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| Department of Water and Power wants women on the job, and a career expo is step one – Daily News | | Each day at work, Verlene Fierro uses heavy equipment and her technical knowledge and managerial skills to ensure the safety and smooth operation of water treatment plants for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Fierro is an instrument mechanic supervisor—a job her younger self hadn’t known even existed. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2024-05-03 | | | | After Lengthy Court Battle, Company Agrees To Stop Rendering Animal Parts in Southeast LA | LAist | | Following a nearly two-year court battle, a company in the city of Vernon has reached a settlement with air quality regulators and agreed to stop rendering raw animal parts.
As part of the agreement with the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), Baker Commodities Inc. will pay the agency $400,000 and surrender its rendering permits within two weeks. [Article] | | by , . 2024-05-03 | | | | Dismantling of largest dam begins on Klamath River - Los Angeles Times | | Workers have begun dismantling the largest dam on the Klamath River, using machinery to scoop the first loads of rocks from an earthen barrier that has stood near the California-Oregon border for more than six decades.
Several Indigenous leaders and activists watched as a single earthmover tore into the top of Iron Gate Dam, starting a pivotal phase in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.
As they celebrated the long-awaited moment, they shouted, embraced and offered prayers. They said they hope to see the river’s salmon, which have suffered devastating declines, finally start to recover once Iron Gate and two other dams are fully removed later this year.
“It’s a new beginning — for not only fish, but for people as well,” said Leaf Hillman, an elder and ceremonial leader of the Karuk tribe who attended the groundbreaking Wednesday.
Hillman and other Indigenous activists spent more than two decades campaigning — including repeatedly protesting at utility shareholders meetings — until they finally secured agreements for the hydroelectric dams to be removed.
The smallest of the four dams was removed last year, and crews have been blasting into a second concrete dam with dynamite.
Iron Gate Dam has towered above the river since it was completed in 1962. It stands 173 feet tall and 740 feet thick.
Salmon are central to the cultures and fishing traditions of tribes along the Klamath River. But the dams have long blocked the fish from reaching areas where they once spawned, and have worsened water quality, contributing to toxic algae blooms and disease outbreaks that have killed fish.
Hillman, 60, said he and his family have witnessed the continual degradation of the river and the salmon population throughout their lives. Now, he and other tribal members are looking ahead to this fall, when they expect salmon will once again swim in a free-flowing river.
“All of us have been impacted by these dams,” he said. “And so now it represents for us a bright future.” [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2024-05-03 | | | | How a Cold Email Turned into a Mega Shelter Pitch | Voice of San Diego | | It all started with an email.
Real estate investor and developer Douglas Hamm had been in escrow for about a year to buy a 65,000-square foot warehouse near the airport when his expected tenant’s business plans changed. [Article] | | by , . 2024-05-03 | | | | Foster care homes must use restraint for violent children | Fresno Bee | | The house is as ordinary as possible.
In each of the three bedrooms, including the master, there are two beds. Handmade quilts, neatly tucked, bear the embroidered name of the little boy who sleeps under it each night. He’ll get to take it with him when he leaves. A Lab-mix puppy named Dahlia pounces on bugs in the backyard. Well-loved bicycles of various sizes are stacked neatly in a rack, while helmets are strewn wherever they fell on the lawn.
On one wall in the dining room, the boys’ chores are labeled neatly with their initials. A list of dietary restrictions is stuck to the fridge.
On another wall are six laminated pages, one for each of the boys. It’s a list of emergency contacts, times and dosages of their medications, their current grade and school, mental health struggles, triggers and possible interventions, and precise details of their next parental visit. [Article] | | by , Fresno Bee. 2024-05-03 | | | | County flunked in air quality report, but future looks promising | News | ivpressonline.com | | IMPERIAL COUNTY – El Centro ranks among the nation’s most polluted for both ozone and annual particles in this year’s report, the American Lung Association said in a prepared statement issued last week about the Annual State of the Air Report of 2024. [Article] | | by , Imperial Valley Press. 2024-05-03 | | | | San Diego County board majority criticizes Kaiser mental health care policy - The San Diego Union-Tribune | | A majority of San Diego County supervisors supported a resolution Wednesday that decries reduced “patient management time” for mental health care providers who work for Kaiser Permanente in Southern California, despite insistence from managers of the health care giant that San Diego County is not affected.
On a 3-2 vote, with Supervisors Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond in opposition, the board majority approved a resolution that opposes alleged changes to Kaiser’s administrative rules, which, according to a county board letter, have “cut patient management time in half from four hours to as little as two hours per week.” Management time is used to handle the administrative aspects of mental health care from responding to emails and voicemails to writing treatment plans and updating medical charts. [Article] | | by , San Diego Union-Tribune. 2024-05-03 | | | | San Diego County releases proposed $8.48B budget as it searches for next chief – NBC 7 San Diego | | San Diego County released its $8.48 billion recommended budget for the next fiscal year Thursday, an increase of $317.7 million, or 3.9%, over the 2023-24 adopted budget. [Article] | | by , KNSD NBC San Diego. 2024-05-03 | | | | Lithium giant Albemarle’s plans to reopen a rich mine in North Carolina will take years to complete – NBC 7 San Diego | | Albemarle's plans to reopen a resource-rich lithium mine in North Carolina will take longer than originally expected as a collapse in lithium prices weighs on the company.
Albemarle, a top lithium producer, had originally planned to reopen the Kings Mountain mine as early as late 2026 to increase domestic lithium production and support a U.S. electric-vehicle battery supply chain. [Article] | | by , KNSD NBC San Diego. 2024-05-03 | | | | How The DEA's New Marijuana Classification Could Affect California's Cannabis Industry | LAist | | The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is considering reclassifying marijuana from a Schedule I drug to Schedule III. Schedule III drugs, while still controlled substances, are treated differently under the law from Schedule I drugs, which, according to the DEA, have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” [Article] | | by , . 2024-05-03 | | | | Who will be CAO? Unions push hard for one candidate - The San Diego Union-Tribune | | As supervisors prepare to interview candidates for the county’s top executive job Friday, labor unions representing thousands of county workers have been calling for more public input into the hiring process, after their preferred candidate was removed from consideration.
The pressure from SEIU Local 221 and the United Domestic Workers Local 3930 on the hiring of a new chief administrative officer comes ahead of a special, closed-session meeting of the Board of Supervisors. The board expects to make a job offer by the end of the month.
For more than a year, the county has been searching for someone to succeed Helen Robbins-Meyer, who recently retired after more than a decade in the top position.
The recruitment process became politically contentious last spring after Supervisor Nathan Fletcher announced he would resign following sexual misconduct allegations.
At the time, Cindy Chavez, a Santa Clara county supervisor and former leader of the South Bay Labor Council, was the leading candidate, and the county made her a conditional offer. But that same day, Fletcher — who had backed her — announced he would resign, ultimately leading the board to start the search over. [Article] | | by , San Diego Union-Tribune. 2024-05-03 | | | | San Joaquin County addresses waste services rate disparity | abc10.com | | It's trash day in Stockton's Lincoln Village neighborhood, but one side of Benjamin Holt Drive isn’t like the other.
"They're paying less and possibly getting better services," said San Joaquin County Supervisor Paul Canepa.
When it comes to garbage, people living on the south side of the busy street are in a trashy situation because they’re considered within a county pocket. [Article] | | by , . 2024-05-03 | | | | San Diego County supervisors eye partnership with city on Sports Arena re-development – NBC 7 San Diego | | The San Diego County Board of Supervisors agreed Wednesday to explore a partnership with the city of San Diego on an enhanced infrastructure financing district at the Midway Rising/Sports Arena site. [Article] | | by , KNSD NBC San Diego. 2024-05-03 | | | | Patt Morrison: Palos Verdes landslides can say a lot about L.A.'s past - Los Angeles Times | | Oh-so-many millennia ago, the Palos Verdes Peninsula arose like Aphrodite, beautiful and dripping wet, from the sea.
All right, so it didn’t happen exactly that way. The inexorable wonder-workings of geology — with a fanciful nod to Poseidon, the god of earthquakes and oceans — created that stunning headland that juts its chin out into the Pacific from Los Angeles County.
And geology has had a hand in its recent slip-sliding dangers too. (Poseidon: Don’t blame me, mortals!)
As the winter rains finally make their way to wherever it is they go for the summer, the peninsula can tally its casualty list from the last eight or nine months.
Principally and most recently, the luminous Wayfarers Chapel, a national historic landmark, Lloyd Wright’s marvel of wood and glass in Rancho Palos Verdes, has always seemed to hover above the sea. Now it’s been sidling tragically toward it: It is closed, and probably unlikely to reopen in the same place ever again.
A couple of months ago, houses in Rancho Palos Verdes were red-tagged. The landslide system at Portuguese Bend has been hitting the accelerator. As the Rancho Palos Verdes mayor, John Cruikshank, has mournfully described it, the land “used to move inches a year; now it is moving feet a year.” Last year, 10 houses in Rolling Hills Estates descended catastrophically into a canyon.
No place in the spectacular 4,000-plus square miles of Los Angeles County — desert, mountains, seashore, hills and basin — has been unaffected by what I’ll call “the late deluge,” but in the heights of the PV Peninsula, it was dramatic and costly.
The place that looks like an eternal fortress turns out to have feet of clay — and I mean that literally, as you will see. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2024-05-03 | | | | San Joaquin County addresses waste services rate disparity | abc10.com | | It's trash day in Stockton's Lincoln Village neighborhood, but one side of Benjamin Holt Drive isn’t like the other.
"They're paying less and possibly getting better services," said San Joaquin County Supervisor Paul Canepa.
When it comes to garbage, people living on the south side of the busy street are in a trashy situation because they’re considered within a county pocket. [Article] | | by , . 2024-05-03 | | | | Culturally fluent mental health workers needed in Fresno, CA | Fresno Bee | | When community health workers from Fresno travel to the region’s rural communities and disadvantaged urban neighborhoods to provide support, one issue keeps coming up again and again: Growing numbers of San Joaquin Valley residents say they are experiencing acute mental health challenges.
Whether they are worried about where their next meal will come from, the arrival of an unexpectedly high utility bill or the disappearance of the last anti-eviction programs from the COVID era, stress is mounting.
And in this region, it often doesn’t have anywhere to go.
One out of every five Valley residents — including 25% of those with low incomes — say they tried to make an appointment for mental health care in the last year, according to a new regional survey released recently by the California Health Care Foundation. [Article] | | by , Fresno Bee. 2024-05-03 | | | | LAX People Mover gets $200 million more to resolve claims - Los Angeles Times | | An additional $200 million will go to the Los Angeles International Airport’s Automated People Mover project after approval by the Board of Airport Commissioners on Thursday.
The money will be used to settle claims submitted by the contractor, LAX Integrated Express Solutions (LINXS), and bring the project’s total budget to $2.9 billion.
The People Mover is a major part of the airport’s multibillion-dollar plan to overhaul terminals and gates, update airport signage to help travelers navigate the sprawling airport and improve ground transportation ahead of the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics.
The project was initially expected to be open in 2024, but disagreements between LINXS and the airport over the production, timeline and compensation claims have led to delays. The project is now expected to be completed by late 2025.
“Recent discussions have turned toward negotiating a potential global settlement for all outstanding ... claims and an appropriate extension of time to complete the project,” the board report stated.
The commissioners voted unanimously to approve the funding and said that clarity on that completion date is necessary.
“The LINXS partnership has been told very clearly that the most important thing for LAWA and our community is knowing when this project is going to be done,” said John Ackerman, CEO of Los Angeles World Airports. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2024-05-03 | | | | High Speed Rail Authority asks locals, “What do you want your train station to look like?” - Valley Voice | | The California High Speed Rail (HSR) Authority is asking for your advice.
The backbone of what is intended to become California’s high speed rail starts in the Central Valley. The first four stations to be built will be in Bakersfield, Hanford, Fresno and Madera.
At an open house in Hanford on April 30, project designer Peter Sokoloff said that HSR has its own product branding but that each station will also incorporate each community’s unique qualities.
Sokoloff said that the Authority is doing their own research on each location but wanted residents’ to tell them what makes their communities special and how they would want to incorporated that into their station. [Article] | | by , . 2024-05-03 | | | | Voters likely to decide changes to Proposition 47 in November elections thanks to push by county DA, Sheriff | Valley News | | California voters are likely to experience deja vu during the Tuesday, Nov. 5, general election as a newly proposed proposition, should it pass, would drastically amend Proposition 47, which lessened charges associated with non-violent property crimes and drug possession, will likely appear on the ballot.Many Proposition 47 opponents believe its passage is responsible for the spike in crime and rise in drug use over the past 10 years, including Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco and Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin.“It’s been 10 years, and we’re markedly worse than we were 10 years ago in terms of crime and lawlessness and disorder,” Hestrin said in a February interview with KCAL. [Article] | | by , Temecula Valley News. 2024-05-03 | | | | Merced sheriff warns of public safety crisis as deputy vacancies mount - Los Angeles Times | | In Merced County, which stretches from the Sierra Nevada foothills west across vast acres of orchards and farmland, Sheriff Vern Warnke increasingly finds himself the only law enforcement officer available to answer a call for help.
Most recently, the department received a call from a woman regarding a domestic dispute, saying her husband had a gun. With no deputies in close range, Warnke reported to the scene, wearing his signature cowboy hat and his badge hung around his neck. He found a man pacing with a loaded gun tucked into his waistband and managed to deescalate the situation.
“We had nobody to send, and I, as the sheriff, I’m still a cop, I still love what I do,” said Warnke. “But we’re at that point when the sheriff and administration are having to take calls.”
Warnke has worked for the Merced sheriff’s office for 45 years and has been sheriff for the last decade. So it’s with heavy heart, he said, that he’s watched deputy vacancies climb to the point where he believes residents are at risk. In February, Warnke posted a video that amounted to a plea for help, warning residents that the staffing shortage was now so severe calls for service could go unheeded.
“I’m fighting for the sheriff’s office’s life right now,” Warnke says in the video. “That means I’m fighting for your public safety. So folks, it’s bad.”
The office typically has 100 deputies who handle patrol duties, but 20 of those spots are vacant. Of the 108 spots designated for custodial deputies, who work at correctional facilities, 23 are vacant. The investigative unit, budgeted as an 18-person team, is down to eight. And dispatch has four vacancies in a staff of 13.
Warnke said the vacancies have mounted in recent months and his pleas to the county Board of Supervisors to increase his budget and give him control over how funds are allocated have gone unheeded. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2024-05-03 | | |
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