Alameda News - Local Alameda County News

Water district drops plan to build largest new Bay Area reservoir since 1998 amid cost overruns, delays

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:03:20 +0000

Faced with new cost overruns, the board of Santa Clara County’s largest water agency on Tuesday voted to kill a plan to build a huge new reservoir in the southern part of the county near Pacheco Pass after eight years of studies and $100 million in public spending.

The board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District voted 6-0 to halt planning and engineering studies, and to withdraw the agency’s application for state bond funds for the Pacheco Reservoir project.

The reservoir — for which the agency has already spent $100 million on planning, environmental studies, engineering work, legal bills and other costs — would have been the largest new reservoir built anywhere in the Bay Area since 1998 when Los Vaqueros Reservoir was constructed in eastern Contra Costa County.

But soaring costs, the inability of the water district to find any other water agencies to help pay construction costs and share the water, and a decision last month by the federal Bureau of Reclamation not to allow water from federal projects to be stored in the reservoir, marked the end.

“These are very difficult projects,” said Tony Estremera, chairman of the water district. “We can do the engineering. We can engineer a project. But there has to be political willingness and there has to be funding available.”

In 2017, the district estimated the reservoir would cost at $969 million. By this year, the price tag had soared to $2.7 billion. On Tuesday, Darin Taylor, chief financial officer at the district, said tariffs and other costs would increase that price tag to $3.2 billion, not counting financing, which could cost an additional $3 billion.

With no partners interested to help cover those costs, the project could raise water rates for Santa Clara County residents by $20 to $27 a month for the average household, Taylor said, or up to $324 a year, with other cost increases beyond that likely.

“We can’t put this kind of pressure on our water rates,” Estremera said.

The district, a government agency based in San Jose which provides water to 2 million people, will continue to work on other alternatives, Estremera said, including expanding groundwater storage, boosting recycled water, and looking at projects to raise the height of existing reservoirs like Calero in Santa Clara County or the dam at San Luis Reservoir east of Gilroy.

Opponents, who have included San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-San Jose, said the project was impractical and unlikely from the start. The water district’s staff rejected the idea of a dam in the same location area 25 years ago due to unstable geology that could spike costs. The site would submerge a small part of Henry W. Coe State Park. The district’s own studies also showed that other options for expanding the water supply were cheaper.

“This is the right decision — analysis has consistently shown that Pacheco’s water storage potential simply doesn’t justify the high additional costs ratepayers would be forced to bear,” Mahan said late Tuesday. “We now have an opportunity to prioritize local investments in alternative solutions like water purification and recycling, conservation, groundwater recharge and perhaps one day even desalination.”

Environmentalists celebrated.

“We have come to a point where it seems like realities have become quite stark,” said Juan Pablo Galván Martínez, senior land use manager with Save Mount Diablo, in Walnut Creek. “We care about drinking water and natural resources and lands that are designated as protected. This project doesn’t yield the public benefits that its proponents originally envisioned.”

The collapse of Pacheco was years in the making.

In 2017, the district proposed building a 320-foot high dam on Pacheco Creek near Highway 152 and Henry Coe State Park. The goal was to obtain funding from Proposition 1, a state water bond that California voters passed during the 2012-16 drought to help pay half of the construction costs.

The new earthen dam on the North Fork of Pacheco Creek was to have been built 2 miles north of Highway 152, east of Casa de Fruta, replacing a small reservoir that has been there since the 1930s.

The new reservoir would have held 140,000 acre feet of water — enough for 700,000 people a year when full — and would have been filled mostly by piping in water from nearby San Luis Reservoir in wet years that the district buys from state and federal agencies.

But the project ran into setback after setback. The California Water Commission promised it $504 million, although it had only released $24 million so far. In recent months, the commission grew impatient with the slow progress, and inability of the district board to make a final decision on whether the project was going to move forward or not. Earlier this month, the commission chose to award additional money to other proposed water projects, most notably $219 million to the Sites Reservoir project in Colusa County, which has 22 other water agencies as partners, while giving no new funding to Pacheco.

The original Pacheco plan was to break ground in 2024 and finish construction by 2032.

In May, however, district officials told the California Water Commission that they still haven’t secured major permits needed to start construction, haven’t secured water rights, and only have completed 30% of the design. They said they wouldn’t be able to break ground until 2029 and wouldn’t complete construction until at least 2036.

They said the project had been slowed by lawsuits by environmental groups, discoveries of geological problems, and other issues. Some board members who had supported the project said it will be back again one day in the future.

“There are not enough dams in California,” said board member Dick Santos. “We have climate change. We have fires. Water is precious.”

Water district drops plan to build largest new Bay Area reservoir since 1998 amid cost overruns, delays

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:03:18 +0000

“We can’t put this kind of pressure on our water rates,” Estremera said.

Environmentalists celebrated.

The collapse of Pacheco was years in the making.

The new earthen dam on the North Fork of Pacheco Creek was to have been built 2 miles north of Highway 152, east of Casa de Fruta, replacing a small reservoir that has been there since the 1930s.

The original Pacheco plan was to break ground in 2024 and finish construction by 2032.

“There are not enough dams in California,” said board member Dick Santos. “We have climate change. We have fires. Water is precious.”

Investigation underway into Newark drive-by shooting

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 20:53:40 +0000

NEWARK – An investigation is underway into a drive-by shooting over the weekend in Newark, police said.

No one was injured in the incident, which happened just before 4 p.m. Sunday in the 6200 block of Baine Avenue, near Civic Center Park, according to the Newark Police Department.

Witnesses said the suspect fired two shots at the victims and drove away in a white SUV.

“Detectives are investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident, speaking to witnesses and processing the scene for evidence,” police said. “At this time, the motive remains unknown.”

Anyone with information related to the case can contact Detective Sgt. Matt Warren at matt.warren@newarkca.gov or 510-578-4960, or the anonymous tip line at 510-578-4965.

Investigation underway into Newark drive-by shooting

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 20:53:31 +0000

NEWARK – An investigation is underway into a drive-by shooting over the weekend in Newark, police said.

No one was injured in the incident, which happened just before 4 p.m. Sunday in the 6200 block of Baine Avenue, near Civic Center Park, according to the Newark Police Department.

Witnesses said the suspect fired two shots at the victims and drove away in a white SUV.

Anyone with information related to the case can contact Detective Sgt. Matt Warren at matt.warren@newarkca.gov or 510-578-4960, or the anonymous tip line at 510-578-4965.

Berkeley pedestrian dies after being struck a week ago

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 18:06:44 +0000

BERKELEY – A 75-year-old Berkeley man died Sunday a week after he was hit by a driver near Willard Park, police said.

The crash happened around 6:45 p.m. on Aug. 17 at the intersection of Derby and Regent Streets, Berkeley police Officer Byron White said. The man was walking southbound across Derby when he was hit by a gray 2010 Acura MDX traveling westbound.

The man was taken to Highland Hospital in Oakland with scrapes and cuts, White said, adding that police learned of his death Sunday.

The driver, identified as a 58-year-old Santa Clara man, stopped at the scene and cooperated with the investigation.

White said the incident remains under investigation.

Check back for updates.

Berkeley pedestrian dies after being struck a week ago

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 18:06:37 +0000

BERKELEY – A 75-year-old Berkeley man died Sunday a week after he was hit by a driver near Willard Park, police said.

The man was taken to Highland Hospital in Oakland with scrapes and cuts, White said, adding that police learned of his death Sunday.

The driver, identified as a 58-year-old Santa Clara man, stopped at the scene and cooperated with the investigation.

White said the incident remains under investigation.

Check back for updates.

Pleasanton explores new tax option less than a year after sales tax measure failed

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:57:35 +0000

PLEASANTON — After voters shot down a sales tax measure last fall, Pleasanton officials are considering placing another initiative on next year’s ballot to help plug a $100 million structural deficit.

The Pleasanton City Council discussed four options — a transient occupancy or hotel tax, sales tax, parcel tax or general obligation bond — to potentially place on the November 2026 ballot, before unanimously agreeing to study a new hotel tax and come back with some options at a later date.

The hotel tax could generate between $1.4 million and $2.8 million in new revenue annually, the sales tax $10.8 million per year, the parcel tax $10.2 million and the bonds $9.7 million, officials said. The first two options would need a simple majority to pass, while the latter two would require a two-thirds majority.

“Every bit of new money that we can bring in is going to help,” City Manager Gerry Beaudin told the council at its Aug. 19 meeting. “There are changes coming. I expect them to be more visible, and start to take real effect in early 2026.”

Already, the council in June council voted to cut library hours, reduce parks maintenance and lay off two employees to help close a $12 million hole in the city’s two-year budget. City finance officials estimate the city will have to make between $6 million to $9 million in additional cuts annually through the next 10 years.

Voters rejected a half-cent sales tax measure in the November 2024 election, with 54 percent voting against it. The ballot initiative, Measure PP, marked the first time in the city’s history that leaders asked residents to increase the sales tax base.

At last week’s meeting, the council disagreed about whether to spend between $31,000 and $50,000 to poll residents about a potential tax measure.

Vice Mayor Jeff Nibert told his colleagues he was “disgusted” that other members of the council appeared unwilling to pay for the polling. He argued that the council needs to act with “urgency” to find new revenue, and said that it starts with polling residents on their potential interest in a new ballot measure.

“What the city needs is predictable sources of revenue so that we can actually plan our finances,” Nibert said. “I don’t think our residents want to live with constant cuts to services and deteriorating infrastructure for years to come. If that’s where we’re headed, I think the community deserves a direct say, and we at this point cannot presume to know what the community feels.”

He also said if the city forgoes the poll, “that is showing a lack of respect for our voters,” and said “if we don’t act, we are failing.” If the city continues to make cuts year after year with no new money coming in, he added, city employees will start to leave for better, more stable jobs in other cities.

“City employees realize when a ship is sinking,” Nibert said.

Nibert’s more fiscally conservative colleagues — Mayor Jack Balch and councilmen Matt Gaidos and Craig Eicher — disagreed. Balch and Gaidos both expressed concern spending up to $50,000 to poll residents after Measure PP’s failure, and Eicher remained “on the fence,” erring closer to the side against a poll.

“It seems so fresh after the last election, we’re not even a year out,” Gaidos said. “I’m frankly afraid that we’re going to get an even stronger pushback than we already had the first time.”

Balch seemed unwilling to spend the polling money as well, arguing instead that council needs to “perform” and establish better “credibility” with residents by showing the city can somehow bounce back financially without depending on higher taxes.

“For me, the credibility of any future ballot measure significantly depends on whether this council can demonstrate that we have modernized operations, that we have streamlined the processes, that we’ve actually changed how we do businesses so that Pleasanton can be open for business,” Balch said.

But Councilwoman Julie Testa, who on several occasions has been Nibert’s only ally on council, offered a different perspective in the wake of Measure PP’s failure.

“The seeds of doubt were sown by this current council in that election, and that is why we have a community that is not supportive,” Testa said. She previously blamed Measure PP’s failure on a local opposition campaign that sought to convince council to pay down the city’s deficit with financial reserves. But officials later said that was not a viable option.

“If this council was unanimous and corrected the misinformation and the doubt that was created six months ago, I believe our community would support funding to maintain services and keep the quality of life in Pleasanton,” she added. “But as long as we continue to have the leadership of doubt, I don’t think that can happen.”

If the council ultimately decides to put a new tax on the ballot, a draft measure would be due by August 2026.

Pleasanton explores new tax option less than a year after sales tax measure failed

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:57:32 +0000

At last week’s meeting, the council disagreed about whether to spend between $31,000 and $50,000 to poll residents about a potential tax measure.

“City employees realize when a ship is sinking,” Nibert said.

But Councilwoman Julie Testa, who on several occasions has been Nibert’s only ally on council, offered a different perspective in the wake of Measure PP’s failure.

If the council ultimately decides to put a new tax on the ballot, a draft measure would be due by August 2026.

Letters: Disenfranchising voters should be a tough sell in state

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:31:11 +0000

Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

Disenfranchising votersshould be a tough sell

Re: “Gerrymandering issue to be decided by voters” (Page A1, Aug. 22).

Kudos to reporter Grant Stinger for an eye-opening article about the gerrymandering issue.

In the five key districts that are targeted, only one racial group (white) is disenfranchised in all five districts. The remapping of the 41st district is particularly outrageousand suggests the entire Republican party could be disenfranchised with imaginative mapping.

Could California voters possibly approve such a plan?

Harry VantineDanville

Texas’ wrong doesn’tmake California right

Re: “Lofgren integral to mapping project” (Page A1, Aug. 21).

The Republican gerrymandering of Texas is unethical and corrupt, even if legal. But for California to fight corruption with more corruption is equally unethical and unconscionable.

This isn’t just a “mapping” project — it’s election rigging and should be rejected by all honest Californians. We can conclude from how quickly California’s elected Democrats embraced the disenfranchisement of millions of California voters that these politicians are innately dishonest and have been and will continue to work to destroy our democracy in any way they can — all in the name of saving it.

The proof that politicians like Lofgren have been rigging California elections for decades is the highly disproportionate percentage of Democrats in the California Legislature and the U.S. House.

Newsom is fond of proclaiming California a leader in many areas. Now, he can claim leadership in cheating, too.

Dick PattersonEl Cerrito

Redistricting plan a slapin the face of fair play

Re: “Gerrymandering issue to be decided by voters” (Page A1, Aug. 22).

This action by Gov. Newsom and the California Legislature is a slap in the face to the will of California voters, who passed Proposition 10 to establish an independent, nonpartisan redistricting commission to draw our congressional districts. And now, for political reasons, we are asked to suspend this process for the next eight years.

The fact that this act was literally rammed through with hardly any public hearing or real debate is in itself downright criminal. In other words, they are destroying democracy in order to save it.

I will end with this: Though a registered Republican, I have never been a fan of Donald Trump, who himself acts as if arrogance is a virtue. That said, our governor has taken that same arrogance and turned it into a science.

John F. DaviesBerkeley

AI design shouldn’tleave ethics behind

When I began studying artificial intelligence as a college student, I saw its potential for social good, helping us understand climate change, improve health systemsand reduce waste. I still see that potential. But the way we are building AI today is taking us further from that vision.

Training large-scale AI models consumes massive energy and water. A 2023 University of Massachusetts-Amherst study found that a single model could emit over 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.

We also overlook the labor behind AI. Thousands of underpaid workers in countries like Kenya and the Philippines label toxic content so others can use so-called safe systems. Their trauma is invisible.

In school, we talked about bias but rarely about climate or labor. That needs to change.

I still hold hope for AI, but hope is not enough. If we do not build ethically now, we may not get another chance.

Aadya MadgulaSan Ramon

Instead of respect,Trump gets laughter

Donald Trump is a bully. His brutal cruelty is usually directed at people who are defenseless against him. Dealing with people like Vladimir Putin, he melts like an ice cube left on a picnic table.

Putin cleaned his clock last week at their meeting in Alaska. Putin then told Trump that his election was stolen because of mail-in ballots. What a laugh they must have had back at the Kremlin.

I don’t think our allies respect him either. They shower him with lavish praise, really over-the-top stuff, and he eats it up. After he’s gone, they probably have a good laugh too.

Jim PetersonWalnut Creek

Trump’s actions workagainst stated goals

Does anybody see the irony? Donald Trump fires the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because the weak jobs report has to be fraudulent — the Trump economy must always be great! At the same time, he is pressuring the Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates, but the Fed is reluctant because of the strength of the economy and strong job growth.

Now that job growth is weakening — the Fed knows that the report is accurate — it is willing to consider cutting interest rates, while Trump undercuts his own goals by looking for a BLS director who will falsify future reports and always show job growth, reducing the Fed’s incentive to cut interest rates.

Merlin DorfmanLivermore

Luxury Bay Area dog and cat ‘hotel’ company agrees to changes over alleged violations of pet-care, rabies laws

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:29:28 +0000

Luxury pet-boarding company Wag Hotels has agreed to make a series of changes to address allegations in a lawsuit that conditions at its facilities in Santa Clara, Redwood City and San Francisco broke state laws on pet care and reporting of dog bites.

District attorneys from Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco alleged in the lawsuit that the company, which for the three locations charges $70 to $96 per night for overnight stays, and $52 to $117 for full-day stays, violated eight provisions of California’s Pet Boarding Law.

“Wag Hotels is required to properly maintain its facilities, ensure such facilities are free of pests, ensure pets are provided adequate food and water on a timely basis, and to ensure pets are properly and regularly inspected for health issues and that various protocols are in place for potential emergencies,” the lawsuit filed Friday in San Francisco County Superior Court said. “Due to inadequate employee training and a failure to maintain sufficient staffing levels, especially during high-occupancy periods, Wag Hotels fell short of these obligations.”

Wag Hotels earlier this year settled another lawsuit accusing the company of improper pet care.

Wag Hotels, headquartered in Sacramento, on Tuesday noted that in settling the latest lawsuit, it admitted “no wrongdoing for isolated incidents that occurred several years ago that are exceptions to the millions of visits to our facilities over our 20-year history, and have been addressed by the practices we have in place.”

The lawsuit claimed that the company, whose other facilities in Oakland, Sacramento, Southern California, Colorado, Texas and Illinois were not named in the lawsuit, also broke a state law requiring that local health officers be notified any time a dog bites a person in state-designated “rabies areas,” which included the three counties in 2018 to 2020 and 2022 to 2024.

Which pet-boarding violations allegedly occurred at which of the three locations, and how many times, was not specified in the lawsuit. Among the eight purportedly broken provisions of the pet-boarding law were requirements to ensure pests are not present in quantities harmful, threatening or annoying to pets; that food and water are properly provided; that enclosures are kept clean and comfortable; that staff observe pets effectively enough to note signs of illness, injury or distress; that sick or injured pets receive appropriate care and any needed veterinary treatment; that pets that may have contagious diseases be isolated; and that staff notify pet owners immediately if their animal is ill or injured.

Kimberly McCarty, a trainer and behavior coach who co-owns South Bay Dog Training in Campbell and is familiar with Wag Hotels, said Tuesday that “providing a pest-free environment, fresh food and water in a timely manner, and keeping pets safe in their care is the absolute minimum.” Such facilities should have educated, certified staff to train employees on pet care, emergency responses, animal body language and stress levels, and “proper defensive handling to mitigate dog bites,” said McCarty, who does not have a connection to the lawsuit.

The company in a settlement agreement also filed Friday in San Francisco Superior Court agreed to make a series of changes.

Wag Hotels is to create a department to oversee pets’ safety and welfare, supervised by an “animal safety coordinator” with a post-secondary certification in animal science or equivalent education.

Wag Hotels must also appoint a full-time employee with the same educational qualifications as the coordinator, to lead staff training on pet welfare, safety, health and first aid, along with responses to altercations between animals and between animals and humans.

A third, similarly educated employee must be given responsibility for managing buildings, equipment and supplies, as well as pest control.

At night, Wag Hotels must have at least one staffer on site and another on standby.

In a separate case, nine dog owners claimed in a January 2024 lawsuit against Wag Hotels that in its California facilities, it consistently returned pets to their owners “smelling like urine or feces, with injuries — both minor and severe — and with weight loss to the extent of indicating they had not been fed.” That lawsuit, first filed in San Francisco County Superior Court then moved into San Francisco U.S. District Court, was dismissed in April after the owners and Wag Hotels reached a confidential settlement, court records show.

Wag Hotels said of that lawsuit’s claims, “The matter has been settled and resolved.”

In that case, former Mountain View resident Kerri Rosenberg claimed that when she left her dog Jenny at Wag Hotels’ Redwood City facility one day in 2023, the dog began vomiting and became lethargic around 10 a.m., but was not taken to a veterinary clinic until around 1:45 p.m., and died soon after, before Rosenberg could get there.

Paige, the dog of Southern California residents Alison and Jeffrey Wisdom, is shown with a missing leg in photos from a lawsuit filed against Wag Hotels by the couple and others that led to a confidential settlement on April 24, 2025 in San Francisco U.S. District Court (from San Francisco U.S. District Court filing)

Southern California residents Alison and Jeffrey Wisdom claimed in that lawsuit that their dog Paige, during a nine-day stay at Wag’s Redwood City facility in September 2021, contracted a flesh-eating bacterial infection they believed was caused by unsanitary conditions, that led to amputation of the Labrador’s right hind leg.

LaDonna Shuttleworth of Oakland claimed that she dropped off her dog Ziggy at Wag Hotels’ Oakland facility for a one-night stay in 2023, and when she retrieved her pet, he was lethargic and later had blood in his stool. “Ms. Shuttleworth called her vet who advised to check on Ziggy in the morning,” the lawsuit said. “By morning, the next day, Ziggy was dead.”

Luxury Bay Area dog and cat ‘hotel’ company agrees to changes over alleged violations of pet-care, rabies laws

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:29:26 +0000

Wag Hotels earlier this year settled another lawsuit accusing the company of improper pet care.

The company in a settlement agreement also filed Friday in San Francisco Superior Court agreed to make a series of changes.

A third, similarly educated employee must be given responsibility for managing buildings, equipment and supplies, as well as pest control.

At night, Wag Hotels must have at least one staffer on site and another on standby.

Wag Hotels said of that lawsuit’s claims, “The matter has been settled and resolved.”

At 10 years old, food company Preserved settling into new Rockridge digs

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 15:07:14 +0000

The product labels on every jar, bottle, packet, box, tool and cookbook in Preserved’s new shop location in North Oakland’s Rockridge district are worthy of a subtitle: “wisdom preserved.” The company founded in 2015 by Elizabeth Vecchiarelli celebrates traditional food and beverage preservation and is marking its 10th anniversary after having leap-frogged from earlier, much smaller spaces.

The company’s original pop-up shop on North Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue moved to a 100-square-foot cedar shed called The Tiny Shed of Wonder in the backyard of Good Stock Oakland (also on Piedmont Avenue). Until recently after that, Preserved operated from its brick-and-mortar storefront in North Oakland’s Temescal district.

As their highly curated selection of fermentation ingredients, artisanal groceries, pantry staples, kitchen tools, cookbooks and recipe cards grew — and importantly, with an avid food-preservation following that packed the company’s popular DIY workshops — the Temescal store was bursting its seams.

Vecchiarelli, a Philadelphia native, moved to Berkeley in 2012 by way of Portland, Oregon, and has more than 15 years of experience with local, sustainable, handmade food. Drawn to the Bay Area to enroll in the Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts program at Emeryville’s Bauman College, she arrived with hands-in-the-soil knowledge gained from organic farm internships that included wine- and cheese-making, work in restaurants and continuous, dedicated study of fermented food methods and traditions.

“I grew up in an urban-suburban household. There wasn’t a lot of homemaking,” Vecchiarelli said in a recent interview. “In late high school years, I was a hostess at a pub in Princeton, New Jersey. The only handmade food was Italian: lasagna, backed ziti, meatballs. The real shift for me was after graduating from (Philadelphia’s) Temple University. It was the early/mid-2000s, the beginning of the farm-to-table movement.

“Some friends opened Café Estelle, a brunch-focused restaurant with everything made from scratch: pickles, jam, catsup — and everything was sustainable and pasture-raised, which was ahead of the time in Philadelphia in 2006.”

A second Philadelphia restaurant, Tria, offered extensive education for the staff, Vecchiarelli said, noting that she learned tasting notes, pairing, how wines and beer are made and providing attractive price points and options for every situation.

“Promoting the enjoyment without pretense is one of my founding principles,” she says.

Minus that company mindset at Preserved, encountering or knowing how to best use Liquid Nigari Tofu Coagulant, San Francisco-based Shared Cultures’ Modern Miso, WalcoRen’s Animal Rennet Tablets, Red Boat fish sauce, umeboshi plum vinegar, handmade porcelain ceramic pickle weights and other items on the shelves could be intimidating. That’s where a generous list of in-person and virtual classes and workshops comes into play.

“So many of these preserving and fermenting traditions have incredible history,” says Vecchiarelli. “As a result of globalization and commodification, there’s lost or skipped generations of knowledge-sharing. The history from an anthropological perspective allows us to learn.

“Every region all over the world has fermented food history, foods that don’t travel well. We replaced cold storage of fermented vegetables with vinegar-fermented vegetables. What’s lost in vinegar pickles, just one example, is live bacteria. We’re learning the health benefits of fermenting and the rich, cultural history lost due to convenient, fast, ultra-processed foods.”

Highlighting the illustrious aspects of preserved foods, local purveyors and sustainable urban and rural farming techniques in hands-on demo events led by experts is made far easier with the new space. The two-storefront footprint has 720 sqare feet dedicated to retail activity, an equal amount of space for workshops, book-signings and community gatherings and 500 square feet of underground storage.

Trying to summarize the shop’s overall operational approach, Vecchiarelli says, “We’re forever-learners. We make conscious choices in even the raw ingredients we purchase. We shop at local farmers markets. We’re excited to experiment. There are folks driven by flavor, others by health and people motivated by cultural history and reconnecting with traditions that weren’t passed down to them. Our education never stops.”

A food-and-culture-swap event illustrates the eager-to-learn attitude of Vecchiarelli, store manager Kate Goodell, fermentation “maven” Nina Haroskiewicz and events coordinator Matt Mendiola.

“It’s a free event where people bring homemade pickles, jam, sourdough starter, whatever. We get to taste their cool flavor combinations. It’s wild to see things like a ferment with potatoes buried in it or a miso granola or a French version of an Italian walnut liqueur, nochino, but made with French vin de noix.”

Invited to share one of her favorite products, Vecchiarelli chooses Oakland- and Berkeley-based Yumé Boshi’s seasoning product made with fermented ume plums. The plums’ tart, savory, salt-preserved flavor and magenta tone created naturally with red shiso leaves are what she classifies as “a quintessential ferment.”

The plums are commonly used in Japanese rice balls, but the shiso herb seasoning gains special status during a process involving commingling and fermenting the herb with ume plums, removing the shiso, sun-drying the plums and grinding up the result.

“It’s sour, salty, fruity and dynamic,” she says. “It’s great on tomato salad, melon, popcorn, rice, eggs, avocado.”

Vecchiarelli is completely jazzed about the educational opportunities that make Preserved so much more than a retail store. While several fall workshops are already scheduled — vegan cheesemaking, mocktail mixology, Mexican salsas and more — she and the staff are developing new events such as cider-making and a tempeh workshop that has Preserved partnering with a new company, Reculture. A six-week course that she is particularly excited about is planned for spring and summer 2026.

“It’s a group wine-making class that forms the connection between fruit soda, fruit wine and fruit vinegar. Those are basically just different stages of the fermentation you can do starting with just fruit and sugar.”

Over the course of six weeks, three different products are made: a sweet bubbly soda that when allowed to continue fermenting takes on a buzzy alcohol aspect as it becomes wine. The alcohol in the wine, when left to ferment in an open vessel, converts into acid and becomes what’s considered a compelling fruit vinegar.

“That trajectory comes in stages, but it’s all connected,” she says. “My biggest challenge in teaching is that I get so excited. Distilling it down into digestible bites, to use a pun, whether it’s an introductory or advanced class, is always about getting across big, cool ideas in teachable moments.”

Preserved is at 5440 College Ave. in Oakland, near the Rockridge BART station. To learn more about products, workshops, recipes, community events and more at Preserved, visit preservedgoods.com/about online.

Lou Fancher is a freelance writer. Reach her at lou@johnsonandfancher.com.

LPGA Tour returning to Bay Area for Founders Cup in Menlo Park

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 13:34:20 +0000

After a four-year absence, a regular LPGA tour stop is returning to the Bay Area in the form of the Fortinet Founders Cup.

Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club in Menlo Park will play hots to the four-day event from March 19-22, the LPGA announced Tuesday. Fortinet, a cybersecurity company headquartered in Sunnyvale, has agreed to a multi-year deal, the LPGA said. The length of the deal was not announced, but the LPGA said the Bay Area debut of the Founders Cup will have a purse of $3 million, up from $2 million this year.

The most recent regular LPGA tour stop in the Bay Area was the Mediheal Championship from 2018-2021 (there was no event in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic) at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City. The Bay Area hosted the 2023 International Crown, a team event, at San Francisco’s TPC Harding Park. The 2021 U.S. Women’s Open was at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, and the 2016 U.S. Women’s Open was played at CordeValle in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Next year will be the 15th edition of the Founders Cup, an event established to celebrate the 13 players who founded the LPGA in 1950. The event has been played in Arizona, New Jersey and Florida, and didn’t have a corporate sponsor this year. Concord’s Yealimi Noh won this year’s event over Jin Young Ko in February for her first tour victory. Stanford’s Rose Zhang won in 2024 for her second professional victory.

Rose Zhang of the United States imitates taking a selfie with the trophy after winning the Cognizant Founders Cup at Upper Montclair Country Club on May 12, 2024 in Clifton, New Jersey. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

“We’re fired up to welcome Fortinet as the title partner of the Founders Cup and grateful for their commitment to elevating this historic event,” LPGA Commissioner Craig Kessler said in a release. “The Founders Cup is about honoring the 13 women who built the LPGA from the ground up, and there’s no better stage for that than Sharon Heights — a world-class course that will challenge and showcase our players. … Many of our athletes have deep ties to Northern California, and this partnership with Fortinet allows us to celebrate that connection while growing the game and inspiring future generations.”

The 13 players who founded the LPGA 75 years ago were: Alice Bauer, Patty Berg, Bettye Danoff, Helen Dettweiler, Marlene Hagge, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Betty Jameson, Sally Sessions, Marilynn Smith, Shirley Spork, Louise Suggs, and Babe Zaharias.

LPGA Tour returning to Bay Area for Founders Cup in Menlo Park

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 13:34:12 +0000

After a four-year absence, a regular LPGA tour stop is returning to the Bay Area in the form of the Fortinet Founders Cup.

Inside the $3,675,000 sale of a Alameda County home

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 12:08:02 +0000

135 Cross Road – Google Street View

The spacious unit in the 100 block of Cross Road in Oakland was sold on June 17, 2025 for $3,675,000, or $603 per square foot. The house, built in 1996, has an interior space of 6,094 square feet. This two-story home offers a spacious layout with four bedrooms and six bathrooms. Additionally, the home includes four parking spots, granting ample parking space for four vehicles. Situated on a spacious 0.5-acre lot, the property offers ample outdoor space.

This article was generated by the Bay Area Home Report Bot, software that analyzes home sales or other data and creates an article based on a template created by humans. Our real estate data comes from public records that have been registered and digitized by local county offices. You can report errors or bugs to content@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Inside the $3,675,000 sale of a Alameda County home

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 12:07:56 +0000

135 Cross Road – Google Street View

Berkeley Humane breaks ground on new modern facility for animal care

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 10:06:31 +0000

BERKELEY — Berkeley Humane, a more than a century old animal shelter and clinic serving the East Bay and beyond, broke ground on a state-of-the-art facility over the weekend that promises to greatly expand the nonprofit’s services.

Phase 1 of the new facility, dubbed the Bay Area Animal Resource Center, or BAARC, will open in the same location as the original center at 2700 Ninth St. after a roughly two-year construction process.

Once complete, the new center will include a 6,000-square-foot medical and adoption center, 2,500-square-foot dog pavilion and courtyard, cat care lounge, surgical suites, recovery areas, and pharmacy. The center will also offer behavioral, social and educational training programs along with other safety-net services.

Another 10,000-square-foot expansion is planned to happen around 2028.

The new center will make it possible for Berkeley Humane to place more animals in homes, provide complex medical care to animals who may otherwise go without and help extend a pet’s life, bringing comfort to both them and their owners, said Ellen Jacobs, a donor, volunteer and BAARC campaign chair.

“It’s just always an emotional event when any of those things happen. And the thing about BAARC is that BAARC is about making those types of events happen more and more every single day,” Jacobs said.

More than 4,000 adoptions were facilitated and 19,500 medical procedures performed by Berkeley Humane between 2021 and 2023, according to their latest report. The nonprofit has also distributed 256,000 pounds of food to thousands of homes in need and been supported by about 273,000 volunteer hours between 2019 and 2023.

In addition to caring for animals and supporting pet owners in the Bay Area, the nonprofit has also played a major role during catastrophic natural disasters and emergency events. Those services will also be expanded with the development of the new center, the organization said.

Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii, who has three dogs of her own, shared her excitement for the new center and the resource it’ll be for the region.

“The new center will serve Berkeley and the wider Bay Area community, going beyond placing animals in homes,” Ishii said in a statement. “They’re providing the community with meaningful support and helping to reduce barriers to pet care.”

BAARC will replace Berkeley Humane’s more than 90-year-old outdated facility, part of which has been out of commission since 2010 following a major fire.

Ahead of construction, Berkeley Humane relocated its Spay the Bay clinic to a PetSmart store at 1380 Fitzgerald Dr. in Pinole. The move and expansion into Contra Costa County is meant to ensure the program can continue without disruptions.

“We’re not just opening a clinic — we’re laying the foundation for the future of animal welfare,” Zerwekh said in a press release announcing the clinic. “This move allows us to expand vital services while we build a modern, comprehensive resource center that will benefit animals and their families for generations to come.”

The groundbreaking ceremony was held during Berkeley Humane’s annual Bark and Meow Around the Block event, an adopt-a-thon and street fair featuring hundreds of pets from shelters across the Bay Area.

“It’s so much fun,” said Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani, who looked on as her son and his friend excitedly admired puppies and kittens. “It’s just a delight.”

Berkeley Humane breaks ground on new modern facility for animal care

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 10:00:50 +0000

Another 10,000-square-foot expansion is planned to happen around 2028.

Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii, who has three dogs of her own, shared her excitement for the new center and the resource it’ll be for the region.

BAARC will replace Berkeley Humane’s more than 90-year-old outdated facility, part of which has been out of commission since 2010 following a major fire.

“It’s so much fun,” said Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani, who looked on as her son and his friend excitedly admired puppies and kittens. “It’s just a delight.”

Alleged Pleasant Hill gang member gets 21 years for killing two men, including suspect in 1-year-old boy’s death

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 09:58:36 +0000

OAKLAND — An alleged member of a San Francisco gang has been sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing two people, one of whom was later named as a suspect in the tragic killing of a 1-year-old boy during a rolling gun battle.

The case and several related investigations are the latest example of San Francisco gang conflicts spilling into the East Bay, with deadly results.

Darious Pierre Smith, 36, of Pleasant Hill, is an alleged member of San Francisco’s Chopper City gang and a longtime suspect in the fatal shooting of 30-year-old Richard Lamont Duncan III and the drive-by killing of 34-year-old Keison “Keke” Lee. Both homicides occurred in Oakland, with Duncan being fatally shot by a masked gunman in June 2022 and Lee being gunned down in East Oakland five months later, in November.

In July, Smith reached a deal with Alameda County prosecutors in both cases. He pleaded no contest to two counts of involuntary manslaughter for a 21-year prison sentence. This includes 21 years for killing Duncan and a concurrent six-year prison term for killing Lee, court records show. On July 8, Smith was transferred to North Kern State Prison, where he remains.

Police attributed Lee’s killing to gang violence between Chopper City and the San Francisco gang known as Eddy Rock, of which Lee was allegedly a member. On Nov. 6, 2021, he and 34-year-old Johnny Jackson were driving on Interstate 880 in Oakland when two alleged Chopper City gang members — identified by police as 22-year-old Trevor Green, of Richmond and 24-year-old Ivory Bivins, of Vallejo — pulled up alongside them. In the gunfight that followed, a stray bullet traveled across the freeway and fatally struck Jasper Wu, a 1-year-old Fremont boy who was riding in the backseat of his parents’ car.

Jackson was initially charged with murder, but a judge threw out the case at the preliminary hearing, after his lawyer argued he and Lee had been ambushed without provocation. Green and Bivins are still being prosecuted for allegedly killing Wu.

Lee was shot and killed almost exactly a year later, around 2 p.m. on Nov. 4, 2022, on the 800 block of 81st Avenue in East Oakland.

Police say the motive for Duncan’s killing began at a party on Treasure Island hours earlier, where Duncan and other partygoers ended up in a conflict. The original confrontation involved Duncan’s female relatives who were allegedly attacked by an assailant. When Duncan intervened, someone else at the party threatened to call someone “to clear this (expletive) out,” police said at the time.

After the party, Duncan ended up at an after-hours event on the 1700 block of Broadway Avenue in downtown Oakland. At around 3:45 a.m. on June 23, 2022, a masked gunman walked up and fired at Duncan, killing him, police say. Prosecutors allege that Smith’s DNA was found on a shell casing at the scene and they have evidence showing he was called to the area by at least one person who’d been involved in the earlier conflict.

According to police, the major break in the case stemmed from another investigation which remains unsolved to this day.

Smith was also a person of interest in a third homicide that year, the Sept. 8, 2022 killing of Dominique Miles. Police said at the time that Miles and a second man, Paris Moffett, were leaving a funeral on the 300 block of 27th Street in Oakland when someone pulled up and shot them both. Moffett survived, but was paralyzed. In 2023, two still-unidentified gunmen entered a medical facility near Lake Merritt, searched the premises and killed Moffett there. Both men were also part of the Eddy Rock gang, according to police.

Police identified Smith as a possible person of interest in Miles’ killing, but he was never charged. He was still under investigation in mid-November 2022, though, when an Oakland detective noticed that while no cellphone data was available to place Smith at Miles’ homicide scene, phones belonging to him and his girlfriend were placed near the scene of Lee’s killing. Further investigation tied Smith to Lee’s homicide, and eventually, to Duncan’s, court records show.

Letters: Disenfranchising voters should be a tough sell in state

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 19:14:26 +0000

Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

Disenfranchising voters
should be a tough sell

Re: “Gerrymandering issue to be decided by voters” (Page A1, Aug. 22).

Kudos to reporter Grant Stinger for an eye-opening article about the gerrymandering issue.

Could California voters possibly approve such a plan?

Harry Vantine
Danville

Texas’ wrong doesn’t
make California right

Re: “Lofgren integral to mapping project” (Page A1, Aug. 21).

The Republican gerrymandering of Texas is unethical and corrupt, even if legal. But for California to fight corruption with more corruption is equally unethical and unconscionable.

The proof that politicians like Lofgren have been rigging California elections for decades is the highly disproportionate percentage of Democrats in the California Legislature and the U.S. House.

Newsom is fond of proclaiming California a leader in many areas. Now, he can claim leadership in cheating, too.

Dick Patterson
El Cerrito

Redistricting plan a slap
in the face of fair play

Re: “Gerrymandering issue to be decided by voters” (Page A1, Aug. 22).

The fact that this act was literally rammed through with hardly any public hearing or real debate is in itself downright criminal. In other words, they are destroying democracy in order to save it.

John F. Davies
Berkeley

AI design shouldn’t
leave ethics behind

Training large-scale AI models consumes massive energy and water. A 2023 University of Massachusetts-Amherst study found that a single model could emit over 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.

In school, we talked about bias but rarely about climate or labor. That needs to change.

I still hold hope for AI, but hope is not enough. If we do not build ethically now, we may not get another chance.

Aadya Madgula
San Ramon

Instead of respect,
Trump gets laughter

Donald Trump is a bully. His brutal cruelty is usually directed at people who are defenseless against him. Dealing with people like Vladimir Putin, he melts like an ice cube left on a picnic table.

Putin cleaned his clock last week at their meeting in Alaska. Putin then told Trump that his election was stolen because of mail-in ballots. What a laugh they must have had back at the Kremlin.

I don’t think our allies respect him either. They shower him with lavish praise, really over-the-top stuff, and he eats it up. After he’s gone, they probably have a good laugh too.

Jim Peterson
Walnut Creek

Trump’s actions work
against stated goals

Merlin Dorfman
Livermore

UPDATE: Search For Missing Jogger Phillip Kreycik in Pleasanton Hills Entering Critical Stage

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 02:14:42 +0000

PLEASANTON (KPIX 5) — A massive search and rescue mission continued in the East Bay Tuesday as over 200 volunteers helped authorities look for a man who never returned home from a weekend run at Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park.

There are 13 local agencies now involved in the search for 37-year-old Berkeley resident Phillip Kreycik. Authorities on Tuesday afternoon estimated the search has encompassed about 16 square miles and called the effort unprecedented in scope. Some of the agencies involved are using K-9’s, fixed-wing aircraft, and drones as they comb through 50 square miles of brush and tough terrain in the Pleasanton hills.

His wife told authorities he was planning to be gone for only an hour Saturday morning. Alameda County Search and Rescue Chief Ron Seitz said people who go missing in the county are usually found fairly quickly, and the park is popular with visitors who likely would have noticed someone needing help.

“It’s very hard to get lost here,” said Seitz.

ALSO READ: Infrared Drone Deployed In Nighttime Search For Missing Jogger In Pleasanton Hills

Investigators told KPIX 5 concern over Kreycik is growing. They called Tuesday’s search critical as the area covered widens with a more organized and systematic approach.

“We specifically are going to focus on going about 100 meters off of each linear trail down deeper into the tree lines,” said Sgt. Ray Kelly with the Alameda Sheriff’s Special Operations Group.

At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Kelly said after four days there are two probabilities: either Kreycik is incapacitated somewhere and searchers can’t find him because of that, or he is somewhere else completely.

“We’ve done an exhaustive search over the last four days,” said Kelly, adding that volunteers have found items such as watches, sunglasses, and even blood on a rock that was determined not to be human blood, illustrating the thoroughness of the ongoing search.

Avid hiker Marsha Hurd and her volunteer group were walking the hills to aid in the effort.

“Hopefully, we’ll find a father so he can go home to his children,” said Hurd.

Authorities said their search for the father of two has intensified with more detailed ground and aerial searches.

Monday night efforts continued in the air over the ridgelines using drones and the Alameda County Sheriff’s search plane, both using infrared technology. The fact that there has been no sign of Kreycik is concerning for searchers.

“With that we hold on to hope that maybe we were missing it; That Phillip is still up there and in survival mode,” said Sgt. Kelly.

Tuesday’s search will once again stretch into nighttime if crews turn up no sign of Kreycik.

“We are continuing our investigation at this time. We don’t have any reason to believe that this is anything other than a missing person, but we’re going to continue to investigate and hopefully we find Phillip today. That’s the goal,” said Pleasanton Police Lt. Erik Silacci.

As of a Tuesday afternoon update, authorities said 16 square miles have been searched so far.

“We have two possible scenarios at this point. One is Phillip is up there somewhere in those mountains. Or number two, he parked his vehicle and is somewhere else, his whereabouts unknown,” said Silacci.

Investigators said they have found a watch and a spot of blood, neither of which belonged to Kreycik. While he was known to track his runs with the Strava app, the smartwatch he was wearing was not GPS enabled.

Alameda County investigators are hoping he found water amid the recent heat in the area.

“There’s spots out on the trail where you can get water. There’s also big troughs where there is livestock up there,” said Sgt. Kelly.

A group of well-organized volunteers are doing their own grid search.

“We’re assigning numbers, we’re checking them. We’re assigning areas according to their specific abilities. E-bikes are going further. We are doing this in a very formatted way’ a very smart way,” said search organizer Sandy Schneider.

John Cho has never met Phillip, but was connected with him on the running app Strava.

“We had two bikers and five hikers. We basically alternated every 20 feet — climbing down, climbing back up — as long as it was safe for climbing back up. It took about four hours on a two mile trail,” Cho told KPIX.

He found a water bottle and logged it into a database when his search group came back.

“This particular water bottle was way deep in the ravine. It’s an area you can’t just hike down or run down. It kind of stood out with the lights,” said Cho.

COVID-19: Coronavirus Cases More Than Double in Alameda County Over Past Month

Fri, 09 Jul 2021 11:14:58 +0000

ALAMEDA COUNTY (CBS SF) — Health officials in Alameda County on Thursday announced that the region’s COVID-19 cases have more than doubled since early June lows, particularly in communities where vaccination rates are lower.

A joint press release issued by Alameda County’s Office of Emergency Services and Alameda County Health Care noted that the current surge in COVID-19 cases threatens to exceed the wave seen this past spring. Hospitalizations are also correspondingly on the rise.

Cases and hospitalizations were at their lowest levels since April 2020 only a month ago in early June, according to officials, with the average daily number of cases dropping as low as 28 per day. As of Thursday, July 8, the average number of daily cases has risen to over 70 per day, with over 100 new cases being reported on some recent days.

The new cases are especially impacting communities where vaccination rates are lowest, including in priority neighborhoods that have already been hit hardest by COVID-19. Officials said this latest case surge is likely due to reopened activities and with decreasing mask use, with the highly transmissible Delta variant likely having an additional impact.

While a small number of vaccinated residents have reported generally mild cases, the vast majority of new cases are among unvaccinated people, once again illustrating the danger of not getting vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“We expect to see more COVID-19 with reopening, but the rate of this increase is concerning,” said Alameda County Health Officer Dr. Nicholas Moss. “COVID-19 is a serious threat to the health and wellness of unvaccinated residents. If you are still deciding about vaccination, continue to follow COVID safety precautions to keep from catching or spreading the virus, like wearing your mask in indoor public settings and outdoor crowded spaces.”

Unvaccinated individuals, including youth and young adults, remain at risk of severe illness, hospitalization and even death from a severe COVID-19 infection. Officials are renewing their calls for all eligible individuals to get the vaccination.

“There are many reasons why a person may have chosen not to get vaccinated yet. Many of our residents have experiences with the medical industry that make them pause when considering whether to get vaccinated,” said Alameda County Public Health Director Kimi Watkins-Tartt. “My message right now to our community: COVID-19 has not gone away, and it is still making people very sick. Get vaccinated to protect yourself and your family and friends.”

Health officials said that Alameda County is still prioritizing the vaccination of residents in disproportionally impacted neighborhoods by partnering closely with community organizations on outreach and operating hyperlocal vaccination sites where vaccination rates are lower.

Residents can check vaccination rates online by zip code and census tract on Alameda County’s data dashboard webpage. The county has also set up a COVID-19 vaccine FAQ webpage.

Residents who have not been vaccinated can also find a clinic nearby on the Alameda County COVID-19 website or by callling 510-208-4VAX (510-208-4829). Residents can drop by a location near them and don’t need an appointment at County-supported vaccinations Points of Dispensing (PODs) and most pop-ups.

Sales Tax Rates Rise Up To 10.75% In Alameda County; Highest In California

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 02:01:29 +0000

ALAMEDA COUNTY (KPIX 5) – As of Thursday, sales tax rates in Alameda County have gone up, pushing them to the highest in the state. While the money is now getting collected, a taxpayers’ group is still fighting to stop it.

“Well, you can see the number up here is $69.99, which is what I thought I was going to pay,” said a Dublin shopper named Robert, who was buying a television for his mother. “Obviously, I knew that was gonna be some tax.”

In Dublin and through much of the county, that would be the new rate of 10.25%.

“I was surprised by the amount of that tax,” Robert said.

It would have been higher, if he had done his shopping at the same store in Union City.

“$2.15, for a $20 mouse,” said Kathy. “Pretty ridiculous.”

Union City is among the six Alameda cities with a sales tax of 10.75%. That means they all share the distinction of having the highest sales tax in California, at least for the moment.

Other cities with 10.75% sales tax rates include Alameda, Albany, Hayward, Newark and San Leandro.

“So that’s what we’re challenging, is that the county is intentionally trying to get around Prop 218, that requires a 2/3 voter approval,” explains attorney Jason Bezis.

The Alameda County Taxpayers’ Association is challenging the sales tax hike on multiple grounds, so the additional taxes now getting collected cannot be spent.

“The state is requiring all of that money to go into escrow accounts,” Bezis says. “So it’s gonna be held there. The county can’t spend the money until all the lawsuits are completed.”

But shoppers will be paying it at the register. Lan Liu, in the City of Alameda, said small business owners are worried about it driving away traffic. As for customers, Liu said many did not see it coming.

“Most customers, they say ‘Oh really,'” Liu said. “So it seems they did not get the notice, they did not know about it.”

East Bay Social Worker’s Generosity Bring Smiles to Those in Need

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 23:45:30 +0000

OAKLAND (KPIX) — This week’s Jefferson Award winner has worked in Alameda County social services for more than 30 years, but she goes above and beyond to bring smiles to the families who receive county assistance in their greatest time of need.

A simple gift overwhelms single father Eric Kovacevich. He’s living in a hotel with his four kids after a neighbor’s fire burned them out of their Hayward apartment.

“It’s gets hard when you get put into a situation where you don’t know what to do sometimes,” said Kovacevich.

The commercial painter is one of about 200 fathers who received Father’s Day gift bags filled with items ranging from ties to toiletries at a special event.

“It’s such a wonderful thing that there’s someone out there that cares,” he said.

Andrea Ford heads up a growing group that does care.

For the last ten years, she’s served as assistant agency director for Alameda County Social Services Agency’s Department of Workforce and Benefits Administration.

It administers aid like CalWORKS, Medi-Cal, general assistance and CalFresh.

“We are known simply for issuing safety net benefits for the population we serve, so I wanted to humanize our role, and for our clients to see us differently and our staff to see each other differently,” Ford said.

So along with her executive team, she has organized annual Father’s Day and Mother’s Day giveaways since 2016 at the Eden Area Multiservice Center in Hayward and three other sites in Oakland.

The Mother’s Day event distributes new or gently used purses and tote bags along with gifts like toiletries, makeup and scarves.

This year, both events served 700 people.

All of the items are donated voluntarily by some of the 1,200 staff members Ford oversees as well as employees from other county departments which joined in this year.

Executive team member Hannia Casaw-Barnell says Ford’s commitment to giving is contagious.

“She doesn’t see clients by looking at a case number, for example. She sees the client as a person,” said Casaw-Barnell.

And that’s what touched Eric Kovacevich in his time of need.

“Sometimes you just don’t know what to do. And when they help out in those little ways it’s great because you know there’s some kind of hope out there,” he said.

“We want them to feel special,” Ford explained. “We want them to walk away with dignity.”

So for making social service clients feel special through Mother’s and Father’s Day gift giveaways, this week’s Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Andrea Ford.

Ford and her team want to expand the events, so they’re asking for retailers to help donate items for the annual giveaways.

Anyone interested in contributing to the Mother’s Day “A Purse of Her Own” event, or the Father’s Day “A Father Is… ” event, can contact Alameda County Social Services Public Affairs Director Sylvia Soublet at ssoublet@acgov.org. Donations include such items as purses, tote bags, backpacks, toiletries and socks.

COVID Vaccines: Alameda County Reaches 2 Million Doses, Nearly 80% With 1 Shot

Sat, 26 Jun 2021 00:27:23 +0000

OAKLAND (CBS SF) – Health officials in Alameda County reached another milestone in the COVID-19 vaccination effort Friday, saying that two million doses have been administered to county residents.

“Two million doses administered represents months of a concerted effort to provide equitable access to the vaccine across Alameda County,” Supervisor Keith Carson said in a statement.

Health officials said as of Friday, 79.6% of eligible residents have received at least one dose, while 66.2% (about 925,000 people) are fully vaccinated. Among residents 65 and older, more than 90% have received at least one dose.

Alameda joins Santa Clara County, along with Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties in delivering at least 2 million doses.

Carson touted the numerous ways the shots were distributed, from mass vaccination sites at the Oakland Coliseum and the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton to “hyper-local vaccination distribution points in our hardest hit communities.”

While nearly 8 in 10 have at least one dose of vaccine, officials noted that the work to vaccinate the county of nearly 1.7 million residents is not over.

“Now, with two million doses administered, we must work even harder to reach individuals who need more information or desire to be vaccinated but have not yet accessed the vaccine for health, economic, mobility, health equity or other reasons,” Carson said.

For those who have yet to receive their vaccine, officials are offering numerous ways to be vaccinated. Residents who are chronically ill or homebound can contact the county about ways to receive the vaccine at home. Drop in appointments are also available.

Additional information about the vaccines, including ways to schedule an appointment, can be found by visiting bit.ly/AlCoSignUp or by calling 510-208-4829.

COVID Reopening: Alameda, Napa Counties Move To Yellow Tier In Final Week Before State Fully Opens

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 22:41:33 +0000

SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) – Alameda and Napa counties moved into the least restrictive Yellow Tier under the state’s reopening plan Tuesday, in the final set of tier assignments before the state fully reopens.

Under Yellow Tier rules, movie theaters, indoor dining at restaurants and gyms are among the sectors that can open at 50% capacity. Bars that do not provide meals can resume indoor operations at 25% capacity.

Napa County officials said in a statement that Yellow Tier rules would allow for wineries to open indoor operations at 50% capacity or 200 people, whichever is fewer.

The new rules go into effect Wednesday.

“We finally arrived at the yellow brick road, but at the end of the yellow brick road will be the removal of the blueprint,” Napa County Health Officer Dr. Karen Relucio told the county’s Board of Supervisors at at a meeting Tuesday.

Alameda County health officer Dr. Nicholas Moss attributed the county reaching the least-restrictive tier due to rising vaccination rates, but noted that there are still many county residents who have yet to be vaccinated.

“While we are moving away from the tier system, only 53 percent of Alameda County residents are fully vaccinated and COVID-19 is still a very real threat to unvaccinated individuals. We urge all residents to continue using COVID-19 safety precautions to protect vulnerable residents including young children who are not yet eligible for vaccine,” Moss said in a statement.

Alameda and Napa join several Bay Area counties, including Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara in the least restrictive tier. Contra Costa, Solano and Sonoma remain in the Orange Tier in the final week before tiers are removed altogether.

Statewide, zero counties are in the most restrictive Purple Tier, three are in the Red Tier, 31 are in the Orange Tier and 24 are in the Yellow Tier, including Los Angeles, the state’s most populous.

California is set to scrap the color-coded tier system and lift most COVID-19 restrictions on June 15, amid rising vaccination rates and as cases and hospitalizations have plummeted since peaking earlier this year.

EBMUD To Meet On Proposed Water, Sewer Rate Hikes Set For July

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 21:43:55 +0000

OAKLAND (BCN) – The East Bay Municipal Utility District is holding a public hearing Tuesday on a proposed 8 percent rate increase for tap water and wastewater over the next two years.

The EBMUD board meeting starts at 1:15 p.m. and will be livestreamed at http://www.ebmud.com/board-meetings.

The agency is proposing a 4 percent rate hike for both water and wastewater starting on the fiscal year that begins July 1 of this year and another 4 percent increase for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2022.

More information about the proposal is available at ebmud.com/rates.

EBMUD provides drinking water to 1.4 million customers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties and wastewater treatment for 740,000 customers.

Veteran Alameda County DA ‘Dismayed’ Over Federal Judge’s Assault Weapons Ban Decision

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 17:53:47 +0000

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Veteran District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, who is wrapping up her 37-year career as a prosecutor, lashed out Monday at a federal judge’s decision to strike down California’s ban on assault weapons.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego ruled late Friday that the state’s definition of illegal military-style rifles unlawfully deprives law-abiding Californians of weapons commonly allowed in most other states and by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A copy of the decision can be read online.

“Under no level of heightened scrutiny can the law survive,” Benitez said. He issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the law but stayed it for 30 days to give state Attorney General Rob Bonta time to appeal.

O’Malley, who has announced she would not be seeking reelection after being Alameda County’s District Attorney for 12 years and a member of the department for 27 years prior, has seen the havoc assault weapons can take and took to social media Monday to voice her objections to the judge’s ruling.

“I am so dismayed that a federal judge would overturn California’s ban on assault weapon,” she posted. “No one needs an assault weapon for personal safety and assault weapons are mostly used to commit crimes. With the incidents of mass shootings, we must protect our citizens from others who use assault weapons to inflict massive harm.”

Over the weekend, Bay Area residents commented on the judge’s decision.

A group of gun control advocates rallied in Foster City Saturday evening, saying California needs more gun laws, not less.

At the rally, the names of the victims of the San Jose VTA mass shooting were read aloud. Those attending bowed their heads in remembrance.

“I’m angry, I’m angry that people are being killed by senseless gun violence,” said Alexis Lewis, with the NAACP of San Mateo County.

Nancy Yarbrough joined Brady United of San Mateo County to end gun violence after someone shot her cousin. She believed the ban on assault weapons like AR-15 has saved countless lives.

“It’s not a hunting item. It’s not for self-protection. It’s to kill other human beings,” said Yarbrough.

But others like Taylor Svehlak, director of public affairs of Firearms Policy Coalition Firearms Policy Coalition, heralded the judge’s decision.

“We are absolutely thrilled with the opinion. We think that this is a monumental occurrence for, not just Second Amendment rights, but for civil rights overall,” Svehlak said. “This ruling could very well signal a massive momentum shift on, not just on assault weapon bans, but I mean an absolute multitude of other topics in the Second Amendment world.”

Alameda Co. Links To Zonehaven Wildfire Evacuation System To Save Precious Time And Lives

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 02:45:20 +0000

BERKELEY (KPIX) — On June 15, Alameda will be the latest Bay Area county to officially connect to a new wildfire evacuation system called Zonehaven. That’s particularly good news to the city of Berkeley which has a long history of wildfire disasters.

In 1923, someone smoking a cigarette started a fire in a neighborhood north of UC Berkeley that wiped out a three mile, 50-block area in just two hours time. It stood as the city’s worst disaster until 1991, when the Oakland/Berkeley Hills Fire destroyed 3,000 homes and became the most destructive in California history.

A memorial garden overlooks Highway 24 to commemorate the fire. It contains a plaque listing reasons for the fire’s destructiveness, including “lack of coordination among firefighting entities.”

“I do remember a lot of conversation around first responders not being able to communicate. And that was a large portion of the delay in the evacuation,” said Deputy Tya Modeste, Alameda Sheriff’s spokesperson.

It was that experience that, three decades later, has prompted the county to adopt Zonehaven, a disaster response software program that breaks the entire county into numbered zones and then coordinates everything from weather conditions to fire locations to the safest evacuation routes.

“If we can evacuate a certain area in advance of an oncoming fire, that’s less time or congestion of people trying to get out of there,” said Berkeley Asst. Fire Chief Keith May.

That’s especially important in the old hillside neighborhoods in Berkeley with their winding “spaghetti” streets barely wide enough for cars, much less a fire engine.

Chief May says residents will be able to log into Zonehaven using the URL http://www.community.zonehaven.com to see where the fire is heading in real time, allowing them to get out earlier and with a lot less panic.

“In the 1991 fire we saw that a lot,” said May, “traffic jams or people running out on foot, during this active fire — uh, cars catching on fire.”

Zonehaven is already in use in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties and it proved its value in the evacuations of thousands of people in last year’s CZU Complex Fires. Alameda County is hoping it will be helpful to them, as well. Not just with helping first responders talk to each other, but also to let the public know when it’s time to get out.

“They don’t even have to wait for, lets say, a news update, because they can follow it and track it,” said Modeste. “And what we realize in these situations is that time equals lives.”

Officials say it is essential for residents to register with “AC Alert”, the county’s emergency alert system, to get notifications during a disaster. To sign up for the service, click on www.acalert.org.

AC Transit Latest To Relax Social Distancing Requirements, Expand Capacity On Buses

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 19:21:00 +0000

OAKLAND (CBS SF) – AC Transit will become the latest Bay Area transit agency to relax social distancing requirements, in the wake of declining COVID-19 cases and high vaccination rates in East Bay counties.

Starting Monday, June 7, distancing on all buses will be reduced from six-feet to three-feet. As a result, passenger capacities on the agency’s standard 40-foot buses will increase to 20 riders, up to 24 riders on 45-foot buses and up to 32 riders on 60-foot articulated buses.

Meanwhile the capacity on AC Transit double decker buses will increase to 48 riders.

“Relaxing the six-foot mandate, which has been in place since March 2020, is the result of significant public health achievements in both Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, AC Transit’s two primary service areas,” the agency said in a statement.

Transit officials said as of Tuesday about 63.5% of Alameda County residents and 64.5% of Contra Costa County residents are fully vaccinated.

Previously, the six-foot distancing requirement limited standard buses to as few as 10 riders and only up to 24 riders on AC Transit’s largest buses.

AC Transit joins Golden Gate Transit and the Valley Transportation Authority in adopting a three-foot distancing requirement.

Due to Transportation Security Administration rules, masks will continue to be required on public transit buses until at least September.

Hayward Couple Resists Demand to Clean Up Trash at Homeless Man’s Camp Near Their Property

Sun, 16 May 2021 13:33:01 +0000

HAYWARD (KPIX) — A couple living in Hayward claims the city wants them to clean up a mess near their property that they say shouldn’t be their responsibility.

Just before the pandemic a man who was homeless parked his broken-down truck and belongings at the top of Lorraine Souza’s private dirt driveway.

He has lived there ever since.

But she and her husband, Patrick Crosby, are racking up fines from code enforcement for the so-called blight and they tell KPIX they’re in a quandary.

“I don’t think it’s fair the county can’t move him and they are making us do their dirty work,” Souza said.

“What do you do with people who have no place to go on earth? Put them on a boat and send them out?” Crosby added.

This week the neighborhood preservation and zoning council gave Souza ten days to clean up or fines will continue.

Like Hayward, other cities have similar neighborhood preservation ordinances where trash and debris is not allowed to accumulate on private property. It is the property owner’s responsibility to remove and dispose of it properly.

Osha Neumann is supervising attorney of East Bay Community Law Center. “Blight ordinances are being used to force property owners who have given some refuge to people without houses or property to evict them. The objects they are talking about are possessions of a person. They are not abandoned. They may not look like belongings to someone who is housed,” Neumann explained.

“We have been put in-between a rock and a hard spot,” Souza said.

Souza and Crosby tell KPIX they plan to appeal to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

EBMUD Seeks To Increase Water, Sewer Rates By 4% Annually In New Budget

Mon, 10 May 2021 22:38:13 +0000

OAKLAND (CBS SF) – Officials with the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) announced Monday that the agency is seeking to raise water and wastewater rates starting in July in its proposed two-year budget.

The agency, which provides water to 1.4 million customers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, is proposing a 4% rate increase in the next fiscal year starting on July 1. An additional 4% increase would go into effect on July 1, 2022.

“Over the next two years, we will invest hundreds of millions of dollars to improve our aging water and wastewater infrastructure, such as pipeline replacements, water treatment plant and seismic upgrades, structural rehabilitation, and to replace aging equipment,” the agency said.

For wastewater rates, the average single family customer would see monthly sewer charges increase by 89 cents in the first year and an additional 98 cents in the following year. Meanwhile, increases on the annual Wet Weather Facilities Charge for customers in the SD-1 service area are dependent on a customer’s lot size.

Officials said the proposed rate hike follows a review of the agency’s budget, along with nine months of discussion, planning and outreach. The agency said revenues would go towards upgrading pipelines and treatment plants, preparing for drought, along with costs associated with adapting to climate change.

Clifford Chan, the agency’s general manager, will present the proposed $2.25 billion budget to the board of directors at Tuesday’s meeting at 11:15, which will be livestreamed.

The board is scheduled to hold a public hearing and vote on the proposed rates on June 8.

Hayward Couple Told to Clean Up Trash Left at Homeless Camp Near Property

Fri, 07 May 2021 00:23:13 +0000

HAYWARD (KPIX) — A couple living in Hayward claims the city wants them to clean up a mess near their property that they say shouldn’t be their responsibility.

“I’m certainly in a quandary and I don’t know what to do,” Lorraine Souza told KPIX. She has lived in her Hayward home with her husband and children for 30 years.

Just before the pandemic started, a man who was homeless parked his broken-down vehicle filled with belongings at the top of their private dirt driveway. He has lived there ever since ..

“I don’t know what to say to the homeless. It’s not a crime,” said Souza.

She says they have tolerated his need for a place to live

“He is a decent man,” said one family member.

But then the Souzas said they started getting visits from Alameda County code enforcement officers for having garbage on the property. Those visits were followed by notices of non-compliance that started arriving in the mail with the fees close to $400.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Souza said of the concerns she felt after the notices.

According to the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance, trash and debris is not allowed to accumulate on private property and it is the property owner’s responsibility to remove and dispose of it properly.

“If I were to take it…to me, that’s stealing. I don’t know if I’ll get arrested or if it’s right,” said Souza.

The family says they feel like they are being treated like criminals because of someone else’s homelessness. They want to be tolerant of his struggle to find a job and a home.

“Part of their issues because it’s COVID they don’t want to just move people,” said Souza’s husband Patrick Crosby. “They basically left each time, not able to do anything. Now things turned around and it’s our responsibility even though they couldn’t do anything about it.”

Code enforcement issued the following statement:

“We will continue to collaborate with other county agencies to see if we can come up with a workable plan to clean up the property. We will also continue to collaborate with other county agencies to see if there are other solutions to help the person experiencing homelessness.”

But the county also made it clear the goal of code enforcement action is to remove debris and trash and to be responsive to complaints in the neighborhood.

COVID: Oakland Coliseum Vaccination Site Set to Close May 23

Wed, 05 May 2021 17:17:37 +0000

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Alameda County officials and the state Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) announced Wednesday that the Oakland Coliseum mega vaccination site will be closing later this month.

A press release issued jointly by the county and the state said the site would be shutting down on May 23. So far, the site has successfully administered nearly 250,000 doses to Alameda County residents.

According to the release, the Coliseum site has experienced a rapid reduction in first dose appointments over the last two weeks of April. Public requests for first dose appointments at the site have dropped from 4,000 per day to 400 per day.

CalOES will conclude its deployment on May 9, with the County taking control of the site the following day with plans to keep it open for two more weeks to complete second doses. Officials noted that the Pedestrian Village will only be open through May 9 for individuals already scheduled for second dose appointments.

Alameda County officials will be shifting to more focused and localized vaccine options that address the changing landscape and reflect positive feedback about community-based strategies to distribute vaccine doses.

“This marks an important milestone for our community. More than 70 percent of our residents have received at least one vaccination, allowing us to move away from mass vaccination. We are grateful to CalOES, the Governor, Federal partners and all of the medical professionals who helped us deliver hundreds of thousands of doses to Alameda County residents,” said Alameda County Health Care Services Agency Director Colleen Chawla.

County officials will work with Carbon Health, Native American Health Center, Lifelong Medical, Bay Area Community Health and La Familia to ensure completion of second doses at the Coliseum and its associated mobile units through May 23.

East Bay Veterinarians Warn Of Sick Puppies Being Sold In Alameda County

Sat, 01 May 2021 13:26:10 +0000

PLEASANTON (CBS SF) — Pet ownership has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic, but veterinarians and animal control officials issued a warning Friday about sick puppies being sold at makeshift roadside adoption operations in Alameda County.

Many of the puppies are turning up at local vet clinics suffering from canine parvovirus — a highly contagious, deadly illness that can quickly spread among a litter if their living conditions are not carefully monitored.

During the pandemic, as the pet ownership soared, it has led to people selling puppies out of their vehicles on the side of the road and in parking lots.

Veterinarians warn of the heartbreak if you don’t adopt your new pet from a reputable breeder, shelter or rescue organization.

“A couple of days later, you might find that you have a very sick puppy on your hand,” said Dr. Coleen Dossey with Town and Country Veterinary Hospital. ” “Parvo is highly contagious and can be a very deadly virus and spread from dog to dog.”

Animal control officials said a recent incident happened along Airway Boulevard in Livermore. Maltipoo puppies that were sold for $450 turned out to be infected with parvo.

A puppy suffering from parvo is a very sick dog. Veterinarians said the sooner the illness is diagnosed and treated, the more likely the puppy will return to good health.

The symptoms of parvo in puppies include:

Bloody diarrhea
Vomiting
Fever
Lethargy
Anorexia
Weight loss
Weakness
Dehydration
Depression

DOJ: Santa Rita Jail, Alameda Co. Violated Civil Rights Of Inmates With Mental Health Disabilities

Sat, 24 Apr 2021 00:19:35 +0000

DUBLIN (AP) — The County of Alameda has violated civil rights by failing to provide proper mental health services, especially at Santa Rita Jail where 19 people have committed suicide since 2014, according to federal report released Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Justice took aim at conditions for people with serious mental health issues, specifically at Santa Rita Jail, where a woman killed herself April 2. It was the second suicide at the jail this year.

The federal report said there was “reasonable cause” to believe that conditions at the jail in Dublin violated the U.S. Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The report said the county failed to provide services to people with mental health disabilities, including those at risk of suicide, too often puts them in isolation, and unnecessarily ships them off to mental hospitals or other restrictive housing.

“On any given day in Alameda County, hundreds of people are institutionalized for lengthy stays at one of several large, locked psychiatric facilities” or at John George Psychiatric Hospital, said a Department of Justice statement.

People with mental health disabilities “find themselves unnecessarily cycling in and out of psychiatric institutions and jails because they lack access to proven services that would allow them to recover and participate in community life,” Pamela S. Karlan of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the statement.

Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department that operates the jails, said the department already was working on dealing with issues mentioned in the report and in an ongoing 2018 federal lawsuit that made similar allegations.

A federal judge is overseeing the progress, he said.

The Santa Rita Jail has about 2,200 inmates, making it one of the largest jails or prisons in the nation.

Kelly estimated that close to half of the inmates at the jail have mental health issues, many of them serious.

“At the end of the day, this boils down to millions and millions of dollars in staffing … in clinicians and facilities,” he said. “We need a proper criminal justice mental health facility that’s connected to the (overall) mental health system. We’re working on all of that.”

EBMUD Requests Public Input For Water Supply Plan Update

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:34:15 +0000

OAKLAND (CBS SF/BCN) — The East Bay Municipal Utility District posted a request Wednesday for residents of Alameda and Contra Costa counties to weigh in on updates to its water supply plan, which is updated every five years.

The plan assesses water supplies against expected water needs for a 30-year planning horizon. As the state faces possible megadrought conditions, the plan could be particularly important these coming years.

A virtual public comment meeting will be held April 29 and a virtual public hearing on May 11, during the regularly scheduled EBMUD board of directors meeting.

The public can submit comments by May 12 either by email to uwmp2020@ebmud.com, or by postal mail to S. Cheng, Water Resources Planning Division, EBMUD, P.O. BOX 24055, MS 901, Oakland, California, 94623-1055.

The draft of the plan is available for public review and comment at http://www.ebmud.com/uwmp. Final versions of these plans will be submitted to the California Department of Water Resources by July 1.

COVID Vaccine: Reduced Supply of Johnson & Johnson Doses Unlikely to Impact Bay Area

Fri, 09 Apr 2021 01:40:01 +0000

OAKLAND (KPIX) — Just as more Bay Area residents are set to become eligible to receive the COVID vaccine, a new issue with California’s supply of doses related to a recent production problem with the Johnson & Johnson shot has emerged.

California health officials have confirmed the state is expecting a nearly 90% drop in those vaccines next week.

It’s partly because of a manufacturing mix-up at a facility in Baltimore making one of the components for the J&J shot, impacting some 15 million doses that had to be thrown out.

As KPIX first reported last week, Johnson & Johnson issued a statement saying, “This quality control process identified one batch of drug substance that did not meet quality standards at Emergent Biosolutions, a site not yet authorized to manufacture drug substance for our COVID-19 vaccine.”

“Last week we actually got a lot of Johnson & Johnson,” explained Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the health officer leading Santa Clara County’s vaccination effort. “We had nearly 20,000 doses. Next week we’re only going to get 2,300 doses.”

Santa Clara is one county getting stung by the botched vaccine production on the other side of the country. Johnson & Johnson supplies will drop for at least a week, but that doesn’t mean vaccinations will stop.

“We do have the Moderna vaccine. We still have the Pfizer vaccine coming in,” said Fenstersheib. “So it’s not that we don’t have any vaccine.”

It does mean some counties will have to make some changes, not necessarily cancel appointments but prioritize people waiting for their second dose. And even at 15 million doses lost, the nationwide effort shouldn’t slow down all that much.

“You know, we’ve done really well with Moderna and Pfizer,” said UC Berkeley epidemiologist Dr. John Swartzberg. “Those companies have delivered good products. And delivered them pretty much on schedule.”

So as for the larger schedule the state has been forecasting, vaccine abundance by May, there is no indication that one bad batch will change that.

“We’ve built a lot of resistance into the system,” Swartzberg said. “We really over-ordered if you will. Frankly, I’m delighted that we did that. So it’s given us the resiliency to make up for J&J’s fiasco.”

California is set to open up COVID vaccination eligibility to all residents over the age of 16 next week on April 15, but some parts of the Bay Area have already moved ahead with expanding eligibility.

Last week, Contra Costa County made the vaccination available to everyone who lives or works in the county over age 16 more than two weeks ahead of the state’s scheduled date.

Starting at midnight Thursday morning, Santa Clara County made hundreds of thousands of South Bay residents eligible to sign up to get vaccinated by allowing those age 16 and up to schedule vaccine appointments. However, the appointments still needed to fall on or after April 15.

Meanwhile, Alameda County on Thursday started administering COVID vaccines to people 16 and older in specific areas of Oakland, Hayward, San Leandro and San Lorenzo that have been hardest hit by the pandemic.

The 12 zip codes that expanded the ages for vaccine eligibility in Alameda County are 94601, 94603, 94605, 94606, 94607, 94621, 94541, 94544, 94545, 94577, 94578 and 94580.

COVID Vaccine: Santa Clara and Alameda Counties Change Appointment Scheduling, Eligibility For Those Age 16 and Over

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 18:59:43 +0000

SAN JOSE (CBS SF) — Two different Bay Area counties will be making changes on Thursday to how residents 16 and over will sign up for a COVID-19 vaccine starting Thursday morning, though each county is taking a different approach.

Starting at midnight on April 8, Santa Clara County is making hundreds of thousands of South Bay residents eligible to sign up to get vaccinated by allowing those age 16 and up to schedule vaccine appointments.

UPDATE: Reduced Supply of Johnson & Johnson Doses Unlikely to Impact Bay Area

However, county officials said people age 16 to 50 will still have to book their appointments for after the eligibility window opens for that age group starting on April 15.

As of Wednesday evening, the Santa Clara County Health Departments COVID-19 website still showed that only those age 50 and older are eligible for the vaccination in accordance with current state eligibility criteria.

Meanwhile, Alameda County on Thursday will actually start administering COVID vaccines to people 16 and older in specific areas of Oakland, Hayward, San Leandro and San Lorenzo that have been hardest hit by the pandemic.

The 12 zip codes that are expanding the ages for vaccine eligibility are 94601, 94603, 94605, 94606, 94607, 94621, 94541, 94544, 94545, 94577, 94578 and 94580.

More information on signing up for a COVID vaccine in Alameda County is available on the county health department website.

Santa Clara County on Thursday was still trying to ensure the most vulnerable get their vaccines.

To that end, the county held a special vaccination event at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara for people with special needs and their family members.

Public health officials said people with intellectual disabilities are more than two times as likely to contract COVID-19 and more than six times more likely to die from it.

Parents of children with special needs told KPIX that it was especially important for them to have an event designed specifically for them.

They said it sped them through the process and they could be confident that there would be people on hand who could deal with any problems that might arise.

“It was important that I get it in time, so I can get her at that time; without me having to go or my husband going to stand in line, get an appointment, come back home and then going,” said South Bay mother Usha Kikkeri. “This event really helped us.”

Actually getting an appointment as more and more Bay Area residents become eligible for the COVID vaccine could be another matter.

According to the Mercury News, California will receive about 90 percent fewer Johnson & Johnson vaccines next week. The state’s total vaccine allotment for next week is about two million doses, approximately 367,000 fewer doses than this week.

State health officials noted that nationwide, states are reporting a drop in vaccine allocations.

The drop can be mainly attributed to reduced allocations of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

While there were nearly 575,000 vaccine doses provided this week, next week than number drops to under 67,000 before dropping further still to only about 22,400 J&J shots the week of April 18.

Devin Fehely contributed to this story.

‘Days Like This Help:’ Bay Area’s Warm Spring Weather Makes Orange Tier Days Even Brighter

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 03:54:26 +0000

PLEASANTON (KPIX) — Alameda County‘s first full day in the Orange Tier takes place amidst an early spring heat wave, that brought record breaking temperatures across the Bay Area, further lightening the mood after a year of lockdowns, zoom classes, and a winter spent sheltering in place.

“It just dragged on and on. You really couldn’t go anywhere, you couldn’t really do anything. So now it’s just all about getting out and enjoying the weather,” said hiker Mitch Taylor.

With temperatures about eight degrees higher than normal this time of year, much of the county reached highs in the low 80s. At Mission Peak, the main parking lot was full by mid-morning, with visitors parking on side streets, and hiking to the trailhead. Yellow mustard flowers and lush green grass covered the rolling hillside, framed by bright blue skies.

Taylor, who hikes to the top of the peak twice a week, urged caution as summer approaches.

“Warm weather is incentive to get lazy. So you have to be careful not to get lazy,” said Taylor.

The Orange Tier allows bars to finally reopen for outdoor service. Wineries can operate at 25 percent capacity.

At Wente Vineyards in Livermore, COVID protocols do not allow children under 21, pets are prohibited, and tastings are limited to 90 minutes. New for this year, Wente is offering premium “library tastings.”

Last weekend’s momentum from the warm weather will continue into the upcoming busy Easter weekend for Wente, as all outdoor and indoor reservations are full.

“We can already tell by the weather last week. And the weather was nice, so yes, people want to get out,” said Ann Ogden, Events Director. “They’re over it. We’re over it.”

At Crown Memorial State Beach in Alameda, a high of 81F degrees drew a sizable, but socially distanced crowd for a Wednesday afternoon.

Leonis Word brought his family to the shoreline to take advantage of the mid-week warm weather.

“My daughter has zoom class every day, and it’s Spring Break. So we were getting away from the laptop,” said Word. “Just the fact that folks are out is fun, to see folks out and about. It feels like everyone is a little more encouraged, I guess. Days like this help.”

Thursday brings another day of unseasonably warm weather. Another cooling trend begins Friday.

COVID Reopening: Alameda and Santa Cruz Counties Move Into Orange Tier

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 19:30:29 +0000

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Both Alameda County and Santa Cruz counties were able to move to the Orange Tier Tuesday according to the metrics of the state’s COVID Blueprint for a Safer Economy.

Every county in California is assigned to a tier based on its positivity rate, adjusted case rate, and health equity metric that is tracked on the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy website. Counties must remain in a tier for at least 3 weeks before moving to a less restrictive tier. Counties must meet the next tier’s criteria for two consecutive weeks to move to a less restrictive tier.

California COVID Tier map for 3-30-2021 (COVID19.CA.gov)

If a county’s metrics worsen for two consecutive weeks, it will be assigned a more restrictive tier.

The move means both Alameda and Santa Cruz counties will soon be allowing non-essential businesses to reopen offices at 25% capacity and indoor-dining capacity at restaurant can grow to 50%.

Here’s what else is allowed in the Orange Tier:

bars can open outdoors without needing to serve food
retail, and museums may expand to 50% capacity
gyms, bowling alleys, and pool halls can operate indoors at 25% capacity

The timing is pivotal for the Oakland A’s with the team’s opening day on Thursday. Alameda County moving to the Orange Tier means fans could be allowed to return to the coliseum at 33% capacity.

On Monday, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk announced it would reopen select rides starting Thursday, April 1, the same day amusement parks in California are allowed to resume operations with limited capacity.

Staying in the Red Tier is a bit of a setback for Napa County. County officials and business owners were hoping to be able to reopen its wineries for indoor tastings.

Since the pandemic, most visitors to the valley have been from the Bay Area and Sacramento, but the region’s economy depends on tourists from out of state and around the world.

Hotels are starting to fill up on weekends, and there is hope that the eventual return to the orange tier in Napa County will bring more traffic during the week.

Sonoma, Solano and Contra Costa counties are likely to stay in the red for at least another week.

Tsunami Hazard Maps Released For Alameda, Monterey, San Mateo Counties

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 03:16:53 +0000

(BCN) – California has added interactive maps for several counties in the state, including three in the greater Bay Area, as part of its ongoing Tsunami Hazard Area project mapping the entire coastline of California.

The California Geologic Survey released maps Tuesday for Alameda, Monterey and San Mateo counties. The interactive maps allow users to insert an address to determine if the property is subject to potential tsunami flooding.

The project updates maps made in 2009 with new data from improved computer modeling showing how far inland a surge of seawater might go in a worst-case scenario.

The maps are available online at https://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/tsunami/. Updates are in the works for Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano and Sonoma counties.

For the local maps just released, changes to the existing tsunami hazard maps show that in a worst-case tsunami, sizeable areas of Alameda, Oakland, and Berkeley could be flooded up to an 18-foot elevation.

Along the outer coast of San Mateo County, the biggest change is in Half Moon Bay, where seawater could cross state Highway 1 through much of the community north of Arroyo Leon.

Further south, the city of Monterey and Moss Landing saw slight increases in hazard areas due to higher projected surges, whereas the high dunes near Salinas River State Beach and Monterey Dunes Colony Association were removed from the hazard area.

The new maps also provide local officials with more detailed information for evacuation plans.

“After 10 years of research following the Tohoku-Oki earthquake and tsunami in Japan, we’re releasing maps with many improvements to keep Californians safe,” said Dr. Steve Bohlen, acting state geologist who heads the California Geologic Survey. “Japan utilized data from several hundred years of tsunami records in its planning, which seemed perfectly reasonable, then was hit by a once-a-millennium tsunami. So, we’re using a thousand-year scenario as the baseline for our new maps, hoping to avoid the tragic loss of life experienced there. While damaging tsunamis are infrequent in California, if you’re on the coast, you need to be aware of this potential hazard.”

More than 150 tsunamis have hit California’s shore since 1800, state officials said. Many were barely noticeable, but a few have caused fatalities or significant damage — most recently the 2011 tsunami that not only devastated Japan but caused $100 million of damage to California ports and harbors.

The most destructive tsunami to hit California occurred March 28, 1964, according to the California Geologic Survey. Several surges reaching 21 feet high swept into Crescent City four hours after a magnitude 9.2 earthquake in Alaska, killing 12 and leveling much of the town’s business district. For most of California, the biggest tsunami threat would result from another huge earthquake in the Aleutian Islands.

COVID: Alameda County In Red Tier For At Least 1 More Week; Another Case Surge Possible

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 00:40:00 +0000

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Alameda County will remain in the Red Tier of California’s reopening plan for at least another week, a health official said Tuesday.

The county then may move to a less restrictive tier that allows businesses to serve more people indoors, for example, than they do now. Some other Bay Area counties moved to the less restrictive Orange Tier Tuesday.

The daily COVID-19 case rate continues to fall in the county as do hospitalizations as well as testing. But health officials are not letting their guard down yet.

“This is not over,” Alameda County Health Officer Dr. Nicholas Moss told the county Board of Supervisors at their regular meeting Tuesday.

“Additional surges are possible,” he said in response to a question about surges occurring in other states and in Europe.

Moss wasn’t sure what is contributing to those surges. In New York, he said it may be because the population is denser.

About 244,000 county residents are fully vaccinated and about 683,000 have received at least one dose. As many as 20,000 doses are delivered daily in the county, Moss said.

While the county’s vaccine supply is slowly increasing, it will probably be next month before the county sees a significant increase, Moss said.

County health officials are expecting the state to soon expand who is eligible for the vaccine. Currently the county is aligned with the state on who is eligible.

Some racial groups in the county are getting vaccinated more quickly than others, county data show.

Black and Latino residents lag white and Asian populations, according to the county’s vaccine data dashboard.

While 35 percent of white residents 16 and older and 31 percent of Asian residents 16 and older are vaccinated, those percentages fall to about 26 percent for Black residents and 20 percent for Latino residents of the same age group, the dashboard showed on Tuesday.

Mobile clinics are doing better at getting the vaccine to Black and Latino residents, Moss said, referring to data released March 16 by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Those figures show that of the people vaccinated at the Oakland Coliseum, about 4 percent identified as Black while at Oakland’s two state/federal mobile clinics nearly 21 percent of the people vaccinated identified as Black.

Nearly 20 percent of the people vaccinated at the Oakland Coliseum identified as Latino while at the mobile clinics more than 31 percent identified as Latino.

Newsom Pardons San Leandro Woman Who Helped Her Mom Bludgeon Stepfather To Death

Sat, 13 Mar 2021 02:30:52 +0000

SAN LEANDRO (AP/CBS SF) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday commuted the life sentence of a woman convicted of killing her stepfather on New Years Eve in 1988, making her immediately eligible for release on parole.

Teresa Paulinkonis has been in prison for 31 years. She was sentenced to 25 years to life for murder in 1992 in Alameda County. In an order commuting her sentence that Newsom signed Friday, the governor says Paulinkonis “has worked hard to better herself” by earning an associate degree, a business certificate and participating “in extensive self-help programming.”

The order noted four corrections workers praised Paulinkonis for “her positive attitude and her willingness to help others.”

According to court records, the 57-year-old inmate and her mother, beat Paul Paulinkonis to death on New Years Eve with a pipe after they allegedly failed to kill him with spiked drinks and a meatloaf laced with oleander. The pair went out for drinks after the murder. His son found the body on New Years Day.

Paulinkonis’s commutation was one of 20 acts of clemency Newsom signed on Friday, including nine pardons and 10 medical reprieves, all relating to the coronavirus. Newsom has now issued a total of 72 pardons, 79 commutations and 20 medical reprieves since taking office in 2019.

COVID Reopening: Red Tier Means Real, Live A’s Baseball Fans Are Coming Back!

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 04:10:40 +0000

OAKLAND (KPIX) — With Alameda County moving into the Red Tier, we now move just a little bit closer to normal and that’s great news for Oakland A’s fans.

For the moment the A’s are still in Arizona for spring training but come Opening Day on April 1, all those stupid cardboard fake fans can be replaced with real fans at 20 percent capacity.

“To have that back this year, to welcome our fans back, to have that as a pick me up for our players, especially when we have a great team this year, a world series contender, we’re thrilled that’s the possibility starting April 1,” said A’s team President Dave Kaval.

Time will tell if there’s a World Series in the A’s future or not but here’s how it’s going to work —

Guests will be seated in pods of 2 to 4 seats
Concessions ordered by mobile phone app, no cash accepted – debit or credit cards only
No tailgating.

That may not sit well with fans, but hey, you get to watch baseball again.

It’s not just baseball. The Red Tier means indoor dining may resume at 20 percent too. Barney Burgers in Oakland has already taped off where the tables are going.

“This is how we have planning for social distancing for the tables,” said shift leader Anna Bood, pointing to the empty room.

Families are excited too. Nicole Norse has her hands full with her six kids.

“I think theme parks as well,” said Norse. We are all excited to get out!”

Clearview AI Sued In Alameda County Court By Immigrant Rights Groups, Activists

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 01:53:31 +0000

ALAMEDA COUNTY (CBS SF / CNN) — Clearview AI, the controversial firm behind facial-recognition software used by law enforcement, is being sued in a Bay Area court by two immigrants’ rights groups to stop the company’s surveillance technology from proliferating in the state.

The complaint, which was filed Tuesday in California Superior Court in Alameda County, alleges Clearview AI’s software is still used by state and federal law enforcement to identify individuals even though several California cities have banned government use of facial recognition technology.

The lawsuit was filed by Mijente, NorCal Resist, and four individuals who identify as political activists. The suit alleges Clearview AI’s database of images violates the privacy rights of people in California broadly and that the company’s “mass surveillance technology disproportionately harms immigrants and communities of color.”

Sejal Zota, a lawyer for the parties who brought the suit and the legal director at Just Futures Law, told CNN Business that the parties that brought the suit seek an injunction to prevent Clearview AI from being used in California, along with the deletion of face scans of Californians that the company has collected.

Founded in 2017, Clearview AI compiles billions of photos into a database for its software, which can use these images to identify individual people. The company has claimed to have scraped over 3 billion photos from the internet, including photos from popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Major tech companies have sent the company cease-and-desist notices in the past, arguing its photo snagging practices violate their terms of service.

“Clearview AI complies with all applicable law and its conduct is fully protected by the First Amendment,” Floyd Abrams, a lawyer for the company, said in a statement to CNN Business on Tuesday.

Facial recognition technology has grown in prevalence — and controversy — in recent years, popping up everywhere from airport check-in lines to police departments and drugstores. And while it could add a sense of security and convenience for businesses that roll it out, the technology has been widely criticized by privacy advocates who are concerned that it may include racial biases and have the potential for misuse.

The lawsuit is the latest attempt by grassroots groups to clamp down on facial-recognition software, which is not widely regulated in the United States. In the absence of clear federal rules regarding the usage of the technology, a number of cities — such as San Francisco, Boston, and Portland, Oregon — have banned the technology in some capacity. A few states, including Illinois, California, and Washington, have related legislation that limits its use.

Zota said the parties that brought the lawsuit see Clearview’s technology “as a terrifying leap toward a mass surveillance state where people’s movements are tracked the moment they leave their homes.” The individual plaintiffs participated in political movements that are critical of the police and of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said.

“The ability to control their likenesses and biometric identifiers — and to continue to engage in political speech critical of the police and immigration policy, free from the threat of clandestine and invasive surveillance — is vital to Plaintiffs, their members, and their missions,” the lawsuit states.

Clearview was sued last year in Illinois by the American Civil Liberties Union, which alleged in its complaint that the company’s technology violates that state’s 2008 Biometric Information Privacy Act. In a statement, the ACLU alleged Clearview participated in “unlawful, privacy-destroying surveillance activities.”

At the time, a lawyer for Clearview AI responded by saying the ACLU lawsuit was “absurd.”

That lawsuit is ongoing; Clearview filed a motion to dismiss the suit in December, which the ACLU replied to in a legal brief, an ACLU spokesperson told CNN Business.

More recently, Clearview AI has also been declared illegal in Canada. The company was told to remove Canadian faces from its database.

Zero Bail Dublin Carjacker Sentenced To 5 Years In Federal Prison

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 21:13:47 +0000

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Rocky Lee Music, who committed a violent Dublin carjacking an hour after his release from Alameda County jail on zero bail, was sentenced Tuesday to five years in federal prison.

Acting United States Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds said the 33-year-old Music pleaded guilty and was sentenced during the same hearing before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. He was taken directly from the courtroom and placed into federal custody for transport to prison.

According to his plea agreement, Music admitted that on April 19, 2020, he violently carjacked a Prius parked in the 5200 block of Campus Drive in Dublin.

To carjack the vehicle, Music opened the driver’s door, punched the male victim seated in the driver’s seat, pulled the victim out of the Prius while continuing to punch him on the head and forced his way into the driver’s seat.

He then drove away in the Prius while the victim hung onto the driver’s side door.

According to the plea agreement, the carjacking occurred approximately 40 minutes after Music was granted pretrial release from Santa Rita Jail, where he had been held while awaiting prosecution by Alameda County authorities on other charges.

After carjacking the Prius, Music drove to San Ramon, where he later approached a female victim seated in the driver’s seat of a parked vehicle. The female driver drove away.

He was apprehended later that same day in San Ramon and he has remained in custody since his arrest.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Gonzalez Rogers sentenced Music to a three-year period of supervised release.

Update: Alameda, Santa Cruz, Solano County Move Into Red Tier, Business Owners To Reopen Indoor Operations

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 20:11:33 +0000

ALAMEDA (CBS SF) — Alameda, Santa Cruz and Solano counties were elevated to the less restrictive Red Tier Monday, allowing their struggling restaurants to offer limited indoor dining and clearing the way for fans to be in the stands when the Oakland A’s begin regular season play.

For counties in the Red Tier, indoor restaurant dining rooms and movie theaters can reopen at 25% capacity or up to 100 people, whichever is fewer. Gyms and dance and yoga studios can open at 10% capacity. Museums, zoos and aquariums can open indoor activities at 25% capacity.

Prep sports can also can finally get underway and schools can reopen under the state restrictions.

Meanwhile with Alameda now in the Red Tier, fans will be allowed at 20% capacity at A’s games.

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín immediately issued a statement calling for his city’s schools to reopen.

“The shift into the Red Tier means that Berkeley’s public schools can, and should, reopen safely and successfully,” he said. “Based on the guidelines developed by the California Department of Public Health, schools located in a Red Tier jurisdiction are eligible to safely reopen for in-person instruction. The authority to reopen schools rests with the Berkeley Unified School District, and I strongly encourage the District to welcome students, teachers, and staff back into the physical classroom.”

For the last two weeks, Alameda County has been within the state guidelines to be elevated from Purple to the Red Tier.

New COVID cases are 6.3 per 100,000 residents, below the state mandate for movement of 7 cases. The positively rate has dropped to 2.4 percent well below the 8 percent state mandate.

“We’re finally going to get back to some normalcy,” Alameda Theater and Cinema Grill owner Kyle Conner told KPIX 5 in anticipation of the announcement. “It’ll be a journey. Got to gear up all the staffing.”

During the pandemic theater shutdown stemming back nearly a year, Conner has been operating a widely popular weekend drive-in movie venue at the former Alameda Naval Air Station. He plans to keep the drive-in operating at last until May.

As his indoor theater reopens, he faces a dilemma. Since the pandemic began, studios have reduce their releases and also went to a streaming strategy.

“The second part is there’s got to be movies to play,” he said. “And right now, there’s not a lot of movies to play.”

“The sad thing is,” he continued, “I think we’ll probably lose more money opening then staying close for the first 4 to 6 months because of the 25% capacity.”

But there is also a mix reaction to reopenings. Many feel it is too soon.

“I’m not ready to put myself at risk at this point,” said Toni Bonde.

The feeling was the same for Claire Bonde.

“Once everybody has their mask off and we’re in an enclosed space, I’m not ready yet,” Bonde said. “More people will need to be vaccinated before that’s okay with me.”

East Bay Entrepreneurs Eager for Red Tier Easing to Boost Business

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 03:20:20 +0000

OAKLAND (KPIX) — Many businesses in the East Bay are preparing to operate indoors as early as Wednesday. Alameda and Solano County health officials believe that, if their current COVID case numbers continue to trend down, the governor on Tuesday will move them into the red tier.

“We’re finally going to get back to some normalcy,” said Kyle Conner, who owns the Alameda Theatre and the Cinema Grill restaurant next door. “The restaurant, we’re now probably got about 25 percent, maybe 30 percent of our staff back in place. We’ll probably get it up to close to 50 percent once we get indoor dining opened.”

He said it’s easy to reopen indoor dining from a logistical standpoint but it’s a lot more complicated for a theater. Even if the governor allows indoor theaters to reopen starting on Wednesday, it’ll still take Conner a few more weeks to open up.

“Got to gear up all the staffing,” he explained. “The second part of it is there’s got to be movies to play and, right now, there’s not a lot of movies to play.”

Since last summer, Conner has been operating a drive-in theater at the old naval base. It’s sold out almost every weekend. He planned to keep operating the drive-in and open Alameda Theatre around late March or early April.

“The sad thing is I think for the first four to six months, we’ll probably lose more money with the theater being opened than we’re losing being closed because we’ll be limited to 25 percent capacity,” Conner said.

Many people said they couldn’t wait to eat inside.

“I’m vaccinated myself so I feel safe personally,” said Patricio Chavez, an Alameda resident.

Others are still worried about their safety.

“Once everybody has their mask off and we’re in an enclosed space, I’m not ready yet. More people will need to be vaccinated before that’s OK with me,” said Alameda resident Claire Bonde.

“I’m not ready to put myself at risk at this point,” added Toni Bonde.

Aside from restaurants and movie theaters, Terrell Elliott, who owns Body Mechanix, an Oakland gymnasium, said it has been tough mentally and financially not being able to use his facility. His gym’s few remaining members work out in a small, outdoor patio.

“We pretty much lost probably 80 percent of our clientele,” said Elliott.

If Alameda and Solano Counties shift to the red tier this week, Elliott would be able to reopen his gym at 10 percent capacity. Restaurants and theaters would be allowed indoors with 25 percent capacity.

“A few months ago, I was sort of stressed out but I’m more optimistic right now. I believe that we’re going to do well and I’m excited, I’m ready to get my family back in here, my members,” Elliott said.

Elliott said it may take years for him to bring his membership back to the pre-pandemic level but he’s ready for the heavy lifting.

“We have faith that things will clear up and we’ll get back to where we were before,” said Elliott.

COVID: Oakland Coliseum Vaccination Site Designates Half of Doses For ‘Educators Day’

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 21:15:47 +0000

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) — Thursday marked the launch of what is being called “Educators Day” at the vaccination megasite at the Oakland Coliseum.

It’s part of an effort to expedite doses to school employees so campuses can reopen as quickly and safely as possible.

Half of the doses at the site were allocated just for teachers on Thursday.
The Coliseum site was expected to do up to 7,000 people total. Teachers who managed to get a dose told KPIX they felt lucky.

Special Education teaching assistant Liz Capstick was not taking any chances. She arrived at the coliseum more than an hour before her appointment, just in case.

“I’m nervous and excited to get this. It’s a step in the right direction,” she said.

Capstick received an email with the special registration code to schedule her appointment and did not hesitate to join the thousands of people coming through to get their dose.

“It’s important. They’re trying to reopen schools, and they can’t really do that if nobody’s prepared” said Capstick.

These first few days are by invitation only. The Alameda County Office of Education is handing out the single-use registration codes. They are targeting education workers in southern and eastern Alameda County. The county is prioritizing staff who work directly with students.

Email surveys are being used to plan ahead, so teachers and other school employees are advised to check their emails and fill them out by the deadlines provided.

“I think it’s great to have a day allocated for particular populations,” said Oakland Educators Association Vice President Chaz Garcia.

The Oakland union was not directly involved in the Educators Day rollout, but Garcia said she was glad to see teachers getting more attention and resources.

“At this point, we know that there’s a pivot to really make sure that the things that teachers need are provided. We’re thankful that the politicians and people in power are focused on providing resources that are necessary,” said Garcia. “So while that’s vaccinations for us, that’s great. But we don’t want us to be alone in the spotlight. We know that we’re not alone in the schools and we want to make sure that we shine that light on the community at large.”

The Alameda County Office of Education told KPIX the county was given 6,000 of the registration codes to distribute. They targeted teachers and sent those on Tuesday and Wednesday. The big challenge for teachers is to find the time in between teaching their classes over zoom to come out to the site and get those doses.

The distribution of the access codes has been a complicated process across the Bay Area. In San Francisco, teachers were turned away at the Moscone Center mass vaccination site for not having access codes earlier this week, though issues with the codes seemed to be getting ironed out by officials on Wednesday.

Officials in Santa Cruz County said they will have offered the vaccine to all of K-12 educators and staff in the county by Friday.

Alameda News - Local Alameda County News

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Disenfranchising voters
should be a tough sell

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leave ethics behind

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Trump gets laughter

Trump’s actions work
against stated goals