Dan Kopf
September 29, 2020 Americans aren’t leaving home much, but when they do, they’re flooding into open spaces amid the worst pandemic in generations.
Using anonymized GPS data from mobile phones, Google estimates travel outside the home was 7% lower in September than at the beginning of the year, a gradual increase from the 23% drop seen in April. Every destination Google is tracking, from retail to office to restaurants, has seen a moderate to severe drop except one: parks, a category including everything from public beaches, dog parks, and marinas to national parks.
Those visits are overwhelming parks—most of which were already at a breaking point. Utah’s majestic Zion National Park, home to soaring red rock arches and desert waterfalls, resembles a crowded amusement park most days. There were 4.5 million visits to the park in 2019, for a park with parking to handle less than half that number. It’s not much different at national gems such as Rocky Mountain National Park or Yellowstone, where waiting times to get on the trail may exceed your time in the wilderness by four to one.
The coronavirus has driven visits even higher. After shutting down at the onset of the pandemic, park rangers reopened the doors to throngs of visitors desperate to escape their homes and cities. Several parks have neared record attendance despite national and international travel restrictions, as well as the closure of many of the park’s businesses, campsites, and entrances. Stoneman Meadow at Yosemite National Park after the arrival of the 1918 pandemic.Stoneman Meadow at Yosemite National Park after Yellowstone saw visitors rise slightly the arrival of the 1918 pandemic. above 2019 levels in July.
Some relief may come from billions Congress recently allocated to the nation’s park system as part of the Great American Outdoors Act. But limits on attendance and traffic jams are becoming the norm in many places once revered for the great outdoors.
We’ve seen this once before. The 1918 influenza pandemic, also known as the Spanish Flu, killed hundreds of thousands of people in a matter of months. Rail travel, seen as suspect due to the potential for contagion, pushed people into their cars as a means of escape.
While the number of visitors traveling to parks by train dropped, the number arriving by cars rose in 1918. “Much like today,” writes Terence Young, professor emeritus of geography at California Polytechnic, “taking your own automobile to a relatively nearby park to ‘autocamp’ with your tent, was seen as a safe and easy way to visit and play in the national parks of 1918.” The following year (and over the ensuing decades), the number of national park visitors soared. In 1920, as the pandemic receded, Yellowstone recorded a 42% increase in visitors by rail, and automobile visitation rose by 21%. The trend has continued ever since.
It’s possible Covid-19 will spark a sustained surge in park popularity. It has already touched off America’s third great bike revival. Park visitors this year may be as enchanted as last century’s Americans with what the vast country has to offer.
Walters: Proposition 19’s tortuous journey to the ballot Ballot measure rekindles old battles as it alters laws governing property tax assessments
Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press
A deal was struck by realtors, legislative leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom to allow Proposition 19 a place on the ballot.
By DAN WALTERS | October 1, 2020 at 11:40 a.m.
Proposition 19 shares one characteristic with most of the other 11 measures on California’s ballot this year: It rekindles a political conflict from years past.
However, Proposition 19 has meandered a particularly convoluted pathway to the ballot, which explains why it wound up with three distinct sections, to wit:
• It would expand current law’s limited right for Californians over 55 to move to new homes while retaining the taxable property values of their previous residences; • It would erase a provision of property tax law that allows those who inherit expensive homes to retain their relatively low taxable values while converting the homes into income-producing rentals; and
• It would dedicate some of the additional revenue from the loophole closure to local and state firefighting agencies.
The first provision, dealing with transfer of property values, was the subject of a 2018 ballot measure sponsored by the California Association of Realtors. It would have expanded statewide the current right of the over-55 set to transfer values within counties, or to other counties that agreed to accept them. That’s been the law for more than 30 years, thanks to a series of voter- approved ballot measures.
Real estate brokers have an obvious interest in expansion since it would, at least in theory, generate more sales of homes that would produce more sales commissions. However, voters rejected the 2018 measure by a 3-to-2 margin.
The realtors wanted to try again in 2020 and qualified a new measure, which also included the inherited property loophole closure and a third provision, long debated in tax circles, to require reassessment of commercial property when ownership changes in a series of transactions.
The latter provision could have undermined Proposition 15, a measure sponsored by unions and other liberal interests, that would, if passed, require regular reassessment of all commercial property for tax purposes.
Thereupon, a deal was struck by the realtors, legislative leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom to replace the initiative with a constitutional amendment that would include the first two provisions, drop the commercial property section and add the firefighting revenue as a political sweetener to take advantage of voters’ concerns about rampant wildfires.
Even so, the legislative version didn’t meet the official June 25 deadline for inclusion in the November ballot, so the Legislature quickly passed another law extending the deadline by a few days through the subterfuge of calling a concurrent special election.
Allowing heirs to keep relatively low property tax values also dates from a series of decades-old ballot measures, but two years ago, an article in the Los Angeles Times revealed that multi-million- dollar homes were being maintained as high-dollar rentals, rather than occupied by heirs.
The article focused on a Malibu home with sweeping oceans views formerly owned by actor Lloyd Bridges which his sons, actors Jeff and Beau, and their sister inherited and retained as a nearly $16,000-per-month rental. But the article also cited numerous other instances in which heirs took advantage of low property tax values to profit handsomely in the rental market.
It’s uncertain whether the cosmetically altered proposal, which was designated as Proposition 19, will fare any better than the bare bones 2018 version that voters rejected. While it enjoys wider interest group support, it’s also created a political split between the California Association of Realtors and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which supports the over-55 tax shield but sees the inherited property provision as a “massive, multi-billion-dollar tax increase on California families.”
Tax reform or tax increase? Voters will decide.
Larry Magid: Social media can lead to political extremism By LARRY MAGID | [email protected] |
PUBLISHED: October 1, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: October 2, 2020 at 10:09 a.m.
I never thought I would have to say this but– political extremism is expected to have an impact on the upcoming election and – perhaps even scarier – the potential aftermath of the election, should some people decide to take things into their own hands if it doesn’t come out as they hope.
The president’s response to moderator Chris Wallace’s Tuesday night debate question about white supremacy didn’t help, when he advised the extremist group Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by.”
Social media is likely part of the blame, but there are, of course, other reasons for any increase in white supremacy and extremism which, FBI Director Chris Wray called the biggest domestic terrorism threat in recent testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee.
The Netflix movie, The Social Dilemma, helps explain why this is true. Algorithms designed to present us with content we find compelling, along with advertising that’s likely to interest us, fill our newsfeed with posts that appeal to our political leanings, world views, susceptibility to various theories and points of view, including conspiracy theories. And, as the movie points out, it’s not that Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders set out to enable people to push us to political extremes. It’s an unintended consequence of brilliantly written code designed to give what the algorithms think we want to see. The movie includes interviews with former employees of Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies, including those who are now very critical of their former employer. But, as some in the movie point out, these same services also do a lot of good including helping disaster victims, raising funds for worthy causes and helping people organize social justice campaigns.
The tendency for social media to nudge people into dark places is not entirely the fault of the technology. There is also the bubble you put yourself in based on who you friend and interact with and the content you chose to view.
I’ve seen almost nothing on my social feed that even comes close to white supremacy and other hate speech. I go out of my way to interact with people with differing points of view, but almost all are civil and polite and I avoid people who are obvious bigots so that, too, helps shape what I see. I also don’t belong to very many groups, which can influence what you see even if it seemingly has nothing to do with the groups you’re in.
You could, for example, join a group around a totally non-political interest where there happens to be a connection because a significant number of people in that group are also in political groups, which may have nothing to do with the interests you share in common. You could also like something or click on links just because you’re curious, and all that is recorded and analyzed by the codes that help determine what you will see. Facebook has a tool that gives you some sense of what it thinks your interested in. It’s not complete, but it does show you some of the things it knows about you that it uses to display targeted ads. You can access it at tinyurl.com/fbinterests, or if you go to Settings and then Ads, you’ll see a link for “Your Interests” and that’s broken down into categories including business and industry, news and entertainment, travel, and education. Click on the More link and one option is “Lifestyle and Culture.” When I clicked on that, I found out that I was interested in both the Democratic and Republican parties, happiness, homelessness, Black Friday shopping, Democracy, and instant messaging. If you hover over each interest, it will vaguely tell you why it thinks it’s relevant – typically because you may have liked one of their pages or one of their posts or clicked on an ad related to their page. Twitter has a page called Interests from Twitter (tinyurl.com/twitterinterests), which gives you some – but not much – insight into what they think they know about you. I’m apparently interested in both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donald Trump Jr. along with education, drinks, gaming, British football, animals and auto racing, even though some of those topics barely interest me. But the fact that Twitter thinks I’m interested in both AOC and Donald Trump Jr. along with his father and Barack Obama, helps explain why I see such diverse political content. Facebook and Twitter have been working on this problem and have made progress in the last few months. I spoke with one expert on background who told me that it’s now harder to stumble into extremist content, but that it’s still there if you know where to look and not impossible find extremist groups based on your connections, friends, likes and other activity.
I’m not exactly sure what Twitter and Facebook can do to reign-in their algorithms, but I suspect there is a way that they can help people avoid being pulled into directions that they might not otherwise go. What they can definitely do is take down extremist content as soon as they’re aware of it. They’re doing more of that, which is a good thing, but there is a lot of content that still shows up, which helps feed political extremism. And when they do take down extremist content, they get pushback not only from the groups themselves but public officials who feel that the companies are censoring political speech.
In the meantime, there are things we can all do including not sharing content that may not be truthful, not joining groups whose views you detest, and putting thought into what you like or otherwise react to.
Clearly, we should not believe everything we see on social media and use independent means to verify anything that seems to be fishy. You’ll find more advice in the Guide to Media Literacy and Fake News I cowrote at ConnectSafely.org/Fakenews Disclosure: Larry Magid is CEO of ConnectSafely.org which receives financial support from companies mentioned in this article.
Contenders for District 1 Supervisor Share Stances on Tri-Valley Topics
Oct 1, 2020
In the race for a District 1 supervisor, two candidates will compete for the seat in this general election.
Presented in last-name alphabetical order, Vinnie Bacon and David Haubert share their perspectives on a wide range of issues.
VINNIE BACON
As an outgoing Fremont councilmember, Bacon said that while he’s taken many actions that have improved city policies, he’s the most proud of changing the way campaigns are financed in Fremont.
“I first ran for city council, because I saw how much influence developers had with the city council,” he said. “Our city council had a reputation for approving anything big for-profit developers wanted, and tens of thousands of dollars flowed from these developers to our city council members in the form of campaign contributions and business relationships. I raised this issue in every campaign I ran and pledged never to take money or have any financial relationship with a real estate developer. This started a trend in Fremont where more and more candidates refused to take this money.
“We now have a majority of our councilmembers who have never taken developer money. The city council has changed from a rubber stamp for developers to one that evaluates each project based on what is best for our community. Irresponsible developments that increase traffic, overcrowd our schools, and bring little benefit to our community are no longer approved by the Fremont City Council.”
Bacon stated that he is a “clean money candidate.”
“I don’t take any money from developers, corporations, or ANY political action committees (PACs), including labor organizations and police officer’s associations,” he said. “I believe it is at least an appearance of impropriety when elected officials who make decisions that affect the bottom lines of corporations are taking money from those corporations.”
Listed on his most recent 460 campaign contribution form were individuals with varying occupations, such as those who are health planners, self-employed, retired, unemployed, in the U.S. Army, college professors, engineers, among others. The dollar amount from donors ranged from about $12 to $2,000 for the period.
Solar
On large solar projects, such as the utility scale development proposed for North Livermore, Bacon noted that the county needs policy guidelines to determine the most appropriate location. He prefers to analyze other sites — such as the Altamont and Vasco landfills — before proceeding with currently planned sites.
“Solar panels in the existing built areas of Alameda County should be our preferred locations,” Bacon added. “The county can help by streamlining the permitting process within county lands and by assisting cities in doing the same. The East Bay Community Energy Authority could help with grants in some instances to increase the rate of adoption of solar power.”
He pointed out that Fremont’s “Green Challenge” grouped homeowners together to allow for a reduction in cost for solar installation.
“When developments are proposed, we ask developers to consider the orientation of the roofs and placement of objects on the roof to maximize solar production,” he said.
Regarding land north of Livermore, Bacon noted he’d like to see that scenic region preserved, as he’s skeptical of the ability to buffer a site that large.
“I would need to see specifics on how the view of the panels would be hidden and what the scenic corridor would ultimately look like,” he said. “I would also have to see an analysis that shows the ability to generate solar in other parts of Alameda County is too cost prohibitive. While the cost per megawatt would likely be higher, I don’t believe it would be cost prohibitive.”
At this juncture, he’s not in favor of proceeding with either of the two solar projects proposed for that region in Livermore.
UGB, Sewage, Wine Country Bacon stands for upholding the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) and preserving the existing Tri-Valley. He would be OK with clustering floor area ratio (FAR) rights in South Livermore to enable the winery and tourism industry to be more successful.
When asked if the county should assist with extending Livermore’s sewer line along Livermore Avenue and Tesla Road to allow for service growth in Wine Country, Bacon said he would need to learn more about the current capacity of the sewer lines and whether the additional capacity is more for existing development or planned future development.
“If future planned development were in land administered by the county, then yes, the county should provide additional funding for it,” Bacon said. “If the main purpose of the new sewer lines is to accommodate new development, then I believe the developers of that land should be required to help with the funding.”
He noted the good news to be that Measure D, the initiative county voters passed to create a UGB, is currently the law of the land.
“I believe it should stay that way. I would be ok with some minor exemptions if they were done on a case-by- case basis for local businesses and would produce insignificant impacts to traffic and the scenic nature of the land,” he said. “It was alarming to me to see that two of the supervisors were pursuing changes to Measure D in 2018. If any significant changes are to be made, I definitely believe they should be decided by a vote of the people of Alameda County.”
N3 Cattle Ranch, Tesla Park
As a firm supporter of preserving open space, Bacon expressed the hope that a public agency such as the Nature Conservancy, would purchase the N3 Cattle Ranch.
“I know the Alameda County Water District was considering purchasing the land. I believe that it would be a good use of public dollars to ensure that the land remains preserved,” he added.
On Tesla Park, Bacon prefers to prohibit off-road vehicles, as he said they cause significant damage to wildlife areas.
“I would like to see the Board of Supervisors work with the state to see if the land could be transferred to the California State Parks and/or the East Bay Regional Park District as an area where off-road vehicles are not allowed,” he said. E&B Natural Resources, Oil Drilling
In the county’s continuing litigation against E&B Natural Resources, Bacon believes the county made the right move in denying the company’s two oil drilling permits.
Should a third existing permit come up for renewal, Bacon noted that he would need to weigh all presented evidence before voting to deny or approve.
“But my inclination right now is to deny the permit,” he continued. “As an environmentalist, I do not like the idea of fracking or oil drilling within Alameda County.”
Homelessness
When addressing the Tri-Valley’s large homeless population, Bacon stated that the county should continue to provide services including health care, mental health treatment, drug addiction counseling and job training.
“These services have been in large demand before COVID and will likely be in even more demand once the economic impacts of COVID continue to sink in,” Bacon said. “I’m proud of the fact that in Fremont we took advantage of grant money from the county to build a Homeless Navigation Center (HNC) right in the middle of Fremont. This facility will take in 45 people and work to provide them with the services they need to get back into a housed situation.”
Affordable Housing
Bacon pointed out that there are two significant things the county can do to help produce more affordable housing.
“First, the county and cities must look at existing public lands as possible sites for affordable housing. On private lands, the property owners will try to maximize their profits by building as much market rate housing as allowed,” he said. On public lands the city or county can dictate that a higher percentage of affordable units can be built.
“Secondly, while the Board of Supervisors isn’t in the state legislature, the county does have significant influence over the kind of legislation that Sacramento passes. We need to ask Sacramento to pass legislation that makes it easier for cities to build affordable housing. I was opposed to SB 50 and similar measures that try to solve the problem by removing local control and giving developers less regulatory hurdles. These measures would likely result in more market rate housing and not do a lot to help with affordable housing.”
Valley Link, Isabel Neighborhood Plan
Bacon supports Valley Link and noted financing to be its largest issue.
“While about $400 million was transferred from the BART to Livermore project to Valley Link, the cost of the project is well over $2 billion,” he said. “I would do my best to argue for additional funding to be provided for this project and other similar projects in the area, such as expanding ACE train service.”
Livermore’s Isabel Neighborhood Plan involves 4,095 units that would benefit from the proposed Valley Link station at Isabel Avenue. Bacon believes the county should encourage the city to zone for a significant number of low-income units in the area, given that it’s close to transit.
He recalled an experience in Fremont with the Warm Springs BART station.
“The developer wanted 4,000 homes. I argued that we should do more of a mixed-use station with more commercial, retail and residential,” he said. “I was the only person to vote against the final plan which was primarily residential.
“With the Warm Springs station, we at least knew for sure that the BART station was coming. The funding was there. With the Isabel site, it’s unclear when funding will be available for the Valley Link station to become operational. Even with Valley Link up and running, it’s unlikely that most of these residents would use it to get to/from work. The remainder would be forced to drive adding to the traffic already seen in I-580. In short, if this development is primarily residential, it would add to the already bad job/housing imbalance that we see in East County.”
Social Justice, Policing, Santa Rita
On addressing racial issues and other areas of discrimination within the county, Bacon said, “We need to acknowledge that Black Lives Matter and that there is a history of systemic racism in our country.”
“There are many figures, such as the unemployment rates or the incarceration rates for Black Americans, that demonstrate the economic disparities in our country,” he said. “While these are larger societal issues beyond the control of the county, I believe we can do our part by acknowledging the issue and taking action to right the wrong of our past.”
Bacon stated that he’s been in favor of auditing the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department and Santa Rita County Jail, which has a high rate of inmate deaths and injuries — leading to costly lawsuits.
“The only way we can really know what is going on is to increase transparency and accountability with an operational and fiscal audit of their policies and budgets,” he said. “It must be a top priority to determine why this is happening and what can be done to dramatically reduce incidents of misconduct within our county criminal justice system. Our police do not need to be militarized. While I know that some calls, especially those with weapons involved, require officers to be able to defend themselves and others, I would also say that if a situation requires the use of a military tank, we might need our actual military … If the point of police officers is safety, then using tanks, heavy artillery, and chemicals against our own community seems counter-intuitive to the goals of creating public trust and peace.”
He’s against officers using rubber bullets and chemical weapons against peaceful protestors.
On police funding, Bacon takes the call to “defund the police” to mean that we must examine policing practices to determine where to spend less. He noted mental health professionals have told him they can handle most situations by themselves and that they know when to call for police. He would like to see a study completed of the calls that police departments take and what was needed in terms of personnel to resolve those calls.
Education
Bacon believes the county must invest in programs that will give troubled youth a chance to lead productive lives and become responsible adults.
“I believe that discussions about programs like these that provide training in the arts and other areas should be continued,” he added.
COVID-19
To offset the loss of income during the pandemic, Bacon acknowledged there will be no easy answers.
“We need to maintain the programs that are providing assistance to the businesses that are struggling through the pandemic. If we were to lose these businesses that would be a permanent tax loss that would likely not be recovered soon, if ever,” he said. “We will likely need to look to measures that will increase funding for the county. There is a half-cent sales tax that the current Board of Supervisors unanimously approved to be on the ballot this November. I am also an endorser of Proposition 15 (aka Schools and Communities First Act) that will allow us to get more property tax revenue.”
He agrees with the county health officer’s policies, noting the public should listen to the advice of health care professionals.
If federal aid were lost, Bacon said the county could help the unemployed by providing job training and ensuring that the unemployment doesn’t result in homelessness and a loss of health care insurance.
“The county will likely need to augment these services as the unemployment rate continues to remain high,” he said. “My general philosophy on budget issues will be that we have to focus on those services that are helping those that truly need it.”
Bacon said he would work to provide financial support and delay commercial evictions for small businesses.
“I would review the zoning in unincorporated areas to make sure that there is sufficient area to site commercial development. Currently there is a boom in new luxury housing development. We need to preserve land for job creation,” he said. “I would talk to business owners in our urban unincorporated areas about their experiences with the Economic & Civic Development Department (ECD) and ensure they are receiving excellent customer service.”
At the same time, he said he would fight to respect community character and review ways to provide more resources to the Alameda County Green Business Program. He also noted ranchers, who are part of the county heritage, will need assistance.
“I believe that history and culture are vital not just to an area’s identity, but to its economic vitality,” he said. “I would love to see the Livermore area become more of a tourist destination. Highlighting the historic contribution of ranchers to our economic vitality should be an important part of that tourism.”
Fire Protection
“I attended a briefing in Pleasanton by Cal Fire, and the first question I asked was, ‘What can be done to reduce the incidence and severity of fires going forward?’” Bacon said. “Cal Fire has a 32-point program to manage forests and create defensible spaces and fire-resistant landscaping. We should determine what are the most at risk areas of the county and follow Cal Fire’s advice on how to make those areas safer.”
DAVID HAUBERT
As the outgoing mayor of Dublin, Haubert has an extensive 18-year background serving at municipal and school district levels. David also serves on the Alameda County Transportation Commission, the Livermore- Amador Valley Transportation Authority, and the Alameda County Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCo). He earned an undergraduate degree in finance from California State University, Northridge, and then an MBA from UCLA.
“I love Alameda County, where my wife of 29 years and I raised our three daughters,” Haubert said. “Today, we’re facing the largest public health crisis of our lifetime: the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to economic turmoil, rising unemployment, and increased homelessness.”
Haubert said he will work with medical professionals to reopen the economy without jeopardizing public health; use his 18-Point Social Justice Action Plan to combat systemic racism; address homelessness by ensuring affordable housing and improving mental health and substance abuse treatment; find ways to support struggling small business owners; and protect and preserve valuable open space.
David noted that during his time as mayor, he balanced the city budget for eight consecutive years and built up reserves for the rainy-day fund — all without cuts to service. He said he’s proud to have brought more than 750 new jobs and 150 new businesses to the city, in addition to adding six new community parks, including an aquatics center, building two school sites in the Dublin Unified School District, and preserving over 1,750 acres of open space.
On campaign finances, Haubert said he follows all the rules, but is happy to accept campaign donations from anyone.
“But I cannot be bought and I won’t back down from my position,” Haubert said. “I have voted against people who have given me money, and I’ve voted for people who have never given me a dime. I vote the issue not the contributor.”
Listed as campaign contributors in his most recent 460 forms were Associated Builders and Contractors Northern California, Ponderosa Homes, Friends of Catharine Baker State Assembly, California Apartment Association, Nella Terra Cellars, California Real Estate PAC, International Association of Firefighters, Construction and General Laborers Local Union, Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition PAC, along with other private and business donors. The dollar amount from donors ranged from about $100 to $25,000 this period.
Solar
Haubert reported he’s fully committed to finding alternative sources of energy.
“I am watching what I think is the evolution of new ideas coming forward; I'm following electric vehicles; I'm following solar; I'm following gas and a number of potentials for different sources of energy,” he said, further noting that the East Bay Community Energy group is demanding and wanting to buy alternative sources of energy. “To me, we need to understand where in Alameda County are the best locations for procuring additional sources of alternative energy.”
He stated that he won’t come out in favor of or against the two solar projects proposed for open space north of Livermore, but he did express concerns about the utility development’s possible impact on the environment.
“I want to see the (environmental impact report) that goes with it. I want to see the study that ranks the locations,” he said. “We should be prioritizing the locations with the highest potential.”
He said it might turn out that the solar projects could be good for Livermore, but reiterated that, as an elected official, it’s important to remain open-minded right up to the vote.
As a homeowner with his own rooftop solar panels, he is happy with the cost savings and would like to see more fast-tracking around the permitting process for installation in residential areas. He pointed out that the solar panels at the Santa Rita County Jail are a good example of an infill option.
UGB, Sewage, Wine Country
Haubert said he absolutely supports the UGB, permanent easements, while adding that he is sensitive to the South Livermore Plan. He does believe utilities to be an issue.
“We already have the lines drawn, and it’s just a matter of can we get utilities to support it? I'm open to looking at that, but I'm not open to expanding (the UGB),” he said. Haubert said he possibly favors clustering the floor area ratio rights in South Livermore to enable an increase in winery and tourism development, but only after careful consideration of the implication and unintended consequences.
“I am the only candidate with experience through my position with LAFCo dealing with unincorporated areas,” he said.
He approached the concept of extending the city’s sewer pipeline to serve the industry needs of Wine Country with the same caution — adding that all stakeholders would need to agree to a plan.
N3 Cattle Ranch, Tesla Park
As long as the purchase of the N3 Cattle Ranch results in a fair compromise and exchange, Haubert said he would support it.
“To me, it seems like it provides a lot of conservation of open space that the seller is willing to accept in the deal,” he said. “I generally support those kinds of transactions.”
Haubert does not support allowing off-road vehicles in Tesla Park.
“Off-road vehicles are very damaging to the environment,” Haubert said. “Perhaps, this should be a partnership with (East Bay Regional Park District). I am the only candidate endorsed by a member of the East Bay Regional Parks District, Ayn Wieskamp.”
E&B Natural Resources, Oil Drilling
On the issue of litigation with E&B Natural Resources, Haubert also supports the county’s denial of the company’s two drilling permits.
He said he would vote to deny it, should a third existing permit come up for renewal.
Homelessness
Haubert said that many good people are working to address the issue of homelessness within the county, but that there is no silver-bullet answer. He believes in identifying root causes of homelessness and the needs of individuals. “We need to develop a true solution to make sure they have a roof over their head and a safe place to sleep,” he said.
He shared his experiences visiting those camping along the Arroyo.
“There are a lot of good people down there,” Haubert said. “They need job skills training; I believe that everyone has a purpose, everyone has a skill.”
Haubert said the individuals could be assessed to address mental health and substance abuse treatment needs. He noted a need for transitional housing.
“It may be a dorm style environment, but whatever it is, it needs to be safe and secure,” he said.
Affordable Housing
Haubert stated that, for many families in the Bay Area, a disproportionately large part of their annual income goes to housing costs.
“Many struggle to afford the Bay Area’s high cost of living, which leads to poverty, food insecurity, homelessness and other societal problems,” he said. “Action needs to be taken to ensure that Bay Area residents can comfortably live in the area where they work and raise a family.”
Haubert said that , as supervisor, he would spearhead solutions to increase affordable housing options, including subsidized housing and vouchers, requirements on future development to offer affordable housing programs, density bonuses, and higher sales tax programs to fund affordable housing.
On the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) mandates, he took issue with the methodology of determining housing needs.
“To me it seems condescending that a group that I've never spoken with says here’s a number that we’ve determined, and we won’t tell you how we’ve determined it, and you need to go meet this goal,” Haubert explained. “We’re never going to actually find out if we’ve met that goal; we just need to plan for it. (RHNA) should be showing us their homework … exactly how did you come to that number? If you’re in our shoes, how would you try to make that number? “It’s like a relay race, with a baton passed from one runner to the next, and there’s absolutely zero metrics for understanding that baton — where does it get placed, who picks it up — to me it’s ridiculous. We need a better process where the people making these goals share with us how they got the number.”
Valley Link, Isabel Neighborhood Plan
Haubert feels strongly that Valley Link is a great opportunity for the Tri-Valley, especially Livermore, which for years had been paying for BART service that now won’t materialize.
“Valley Link allows us to be good neighbors with the county next to us,” he said. “People from San Joaquin County are already driving on our streets. Some say it only benefits people in San Joaquin County, but really, it takes them off our roads.”
On the topic of Livermore’s Isabel Neighborhood Plan, Haubert said it’s a local control issue.
“We (might) encourage it or help facilitate that, but I would leave it up to the people of Livermore to make those decisions,” he said. “I would point to other examples of where we have been able to have transit-oriented development; I intend to be a supportive resource to the city as opposed to an overbearing mandate.”
Social Justice, Policing, Santa Rita
Haubert expanded on his 18-point plan for his first days as supervisor.
“(The plan) starts with awareness and recognition. People need to be aware and recognize that we have a problem,” he said. “We are inflicted with implicit bias, and we have in our society an element of systemic racism. We have to agree on what those solutions are.”
Haubert said that while people tend to stand at odds on the matter of defunding the police or enhancing that budget, it’s more a matter of redirecting funds with a renewed awareness of what is and isn’t acceptable within law enforcement.
“I support 8 Can’t Wait for the most part, and I balance that with needing to keep officers safe,” he explained.
Haubert went on to say that he supports an education-first mindset — noting his support of Books Not Bars — along with restorative measures to help correct behaviors, as opposed to filling prisons. He spent five years as a board member for a behavioral health nonprofit.
“The professionals in the mental health business will say that an officer with a uniform can sometimes be the worst thing that can happen in a situation with someone in a mental health crisis,” Haubert said. “Both the health professionals and the officers say that. But if you don’t pass the baton to the mental health professionals, the officer is left holding it. The vast majority of officers I know signed up to stop bad guys from committing crimes; they didn’t sign up to kick homeless people out of a tent. Let’s not ask them to do that. Let the officers keep us safe from criminals, and let the behavioral health skilled workers deal with the people who are truly having a crisis where a badge and a uniform aren’t the right answer.”
Haubert said there’s a stalemate on that topic of funding, and he believes he’s the one to bridge the divide.
At the jail, Haubert reported his concern around understaffing and high suicide rates.
“When I talk to the sheriff, he’s willing to look at studies and go through an evaluation to determine how he can do better,” Haubert said. “He wants it done by experts who understand what it takes to run a jail and not someone who doesn’t have the background and expertise; most people in law enforcement are not afraid of being assessed. I think it comes down to staffing, protocol and metrics, and we have to demand change. There’s always room to get better, but we can’t ask people to do things that are impossible.”
Education
“I am the only candidate who has served as School Board Trustee and so I am best qualified to work closely with the Alameda County Board of Education,” Haubert said. “Alameda County works hand in hand with the directly elected Alameda County Superintendent of Education and the elected Alameda County Board of Education. The county can assist with support through the foster care system, as well as additional support for students in Juvenile Hall, with ways to increase incarceration diversion and ways to better serve homeless students. These families are also in need of food, medical, internet and other family support and education needs.”
COVID-19
Haubert stated that the county needs to prioritize funding for emergency medical services and treatment and maintain funding despite inevitable budget cuts. “We can also prioritize needed (personal protective equipment) to protect vulnerable populations, so that they remain as healthy as possible and conditions don’t get worse,” he said.
If federal aid and the eviction moratorium were lost, Haubert noted that the county can help the unemployed by providing critical job skills training and retraining programs.
On assisting small businesses, he said he is best qualified to work with the business community, as he’s the only candidate with a master’s degree in business administration.
“There are examples of creative ways to continue to do business,” he said. “Restaurants have successfully converted outdoor spaces to eating locations. For example, parking lot spaces are now eating locations. Fitness classes are now offered online, etc. We should continue to search for creative ways to pivot business models so they can reopen.”
Fire Protection
Haubert said that supporting Measure X is important to raise funds for fire prevention. He’d like to review best practices with Cal Fire and make sure the area has strong mutual aid agreements.
“Of all the things we’re doing, I can say we’re doing well and we can always continuously improve,” he said, noting he’s proud to be supported by Alameda County Fire and Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department. “They continue to be on top of fire prevention best practices, which again we do a good job and I want to keep that going, and the people who are responsible for that trust me to do that.”
LARPD Candidates Compete for Two Board of Director Positions
By Tony Kukulich Oct 1, 2020
Five candidates are vying for two available seats on the Livermore Area Recreation and Park District (LARPD) Board of Directors. Only one incumbent is seeking reelection.
Longtime Boardmember Beth Wilson is not applying for another term.
“I have been on the LARPD board for 13 years, and while I love all I do there, I feel it’s time for someone newer and younger and more energetic to be on the board,” Wilson said. “I will certainly miss greatly being on the board, although I look forward to relaxing a little and being able to be an LARPD volunteer.”
The contenders for the available LARPD seats are James E. Boswell, Jan Palajac, Mike Ralph, Stacey A. Swanson and Richard Tarbell.
The LARPD candidates were asked the following questions:
What do you see as the biggest challenge for the LARPD over the upcoming term, and how do you intend to address it?
Given the impact of COVID-19, what changes does the district need to make to continue to serve the community?
How would you address the financial challenges the LARPD is expected to face as a result of limitations on the district's programs?
What changes or improvements do you want to bring to the LARPD? Do you have accomplishments that you are proud of that are relevant to a role on the LARPD board? What experience do you have that makes you a good fit for the LARPD board position?
Are LARPD parks, amenities and programs equitably distributed throughout the entire district? Do you believe the district has made sufficient efforts to be inclusive of all of the region's residents?
Do you think that LARPD should make use of solar panels on its parking lots and other properties?
JAMES E. BOSWELL
Boswell did not respond to The Independent’s request for an interview. A message on his website states, “I have an in-depth knowledge of finance, managing people, and being a steward of our land which translates directly into the parks and open spaces we use for recreation. And given the current environment, I think it’s time to rethink how we use these spaces and our programs.”
JAN PALAJAC
Palajac is the only incumbent running for the LARPD board. First elected to the board in 2016, she served as the board’s chair for the last year. She brings 17 years of experience to the role as a landscape architect responsible for the design and construction of parks and trails in San Jose.
Challenges to the district
“We need to address the maintenance of our facilities — our parks, playgrounds, pools, trails, open spaces, etc. — to ensure that they provide the level of quality the public expects,” Palajac said. “Because COVID-19 has severely limited our budget to do this type of work, we need to be prepared to use any means available such as grants, bonds, public/private partnerships, sponsorships or other innovative sources for funding to make this possible.”
Managing the impact of COVID-19
Palajac said her focus will be on encouraging new and creative ways to offer our classes and programs as the district works with the most recent health orders and guidelines to keep the community safe and healthy.
Budget challenges “The two-month shutdown of our facilities and programs at the beginning of the pandemic and the limitations on the few programs that we can offer has had a drastic effect on our budget,” Palajac said. “In the current fiscal year, our projected deficit of $2.3 million led to the formation of an Ad Hoc Budget Committee to work with the general manager to develop a balanced budget. I have been very involved in the process along with Vice Chair Pierpont.”
How to improve LARPD
“Our communication strategy needs to change to be one that is inclusive of everyone,” Palajac said. “Our traditional methods of reaching people aren’t working anymore, so I want to find new ways to reach all the people that LARPD serves, and encourage their input so we can implement the programs and activities that they want to see.”
Accomplishments and experience
Palajac said that in her role as board chair, she has demonstrated her leadership abilities during one of the most challenging financial times of LARPD’s existence.
“At our Sept. 22 meeting, we made the difficult decisions, including employee layoffs necessary to keep LARPD financially viable,” she said. “I am proud of my part in LARPD’s response to the COVID-19 crisis and our ability to keep the parks, open spaces and trails open. We have all seen how essential they are to our community’s health and well-being.”
Equity and inclusiveness
“LARPD provides a safe and welcoming environment for all and has made a good effort to be inclusive, but we can always do more,” said Palajac. “As the demographics in our community change, LARPD needs to seek different ways to get community involvement in the decisions about what we offer to ensure that their needs continue to be met. Although not a member of the city council’s subcommittee on equity and inclusion, I plan to attend their meetings, so that I can suggest that LARPD incorporate their findings where applicable.”
Park distribution throughout the district
“The location of parks has evolved as the city has grown,” Palajac said. “LARPD has very little say about where parks are established. The majority of the parks were installed by developers as a condition of specific developments, and they are city owned and LARPD maintained. A study would need to be done, with public input, in order to determine if there are areas of the city that are underserved.”
Use of solar power on LARPD property
Palajac said that LARPD is finishing the planning stage and will be starting construction of solar panels in the Loyola Way parking lot at the Robert Livermore Community Center, LARPD’s biggest power user.
“These solar panels will provide the power that we need,” she added. “Any other solar panel installations at LARPD’s parking lots and other properties would have to be compatible with our mission and be financially viable. I would support solar panels over our parking lots, but would not be in favor of the installation of solar farms on the ground of LARPD’s properties.
MIKE RALPH
A graduate of California State University, Chico, Ralph moved to Livermore with his family 15 years ago. He is the general manager of Superfly Wheels, a bicycle shop in Pleasanton.
Challenges to the district
“The foremost challenge for the LARPD is how to best fulfill the mission of providing recreational opportunities in the face of a pandemic, a shrinking budget, extreme weather, poor air quality and other external factors,” said Ralph. “To succeed, we need to be creative, flexible, capable and responsible to all. We need to focus on young families and have preschool, ESS and PAL programs ready as soon as possible. We need to ensure our seniors have the services they rely, on too. There will be cuts and cancellations, but our duty is to look out for those who need it most. If elected, I will do my part to make sure all voices are heard.”
Managing the impact of COVID-19
“Core revenue sources have stalled, and any reprieve is still a way off,” Ralph stated. “We are heading into some very tough waters ahead, and the board and LARPD management has some tough decisions to make. Mathew Fuzie, general manager of the LARPD, has experience in emergency control at the state level and has been a terrific leader throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. I am excited to work with the LARPD team and the other board members as we navigate our way forward.”
Budget challenges Ralph said the current board has done a great job in mitigating the financial challenges. He added, “We still have a long way to go. I will be fair to all as director and will seek out many voices to make educated decisions that affect our district. No one is looking forward to further budget cuts ahead, but we are all in this together.”
How to improve LARPD
Noting that bicycle use during the spring and summer was at an all-time high as other forms of exercise and recreation were not possible, Ralph said, “Now is the right time to extend our trail access, bicycle facilities, skate spots and other individual sports that appeal to users of all demographics and can be utilized in all conditions. I am very excited to hear from everyone on what they would like to see.”
Accomplishments and experience
“I spent the past eight years working alongside LARPD staff and management to bring a bike park to Livermore,” explained Ralph. “I started the project when I saw how popular the Sunken Gardens Skate Park was and wanted to spread things out so everyone had room to ride. We now have the location narrowed down, a professional design and builder in place, budget data, and hosted a well-attended community outreach meeting to discuss the specifics of adding a paved pump track to Sunken Gardens Park. Even though we are very close, that project is in a holding pattern now due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19.
Equity and inclusiveness
Ralph said, “I think the LARPD has done a good job in the past servicing the entire district. However, I do see some gaps. For example, there are no swim or skate park facilities on the north side. The 580 overpasses do not lend themselves to bicycle traffic. So without a car, residents stick closer to home and miss out on a lot of what the LARPD offers.”
Park distribution throughout the district
Executing the Springtown Master Plan would be the best possible scenario for advancing the recreation network in North Livermore, said Ralph. He believes the board should be working with the City of Livermore to get this project in motion.
Use of solar power on LARPD property Ralph said, given the LARPD spends about $500,000 a year on gas and electricity and Livermore has an average of 257 sunny days annually, the addition of solar panels whenever and wherever possible is absolutely a move in the right direction.
STACEY A. SWANSON
Now retired after having run her own business for 15 years, Swanson’s interest in the LARPD started after a successful effort in 2016 to preserve 85 acres of open space after the closure of the Springtown Golf Course.
Challenges to the district
Swanson said that managing the budget will be a significant challenge for the district in the near term, but she also sees a chance to improve the district in that challenge.
“Societies change,” Swanson said. “This is a great opportunity to move along with those changes and take a look at how we can, not only ride those changes, but embrace them and move forward to make our programs fit the way the community is evolving.”
Managing the impact of COVID-19
Swanson credited the current board for keeping up to date on the evolving health code.
“I appreciate that they’ve taken the lead on things like providing child care for essential workers,” Swanson said. “To be able to provide a happy place, a safe place, a place of solace and some peace for our entire community is a pretty big ask, but I think they’ve stepped up pretty well to the task.”
Budget challenges
“We need to work actively with regional, state and national entities for funding, while working to expand our program offerings that might be lower cost and but also give good value for the community — things like ranger talks. LARPD is currently offering a science camp at a reasonable cost for kids that are doing distance learning, so that parents can get them outside every once in a while,” said Swanson. “Those are the kinds of opportunities that I’d love to expand on.”
How to improve LARPD “There are some small changes, things that would not be terribly expensive, that would make the parks more useful for people that actually use them,” Swanson said. “Bringing in the user groups, and I don’t mean that the LARPD has not done this in the past, but I want to get more proactive about bringing the actual user groups in before spending the money to make sure that we’re spending appropriately and spend on what works for that user group.”
Accomplishments and experience
Self-employed for the last 15 years, Swanson has experience with worker’s compensation, liability insurance, vendor management, contract negotiation and hospitality. Her love of the outdoors led to her starting a local hiking club more than 10 years ago. But saving the 85-acre Springtown Open Space from development through the formation of the North Livermore Community Alliance in 2016 is one of Swanson’s key accomplishments.
“We saved our city hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, provided a new space for families, children and seniors to walk, run, bike and play,” she said. “The area is becoming more naturalized; we have great wildlife viewing opportunities, as well as lovely views.”
Equity and inclusiveness
Swanson said she believes LARPD is making slow and steady progress with regard to inclusiveness, and added, “I'd like to improve this aspect by adding more contact with our youth. LARPD's programming is heavily weighted toward youth with the ESS programs, and wonderful nature and ranger programs. I believe we could add a youth advisory board to participate with policy, inclusion and budget decisions.”
Park distribution throughout the district
“I believe there are underserved areas in the district,” Swanson said. “North Livermore and Springtown have wonderful after-school programs, and a few parks either managed by or owned by LARPD, but there is not a central gathering spot, pool, skate or bike park. There are few bike or skate facilities in the district, Sunken Gardens and the dirt track over at William Payne. And it would be helpful to have facilities less than a 45- minute bus ride or bike ride from the North side, especially given how dangerous the crossings/overpasses are at Vasco and North First Street.”
Use of solar power on LARPD property Swanson stated that solar power should be used whenever practical and economically feasible. She also noted that the LARPD already has some solar panels installed and others in progress.
RICHARD TARBELL
A Livermore resident since 2004, Tarbell brings to the table a university degree in geography with a concentration in urban planning, plus 30 years of experience working for Alameda County Community Development Agency Planning Department as a planner. Retired for two years, he is an active swimmer and fly fisherman.
Challenges to the district
Tarbell said that district finances will certainly be one of the challenges of the upcoming term. Beyond that, balancing the program offerings with public needs, he said, is also necessary. There may be the opportunity to drop some programs while adding new ones.
Managing the impact of COVID-19
“I see everyone doing everything they can to stay involved and not drop out,” Tarbell said. “The use of some technology to provide electronic access for the public might be one way,” he said. “Schools are online, so maybe using something like that to provide those services would be an option.”
Budget challenges
“Budgets are a challenge at any time, but more so now,” Tarbell said. “I don’t know if I have an immediate answer for that, but it may mean bringing in consultants to see what they might offer.”
How to improve LARPD
Noting that there are experienced members serving on the board now, Tarbell said he’d opt to observe the operation of the district for a while before recommending any changes.
Accomplishments and experience Tarbell pointed to his three decades of experience in city planning as qualification for the board seat. He said that much of his work involved planning the creation or expansion of parks. That work included performing the analysis of the project’s impact on both the park users and the community in which a park is located.
Equity and inclusiveness
“I haven’t done a survey, nor am I familiar enough with the distribution,” Tarbell said. “If I’m fortunate enough to be elected, I would talk with other board members and members of the public to see what information they have before making that determination. The catalog is huge and has every opportunity for a lot of people, so from that perspective, I’d say they’ve made efforts.”
Park distribution throughout the district
“Parks in the city depend upon the property being available and the land use designation,” explained Tarbell. “So I would say that best efforts have been made.”
Continuing, Tarbell stated he believes there is opportunity for expanding recreation opportunities in the north by offering equestrian trails, akin to the way that the East Bay Regional Park District does in many of their parks.
Use of solar power on LARPD property
“Solar panels save energy, but they’re also a math problem. In other words, is there a need for solar panels and is the cost savings appropriate for the application. It’s the math that determines whether parking lots or other properties should make use of solar.”
The stated mission of the district is “to provide the people of the Livermore area with outstanding recreation programs and a system of parks, trails, recreation areas, and facilities that promote enjoyment, lifelong learning, and healthy, active lifestyles.”
Strong Job Growth, a Terrible Job Market: The Bizarre 2020 Economy
At this rate, it will take 17 months for employment to return to full health.
Outside Disneyland Park in Anaheim, Calif., in March. Disney announced this week that it would cut 28,000 jobs. Credit...David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Neil Irwin Oct. 2, 2020
In a normal time, a month in which employers added 661,000 jobs would represent an absolute blockbuster — the kind of thing an incumbent president could happily promote as evidence his policies were working. These are, of course, not normal times. And the 661,000 positions employers added to their payrolls in September are paltry relative to the 22 million positions slashed in March and April, and relative to the seven-figure monthly job growth experienced from May through August.
If the rate of September job creation outlined by the Labor Department on Friday were to be sustained indefinitely, it would take another 17 months for the economy be back to its pre-pandemic levels of employment. That milestone would be reached in only eight months at August’s rate of job creation.
To make sense of where the economy stands on the verge of the election, it’s essential to keep a clear view of the distinction between three concepts: the level at which the economy is functioning, how fast it is improving, and whether that speed is accelerating or decelerating. And in a shambolic year, it’s not totally clear which of these concepts will matter most to voters, or how heavily the state of the economy will weigh on them at all.
The first is the equivalent to the level of the water in a bathtub; the second is whether it is filling up or being drained; the third is whether the spigot is being opened wider or closed. For the United States economy in the fall of 2020, the three measures are sending different signals:
The level of the bath water is very low. But it’s being filled rapidly. However, the spigot is being tightened so the pace at which the water is rising has slowed.
The level of economic activity is miserable. Seven months into the pandemic, most sectors of the economy are producing below — and in some cases far below — normal levels. The number of jobs on employers’ payrolls was 7 percent below February levels in September, a worse shortfall than at any point in the Great Recession. The share of the population working is only 56.6 percent, down from 61 percent a year ago and lower than it ever got during that downturn and its aftermath.
So if voters were to evaluate the Trump economy solely on how things are going as the fall of 2020 begins, it would be a harsh judgment.
If, by contrast, they were to look at the direction of the economy, things look quite good. Again, that 661,000 net jobs added — the job growth was particularly strong in health care and the retail sector — represents stronger job growth than in all but a handful of months in the modern record. Outside of this summer’s rebound, to find months of comparable improvement in the labor market, you have to go back to either a quirky month in 1983 or to the 1940s and 1950s.
So when the Trump administration points to a resurgent economy, it’s not untrue. But it’s incomplete. And that’s because of what’s happening to the rate of change.
After adding a remarkable 4.8 million jobs in June, as many companies reopened following the most intense phase of the coronavirus crisis, American employers have been slower to bring remaining workers back to their payrolls, with the number falling every month since.
The last few weeks have brought a wave of additional layoff announcements, including Disney’s plan to cut 28,000 theme park workers. Major airlines are poised to cut tens of thousands of jobs after the expiration of a provision requiring them to keep workers on their payrolls as a condition of bailout money.
A turnaround could happen at any time, of course, particularly if there is a vaccine or other sharp improvement in public health. But for now, much of the available evidence points to continued slowing in hiring, which would imply that it will take longer to get the bath water up to an acceptable level.
Normally, the last jobs numbers published before a presidential election are an occasion for partisans to offer their final spin on the state of the economy. The incumbent party points to whatever looks good in the data as proof that its policies are working, and the challenger identifies flaws that remain.
How does that cut when these different concepts for economic activity are pointing in different directions? Does the state of the economy matter politically in what is shaping up to be a chaotic month of noneconomic news, most recently with the announcement President Trump has contracted the coronavirus?
We may not know the answers to those questions, but it matters a lot for understanding what kind of economy either a second-term President Trump or President Joe Biden will have to handle. For now it’s not looking good.
Tough action needed on climate change, forest management
San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday) 4 Oct 2020 By J.D. Morris
Firefighters backburn east of Palisades Road on Tuesday in an attempt to keep the Glass Fire off of Highway 29 in Calistoga.
Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped inside the hollow base of a majestic redwood tree in the Santa Cruz Mountains last month and marveled at the giant’s ability to withstand a wildfire that ravaged the 118yearold state park around him. “How the hell do these things make it?” Newsom asked a park ranger. The answer is that those trees evolved to endure a good burn. Fire is endemic to California. But the threat is changing now, thanks to the world’s warming climate and more than a century of poor forest management, among other reasons. Newsom saw as much that day in September when he toured the extensive fire damage at Big Basin Redwoods, California’s oldest state park. It wasn’t the first time he’d found himself in such a situation: Shortly after he was elected in 2018, Newsom and President Trump walked through the burned remains of Paradise, the Butte County town devastated by the historic Camp Fire. About two weeks after Newsom’s trip to Big Basin, he met with Trump again. By then the state’s fire season had intensified. Newsom urged the president to appreciate how “the plumbing of the world” had changed and that “climate change is real.” While the president has not embraced that reality, Newsom has since tried to press fastforward on California’s climatechange actions, betting they will help ease the endlessly growing threat of wildfires in the state. He and other state officials have no time to waste. California is burning more than ever, with a record 3.7 million acres blackened across the state so far and potentially weeks more of dangerous weather in store. The fiery crisis could quickly become a political one, too, as state leaders scramble to contain a worsening problem with myriad solutions, none of them easy to enact. And it’s not just a climate issue: To most effectively reduce the mounting risk of catastrophic wildfires, the state will need to grapple with its overgrown forests and misguided development patterns. “We have not done enough,” said state Sen. Bill Dodd, DNapa, who has taken a lead role in wildfire legislation in recent years as his district burned. Politicians and policy experts broadly agree, though not necessarily on the best next steps. On the climate front, Newsom’s most ambitious measure was a recent executive order prohibiting the sale of new gaspowered cars by 2035. He has also called for a ban on new permits for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a controversial method of extracting oil and gas from the ground. Sen. Scott Wiener, DSan Francisco, and two other lawmakers said they will introduce such a bill this year. Much more is needed to prevent catastrophic fires, including more aggressive action to thin overgrown forests through measures such as controlled burns. California is trying to achieve that through a new partnership with the federal government that aims to reduce fire risks across 1 million acres of forest annually. But it will take years to achieve that goal, and a lot of reliable funding to maintain the endeavor in perpetuity. The state must also rethink its longstanding strategy of suppressing all fires, including nonthreatening ones that can help prevent places from burning more intensely later, said Henry McCann, a research associate at the Public Policy Institute of California. Fireproofing homes in the riskiest regions is another urgent need, he said. “There’s no slam dunk or silver bullet solution,” McCann said. “It’s an all of the above type moment.” Environmentalists have advocated for even stronger steps to protect the climate, and therefore lessen the risk of ruinous fires. Their ideas include moving up the state’s 2045 deadline to get all of its electricity from carbonfree sources and managing a responsible shift away from oil and gas production. “We’ve got to stop being a drug dealer, essentially,” said Kathryn Phillips, director of the Sierra Club California. Abandoning fossil fuel production would be a tough pill to swallow in places like Kern County, where oil and gas remain pillars of the economy. Petroleum is so woven into the culture of Bakersfield that the mascot of the city’s oldest high school, opened in 1893, is the drillers. Newsom’s environmental policies face strong opposition from conservatives including Republican State Senate leader Shannon Grove, who represents Bakersfield. “Republicans believe we need to have responsible forest management, not import oil from countries with appalling human rights violations that tear down rainforests and ignore environmental regulations,” Grove said in a statement to The Chronicle. “Californians deserve a governor with real solutions for issues that affect our families, not one who likes to grab headlines.” Newsom has been cognizant of the difficulties in making a seismic economic shift. “None of us are naive in the state of California, as a fossil fuel production state, that we need to focus on a just transition” for those who might otherwise lose work, Newsom said. Part of the solution for places such as Kern County could be attracting electric vehicle manufacturing and renewable energy businesses, said Phillips of the Sierra Club. “The culture of oil is so embedded in the politics of the place that getting leadership there to think more broadly about how you develop a diverse, healthy economy has been a real struggle,” Phillips said. Infrastructure investments will be essential as California tries to move toward a carbonfree electric grid, experts say. The state has struggled in that area, suffering rolling blackouts in August caused by a powersupply shortage during a heat wave. State energy leaders said reliance on renewable power was not to blame but admitted that regulators may need to rethink rules governing electricity supplies and reserves. Others have called for more spending on batteries to store solar power for use when the sun does not shine. “What we really need to be doing is building new stuff,” said Leah Stokes, a UC Santa Barbara professor with expertise in climate and energy policy. “We have to continue to create very strong incentives to build new, renewable energy as fast as possible.” Paying for some of the needed efforts to lessen California’s wildfire burden will be a major challenge for state lawmakers in the years ahead. Dodd, the Napa state senator, said he might now be willing to support using revenue from the capandtrade program, through which large emitters can buy permits to release greenhouse gases, for firerelated issues. “We don’t have an unlimited checkbook,” Dodd said. “What we’ve got to do is prioritize the existing money that we already have.” The idea of spending climate funds on wildfires has been advocated before by Sen. John Moorlach, RCosta Mesa (Orange County). Moorlach said the state must do more to reduce emissions from wildfires — a tricky dilemma. California’s history of fire means that some amount of greenhouse gases from wildland blazes is natural. This year, as of Sept. 24, fires had emitted an estimated 102.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to the California Air Resources Board. The tally is bigger than the equivalent metrics for fossil fuel pollutants from any sector except transportation in 2017, the most recent year available. “If we’re serious about climate change, then neglecting addressing wildfires is disingenuous,” Moorlach said. State lawmakers have also looked at ways to help homeowners cope with the greater risk of major wildfires. But progress has been modest. State Assemblyman Jim Wood, DSanta Rosa, introduced what he called a “big, audacious bill” in 2018 that intended to make homes in the highestrisk areas more resistant to fire — and set up a $1 billion fund to help homeowners pay for retrofits. The bill passed, but with watereddown language that did not go as far as Wood wanted. He said it “didn’t feel like Californians were ready for this,” a situation he called “really, really disappointing, because here we are again facing these fires.” “I guess the challenge we really face here,” Wood added, “is that we have these fires in the fall, and then we come back in January and it’s raining and there’s something else to work on.” California lawmakers need to recognize that “housing policy is climate change policy, or should be,” said state Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, DOakland. Smarter laws dictating where and how homes are built — allowing for denser construction in urban cores, while improving public transit — can help the environment by reducing energy used in transportation, she said. Wildfire is a familiar problem to Wicks, who grew up in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Placer County. Her father worked for the U.S. Forest Service for more than four decades and, though he retired years ago, still returns regularly to help fight fires, she said. Wicks recalled walking her young daughter to school, just a few blocks away from their home, the day Bay Area skies turned an Armageddon orange because they were blanketed with so much smoke. Her daughter wanted to know where the sun went. “How do I explain to my 3yearold that we basically destroyed the planet?” Wicks said. She’s worried about the world her and others’ children will grow up in, in the absence of more decisive steps to address wildfires and climate change. “Are they going to be living in an environment that allows them to go out and take a hike,” Wicks asked, “or are they going to grow up in a place where we have two or three months of toxic fumes that we’re all dealing with every single year?” Wicks said she’s not deterred by the worsening fires, or California’s failure to solve other persistent problems. She has to keep pushing for bold policy changes, she said — she has no other choice.
A free and fair election? One poll says some California voters aren’t betting on it
Phil Matier Oct. 4, 2020 Updated: Oct. 4, 2020 4 a.m.2
A stack of vote-by-mail ballots sit in a box after being sorted at the San Francisco Department of Elections on January 24, 2008. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/TNS)Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images 2008
Veteran pollster Mark DiCamillo is predicting record voter turnout in November, but that heightened interest also comes with a high degree of skepticism on both sides of the political spectrum about how fair the election will be.
Especially among voters younger than 30. “This will be the highest turnout in history. Every organization you can name — even professional sports teams — have programs encouraging people to vote,” said DiCamillo, who is director of polling at the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Skepticism was highest among voters at the polar ends of the political spectrum, with 56% of those identifying themselves as very liberal and 50% of those identifying as very conservative saying the election will not be “fair and open.”
Voters younger than 30 expressed the least confidence about the election, with 56% saying it’s unlikely the process will be fair and open.
“It is something that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders voters have in common,” DiCamillo said.
The online poll of 7,198 voters was conducted in English and Spanish from Sept. 9 to 15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2%.
“It’s worth noting that ‘fair and open’ can mean a lot of things,” from how the campaigns are run, to how the issues are being presented, said IGS co-director Eric Schickler.
While it is not unusual for younger voters to have a mistrust of government institutions, “what we are seeing this year is different,” Schickler said. “Having the president of the United States out there saying the election is going to be rigged is something we have never seen before.”
Granted, Trump said similar things in 2016, but it was not as sustained, and he was in a different position as a challenger, Schickler said.
Of course, no one knows how Trump’s coronavirus infection will impact people’s confidence in the election.
The poll also found that 4 in 10 Californians also don’t trust the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots on time.
“Republicans and conservatives used to be among the first to take up mail ballot voting, but now they are turning away,” DiCamillo said. “It has to be because of the president’s comments.”
Just 44% of voters younger than 30 said the Postal Service can be trusted to deliver mail ballots safely and on time.
“Trust in the Postal Service rises with each age group, with 2 out of 3 of the Social Security set (65 and older) expressing trust with the Postal Service,” DiCamillo said.
Toll take: The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is seeking “community input” for a study on charging up to $12 for the privilege of driving into the downtown area during rush hour. It’s called congestion pricing.
“Hate traffic? We want your feedback,” reads the agency’s posters that went up downtown last week. “Congestion pricing could advance equity, lead to safer streets and clean the air.”
Poster on congrestion pricing at Fifth and Mission streets in downtown San Francisco. Photo: Phil Matier / The Chronicle
The posters invite people to take a survey by text message that asks for opinions on various congestion pricing plans being considered, the areas that would be covered and even for thoughts on how the money collected by the toll should be spent.
The survey asks people whether they have “any more feedback” to share about the plan, but does not ask straight out whether they are in favor of the idea.
Transit agency spokesman Eric Young said the “feedback” option affords people the opportunity to voice their objections or concerns.
“We also give them the opportunity to give us additional written feedback,” Young said
And there’s more: People who complete the survey are eligible to win one of 10 $25 Visa gift cards.
You can also hop on the authority’s website — www.sfcta.org — and play an online game called “Unclog Fog City.” Those who play are eligible to win one of 10 $100 Visa gift cards.
“It is true that congestion pricing has helped ease traffic in Singapore and London, but their outreach should be in a more neutral tone,” San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin said. “Ask people to come and learn the facts and comment instead of making it sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
Young said there would be more input from community groups.
“We have reached no overall recommendations on pricing yet. This stage of the study is about education and considering multiple different options.”
The idea of congestion pricing has been kicking around for years, but with the backing of Mayor London Breed and others, the effort appears to be getting serious.
And so is the County Transportation Authority.
“The pandemic led to congestion largely disappearing in spring 2020 — but we are already starting to see it increase again,” its website states. “The future beyond the pandemic is uncertain, but San Francisco has been resilient in the past and without intervention we expect to see a return of congestion and its negative impacts. The work we do now can help us plan and prepare for the recovery.” Any toll would need the approval of the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom. He refused to do that last year when state lawmakers voted to support the city’s plan for a toll on San Francisco’s famously crooked Lombard Street to help manage tourist traffic backups.
“It seems a bit odd to move forward with a downtown congestion study during a pandemic recession which has driven most commuters and businesses out of downtown,” San Francisco Chamber of Commerce public policy director Jay Cheng said. “We should be cautious about proposing solutions to problems which may change significantly in the future.”
The study’s recommendations are scheduled to be presented to the County Transportation Authority board next spring.
Outdoor classes and ‘forest schools’ gain new prominence in Bay Area amid distance learning struggles Outdoor education may be a solution to the myriad difficulties of remote learning.
Students at the Berkeley Forest School have story time by the bay. (Photo courtesy of the Berkeley Forest School)
By KAREN, D'SOUZA, EDSOURCE | EdSource
PUBLISHED: October 4, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. | UPDATED: October 5, 2020 at 3:53 a.m.
Stomping through puddles, scrambling over fallen logs and digging in the dirt with sticks may not sound like traditional educational activities, but they are core parts of the curriculum in “forest schools.”
Learning amid the leaves is the hallmark of a forest school, an immersive outdoor education model devoted to the exploration of nature. Forest schools, which have their roots in Scandinavian educational tradition, generally focus on preschool-age children. Instead of sitting quietly at their desks, these students build forts in the forest, pick berries fresh from the bush and have story time at the shore.
Can these outdoor schools offer lessons to other preschools and K-12 public schools at a time when being indoors is so risky?
Champions of the movement suggest outdoor education may Trees are teaching tools at the Berkeley Forest School. (Photo courtesy of the Berkeley Forest School) be a common-sense solution to the myriad difficulties of remote learning, from getting students up to speed on shifting technology to keeping young children engaged without constant human interaction. Forest schools also encourage physical activity and build resilience through social connections with peers in a natural setting, teachers say. These may well be crucial coping mechanisms during a turbulent time for many families.
“More and more people are turning to the outdoors as a way to cope with the challenges of COVID,” said Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist who recommends outdoor experiences to combat issues of attention and focus in children. “It’s much safer to be outdoors because the rates of transmission are far lower outside. On top of that, children just aren’t built to sit still for most of the day. It’s basic neural science. They need to move.”
Finding Berkeley Forest School was a lifesaver for Traci Moren, whose sons Archer, 5, and Izzy, 10, chafe at sitting still for hours. They delight in having a classroom where you can dig up snake skins, bury treasure maps and climb trees.
“Forest school has been a game-changer,” said the Berkeley mother of two, whose sons are also doing distance learning through Berkeley’s Washington Elementary School. “It’s pretty great. We are very lucky. I honestly don’t think our family would survive all this and still like each other without forest school. In the days before, I had to schedule our day around getting outside or else we’d have meltdowns and screaming matches. It was so exhausting. Now they get their energy out, are calmed being out in nature and the learning comes while they’re out moving around. They are celebrated for their energy and creativity, not asked to sit down and be quiet. They’re happier when they come home.”
Even before the pandemic, there has been a rise in the number of forest schools, which encourage children to explore the outside in rain or shine. A 2017 national survey of nature-based early childhood educators reported more than 250 nature preschools and forest kindergartens operating across the country, serving an estimated 10,000 children a year. Most forest schools aren’t licensed in California because they do not have a permanent indoor venue. Washington became the first state to license outdoor preschools last year. There are an estimated 50 such schools in California, according to the California Association of Forest Schools.
Now, during the COVID-19 crisis, a time when minimizing the spread of the virus is vital, there’s been a surge in interest in outdoor learning and turning Mother Nature into a living classroom. Forest schools are having their moment in the sun.
“Because of COVID, a lot of people are looking at outdoor learning for the first time,” said Liana Chavarin, founder of the Berkeley Forest School, which operates out of scenic César Chávez Park with its windswept views of the bay. “There’s much more demand than before.”
Forest school teachers say that children can blossom in wide-open spaces even during a pandemic. They note that outdoor learning was also prioritized during previous plagues, such as the tuberculosis outbreaks of the early 20th century. Across the country in 1907, classes were often held on rooftops and ferries and other open-air classrooms to avoid transmission.
The coronavirus spreads mainly from person-to-person contact between people within about 6 feet of each other, according to the California Department of Public Health. Masks are used at times when the children cluster, but being outside means space is plentiful and social distancing is doable. Children are encouraged to interact with each other, teachers say, which helps them stay engaged.
Masks are used when students gather at the Berkeley Forest School. (Photo courtesy of the Berkeley Forest School)
“Children need the joy of connecting with their peers, which is just not possible inside right now,” said Chavarin. “Part of it is that being outside can help you relax. That helps build resilience and confidence. Children feel the land is their own. It belongs to them.”
Outdoor learning is a rich sensory experience, educators say, that can stimulate the brain as well as the body. These teachers view the natural world as part of the lesson plan.
“Nature is your co-teacher. You may have a plan but then a cluster of ladybugs starts flying through the air and suddenly that’s your new curriculum,” said Joanna Ferraro, founder of Oakland’s Early Ecology preschool, which operates out of various East Bay parks. “That’s what makes outdoor education special. We go with what the kids are interested in, and we can do deep dives. We can stop and watch a spider for as long as we want.”
Science has long suggested that children’s mental health and academic performance can be improved by increasing exposure to natural environments and decreasing time staring at screens. A recent University of Adelaide, South Australia report, which distilled the results of 186 studies, found that most researchers conclude that time spent in nature contributes to both psychological stability and academic achievement. Time spent gazing at electronic devices, meanwhile, is associated with poor outcomes, including increased mental illness, lessened cognitive functioning and decreased academic achievement.
Some fear the impact of remote learning — children glued to their iPads and laptops for many hours — on child health and wellness.
“Remote learning can often lead to kids being on Zoom all day and then playing Roblox all night,” Chavarin said of the online game popular among children. “It’s a very sedentary lifestyle.”
Pediatricians warn that, now more than ever, children need to be physically active to stay healthy.
“With the incredible increase in screen time all school-aged children are now experiencing, it is more important than ever to encourage non-screen time experiences,” said Casey Gray, a pediatrician at Kaiser Permanente Fresno. “Time spent outdoors and in nature is extremely important for the developing brain. This allows active exploration and interaction with the real environment. It promotes good social skills, allows for free, uninhibited play and gives children experiences that simply cannot be replicated on the screen.”
Beyond the role of exercise in child development, some experts are asking, does nature help inspire kids to learn?
“Definitely,” said Stanford University professor Deborah Stipek, whose research focuses on early education. “Many lessons can make use of what children encounter in their natural surroundings.”
Anything children stumble upon in nature can become a springboard to learning, Chavarin said. A dead bird can spark a discussion about the circle of life. The fog kissing one’s face can turn into a lesson on the water cycle. A muddy stream can become the source of a clay-based art project.
“We harvest the creek for mud to make ceramics,” Chavarin said. “Then we learn how to fire the clay. The learning is in the process and the children feel very powerful because they have made something on their own.”
Empowering students is the core of this educational philosophy, in which activities are child-led. Getting to pick a lot of the topics helps children focus, they say, as does the fresh air.
“Being outside gets you in a calm but alert state which is ideal for your brain,” said Hanscom, founder of Timbernook, an outdoor therapeutic play program that operates nationally. “It helps you organize your thoughts, which is what so many kids struggle with.”
Make no mistake, proper gear is crucial to outdoor learning. On rainy days, children come decked out in rain boots and slickers. Teachers bring along tarps and blankets and occasionally move children to covered areas because of high winds or heavy rain.
Of course, there are times when going outside is not an option. During the recent wildfires, many outdoor schools in California had to cancel class because of the smoke-choked air.
Still, proponents of open-air education believe that it can be a lifeline for children who struggle with remote learning because of technical difficulties or because they crave live human interaction.
“The outdoors may be the antidote to remote learning,” said Hanscom, who has been advising schools on the benefits of outdoor education, “which can be such a struggle for so many families.” “You just don’t want to put your child through that every day,” said Chavarin, who has expanded her program to try to meet growing demand.“The parental guilt is so heavy for all of us right now.”
Early childhood experts agree that remote learning can be troublesome for young children and their parents alike.
“Distance learning is more problematic for young children than older children, and it has its limitations,” Stipek said. “My main concern is that it will increase the achievement gap — more affluent families have access to technology and more additional resources (tutors and nannies who can help children with their school work) than low-income families.”
For Moren, watching her son try to hunt and peck his way through typed writing assignments last spring was painful.
“It’s so horrible to make a 9-year-old type. It’s ridiculous and I’d just end up doing it for him,” she said. “Remote learning makes you stress over the details while forest school is about the big picture of ‘Are my kids thriving?’ My goal is to keep a calm home.’’
Many outdoor educators also believe that spending time in nature may help alleviate the strain and trauma of the last six months.
“There is a lot of repair work that needs to be done,” Ferraro said. “Children have been under so much stress, not knowing what is going to happen, and it’s gone on for a long time. For many families, it’s been pure stress. It’s heartbreaking.”
Nature should be part of the teacher’s toolkit just like tech is, some say. In our current pandemic reality, teaching children how to cope with stress may be as fundamental a skill as learning the alphabet. Outdoor education teaches children to find solace in the majesty of nature, they say.
“Nature is soothing,” Ferraro said. “Children learn from nature that they can feel safe in the world. They can feel the air on their face and see the leaves fall. They feel grounded. That experience of connectedness is what we all need right now.”
Editorial: During pandemic, vote for only two Contra Costa sales taxes Support countywide Measure X and San Pablo’s Measure S. Reject Measure V in Concord and Measure R in Orinda By EAST BAY TIMES EDITORIAL |
October 3, 2020 at 5:10 a.m.
Contra Costa County and three of its cities — Concord, Orinda and San Pablo — are seeking sales tax increases in the Nov. 3 election.
As many residents are struggling to pay their bills during the pandemic, local government tax increases should be limited to only the most essential. Especially increases in levies on sales, a regressive tax that disproportionately burdens the poor. And, as we said back in June, during this severe economic downturn tax increases should be temporary. Unfortunately, three of the four taxes do not pass both of those tests. Of the three that don’t, we recommend that voters reject two: Measure V in Concord and Measure R in Orinda. Voters should support Measure S in San Pablo. And, with some trepidation, we urge voters to back countywide Measure X despite its excessively long time period.
Sales taxes vary by city. Across California, the base amount is 7.25%. Contra Costa residents pay an additional 0.5% for BART and 0.5% for the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, bringing the total to 8.25%.
On top of that, 13 of Contra Costa’s 19 cities add their own sales taxes, either 0.5% or 1%, except for El Cerrito which adds 1.5%. So, the total sales tax rate in Contra Costa ranges from 8.25% to 9.75%.
The proceeds from all four of the proposed tax increases could be used for any legitimate governmental purpose. While the ballot wording for each of the measures talks about how the money would be used, that wording is there to attract voters. It is not legally binding.
Elected leaders could spend the money for any program, employee salaries or fatter labor benefits. Which is why the taxes should have short-term expiration dates requiring voter approval before they are extended.
Contra Costa Measure X – Yes Measure X would add a new countywide half-cent sales tax for 20 years. The length of the tax alone is a legitimate reason for voters to reject it. And that was almost a determinative factor for us; this measure should have had a shorter sunset period.
That said, Contra Costa County government has been under intense financial pressure, dating back long before the pandemic, to adequately provide health care for the needy in the county, address homelessness and provide fire prevention, especially in East County. And its countywide sales tax rate is lower than those in San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda and Santa Clara counties.
With reservations, we back this measure, but worry that the revenues will be siphoned off into salary and benefit increases rather than expanded services. Contrary to the false claims of backers in the ballot arguments, Measure X does not contain provisions for an oversight board.
It will be up to the county Board of Supervisors to demonstrate on an ongoing basis that the money is being wisely spent to deliver additional services. They should also plan to make do with the additional money; they shouldn’t expect support for an additional tax in the future.
Concord Measure V – No Concord voters first passed a half-cent sales tax in 2010 as the city was struggling to climb out of the Great Recession. It was supposed to be a short-term fix, and we warned at the time that, even though the tax was to be temporary, city leaders would come to permanently depend on the money. In 2014, city voters agreed to extend the tax to 2025. Now, in the middle of a calamitous economic downturn, the City Council placed Measure V on the ballot seeking to not only make permanent what was originally supposed to be a temporary tax, but also to double it to a full 1%. No way. Voters should reject it.
Orinda Measure R – No Orinda passed a half-cent sales tax in 2012 that’s due to expire in 2023. Measure R would extend the tax until 2041 — and double it. That’s too long without voter review. And that’s too much.
The sad part is that Orinda leaders know how to do this right. In 2012, to kick start their highly successful program to repair their roads, they went to voters and asked them to approve a sales tax increase. The money had no spending restrictions, but city officials promised it would go for roads and built in a 10-year voter review to ensure they kept their promise. And in 2014 and 2016, they won voter approval for bond measures dedicated to road repair. Now, with the roads project almost complete, they want to extend and double the original 2012 sales tax. This time, they have a long list of improvements they say they want to spend the money on: wildfire risk reduction, emergency preparedness, storm drain repair, road maintenance, and other city services. And no clear spending plan.
Even if they had one, the 20-year length of the new tax does not provide a timely opportunity for voters to review whether they’re happy with how the money is being spent.
In sum, there’s less clarity than in 2012 on where the funds would go, the tax is twice as big this time and it will be twice as long a wait before voters get to weigh in again. Vote no.
San Pablo Measure S – Yes In 2012, as the city tried to work out of the Great Recession, nearly three-fourths of city voters approved a 10-year sales tax measure, with an increase of 0.5% for the first five years, dropping it down to 0.25% for the last five years. That measure is due to expire in 2022.
Measure S, coming after another dramatic financial downturn, would extend the original sales tax measure for another 10 years, again starting at 0.5% for the first five years and 0.25% for the last five years. The city faces large budget shortfalls because of the pandemic. The city is one of the poorest in the Bay Area and the job training, youth services and police coverage the city has historically provided with funding from the sales tax are critical.
The Measure S request is modest and reasonable, especially with its stepdown after five years and the 10-year expiration. Voters should approve it.
Prop. 13 revise: Prop. 15 would be biggest change to California property taxes in 4 decades
Roland Li and Joe Garofoli Oct. 5, 2020 Updated: Oct. 5, 2020 4 a.m.
100 Second Street is seen on Monday, September 21, 2020 in San Francisco, Calif.
Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle
Norges Bank, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, caught a break when it bought a minority ownership stake in two San Francisco buildings four years ago.
Norges paid $453 million for 44% ownership of 100 First St. and 303 Second St. It was an example of soaring San Francisco real estate values: Six years earlier, the office buildings had sold for a combined $429 million, but now Norges valued them at $1.15 billion.
But unlike typical sales, the properties’ tax bill did not rise in a similar way, because of the rules set by California’s Proposition 13. Under the initiative that voters approved in 1978, property taxes can rise no more than 2% each year unless more than half of ownership is sold or new construction occurs. Those protections would be removed for commercial properties if voters pass Proposition 15 on the November ballot. The initiative would reassess commercial and industrial properties in California at least every three years instead of whenever they are sold. It would be the most sweeping change to the state’s property tax code in over four decades.
The measure could more than double the annual tax bill for the two Norges buildings, to a combined $12.4 million, based on the 2016 deal. Norges did not respond to a request for comment.
Statewide, the measure would increase property taxes by an estimated $8 billion to $12.5 billion annually, according to the nonpartisan state Legislative Analyst’s Office. Under Prop. 15, 60% of the new revenue would go to cities and counties, and the rest to school districts.
Owners with less than $3 million in total property would be exempt from the initiative — an attempt by its supporters to shield smaller owners from higher taxes. The ballot measure would not affect residential properties or agricultural land. It would begin to take effect in 2022 and be phased in over the next three years.
In San Francisco, a number of large office buildings leased by companies including Twitter, Uber and Facebook could see major tax increases, following previous ownership sales of less than 50% that, like the Norges deal, were not subject to tax increases. Buildings that have not been sold in decades could also see substantial tax increases to match the current market.
“Massive corporations — many of which are foreign and out-of-state — are robbing our communities of resources for teachers, personal protective equipment for nurses and equipment for firefighters on the front lines,” said Tyler Law, an adviser for the Prop. 15 campaign. “By avoiding their fair share, they have forced Californians to shoulder more of the burden. Prop. 15 closes property tax loopholes exploited by the richest corporations so that we can invest here in California while also giving small businesses a tax break.”
250 Howard St. (center) in San Francisco.
Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle
In the Bay Area, Prop. 15 would bring in an additional $733 million annually for San Francisco’s schools and government, $652 million for Alameda County and $770 million for San Mateo County, according to an analysis in February by the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Program for Environmental and Regional Equity.
Opponents, largely funded by business organizations, say the measure would result in property owners passing along the costs of higher tax bills to California’s small businesses — and ultimately, consumers — at a time when many are reeling from the pandemic-induced recession. “Prop. 15 is the largest property tax increase in the history of California at precisely the worst time,” said Michael Bustamante, a spokesman for the No on 15 campaign. “There is literally not a sector of California’s economy that will not be impacted by this, and all consumers are going to pay for it.”
Some No on 15 ads say the measure’s proponents have said that “homeowners are next” to lose Prop. 13 protections. However, there is nothing in Prop. 15 that affects homeowners’ property tax rates.
Prop. 15 supporters say the money the initiative would raise is desperately needed because the pandemic forced California’s schools and local governments to slash their budgets. The California Teachers Association’s political action committee has contributed nearly $12 million for the measure, and the initiative is backed by other large public-employee unions. Supporters have raised a total of $42 million.
100 Second St. (center) in San Francisco.
Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic organization backed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, San Francisco doctor Priscilla Chan, donated $7.1 million to the Yes on 15 campaign, calling the measure a way to meet local “urgent needs” such as funding public hospitals and schools.
Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed the initiative, saying it is a “fair, phased-in and long-overdue reform” that will support public safety programs and schools. Other backers include San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris.
Prop. 15’s opponents say the pandemic is a terrible time to increase property taxes, even those paid mainly by larger businesses. California has the second-highest number of businesses per capita that have closed since the coronavirus began to spread, totaling roughly 39,000, according to Yelp data through August.
John Kilroy, CEO of Kilroy Realty Corp, which sold the 44% share of the two San Francisco office buildings to Norges in 2016, said Prop. 15 could push businesses out of California.
“It would punish everybody that owns real estate and every tenant that has to occupy real estate. It would be one of the most insidious taxes, particularly at a time of great economic uncertainty and recession,” Kilroy said at an industry conference last month.
Opponents, who have raised nearly $30 million, said the property tax increases would probably be passed along to tenants because of how leases are typically written. Tenants, particularly retailers, often sign triple net leases, where they must pay all real estate taxes, building insurance and maintenance. Prop. 15 would hit San Francisco restaurants hard, said Laurie Thomas, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, the city’s major industry group. She said higher taxes could translate to higher rents, would be another blow after a six-month city ban on indoor dining.
Restaurants would be unable to raise prices enough to pay for higher rents, she said. Many have already laid off staff during the pandemic and exhausted federal coronavirus aid. Thomas said she has laid off 65 people and has lost money on outdoor dining at her two restaurants, Terzo and Rose’s Cafe.
Even though Prop. 15’s provisions wouldn’t take effect for two years, Thomas expects the economy to remain bleak. “This is just the absolute worst time,” she said.
Kevin Cronin, a real estate broker in San Francisco who works exclusively with tenants, said that in some older San Francisco buildings that haven’t been reassessed in years, an office tenant could pay between $3 to $10 more per square foot annually under Prop. 15 — adding thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in expenses. “That’s a big number for a small business,” he said. “Our clients are not Google and Facebook.”
Farmers also fear that while farmland would be exempt from Prop. 15, commercial buildings on that land could be taxed at higher rates. But according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, most equipment, agricultural or otherwise, already is taxed at market value under current law.
Prop. 15 proponents say 92% of the new taxes will be paid by 10% of the commercial and industrial property owners, citing a study by Blue Sky Consulting, whose co-founder Tim Gage served as director of the California Department of Finance under former Gov. Gray Davis.
A study by Beacon Economics, commissioned by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, said that “it seems unlikely that small-business owners would be hurt by Prop. 15.” Most rents are determined by local market factors, according to the report.
“If thousands of renters routinely had their rents increase each time properties were reassessed, evidence would be seen,” the report’s authors said. “Ultimately, this analysis shows that rents are determined by what the market is willing to pay.”
Column: California’s tax system needs to be overhauled. Making changes to Proposition 13 won’t do itBy GEORGE SKELTONCAPITOL JOURNAL COLUMNIST
OCT. 5, 2020 12 AM SACRAMENTO —
A California homeowner shows support for Proposition 13 in 1978. Proposition 15, which will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot, would change the landmark ballot measure, long thought to be a third rail in state politics. (Los Angeles Times)
Proposition 15 is arguably the most significant state measure on the Nov. 3 ballot.
And that’s saying a lot because Californians will be voting on several very significant measures.
With Proposition 15, voters are being asked to partially repeal a historic 1978 property tax cut that triggered a nationwide anti-tax revolt.
That revered initiative, Proposition 13, has always been considered untouchable — the third rail of California politics. But labor unions, led by one representing schoolteachers, are trying to roll back part of it. Their effort is supported by tax-seeking big city mayors, including Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles.
Proposition 13 passed in a landslide because homeowners were angry that their property taxes were constantly soaring as home values skyrocketed. Some retired seniors were being taxed out of their homes.
Howard Jarvis, an apartment owners’ lobbyist, skillfully capitalized on the anger, promoting the initiative that dramatically lowered taxes on all real estate — residential, commercial and industrial. The political establishment hated the measure. The people loved it.
Proposition 13 capped tax rates at 1% of assessed value and limited annual assessment increases to 2%. Moreover, property could be reassessed only at market value when it was sold.
But many business property owners, especially large corporations, gamed the system so their holdings rarely changed hands completely — only by bits and pieces at a time. That way they almost never got reassessed at market value.
Property tax revenue substantially fell off for local governments and schools. They turned to state government for bailouts and got them. But the price was loss of some local control to Sacramento.
Proposition 15’s backers didn’t dare mess with residential property owners. That would be political suicide. So, Proposition 15 exempts residential real estate.
Agriculture land is exempt, too, although not necessarily property improvements — such as orchards, vineyards, barns and irrigation systems. The California Farm Bureau Federation is opposed.
Proposition 15’s target is commercial and industrial property. It would be reassessed every three years at current market value. Property would be exempt if its owner’s total commercial real estate holdings in California were worth less than $3 million. Note: This isn’t the same as exempting one piece of property if its value is less than $3 million. The owner’s entire commercial real estate holdings couldn’t exceed $3 million.
Businesses with 50 or fewer full-time employees no longer would have to pay personal property taxes on equipment. For larger businesses, the first $500,000 worth of equipment would be exempt.
The net annual tax boost when the initiative would be fully implemented in 2025 would range from $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion, the state Legislative Analyst‘s Office estimates.
The increased tax revenue would be split this way: 60% to local governments — cities, counties and special districts — and 40% to K-12 schools and community colleges.
In Sacramento speak, Proposition 15 is a “split-roll” measure because it would create separate tax rolls for residential and commercial-industrial properties. That has long been a dream of Democratic politicians.
It’s “long-overdue reform,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in endorsing the measure last month. “It’s consistent with California’s progressive fiscal values…. It will fund essential services such as public schools and public safety.”
It’s a big-bucks brawl between two powerful traditional rivals: labor — mainly the California Teachers Assn. and Service Employees International Union — and business. They could wind up spending close to $100 million between them,
Polls show a close vote.
A recent statewide survey by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found likely voters favored the proposition by 49% to 34%, with 17% undecided.
“The chances for passage are fairly decent,” said the pollster, Mark DiCamillo.
Another poll of likely voters by the Public Policy Institute of California showed Proposition 15 ahead by 51% to 40%, with 9% undecided. Democrats were in strong support, Republicans in heavy opposition and independents equally divided.
“We’re dealing with a very complicated issue,” PPIC President Mark Baldassare said. “People wonder about the unintended consequences. They worry about the risks. That’s why we have only a slim majority…. “In every poll ever done, most voters continue to believe that Prop. 13 is a good thing.”
Larry Grisolano, the Proposition 15 campaign strategist, says two major news events may help the measure.
One is the New York Times investigative report that President Trump has been a longtime, serious tax evader — maybe a cheat.
“That reminds people we’ve got a system where most taxpayers are doing their part, but corporations are avoiding taxes,” Grisolano says. “That’s part of the appeal of the split roll.”
The second Proposition 15 helper is the calamitous wildfire season, the strategist says. Voters are reminded that local fire departments need to be better prepared for emergencies, and this requires lots more money.
But Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, argues that with the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent deep recession, “now is absolutely the worst time to enact the largest property tax increase in California history.”
“Small businesses are struggling to survive, trying to get reestablished,” Lapsley says. “If this thing passes, many people will not even try to reopen. Just forget it.”
Anyway, he adds, “the last thing California needs is another tax increase.”
Agreed.
What California really needs is a complete overhaul of its ludicrously outdated tax system. Proposition 15 doesn’t do it.
After he was elected, Newsom ambitiously talked about perhaps reaching a “grand bargain” on tax reform. But he did nothing. Next year, he should surprise us and try.
Editorial: Bay Area ballots’ crush of ill-timed tax hikes
Chronicle Editorial Board Oct. 6, 2020
Monday was the first day of early, in-person voting outside the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.
Photo: Jana Asenbrennerova / Special to The Chronicle
Beyond California’s daunting dozen statewide propositions, the state’s voters will consider a host of local ballot measures next month. Many of them — 180 by one count — would impose, raise or extend city and county taxes. The impressive tally in the Bay Area includes 1 cardroom tax (in San Jose), 1 ride-hailing tax (in Berkeley), 3 business receipts taxes (two of them in San Francisco), 5 real estate transfer taxes, 5 cannabis taxes, 6 utility taxes, 7 hotel taxes, 16 parcel taxes and 18 sales taxes.
Two far-reaching but thinly justified local measures would raise sales taxes by half a percentage point across Alameda and Contra Costa counties, raising tens of millions of dollars annually for their governments. While officials have portrayed the tax increases as funding homelessness services, coronavirus response and other urgent needs, the reality is that the revenue would go to each county’s general fund to be spent at the discretion of the local officials who proposed them. The parallels between the proposals, Alameda County Measure W and Contra Costa County Measure X, don’t end there. In both counties, the sales tax increases are the second proposed to voters this year. The March primary ballots also featured 0.5% sales tax increases for specified uses in each county — child care and pediatric medicine in Alameda, transportation in Contra Costa — that fell short of the two-thirds support typically required for special-purpose taxes. The general taxes on the ballot in November require the support of only a simple majority, a hurdle the primary measures cleared.
Legal disputes have further blurred the local tax picture. A state appellate court ruling on a lawsuit led by San Francisco officials found the two-thirds requirement for special taxes should apply only to ballot measures placed by local governments, not those qualified by private parties. That could clear Alameda County to collect the sales tax hike proposed in March even as voters consider another.
State and local sales taxes in Alameda County amount to at least 9.25% and as much as 9.75% in cities that have approved additional levies, so one or both of this year’s measures could put the rate over 10% in all or part of the county. In Contra Costa County, where sales taxes range from 8.25% to 9.25%, three cities — Orinda, Concord and San Pablo — are proposing their own 0.5% increases on top of the county measure in November.
The pandemic and the associated downturn provide the most compelling argument for local tax increases. The contagion has increased the demand for services while undermining the revenues needed to provide them, and the federal government has provided relatively little aid to states and cities so far. But the proposed duration of the tax increases doesn’t support the notion that they are emergency measures: Alameda County’s tax hike would last 10 years and Contra Costa’s 20.
Sales tax hikes are ill-suited to the crisis in other ways, relying on revenues that are currently depressed and unpredictable while disincentivizing consumer spending when it’s sorely needed. And because sales taxes are regressive by nature, the increases would disproportionately burden those least able to afford them.
The crush of local tax measures on this and other California ballots partly reflects the draconian and convoluted strictures imposed by Proposition 13 in 1978 and the 1996 follow-up Prop. 218, which limited property taxes and established the two-thirds threshold for tax increases. This year’s statewide Prop. 15 would begin to address those excesses by lifting Prop. 13 restrictions for large commercial properties.
Especially in light of that and other unsettled questions, including the ultimate fate of measures only recently put to voters, the counties’ proposed tax hikes are ill-timed and poorly targeted. Voters should hesitate to support long-term, regressive tax hikes at a time of great but temporary turmoil.
Trump halts COVID-19 relief talks until after election By ANDREW TAYLOR and AAMER MADHANI October 7, 2020
The White House is seen in Washington, early Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020, the morning after President Donald Trump returned from the hospital where he was treated for COVID-19. Traffic moves along K Street NW as TV crews set up in Black Lives Matter Plaza. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday called an abrupt end to negotiations with Democrats over additional COVID-19 relief, delaying action until after the election despite ominous warnings from his own Federal Reserve chairman about the deteriorating conditions in the economy.
Trump tweeted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was “not negotiating in good faith” and said he’s asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to direct all his focus before the election into confirming his U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. “I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business,” Trump tweeted.
Hours later, Trump appeared to edge back a bit from his call to end negotiations. He took to Twitter again and called on Congress to send him a “Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200)” — a reference to a pre-election batch of direct payments to most Americans that had been a central piece of negotiations between Pelosi and the White House. Pelosi has generally rejected taking a piecemeal approach to COVID relief.
“I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?” Trump said in a flurry of tweets Tuesday evening. He also called on Congress to immediately approve $25 billion for airlines and $135 billion the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses.
The unexpected turn could be a blow to Trump’s reelection prospects and comes as his administration and campaign are in turmoil. Trump is quarantining in the White House with a case of COVID, and the latest batch of opinion polls shows him significantly behind former Vice President Joe Biden with the election four weeks away.
The collapse means that Trump and down-ballot Republicans will face reelection without delivering aid to voters — such as the $1,200 direct payments, or “Trump checks,” to most individuals — even as the national jobless rate is about 8% with millions facing the threat of eviction. One endangered Republican, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, said “waiting until after the election to reach an agreement on the next Covid-19 relief package is a huge mistake.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden slammed Trump’s move.
“Make no mistake: if you are out of work, if your business is closed, if your child’s school is shut down, if you are seeing layoffs in your community, Donald Trump decided today that none of that — none of it — matters to him,” Biden said in a statement released by his campaign.
Trump’s move came immediately after he spoke with the top GOP leaders in Congress, who had been warily watching talks between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Pelosi. Many Senate Republicans had signaled they would not be willing to go along with any stimulus legislation that topped $1 trillion, and GOP aides had been privately dismissive of the prospects for a deal.
Just on Saturday, tweeting from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Trump said, “OUR GREAT USA WANTS & NEEDS STIMULUS. WORK TOGETHER AND GET IT DONE.” But any Pelosi-sponsored agreement of close to $2 trillion raised the potential of a GOP revolt if it came to a vote.
Last week, the White House said it was backing a $400 per week pandemic jobless benefit and dangled the possibility of a COVID-19 relief bill of $1.6 trillion. But that offer was rejected by Pelosi, who continued to take a hard line in the talks, including insisting on repeal of a $254 billion GOP business tax break passed in the March package as a way to finance additional relief.
Pelosi had spoken with Mnuchin earlier Tuesday. After Trump’s tweets spiking the negotiations, Pelosi said Trump was “unwilling to crush the virus” and “refuses to give real help to poor children, the unemployed, and America’s hard working families.”
Trump broke off talks after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned earlier Tuesday that the economic recovery remains fragile seven months into coronavirus pandemic without further economic stimulus.
Stocks dropped suddenly on Wall Street after Trump ordered a stop to negotiations. The Dow Jones Industrial Average swung instantly from a gain of about 200 points to a loss of about 300 points.
Powell, in remarks before the National Association for Business Economics, made clear that too little support “would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses.”
Trump cited Pelosi’s demands for state and local governments as a key reason for pulling out of the talks. Pelosi and Mnuchin were far apart on that issue — with Trump offering $250 billion while Pelosi was holding out for more than $400 billion. And Pelosi was asking for a higher weekly jobless benefit and refundable tax credits for the working poor, among other provisions.
Early rounds of COVID relief passed by overwhelming margins as the economy went into lockdown in March. After that, Trump and many of his GOP allies focused more on loosening social and economic restrictions as the key to recovery instead of more taxpayer- funded aid.
Still, the decision to halt negotiations could be politically risky with just four weeks to go before Election Day. While the stock market has clawed much of its way back after cratering in the early weeks of the crisis, unemployment stands at 7.9%, and the nearly 10 million jobs that remain lost since the start of the pandemic exceed the number that the nation shed during the entire 2008-09 Great Recession.
White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for further explanation of the timing of the president’s decision to halt negotiations.
Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman, pushed back against the notion that breaking off negotiations could hurt the president at the ballot box.
“Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Congressional Democrats have not been honest brokers,” Murtaugh said. “They would rather have a political issue to help Joe Biden than act to help Americans. It’s despicable.”
McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill he supported Trump’s decision. While Trump said he’ll immediately restart talks in November if he wins reelection, a Biden victory could mean the economy would go without further stimulus until February.
The economy has recovered more quickly than most economists had expected, so far, largely because of the stimulus Congress approved in a $2 trillion package in March. The $1,200 stimulus checks, supplemental $600 unemployment benefits each week, and aid to small businesses boosted household incomes and enabled many low-income Americans to pay bills and rent and maintain their overall spending, according to data from Opportunity Insights.
But the recovery has slowed and certain sectors such as restaurants, hotels, theaters and airlines remain in bad shape, shedding jobs and risking permanent realignment. Without more stimulus, economists expect growth will slow significantly in the final three months of the year.
“You’re going to see quite a significant drag on growth,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm. It “would really risk a double-dip recession.”
Opinion: GOP must stop stalling on COVID-19 relief bill Pandemic is not over. Congress must pass urgently needed legislation for the American people
Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images archives
Congresswoman Barbara Lee is urging Republicans to support legislation to provide pandemic relief for Americans. (Photo by Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images)
By BARBARA LEE | PUBLISHED: October 7, 2020 at 6:10 a.m. | UPDATED: October 7, 2020 at 7:07 a.m.
After months of inaction and obstruction by the White House and Senate Leadership, House Democrats said “enough” and passed an updated $2.2 trillion relief bill to help millions of families struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic.
As much as the Trump administration has tried to pretend otherwise, the pandemic is not over, as the outbreak at the White House makes clear. Tens of millions of workers are unemployed. The number of families living without enough food has skyrocketed. Businesses across the country, and in the Bay Area, continue to close, many of them for good. In May, the House passed the comprehensive HEROES Act relief package to help families stay in their homes and put food on the table, to support first responders and essential workers, to give schools the resources they need to reopen safely, and to fund the testing, tracing and treatment programs that we need to stop the virus.
For almost five months, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, has refused to allow a vote on the bill in the Senate and has made no serious counterproposals. Meanwhile, close to 1,000 people will die from the disease today alone.
We are facing the worst public health crisis and the worst economic disaster of our lifetimes. If we don’t want things to get even worse, our government has to step up and help people get through these overlapping crises.
The updated HEROES Act passed Oct. 1 seeks to achieve three goals: defeat the virus, recover the economy, and safeguard our democracy.
Specifically, the bill provides $75 billion for testing and treatment, with a focus on the disparities facing communities of color. Black, Brown and Indigenous people have suffered the most from COVID. Language included at my request will ensure that testing, tracing and treatment efforts partner with leaders in those communities.
On the economic side, the bill includes another round of stimulus payments to families that need it: $1,200 for adults and $500 for all dependents. It also restores the $600 per week expanded unemployment assistance that ran out in July. It includes a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures for all renters and homeowners, gets relief to businesses to cover payroll through grants, and creates a $120 billion grant program for restaurants, which are in dire need of help in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
The bill includes hundreds of billions of dollars to fund child care and help schools reopen safely and efficiently.
Here in California, we’re also dealing with historic wildfires that have caused incomprehensible damage and blanketed our cities with smoke. My colleagues and I in the California delegation fought hard to ensure our state will receive targeted relief. The bill includes an estimated $37 billion for state and local governments in California. The seven cities in my district would receive $458 million to pay for health and economic initiatives, fill budget gaps and allow our communities to not only survive these disasters but to thrive thereafter.
Finally, weeks before the most consequential election of our lifetimes, in which one candidate is doing everything in his power to suppress the vote and undermine the result, our legislation includes safeguards for our democracy — for example $15 billion to make sure the U.S. Postal Service can do its job.
Once again, my colleagues in the House are showing their commitment to fighting this pandemic and putting our economy back on track. I hope that Senate Republicans and the Trump administration will finally join us in this effort to provide urgently needed relief to the American people and to invest in the long-term health and economic security of our communities.
Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, represents California’s 13th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
California suffers harsh budget blow as Trump ends coronavirus stimulus talks
Alexei Koseff Oct. 6, 2020 Updated: Oct. 6, 2020 7:06 p.m.
Demonstrators at San Francisco State University on Saturday protest staff layoffs, to take effect in November.Photo: Constanza Hevia H. / Special to The Chronicle
SACRAMENTO — The big state budget bet that California officials made this summer appears to have gone bust after President Trump declared Tuesday he was ending talks with congressional Democrats on another coronavirus stimulus bill before the election.
Billions of dollars in funding cuts that Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers hoped they would be able to reverse this fall will now likely remain in effect, at least for several more months. That is bad news for California’s public universities, courts, schools and government employees. They collectively lost about $11 billion in the state budget that took effect July 1, though the state established a mechanism for reversing those reductions if the federal government provided a bailout by Oct. 15.
Through halting negotiations on a coronavirus package over the past week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin remained far apart on a dollar figure, particularly for state and local funding. But Newsom had continued to hold out hope they would reach a deal before Oct. 15, telling reporters Monday that “I believe the strategy is still one that will bear fruit.”
Then Trump tweeted Tuesday that Pelosi was “not negotiating in good faith” and he had “instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business.”
Pelosi replied that “today, once again, President Trump showed his true colors: putting himself first at the expense of the country, with the full complicity of the GOP members of Congress.
“Walking away from coronavirus talks demonstrates that President Trump is unwilling to crush the virus,” Pelosi said in a statement.
The California agencies left in the lurch by the breakdown have laid off employees, reduced hours of operation and made other preparations since the cuts were handed down in July. But some, waiting to see whether their funding might be restored, held off on the most sweeping changes. Now, even more workers could lose their jobs or see their pay slashed.
“We’re sort of trying to have the worst-case scenario plans ready to roll,” Chad Finke, court executive officer for the Alameda County Superior Court, said before Trump broke off the talks. “Everyone is watching Washington to see, are they going to pull a rabbit out of a hat?”
The state cut $200 million from the judiciary budget in June, but hoped to restore $150 million if it received aid from Washington by Oct. 15. Most of the cuts, about $177 million, are for trial courts.
Alameda County Superior Court, which typically has an annual budget around $92 million, received $7 million less from the state this year, according to Finke.
Since nearly the entire court budget goes to staff pay and benefits, Finke said, “the only way to deal with that is through personnel.” The court has instituted a hiring freeze, and close to 120 positions out of about 650 are now vacant. Half the remaining staff is furloughed every other Friday.
Without aid from the federal government, Finke said, “we may wind up having to do more.” That could mean additional furloughs, reduced hours or even layoffs, which would result in slower filing times for paperwork and delayed court hearings.
“COVID has already imposed a backlog on the courts, and this is making it worse,” he said.
Facing a $16 million budget cut, Santa Clara County laid off more than 50 clerks and other court staff this summer, while also furloughing many employees two days a month. The San Mateo County Superior Court, which lost $4.5 million, cut 20 positions in August, implemented one furlough day a month, froze hiring and slashed its public hours in half. To deal with a $4.6 million funding cut, San Francisco is not replacing court employees who resign or retire.
Assemblyman Phil Ting, the San Francisco Democrat who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee, said lawmakers targeted the cuts at the agencies they felt could most withstand them or had other ways to bring in revenue, like tuition and fees. The state maintained spending on health care and social services programs, even as it closed a $54.3 billion deficit.
“We tried to protect the most vulnerable and struggling Californians,” Ting said.
Without a federal bailout, he added, deeper cuts are likely in 2021.
This year, the state will sustain $250 million in reductions to affordable housing grants, $250 million in funding decreases to county health and social services programs, and $90 million in cuts to special education teacher scholarships.
The state also negotiated $2.8 billion in pay reductions with its unionized workforce. Those are now likely to stand. San Francisco State University staffer Adam Paganini protests campus layoffs on Saturday. The end to federal stimulus negotiations means cuts in California’s budget can’t be reversed. The single biggest hit is $6.6 billion for K-12 schools and community colleges that lawmakers deferred to future years. That delayed funding is on top of $5.9 billion in deferrals handed down to districts regardless of whether more federal aid becomes available. Districts are less likely to feel immediate pain, however, because they can borrow against that money or tap into their savings, with the state promising to pay them back later.
About $66 million of the $272 million that Oakland Unified School District is supposed to receive from the state, and $97 million of the $492 million for San Francisco Unified School District, has been deferred, according to district representatives. That’s far more than they have in reserves, and both districts anticipate short-term borrowing to cover their bills in the spring.
Also at stake is nearly $1 billion for the University of California and California State University that the state budget made dependent on federal aid. Each university system is now operating with about $300 million less from the state than it did last year. Both have taken steps to close the gap, such as freezing hiring and raises, eliminating nonessential travel, shifting meetings to a virtual format and temporarily reducing pay for top officials.
NEWS ANALYSIS In Scuttling Stimulus Talks, Trump Invites Political Risk for Himself and Republicans
The politics of a bipartisan deal were always tricky, but the president’s abrupt move to upend negotiations removed any ambiguity about who was responsible for the lack of an aid bill.
By Jim Tankersley and Emily Cochrane Oct. 7, 2020
Democrats and Republicans have both faced powerful disincentives to compromise on a stimulus bill.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s decision to walk away from bipartisan talks over a coronavirus aid bill less than a month before Election Day was a remarkably perilous act for a president about to face voters and for Republicans who are fighting to keep the Senate and now risk being blamed for the collapse of a compromise that had always faced steep obstacles. Vulnerable Republicans were alarmed at what one of them, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, called a “huge mistake.” Democrats seized on the president’s move to accuse Mr. Trump of callous disregard for Americans struggling amid the pandemic. And by Tuesday night, Mr. Trump himself took to Twitter to try to walk back his own decision to kill the negotiations, suggesting that he might support narrower stimulus measures.
But such bare-bones plans have been rejected by Democrats and Republicans alike, and there was little reason to believe they would be successful now. If that holds, there will be no comprehensive plan to provide jobless aid or stimulus checks to Americans, furnish aid to small businesses and airlines, or send federal support to state and local governments, at least for now. The economic recovery will continue to shudder, and Mr. Trump will have left little ambiguity about how a plan to stabilize it finally fell apart.
“Trump made this really easy for Democrats,” said Tony Fratto, a former aide to President George W. Bush, who is now a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies in Washington. “Republicans can try to explain that the blame is on Democrats. Democrats only have to hold up Trump’s tweet, taking the blame himself.”
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee, did just that on Tuesday evening, in his own Twitter post that said, “Make no mistake: if you are out of work, if your business is closed, if your child’s school is shut down, if you are seeing layoffs in your community, Donald Trump decided today that none of that matters to him.”
Even as Republicans publicly blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the breakdown, saying she had been unwilling to compromise, multiple aides privately likened the president’s tweets to his 2018 declaration that he would be “proud to shut down the government for border security.” His words at the time effectively handed Democrats political cover for the historic lapse in government funding that would follow, and top Republican officials feared that they could have the same effect now, with voters already casting ballots.
In an interview on ABC’s “The View” on Wednesday, Ms. Pelosi said Mr. Trump’s blitz of follow-up tweets calling for tailored aid measures was evidence that he had seen the political downside of ending negotiations, saying the president was “rebounding from a terrible mistake that he made yesterday, and the Republicans in Congress are going down the drain with him on that.”
Republicans publicly blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the end of the talks, saying she had been unwilling to compromise, though that stance was complicated by President Trump’s tweets.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
Compounding the political risk, Mr. Trump said the halt in stimulus negotiations would give Republicans time to focus on quickly confirming his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a move that polls have shown is unpopular with voters. By contrast, Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of another stimulus bill. “This is going to make it very hard for him to make the case that he’s doing all he can to pull the nation out of economic malaise,” Mr. Fratto said.
Mr. Trump vowed that a recovery plan would pass “immediately after I win,” but there was little indication that the powerful political disincentives that have so far stymied efforts to strike a bipartisan deal would dissipate in the lame-duck session that bridges the weeks between Election Day and the start of a new Congress in January. The election outcome, aides and lawmakers warned, could in fact deepen the intransigence on both sides, further delaying relief to Americans.
For months, even as the economic need grew and the contours of a compromise became clear, political forces have conspired to thwart a stimulus deal. Republicans who feared Mr. Trump was headed for defeat in November began polishing their fiscally conservative credentials in anticipation of future campaigns, including the 2024 presidential race, by asserting their opposition to another costly aid plan. By staying out of the talks early and remaining disengaged at key moments, Mr. Trump confounded many in his own party by failing to push Republicans to cut a deal, a detachment that only grew after he signed executive orders in August that attempted to bypass Congress to deliver some relief.
And Democrats, sensing mounting Republican political vulnerability, have been unwilling to make many concessions — which could provide a potential political lifeline to Mr. Trump and his party — when they believe an electoral sweep for their party in November could allow them to push through a far more generous bill after Election Day. Top Democrats believe that voters increasingly see Mr. Trump as a “chaos” president, and that a last-minute agreement could temper that perception.
“Their political positions are far apart, and their polling, which is being done daily, says they’re not being punished for not doing a deal,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office who runs the conservative think tank American Action Forum and remains close to many Republicans in Congress, said last week. “The minute that changes, they’ll shift.”
The elements of an agreement have been obvious for some time: a price tag somewhere around $2 trillion, including extended aid of around $400 a week for the unemployed, additional support for small businesses and direct payments to low- and medium-income households, liability protections for businesses and workers, and more money for schools, state and local
Democrats had started negotiations north of $3 trillion, with a bill that passed the House in May. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, waited until midsummer to present his party’s $1 trillion plan, but has since scaled down his offer considerably, to $350 billion, even as the Trump administration was reaching for a much larger package. Mr. Trump has been a disruptive force in the negotiations, never making clear what he wanted and by turns cheering on the talks and moving to blow them up.
As recently as Saturday, he had called for an agreement, tweeting that, “OUR GREAT USA WANTS & NEEDS STIMULUS. WORK TOGETHER AND GET IT DONE.”
Along the way, deep divisions were exposed in both parties. Vulnerable Senate Republicans desperate to show voters they can work across party lines to address urgent needs have pressed for a deal. But most Republicans made it plain that they had bailout fatigue and would not be willing to embrace a large aid package.
“It became very obvious over the last couple of days that a comprehensive bill was just going to get to a point where it didn’t have really much Republican support at all,” said Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff. “It was more of a Democrat-led bill, which would have been problematic, more so in the Senate than in the House.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the lead White House negotiator, had made an offer of a $1.6 trillion package to Democrats.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
A group of rank-and-file centrists in both parties — many of them facing difficult re-election contests in competitive House districts — tried to forge a compromise, but leading Democrats panned the proposal as inadequate. That has left many moderates anxious at the prospect of returning home to their constituents empty-handed.
“What frightens me enormously is that some are going to be able to get through this much, much better than others,” said Representative Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey. In a recent interview, he said he had raided his kitchen cabinets to deliver sandwiches and fruit to a constituent after she called his office worried that she did not have enough food to last the night. “Those that are not? This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime situations that could very well cripple them for a generation if we don’t take some of the necessary steps in the next weeks.”
The mood hanging over the talks in recent weeks, said Jon Lieber, a former aide to Mr. McConnell who is now managing director for the United States at the Eurasia Group, was “so negative.”
“No one cares,” he said. “The president is not engaged. The Republicans are over it. The Democrats seem bent on not giving the president a victory.”
Jason Furman, a former top economist for President Barack Obama, had recently begun pushing for Democrats to accept an offer by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the lead White House negotiator, of a $1.6 trillion package, stressing the potential harm to people and businesses if the economy went months without more stimulus.
“I’m disappointed that policymakers haven’t come together more quickly, because time really matters here,” Mr. Furman said in an interview. “It matters for schools. It matters for families. It matters for testing to control the spread of the virus.”
Business groups pressured congressional leaders on both sides to compromise, to little avail.
Several analysts blamed the relative stability of stock markets in recent months for undermining urgency for another package, a sentiment Mr. Trump seemed to reflect in his Twitter posts on Tuesday. “Our Economy is doing very well,” he wrote. “The Stock Market is at record levels.” After Mr. Trump’s posts withdrawing from negotiations, the S&P 500 dropped. On Wednesday morning, it rose again, on what analysts speculated was hope that Mr. Trump’s latest Twitter posts might revive the stimulus talks.
Carl Hulse and Luke Broadwater contributed reporting.
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Update - August 28, 2020 September is Coastal Cleanup Month this Year
Help clean your neighborhood for this year's pandemic-safe event!
Richmond Shoreline Coastal Cleanup Day has been held every year since I co- founded it 30 years ago.
But, like most large events, this annual community event is being adapted for COVID- 19 into a month of smaller, pandemic-friendly activities.
September is Coastal Cleanup Month this year, and the theme in Contra Costa County is "A Clear Shore Starts at Your Door."
Most sidewalk and street litter ends up in San Francisco Bay or along the shoreline.
Picking up litter on your block is a great way to help clean the Bay and shoreline. It's a pandemic-friendly activity that can easily be done with a face covering, gloves, and while maintaining six feet of social distance from others.
I've hosted a Coastal Cleanup site at Richmond's Shimada Friendship Park, in partnership with the nonprofit Watershed Project and the city of Richmond.
This year the Watershed Project is spearheading neighborhood cleanups in September throughout the County. This may be cleaning litter from sidewalks, street gutters, creek beds, or local parks.
You can register with the Watershed Project to track and tally the debris you pick up, which helps gather data that is used for important policy decisions to make San Francisco Bay cleaner and healthier.
It also has a helpful Safe Cleaning Guide.
This isn't the same as our usual Richmond Shoreline event with conversation, coffee, and a group lunch, but it's an impactful way to help our beautiful San Francisco Bay and neighborhoods at the same time!
Please join me on one or many days in September cleaning our shore, by starting at our door.
I also like the California Coastal Commission's Coastal Cleanup slogan this year: Protect Your Happy Place! The commission is also championing neighborhood cleanup Saturdays in September.
The Bay shoreline is one of my Happy Places, as I know it is for many of us. I walk along the Bay Trail frequently and feel energized by the Bay's beauty and wildlife.
I look forward to joining you to make our neighborhood and Bay cleaner.
John Gioia
Supervisor, District One
Contra Costa County
11780 San Pablo Avenue, Suite D
El Cerrito, CA 94530
510-231-8686 Phone
510-374-3429 Fax [email protected] contracosta.ca.gov/gioia
Release Date: September 4, 2020
Special Labor Day Message
Many of us know Labor Day as a the unofficial end of summer, but have never been introduced to the reason for its inception. Labor Day, the first Monday in September, has been recognized as a federal holiday since 1894. While there are different origin stories of this special day, its intention stays the same: to set aside a day to honor and celebrate working people.
District 2 honors the work of women and men and all the Essential Workers at the frontlines that make our lives safer and better. Whether you are providing healthcare to the vulnerable, educating our youth, providing food for our tables, or fighting for our safety, you are a valued member of our society and your work improves the lives of everyone in our community. Thank You, we honor and respect your services and praise your dedication on this very special Labor Day. Honoring Labor,
Richard Valle
The East Bay Regional Park District is proud to share the 36th Annual California Coastal Cleanup will take place this year – from home! EBRPD invites our communities to safely collect waste locally for the health of local and downstream environments during the month of September 2020.
“Clean the Shore from Your Own Front Door”
Please find information on EBRPD’s website (link below) regarding safe practices for waste collection.
Participants are encouraged to use their own equipment – including face coverings and gloves – any day this month to collect waste in their neighborhoods. This effort will assist in protecting our local communities, as well as the coastal environments downstream. Volunteers are encouraged to log their hours, for which they can receive a patch or sticker (pictured left) mailed to their home.
Learn more and register here: https://www.ebparks.org/about/getinvolved/volunteer/events.htm
Due to COVID-19, EBRPD’s volunteer programing is largely on hold. When in-person programming resumes, participants will be able to sign up for volunteer opportunities and submit applications for outdoor recreation, naturalist and environmental education programs.
As always, thank you for your continuous engagement.
HAVE A GREAT LABOR DAY!