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"content": "\u003cp>Native American tribes in California can apply for money to help buy back lands they lost during colonization, the California Natural Resources Agency announced Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The intention of the $100 million Tribal Nature-Based Solutions grant program is to advance the state’s climate goals by giving tribes the opportunity to buy land for conservation and cultural projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The purpose of the grant program really is to strengthen our partnerships with tribes in the natural resources conservation and environmental space,” said Geneva Thompson, Deputy Secretary of Tribal Affairs for the agency. The grant program is part of a broader strategy in Gov. 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Newsom announced the grant program during a Truth and Healing Council meeting last year.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Geneva Thompson, deputy secretary of tribal affairs, California Natural Resources Agency\"]‘We know that the lands benefit and are healthier by being stewarded by tribes and by being lived with in relation to tribal traditional ecological knowledge [and] cultural practices.’[/pullquote]Thompson said in the process of developing guidelines for this grant program, 45 tribes were consulted and ancestral land return was a top priority. Housing for tribal members was also a concern brought up by tribal representatives, she said, but lands purchased through this grant program cannot be lived on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are 109 federally-recognized tribes in California, and more than 40 tribes have applied for federal status. Thompson said that all California Native American tribes are eligible to apply for the grant, regardless of federally-recognized status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, some tribes have raised concerns over the focus of the grant program. Muwekma Ohlone Chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh said in an email that her tribe is open to developing a project for this grant, but “too much focus is on plants and animals and not the native people. It’s a perpetuation of colonialism and performative allyship.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A representative for the tribe also wrote in an email that they were not informed of the grant program. Chairwoman Nijmeh also said her tribe was also not included in Newsom’s Truth and Healing Council initiative.[aside label='More on Envrionmental News' tag='environment']The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, which currently has 614 members, is not a federally-recognized tribe. They lost that status in 1927 when their tribe, along with more than a hundred other tribes in California, were deemed not in need of land by a \u003ca href=\"https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1056&context=hornbeck_usa_3_d\">report on landless tribes (CGI)\u003c/a> issued by an agent for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (at the time called Indian Services).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With few exceptions, tribes that did not gain land then still are landless today, including the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, whose members say they’ve called the San Francisco Bay Area home for more than 10,000 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1851 and 1852, tribes across California \u003ca href=\"https://americanindian.si.edu/nationtonation/unratified-california-treaty-k.html\">signed 18 treaties\u003c/a> with the U.S. government, relinquishing their territories in exchange for a total of 7.5 million acres of reservations — but the Senate never ratified them. 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"content": "\u003cp>Federal authorities are investigating a mysterious investment firm that bought nearly $1 billion worth of land surrounding Travis Air Force base, a prominent military base in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2018, Flannery Associates purchased 50,000 acres of agricultural land adjacent to Travis Air Force Base, the \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/investors-bought-nearly-1-billion-in-land-near-a-california-air-force-base-officials-want-to-know-who-exactly-they-are-fd868e38\">Wall Street Journal\u003c/a>\u003c/em> reports, located about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento in Solano County. Little is known about the investment firm. But local and federal policymakers say they are concerned about potential national security threats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They now surround three sides of Travis Air Force Base, which is a critical national security asset. That has raised significant concern for the Air Force,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-California), whose district includes the airbase, told KQED. “No one has been able to figure out where the $900 million has come from to purchase all the land in the area and what their intent is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Treasury Department and the Department of Defense are all now investigating the group and its investments, Garamendi said. But because Flannery is incorporated in Delaware, a state with strong legal protections to shield corporate ownership, those probes have not yet uncovered who is behind the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Travis Air Force base contains the largest wing of the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command with aircraft regularly departing the site to send munitions to Europe and Ukraine. It’s “the Gateway to Europe and the Pacific,” Garamendi said. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Rep. John Garamendi (D-California)\"]‘They now surround three sides of Travis Air Force Base, which is a critical national security asset. That has raised significant concern for the Air Force.’[/pullquote] In May, \u003ca href=\"https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdpxdejmlpx/Flannery%20Associates%20-%20ED%20California%20-%202023-05-18.pdf\">Flannery filed a lawsuit against (PDF)\u003c/a> a handful of the family farms that the group wanted to buy up, alleging they were conspiring to hike up prices and deter a sale. But, Garamendi said, Flannery has already paid an unusually high amount for the dry, agricultural grazing land that it did buy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Flannery’s purchases are surrounding Travis Air Force Base, one of the most significant national security sites in our country, and it’s been devastating to family farmers due to related lawsuits,” Rep. Mike Thompson, whose district includes parts of Solano County, told KQED. “I will continue to work with local and federal partners to ensure that the concerns of our community are addressed and that we protect our national and food security.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flannery purchased land where the majority of wind turbines in Solano County are located, along with other critical electrical transmission lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fueling the lawmakers’ concerns are recent attempts by Chinese companies to build a corn mill adjacent to the Grand Forks Air Base in North Dakota, another high-security base from which military aircraft take off for missions around the world. [aside label='More on Politics' tag='politics'] The project was initially boosted as an economic driver for the region, but has since halted after \u003ca href=\"https://www.hoeven.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/USAIRFORCE-FUFENG-LETTER-HOEVEN.pdf\">Air Force officials wrote to local government leaders with security concerns (PDF)\u003c/a> that the mill could be used to spy on the Air Force. The company denied those accusations, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/us/corn-mill-fufeng-china-north-dakota.html\">\u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a> reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no evidence so far to suggest Flannery has ties with China, but little is known about the group at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The lawyer representing the company says not to worry, these are American investors and a couple Europeans,” Garamendi said. “We just don’t know. And until we know, we will remain very concerned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers in nearly two dozen other states have passed or are seeking to pass legislation in recent years limiting farmland Chinese investors from purchasing U.S. farmland.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Napa)\"]‘Protecting national security and food security go hand in hand in our region — which is why it is vital to know who owns land around national security sites.’[/pullquote]Earlier this month, \u003ca href=\"https://mikethompson.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/mikethompson.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/thompson-gallagher-land-purchase-bill-text.pdf\">Thompson introduced legislation (PDF)\u003c/a> to strengthen protections and reporting structures around national security sites, infrastructure and farmland. The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of the Treasury Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to review certain foreign investment transactions to evaluate security risk for all land purchases — except some real estate like single housing units — by foreign adversary entities. It would also expand the list of types of sites under the CFIUS to include all military facilities, intelligence sites, laboratories and other defense-funded research sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill is co-sponsored by Mike Gallagher, Chairman of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition, between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Protecting national security and food security go hand in hand in our region — which is why it is vital to know who owns land around national security sites,” Rep. Thompson said in a press release when the legislation was announced. “The bipartisan legislation I am introducing with Chairman Gallagher will help identify foreign actors who are seeking to purchase land near military installations while maintaining food security throughout our country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Federal authorities are investigating a mysterious investment firm that bought nearly $1 billion worth of land surrounding Travis Air Force base, a prominent military base in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2018, Flannery Associates purchased 50,000 acres of agricultural land adjacent to Travis Air Force Base, the \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/investors-bought-nearly-1-billion-in-land-near-a-california-air-force-base-officials-want-to-know-who-exactly-they-are-fd868e38\">Wall Street Journal\u003c/a>\u003c/em> reports, located about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento in Solano County. Little is known about the investment firm. But local and federal policymakers say they are concerned about potential national security threats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They now surround three sides of Travis Air Force Base, which is a critical national security asset. That has raised significant concern for the Air Force,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-California), whose district includes the airbase, told KQED. “No one has been able to figure out where the $900 million has come from to purchase all the land in the area and what their intent is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Treasury Department and the Department of Defense are all now investigating the group and its investments, Garamendi said. But because Flannery is incorporated in Delaware, a state with strong legal protections to shield corporate ownership, those probes have not yet uncovered who is behind the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Travis Air Force base contains the largest wing of the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command with aircraft regularly departing the site to send munitions to Europe and Ukraine. It’s “the Gateway to Europe and the Pacific,” Garamendi said. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> In May, \u003ca href=\"https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdpxdejmlpx/Flannery%20Associates%20-%20ED%20California%20-%202023-05-18.pdf\">Flannery filed a lawsuit against (PDF)\u003c/a> a handful of the family farms that the group wanted to buy up, alleging they were conspiring to hike up prices and deter a sale. But, Garamendi said, Flannery has already paid an unusually high amount for the dry, agricultural grazing land that it did buy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Flannery’s purchases are surrounding Travis Air Force Base, one of the most significant national security sites in our country, and it’s been devastating to family farmers due to related lawsuits,” Rep. Mike Thompson, whose district includes parts of Solano County, told KQED. “I will continue to work with local and federal partners to ensure that the concerns of our community are addressed and that we protect our national and food security.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flannery purchased land where the majority of wind turbines in Solano County are located, along with other critical electrical transmission lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fueling the lawmakers’ concerns are recent attempts by Chinese companies to build a corn mill adjacent to the Grand Forks Air Base in North Dakota, another high-security base from which military aircraft take off for missions around the world. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The project was initially boosted as an economic driver for the region, but has since halted after \u003ca href=\"https://www.hoeven.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/USAIRFORCE-FUFENG-LETTER-HOEVEN.pdf\">Air Force officials wrote to local government leaders with security concerns (PDF)\u003c/a> that the mill could be used to spy on the Air Force. The company denied those accusations, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/us/corn-mill-fufeng-china-north-dakota.html\">\u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a> reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no evidence so far to suggest Flannery has ties with China, but little is known about the group at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The lawyer representing the company says not to worry, these are American investors and a couple Europeans,” Garamendi said. “We just don’t know. And until we know, we will remain very concerned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers in nearly two dozen other states have passed or are seeking to pass legislation in recent years limiting farmland Chinese investors from purchasing U.S. farmland.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Earlier this month, \u003ca href=\"https://mikethompson.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/mikethompson.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/thompson-gallagher-land-purchase-bill-text.pdf\">Thompson introduced legislation (PDF)\u003c/a> to strengthen protections and reporting structures around national security sites, infrastructure and farmland. The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of the Treasury Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to review certain foreign investment transactions to evaluate security risk for all land purchases — except some real estate like single housing units — by foreign adversary entities. It would also expand the list of types of sites under the CFIUS to include all military facilities, intelligence sites, laboratories and other defense-funded research sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill is co-sponsored by Mike Gallagher, Chairman of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition, between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Protecting national security and food security go hand in hand in our region — which is why it is vital to know who owns land around national security sites,” Rep. Thompson said in a press release when the legislation was announced. “The bipartisan legislation I am introducing with Chairman Gallagher will help identify foreign actors who are seeking to purchase land near military installations while maintaining food security throughout our country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Close to Launching $80 Million Child Care Worker Retirement Fund",
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"content": "\u003cp>California is one step closer to creating the nation’s first retirement fund for family child care providers after they overwhelmingly approved a new contract with the state, Child Care Providers United, \u003ca href=\"https://childcareprovidersunited.org/\">the union representing 40,000 of these workers\u003c/a>, announced late Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The deal, which still needs to be approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom this summer, would provide an $80 million retirement fund for an underpaid workforce that is dominated by women of color. This would make California the first of 11 states with family child care unions to offer such a plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re exceedingly happy,” said Nancy Harvey, a 61-year-old family child care provider in West Oakland who helped negotiate the deal. “This is a historic moment for child care providers, not only here in California, but throughout the nation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A little over 50% of family child care providers in California are 50 years old or older, yet less than a quarter of them have any retirement savings, \u003ca href=\"https://cscce.berkeley.edu/publications/report/early-educator-compensation/\">according to research\u003c/a> from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Nancy Harvey, family child care provider\"]‘We’re exceedingly happy. This is a historic moment for child care providers, not only here in California, but throughout the nation.’[/pullquote]“It’s really a huge step forward in terms of equity when you think about who the workforce is,” said Brandy Jones Lawrence, a senior analyst at the UC Berkeley center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said improving work conditions will raise the quality of care for California’s youngest residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>If an educator is worrying about whether or not they’re going to be able to put food on the table or if they’re going to get their lights turned back on, they’re not going to be able to bring their whole self and all that they know and need to be for children at this age. … when [they’re] feeling much more professionally supported I think that they can show up the way they need to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Family child care providers are small-business owners who care for children out of their homes. There are \u003ca href=\"https://cscce.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CSCCE-California-ECE-Profiles-FCCs.pdf\">more than 24,700 (PDF)\u003c/a> licensed family child care providers in the state. When license-exempt carers are added (family members, friends or neighbors who care for children), that number rises to about 40,000, according to the union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11957186\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11957186\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with long, black braids and a brown hoodie plays with a baby in a sunhat in the backyard on a sunny day.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A little over 50% of family child care providers in California are 50 years old or older, yet less than a quarter of them have any retirement savings, according to research from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For 16 years, family child care workers sought to form a union to improve their pay and obtain benefits such as health care, a retirement plan and access to professional development training.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, they won the right to collectively bargain by successfully arguing that they’re employees of the state because they receive public funding for serving lower-income families who qualify for subsidized care.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Shannon Benjamin, family child care provider\"]‘To finally set a plan to reimburse us for the entirety of our costs each month, means I can keep my doors open with the confidence that I can make ends meet and feel the dignity of my work.’[/pullquote]The contract deal addresses one of their biggest demands: a promise and a timeline from the state to overhaul the way providers get paid for subsidized child care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948419/care-cant-wait-californias-child-care-workers-demand-better-funding-for-essential-services\">Family child care workers have long complained\u003c/a> that the state calculates reimbursement rates for subsidized child care based on outdated market prices. They’re currently paid based on rates from at least five years ago. The rates neither reflect the true cost of care nor keep pace with current costs of living, making it hard for these workers to stay financially afloat, according to an \u003ca href=\"https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/californias-child-care-providers-need-a-substantial-pay-raise/\">analysis by the California Budget and Policy Center\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Providers frequently set their prices below their true costs to fill the gap between what parents can afford — and what the government pays for subsidized care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the new contract, the state will provide $600 million in temporary rate increases over two years until a new payment system takes effect. The increases represent a 20% average rate increase, but vary slightly by region. A family child care provider in the Bay Area, for example, will receive an additional $211 a month per child, while a license-exempt provider will get an extra $148.[aside label='More on Child Care' tag='child-care']“This rate increase, and most importantly, the state’s commitment to finally set a plan to reimburse us for the entirety of our costs each month, means I can keep my doors open with the confidence that I can make ends meet and feel the dignity of my work,” said Shannon Benjamin, a provider from Carson in Southern California and a member of the union’s bargaining committee, said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the new contract represents major progress, more sweeping changes are needed to ensure that all early childhood educators are making a living wage and can afford to stay in the profession, industry observers like Lawrence said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She estimates that less than a quarter of the family child care workforce is represented by the union, while the larger majority of workers are not because they don’t receive public funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once union-represented providers are paid for the true cost of care, she asked, “How then are we going to reproduce or recreate a system that actually gets to all of the educators … and treat [early childhood education] like the public good that it is, like elementary education, where everyone has access and it’s based on the costs of the care?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California is one step closer to creating the nation’s first retirement fund for family child care providers after they overwhelmingly approved a new contract with the state, Child Care Providers United, \u003ca href=\"https://childcareprovidersunited.org/\">the union representing 40,000 of these workers\u003c/a>, announced late Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The deal, which still needs to be approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom this summer, would provide an $80 million retirement fund for an underpaid workforce that is dominated by women of color. This would make California the first of 11 states with family child care unions to offer such a plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re exceedingly happy,” said Nancy Harvey, a 61-year-old family child care provider in West Oakland who helped negotiate the deal. “This is a historic moment for child care providers, not only here in California, but throughout the nation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It’s really a huge step forward in terms of equity when you think about who the workforce is,” said Brandy Jones Lawrence, a senior analyst at the UC Berkeley center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said improving work conditions will raise the quality of care for California’s youngest residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>If an educator is worrying about whether or not they’re going to be able to put food on the table or if they’re going to get their lights turned back on, they’re not going to be able to bring their whole self and all that they know and need to be for children at this age. … when [they’re] feeling much more professionally supported I think that they can show up the way they need to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Family child care providers are small-business owners who care for children out of their homes. There are \u003ca href=\"https://cscce.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CSCCE-California-ECE-Profiles-FCCs.pdf\">more than 24,700 (PDF)\u003c/a> licensed family child care providers in the state. When license-exempt carers are added (family members, friends or neighbors who care for children), that number rises to about 40,000, according to the union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11957186\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11957186\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with long, black braids and a brown hoodie plays with a baby in a sunhat in the backyard on a sunny day.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS64819_015_KQED_EachOneTeachOneChildCare_04262023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A little over 50% of family child care providers in California are 50 years old or older, yet less than a quarter of them have any retirement savings, according to research from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For 16 years, family child care workers sought to form a union to improve their pay and obtain benefits such as health care, a retirement plan and access to professional development training.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, they won the right to collectively bargain by successfully arguing that they’re employees of the state because they receive public funding for serving lower-income families who qualify for subsidized care.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘To finally set a plan to reimburse us for the entirety of our costs each month, means I can keep my doors open with the confidence that I can make ends meet and feel the dignity of my work.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The contract deal addresses one of their biggest demands: a promise and a timeline from the state to overhaul the way providers get paid for subsidized child care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948419/care-cant-wait-californias-child-care-workers-demand-better-funding-for-essential-services\">Family child care workers have long complained\u003c/a> that the state calculates reimbursement rates for subsidized child care based on outdated market prices. They’re currently paid based on rates from at least five years ago. The rates neither reflect the true cost of care nor keep pace with current costs of living, making it hard for these workers to stay financially afloat, according to an \u003ca href=\"https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/californias-child-care-providers-need-a-substantial-pay-raise/\">analysis by the California Budget and Policy Center\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Providers frequently set their prices below their true costs to fill the gap between what parents can afford — and what the government pays for subsidized care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the new contract, the state will provide $600 million in temporary rate increases over two years until a new payment system takes effect. The increases represent a 20% average rate increase, but vary slightly by region. A family child care provider in the Bay Area, for example, will receive an additional $211 a month per child, while a license-exempt provider will get an extra $148.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This rate increase, and most importantly, the state’s commitment to finally set a plan to reimburse us for the entirety of our costs each month, means I can keep my doors open with the confidence that I can make ends meet and feel the dignity of my work,” said Shannon Benjamin, a provider from Carson in Southern California and a member of the union’s bargaining committee, said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the new contract represents major progress, more sweeping changes are needed to ensure that all early childhood educators are making a living wage and can afford to stay in the profession, industry observers like Lawrence said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She estimates that less than a quarter of the family child care workforce is represented by the union, while the larger majority of workers are not because they don’t receive public funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once union-represented providers are paid for the true cost of care, she asked, “How then are we going to reproduce or recreate a system that actually gets to all of the educators … and treat [early childhood education] like the public good that it is, like elementary education, where everyone has access and it’s based on the costs of the care?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-california-farmworkers-took-on-a-sonoma-winery-over-abuses-and-won",
"title": "How Workers Took on a Sonoma County Vineyard Company Over Abuses — and Won",
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"headTitle": "How Workers Took on a Sonoma County Vineyard Company Over Abuses — and Won | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11957505/campesinos-denunciaron-a-un-vinedo-por-abusos-laborales-y-ganaron\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#correction\">This story contains a correction.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]M[/dropcap]auritson Farms Inc. in Sonoma County will pay $328,077 to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">21 of its former workers\u003c/a> as part of a \u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23885712/settlement-agreement-june-2023.pdf\">settlement\u003c/a> with the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) — the largest monetary settlement the agency has reached at its Santa Rosa office. ALRB officials, along with dozens of labor advocates and farmworkers, announced the settlement at a press conference Monday evening in Healdsburg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mauritson Farms Inc., which manages vineyards, is a separate and distinct business from \u003ca href=\"https://www.mauritsonwines.com/About-Us/Our-Team\">Mauritson Wines\u003c/a>. Both businesses are owned by the Mauritson family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following an investigation spurred by the farmworkers’ complaints, ALRB officials determined that Mauritson Farms retaliated against an entire crew of former employees because some of them organized at the end of the 2021 growing season to speak out against unsafe working conditions in Mauritson’s vineyards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We must recognize that this is a victory started by workers to defend not just their rights, but their dignity as well,” said organizer Davin Cárdenas at Monday’s conference. Cárdenas is the director of organizing at North Bay Jobs With Justice (NBJWJ), a labor rights group that supported the former Mauritson employees through the ALRB investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a case that sets a precedent for other workers in the region,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Miguel Ángel Bravo Silva, one of the six laborers who spoke up about their treatment at Mauritson\"]‘After so much abuse, I think it’s fair that our rights are respected and we are respected for who we are.’[/pullquote]The workers involved were immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico, and were in the country on an H-2A visa, which lets agricultural workers stay in the U.S. for limited periods of time. KQED first reported last year that despite promises from company leadership, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">none of the workers who spoke out were called back from Oaxaca for the 2022 season\u003c/a>. In its complaint filed against Mauritson this past March, the ALRB \u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23885711/alrb-complaint-march-2023.pdf\">determined that Mauritson not rehiring these laborers constituted an illegal labor practice\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I got the news, I thanked God it went this way, because this was not at all easy. We were very afraid to speak up. It was a complicated process but you have to let go of that fear,” said Martín Sandoval Rivera, one of the workers who spoke up against the conditions at Mauritson Farms. He’s currently in Oaxaca, working several jobs to support his wife who is expecting their first child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandoval Rivera and his colleagues said they experienced verbal harassment from their supervisor, were denied shade while working in the fields on days hotter than 90 degrees and did not receive their break and lunch periods on a few occasions — all of which violates California labor regulations. Six of the workers, including Sandoval Rivera, sought the support of labor rights group North Bay Jobs With Justice (NBJWJ) to mediate the situation. NBJWJ arranged a meeting with the workers and company higher-ups in October 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that meeting, vineyard manager Cameron Mauritson promised that conditions would improve and assured the workers that he would hire them again in 2022 — relieving the workers’ biggest worry: being denied future employment for speaking up. Then the company — which workers said had previously handled the recruitment process directly using social media — chose to contract with a third-party recruiter, CIERTO Global, to handle hiring for the 2022 season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group from Oaxaca never had a real chance to come back. According to the ALRB complaint, CIERTO Global recruits exclusively from a completely different state in Mexico for grape-growing companies. On top of that, screengrabs from a Facebook group the Oaxacan workers shared with KQED showed that Mauritson management shared incorrect information on how workers should contact CIERTO for future employment. CIERTO representatives confirmed to KQED that Mauritson’s instructions to either submit a form at a specific location on CIERTO’s website or to email a given email address were false.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These instructions do not reflect our practices involving any of the workers we serve,” a CIERTO representative said in an emailed response. “Mauritson’s instructions were not cleared or disseminated by CIERTO.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11918317]When the workers realized what was happening, they alerted NBJWJ. In February 2022, organizers filed a claim with the ALRB on behalf of the six workers who attended the meeting with Mauritson. Six initially spoke up — but in its investigation, the ALRB found that Mauritson retaliated against the entire 21-person team the six workers belonged to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $328,077 settlement, which will benefit all 21 laborers, represents what the workers lost by missing the 2022 growing season, according to calculations from the ALRB. A hearing with an administrative law judge had been scheduled for later this summer, but the settlement concludes this process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement emailed to KQED, Mauritson Farms declared that it “strongly believes that [it was] not in any violation of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA). This settlement is strictly a business decision that allows us to resolve this issue without the need for further litigation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11956408\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11956408\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt='A group of people sit together holding signs reading \"La Unión Hace La Fuerza\" in an outdoor setting.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farmworkers Antonio Flores (left) and his son Mateo, Rosalba Gutierrez (center) and Valentina Sosa (right) sit at the NBJWJ press conference announcing the settlement with Mauritson at Healdsburg Plaza on Monday. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“After so much abuse, I think it’s fair that our rights are respected and we are respected for who we are,” said Miguel Ángel Bravo Silva, one of the six laborers who met with Mauritson. During the past year and a half, he’s hustled to work any job he can find in his rural Oaxacan community to support his wife and two children, and at the same time, kept in touch with ALRB officials who were investigating the situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For months, the ALRB worked to track down the 21 workers who were not rehired. After the 2021 season ended, many returned to remote villages in Oaxaca, where access to the internet and cell phone reception is extremely limited and for some, non-existent. Tracking folks down was one challenge, said ALRB regional director Jessica Arciniega. The other was establishing trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With many of our cases, there’s challenges in maintaining communication with workers,” she said. “They [could be] unfamiliar with our process, they [could be] unfamiliar with us, as a government agency. and what we actually do. So they may not always feel 100% ready or comfortable to share all of this information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Ana Salgado, former farmworker and member of the NBJWJ board\"]‘So many [H-2A laborers] are afraid of losing the opportunity they have… They may be experiencing many abuses but they do not want to say anything because they are afraid of losing what they consider to be a privilege.’[/pullquote]Workers are not just afraid of experiencing further retaliation from the same employer, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">as KQED reported last year, many H-2A employers use a network of recruiters to block workers who speak up from finding a job\u003c/a> in other agricultural industries. In that same story, KQED shared the story of Kevin and Samuel, two former Mauritson employees who were among the six that initially spoke up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin and Samuel were actually aliases for Sandoval Rivera and Bravo Silva, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, both men were very afraid of what the repercussions would be if they shared their identities publicly during the ALRB investigation. As weeks turned into months, Sandoval Rivera felt less and less confident that there would be an answer from officials, especially as his family’s economic situation worsened. “Necessity makes you think many things,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, he and Bravo Silva are glad they waited for the results of the investigation and the settlement. This won’t just benefit them, Bravo Silva says, “but also the immigrant workers who are now working at that company, so that they are respected more and they don’t feel alone. There are laws that protect agricultural workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Celebrating a hard-won victory\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>With banners and signs — many of them emblazoned with Emiliano Zapata’s quote “La tierra es de quien la trabaja,” or “The land belongs to those who work it with their hands” — farmworkers and NBJWJ organizers filled up part of Healdsburg’s main plaza for Monday’s press conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You represent the farmworkers who are not able to be here today but whose courage has left us this legacy: that by fighting and finding allies, we, as workers, can achieve many things,” said Ana Salgado former farmworker, community organizer and member of the NBJWJ board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11956412\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11956412\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt='A person wearing earrings speaks in front of others holding signs reading \"La Unión Hace la Fuerza\" and \"Farmworkers Deserve Disaster Pay\" in an outdoor setting.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NBJWJ board member and former farmworker Ana Salgado (center) speaks at Monday’s press conference at Healdsburg Plaza. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Only a few blocks away from that plaza is the community center where Salgado originally met several of the men then working for Mauritson. She remembers the first conversations she had with the laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I looked at one of them and saw the worry in his face,” she said in Spanish, “I reached out to hold his hands and told him, ‘you can open up now, you’re in a safe space.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So many [H-2A laborers] are afraid of losing the opportunity they have because employers tell them that it is a privilege to be brought from Mexico with a visa,” she explained. “They may be experiencing many abuses but they do not want to say anything because they are afraid of losing what they consider to be a privilege.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Just law on paper’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The H-2A visa program is the successor of the Bracero Program, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers\">which brought Mexican workers to American farms during the 1940s\u003c/a>. The current H-2A system now brings laborers from all over the world to work in the U.S. and as part of the program, employers must provide housing, transportation and meals — giving businesses an incredible amount of power over the personal lives of their workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And just like the Bracero Program, \u003ca href=\"https://prismreports.org/2023/04/14/h2a-visa-wage-theft-exploitation/\">the H-2A system is rife with wage theft, physical and mental abuse of employees and retaliation from employers for workers who speak up\u003c/a>, according to an 18-month investigation by Prism, Futuro Investigates, and Latino USA published in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11956409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11956409\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt='A person with a shaved head speaks in front of others holding signs reading \"Farmworkers Deserve Disaster Pay\" in an outdoor setting.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NBJWJ Director Davin Cárdenas speaks at Monday’s press conference at Healdsburg Plaza. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Both the federal government and California have beefed up their labor laws since the 1940s, so why does abuse of H-2A laborers persist?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One reason is that regulatory agencies need more personnel and resources to enforce labor standards, says Josephine Weinberg, attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), a nonprofit law firm that represents farmworkers who have experienced retaliation and workplace abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have agencies in place. We have a lot of the rules in place. But the mechanisms to really enforce those rules and monitor are really lacking. So it really is just law on paper,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 1 in 3 positions remain vacant at the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, one of the agencies tasked with investigating wage theft and retaliation across all industries in the state. Such understaffing leaves current staff overburdened with cases, which means workers who file a complaint often have to wait years for a result. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11955920/california-wage-theft-investigators-staffing-crisis\">Dozens of agency employees implored lawmakers to take action in a letter obtained by KQED earlier this month\u003c/a>, arguing that “we are failing in our mission if we cannot hire and retain the necessary staff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11955920]Over at the ALRB, regional director Arciniega points out that her agency has five offices spread over several agricultural regions, “but California is a humongous state and there’s a lot of farmworkers throughout the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have offices in all of the agricultural regions,” she said, “so we do our best in this large state to cover wherever workers are.” She adds that the department works closely with community and labor organizations, like NBJWJ, to connect with laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But labor advocates insist that more must be done to better enforce labor standards and improve the H-2A program as a whole. Weinberg with the CRLA adds that regulators need to monitor farms more closely, with randomized visits during the growing season. And on the flip side, employers must make it easier for agencies and labor groups to speak to farmworkers in an unrestricted manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way the H-2A program was designed, where businesses have direct control over their employees’ housing, transportation, immigration status and even food, makes it incredibly difficult for laborers to speak freely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They don’t have access to a place where they feel that they can speak confidentially or anonymously about what’s going on,” Weinberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 19, Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11956315/some-migrant-farmworkers-to-get-free-legal-help-with-immigration\">announced a $4.5 million pilot program to provide free immigration legal services to farmworkers who are involved in state labor investigations\u003c/a>. This would include case review services, legal advice and representation by an attorney to laborers in California who have a pending case with either the ALRB, the Labor Commissioner’s Office or Cal/OSHA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11956315]The goal of this program, officials say, is to address one of the fears that prevents employees from speaking up — the fear of losing their visa or not being rehired — by connecting them to immigration experts who could help them find ways to stay in this country. And earlier this year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11940316/fear-of-deportation-keeps-some-workers-from-reporting-labor-abuses-a-new-biden-program-aims-to-change-that\">the Biden administration unveiled a new, streamlined “deferred action” initiative\u003c/a> that allows workers to apply for a work permit and two years of protection from deportation, if they are cooperating with a labor rights investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But above all, what really helps folks feel safe enough to speak up, Salgado from NBJWJ says, is knowing that there are cases when the system works in favor of workers. “Without a doubt, the outcome from the Mauritson case, reaffirms the faith amongst ourselves, but also the credibility of the work we do when we go out to talk to the workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca id=\"correction\">\u003c/a>Editor’s note: The original version of this story mischaracterized Mauritson Farms, Inc. as a winery. The story has been updated to clarify the relationship between Mauritson Farms, Inc. and Mauritson Wines.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Farida Jhabvala Romero and Tyche Hendricks.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Mauritson Farms Inc. will pay $328,077 to 21 former workers from Oaxaca after California regulators found the Healdsburg company retaliated against them.",
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"title": "How Workers Took on a Sonoma County Vineyard Company Over Abuses — and Won | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11957505/campesinos-denunciaron-a-un-vinedo-por-abusos-laborales-y-ganaron\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#correction\">This story contains a correction.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">M\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>auritson Farms Inc. in Sonoma County will pay $328,077 to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">21 of its former workers\u003c/a> as part of a \u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23885712/settlement-agreement-june-2023.pdf\">settlement\u003c/a> with the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) — the largest monetary settlement the agency has reached at its Santa Rosa office. ALRB officials, along with dozens of labor advocates and farmworkers, announced the settlement at a press conference Monday evening in Healdsburg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mauritson Farms Inc., which manages vineyards, is a separate and distinct business from \u003ca href=\"https://www.mauritsonwines.com/About-Us/Our-Team\">Mauritson Wines\u003c/a>. Both businesses are owned by the Mauritson family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following an investigation spurred by the farmworkers’ complaints, ALRB officials determined that Mauritson Farms retaliated against an entire crew of former employees because some of them organized at the end of the 2021 growing season to speak out against unsafe working conditions in Mauritson’s vineyards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We must recognize that this is a victory started by workers to defend not just their rights, but their dignity as well,” said organizer Davin Cárdenas at Monday’s conference. Cárdenas is the director of organizing at North Bay Jobs With Justice (NBJWJ), a labor rights group that supported the former Mauritson employees through the ALRB investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a case that sets a precedent for other workers in the region,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The workers involved were immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico, and were in the country on an H-2A visa, which lets agricultural workers stay in the U.S. for limited periods of time. KQED first reported last year that despite promises from company leadership, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">none of the workers who spoke out were called back from Oaxaca for the 2022 season\u003c/a>. In its complaint filed against Mauritson this past March, the ALRB \u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23885711/alrb-complaint-march-2023.pdf\">determined that Mauritson not rehiring these laborers constituted an illegal labor practice\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I got the news, I thanked God it went this way, because this was not at all easy. We were very afraid to speak up. It was a complicated process but you have to let go of that fear,” said Martín Sandoval Rivera, one of the workers who spoke up against the conditions at Mauritson Farms. He’s currently in Oaxaca, working several jobs to support his wife who is expecting their first child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandoval Rivera and his colleagues said they experienced verbal harassment from their supervisor, were denied shade while working in the fields on days hotter than 90 degrees and did not receive their break and lunch periods on a few occasions — all of which violates California labor regulations. Six of the workers, including Sandoval Rivera, sought the support of labor rights group North Bay Jobs With Justice (NBJWJ) to mediate the situation. NBJWJ arranged a meeting with the workers and company higher-ups in October 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that meeting, vineyard manager Cameron Mauritson promised that conditions would improve and assured the workers that he would hire them again in 2022 — relieving the workers’ biggest worry: being denied future employment for speaking up. Then the company — which workers said had previously handled the recruitment process directly using social media — chose to contract with a third-party recruiter, CIERTO Global, to handle hiring for the 2022 season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group from Oaxaca never had a real chance to come back. According to the ALRB complaint, CIERTO Global recruits exclusively from a completely different state in Mexico for grape-growing companies. On top of that, screengrabs from a Facebook group the Oaxacan workers shared with KQED showed that Mauritson management shared incorrect information on how workers should contact CIERTO for future employment. CIERTO representatives confirmed to KQED that Mauritson’s instructions to either submit a form at a specific location on CIERTO’s website or to email a given email address were false.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These instructions do not reflect our practices involving any of the workers we serve,” a CIERTO representative said in an emailed response. “Mauritson’s instructions were not cleared or disseminated by CIERTO.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When the workers realized what was happening, they alerted NBJWJ. In February 2022, organizers filed a claim with the ALRB on behalf of the six workers who attended the meeting with Mauritson. Six initially spoke up — but in its investigation, the ALRB found that Mauritson retaliated against the entire 21-person team the six workers belonged to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $328,077 settlement, which will benefit all 21 laborers, represents what the workers lost by missing the 2022 growing season, according to calculations from the ALRB. A hearing with an administrative law judge had been scheduled for later this summer, but the settlement concludes this process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement emailed to KQED, Mauritson Farms declared that it “strongly believes that [it was] not in any violation of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA). This settlement is strictly a business decision that allows us to resolve this issue without the need for further litigation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11956408\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11956408\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt='A group of people sit together holding signs reading \"La Unión Hace La Fuerza\" in an outdoor setting.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67230_20230724-NBJWJPresser-10-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farmworkers Antonio Flores (left) and his son Mateo, Rosalba Gutierrez (center) and Valentina Sosa (right) sit at the NBJWJ press conference announcing the settlement with Mauritson at Healdsburg Plaza on Monday. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“After so much abuse, I think it’s fair that our rights are respected and we are respected for who we are,” said Miguel Ángel Bravo Silva, one of the six laborers who met with Mauritson. During the past year and a half, he’s hustled to work any job he can find in his rural Oaxacan community to support his wife and two children, and at the same time, kept in touch with ALRB officials who were investigating the situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For months, the ALRB worked to track down the 21 workers who were not rehired. After the 2021 season ended, many returned to remote villages in Oaxaca, where access to the internet and cell phone reception is extremely limited and for some, non-existent. Tracking folks down was one challenge, said ALRB regional director Jessica Arciniega. The other was establishing trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With many of our cases, there’s challenges in maintaining communication with workers,” she said. “They [could be] unfamiliar with our process, they [could be] unfamiliar with us, as a government agency. and what we actually do. So they may not always feel 100% ready or comfortable to share all of this information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Workers are not just afraid of experiencing further retaliation from the same employer, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">as KQED reported last year, many H-2A employers use a network of recruiters to block workers who speak up from finding a job\u003c/a> in other agricultural industries. In that same story, KQED shared the story of Kevin and Samuel, two former Mauritson employees who were among the six that initially spoke up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin and Samuel were actually aliases for Sandoval Rivera and Bravo Silva, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, both men were very afraid of what the repercussions would be if they shared their identities publicly during the ALRB investigation. As weeks turned into months, Sandoval Rivera felt less and less confident that there would be an answer from officials, especially as his family’s economic situation worsened. “Necessity makes you think many things,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, he and Bravo Silva are glad they waited for the results of the investigation and the settlement. This won’t just benefit them, Bravo Silva says, “but also the immigrant workers who are now working at that company, so that they are respected more and they don’t feel alone. There are laws that protect agricultural workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Celebrating a hard-won victory\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>With banners and signs — many of them emblazoned with Emiliano Zapata’s quote “La tierra es de quien la trabaja,” or “The land belongs to those who work it with their hands” — farmworkers and NBJWJ organizers filled up part of Healdsburg’s main plaza for Monday’s press conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You represent the farmworkers who are not able to be here today but whose courage has left us this legacy: that by fighting and finding allies, we, as workers, can achieve many things,” said Ana Salgado former farmworker, community organizer and member of the NBJWJ board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11956412\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11956412\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt='A person wearing earrings speaks in front of others holding signs reading \"La Unión Hace la Fuerza\" and \"Farmworkers Deserve Disaster Pay\" in an outdoor setting.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67238_20230724-NBJWJPresser-16-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NBJWJ board member and former farmworker Ana Salgado (center) speaks at Monday’s press conference at Healdsburg Plaza. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Only a few blocks away from that plaza is the community center where Salgado originally met several of the men then working for Mauritson. She remembers the first conversations she had with the laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I looked at one of them and saw the worry in his face,” she said in Spanish, “I reached out to hold his hands and told him, ‘you can open up now, you’re in a safe space.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So many [H-2A laborers] are afraid of losing the opportunity they have because employers tell them that it is a privilege to be brought from Mexico with a visa,” she explained. “They may be experiencing many abuses but they do not want to say anything because they are afraid of losing what they consider to be a privilege.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Just law on paper’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The H-2A visa program is the successor of the Bracero Program, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers\">which brought Mexican workers to American farms during the 1940s\u003c/a>. The current H-2A system now brings laborers from all over the world to work in the U.S. and as part of the program, employers must provide housing, transportation and meals — giving businesses an incredible amount of power over the personal lives of their workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And just like the Bracero Program, \u003ca href=\"https://prismreports.org/2023/04/14/h2a-visa-wage-theft-exploitation/\">the H-2A system is rife with wage theft, physical and mental abuse of employees and retaliation from employers for workers who speak up\u003c/a>, according to an 18-month investigation by Prism, Futuro Investigates, and Latino USA published in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11956409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11956409\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt='A person with a shaved head speaks in front of others holding signs reading \"Farmworkers Deserve Disaster Pay\" in an outdoor setting.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS67234_20230724-NBJWJPresser-13-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NBJWJ Director Davin Cárdenas speaks at Monday’s press conference at Healdsburg Plaza. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Both the federal government and California have beefed up their labor laws since the 1940s, so why does abuse of H-2A laborers persist?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One reason is that regulatory agencies need more personnel and resources to enforce labor standards, says Josephine Weinberg, attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), a nonprofit law firm that represents farmworkers who have experienced retaliation and workplace abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have agencies in place. We have a lot of the rules in place. But the mechanisms to really enforce those rules and monitor are really lacking. So it really is just law on paper,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 1 in 3 positions remain vacant at the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, one of the agencies tasked with investigating wage theft and retaliation across all industries in the state. Such understaffing leaves current staff overburdened with cases, which means workers who file a complaint often have to wait years for a result. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11955920/california-wage-theft-investigators-staffing-crisis\">Dozens of agency employees implored lawmakers to take action in a letter obtained by KQED earlier this month\u003c/a>, arguing that “we are failing in our mission if we cannot hire and retain the necessary staff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Over at the ALRB, regional director Arciniega points out that her agency has five offices spread over several agricultural regions, “but California is a humongous state and there’s a lot of farmworkers throughout the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have offices in all of the agricultural regions,” she said, “so we do our best in this large state to cover wherever workers are.” She adds that the department works closely with community and labor organizations, like NBJWJ, to connect with laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But labor advocates insist that more must be done to better enforce labor standards and improve the H-2A program as a whole. Weinberg with the CRLA adds that regulators need to monitor farms more closely, with randomized visits during the growing season. And on the flip side, employers must make it easier for agencies and labor groups to speak to farmworkers in an unrestricted manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way the H-2A program was designed, where businesses have direct control over their employees’ housing, transportation, immigration status and even food, makes it incredibly difficult for laborers to speak freely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They don’t have access to a place where they feel that they can speak confidentially or anonymously about what’s going on,” Weinberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 19, Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11956315/some-migrant-farmworkers-to-get-free-legal-help-with-immigration\">announced a $4.5 million pilot program to provide free immigration legal services to farmworkers who are involved in state labor investigations\u003c/a>. This would include case review services, legal advice and representation by an attorney to laborers in California who have a pending case with either the ALRB, the Labor Commissioner’s Office or Cal/OSHA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The goal of this program, officials say, is to address one of the fears that prevents employees from speaking up — the fear of losing their visa or not being rehired — by connecting them to immigration experts who could help them find ways to stay in this country. And earlier this year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11940316/fear-of-deportation-keeps-some-workers-from-reporting-labor-abuses-a-new-biden-program-aims-to-change-that\">the Biden administration unveiled a new, streamlined “deferred action” initiative\u003c/a> that allows workers to apply for a work permit and two years of protection from deportation, if they are cooperating with a labor rights investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But above all, what really helps folks feel safe enough to speak up, Salgado from NBJWJ says, is knowing that there are cases when the system works in favor of workers. “Without a doubt, the outcome from the Mauritson case, reaffirms the faith amongst ourselves, but also the credibility of the work we do when we go out to talk to the workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca id=\"correction\">\u003c/a>Editor’s note: The original version of this story mischaracterized Mauritson Farms, Inc. as a winery. The story has been updated to clarify the relationship between Mauritson Farms, Inc. and Mauritson Wines.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Farida Jhabvala Romero and Tyche Hendricks.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>About 1 in 3 positions at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11906889/california-workers-face-years-long-waits-for-justice-in-wage-theft-cases-state-data-shows\">California Labor Commissioner’s Office\u003c/a>, the agency tasked with investigating wage theft and other labor law violations, remain unfilled. The vacancy “crisis” is leading to burnout, low morale and the hemorrhaging of staffers, according to a letter by dozens of department employees obtained by KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This comes as tens of thousands of Californians, who claim their employers shorted them on their paychecks, are forced to contend with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11913910/despite-record-budget-surplus-california-unlikely-to-fix-massive-wage-theft-claim-delays-anytime-soon\">massive delays\u003c/a> in seeing their cases resolved by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In their letter, the nearly 80 rank-and-file employees of the Labor Commissioner’s Office implored lawmakers to address major barriers such as an “unreasonably slow” hiring process and low compensation, which they say prevent the agency from achieving a fully staffed department that can efficiently tackle the growing backlog of cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staffing vacancies have reached 30% to 40% in various units of the agency, they added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are failing in our mission if we cannot hire and retain the necessary staff,” they wrote. “The high vacancy rate naturally leads to higher caseloads, additional work responding to members of the public inquiring about the status of their claims, lower morale due to historic backlogs and increased stress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The July 9 message to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee offers a rare behind-the-scenes perspective of agency employees who are struggling to respond to an increasing volume of new wage-theft complaints exacerbated by hundreds of unfilled positions the state has budgeted for.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Joint statement, California Labor Commissioner’s Office employees\"]‘The high vacancy rate naturally leads to higher caseloads, additional work responding to members of the public inquiring about the status of their claims, lower morale due to historic backlogs and increased stress.’[/pullquote]The Labor Commissioner employees requested an audit focusing on how to make salaries at their agency more competitive — and how to fix a “crippling inability” to hire and retain staff by the California Human Resources Department (CalHR) and human resources at the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State government tends to offer lower wages when compared to the private sector, while hiring tends to be slower as well, according to experts. But salaries at the Labor Commissioner’s Office lag by nearly 30% compared to public-sector peers, said the employees, and the hiring process is so slow and inefficient that qualified candidates end up taking jobs elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those inefficiencies include making candidates apply multiple times for the same job after CalHR or the Department of Industrial Relations decides a new job posting is required, said the staffers, who include hearing officers, attorneys and investigators throughout the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All those hoops constitute extra work for Labor Commissioner employees, too. They worried that sometimes the HR departments decide “ … after our staff [spends] countless hours interviewing and vetting candidates, that the candidates … from the list HR itself provided, do not meet minimum qualifications for the positions,” the letter stated.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Over 200 vacant positions\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nearly 240 positions were vacant at the Labor Commissioner’s Office in May 2022, according to public testimony by agency officials. Even in years when Gov. Gavin \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11913910/despite-record-budget-surplus-california-unlikely-to-fix-massive-wage-theft-claim-delays-anytime-soon\">Newsom proposed expanding the agency’s budget\u003c/a> to hire more employees, the agency remained severely understaffed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Industrial Relations did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for CalHR said the department is trying to improve the hiring process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CalHR is working on a number of strategies to help eliminate barriers to hiring and retaining employees,” said Camille Travis, deputy director of communications at CalHR, in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They include the Work for California recruitment campaign which kicked off in February, increasing the number of hiring events with our department partners (virtual and in-person), and improvements to CalCareers that will make it easier for candidates to navigate the state hiring process,” Travis wrote.[aside postID=news_11944515 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/03/CMWorkers01-1020x680.jpg']The Labor Commissioner’s wage claim process was created as a faster and free alternative for workers who lack the resources to hire an attorney and pursue their claim in court. Many of the workers who seek help from the state agency are living paycheck to paycheck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers rights advocates and labor officials agree that the longer a wage claim languishes without resolution, the harder it tends to be for workers who win their cases to ultimately recover any money. That’s in part because many businesses close, go bankrupt or move assets to avoid paying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But workers are often forced to wait years before receiving a hearing and a final decision from the state on their wage-theft cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of May 2022, about half of the 36,000 pending claims for unpaid wages at the agency had taken longer than a year to resolve, according to Labor Commissioner figures obtained and analyzed by KQED. Nearly 4,000 of those cases had languished for three years or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘I feel betrayed’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Landscaper Juan Carlos Alas has yet to receive a final decision on the complaint he began with the Labor Commissioner’s Office in September 2020, after his employer filed for bankruptcy and failed to pay him and co-workers the last of their wages. The father of two said he fell behind on rent payments and bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was hard because we needed the money they stole from us,” said Alas, 36, who lives in Redwood City. “If we work, we have the right to get paid for that work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But collecting any of the $22,000 in unpaid wages, overtime and penalties Alas claims may now be “difficult if not impossible,” said Jennifer Smith, Alas’ attorney at the nonprofit Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. The defendant has since moved away and can’t be located, she said.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Juan Carlos Alas, landscaper\"]‘I feel betrayed. We trusted California’s laws, and up to now, we haven’t seen any results.’[/pullquote]The nearly three-year wait has frustrated Alas, who argues the agency is supposed to help workers like him gain some justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel betrayed,” said Alas, who is originally from El Salvador. “We trusted California’s laws, and up to now, we haven’t seen any results.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chair of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, Assemblymember David Alvarez, told KQED the Labor Commissioner employee letter was “alarming” and that staffers’ concerns would inform a \u003ca href=\"https://legaudit.assembly.ca.gov/sites/legaudit.assembly.ca.gov/files/2023-104%20%20California%20Labor%20Commissioner%E2%80%99s%20Office%E2%80%94Backlog%20of%20Wage%20Theft%20Cases%20%28Sen.%20Glazer%29.pdf\">proposed audit (PDF)\u003c/a> into the backlog of wage-theft cases that is expected to begin in September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alvarez, a Democrat who represents parts of San Diego County, said he would communicate with the State Auditor’s Office to ensure they take into account the staffers’ concerns. The state needs to take a close look at how the hiring process and employee compensation can be improved, he said, so that vulnerable workers get timely decisions on their wage-theft claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t believe anyone should be waiting anywhere in the magnitude of years. That is not acceptable,” said Alvarez. “That is why we approved the audit … because everybody is concerned that workers are not getting their due pay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>About 1 in 3 positions at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11906889/california-workers-face-years-long-waits-for-justice-in-wage-theft-cases-state-data-shows\">California Labor Commissioner’s Office\u003c/a>, the agency tasked with investigating wage theft and other labor law violations, remain unfilled. The vacancy “crisis” is leading to burnout, low morale and the hemorrhaging of staffers, according to a letter by dozens of department employees obtained by KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This comes as tens of thousands of Californians, who claim their employers shorted them on their paychecks, are forced to contend with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11913910/despite-record-budget-surplus-california-unlikely-to-fix-massive-wage-theft-claim-delays-anytime-soon\">massive delays\u003c/a> in seeing their cases resolved by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In their letter, the nearly 80 rank-and-file employees of the Labor Commissioner’s Office implored lawmakers to address major barriers such as an “unreasonably slow” hiring process and low compensation, which they say prevent the agency from achieving a fully staffed department that can efficiently tackle the growing backlog of cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staffing vacancies have reached 30% to 40% in various units of the agency, they added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner employees requested an audit focusing on how to make salaries at their agency more competitive — and how to fix a “crippling inability” to hire and retain staff by the California Human Resources Department (CalHR) and human resources at the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State government tends to offer lower wages when compared to the private sector, while hiring tends to be slower as well, according to experts. But salaries at the Labor Commissioner’s Office lag by nearly 30% compared to public-sector peers, said the employees, and the hiring process is so slow and inefficient that qualified candidates end up taking jobs elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those inefficiencies include making candidates apply multiple times for the same job after CalHR or the Department of Industrial Relations decides a new job posting is required, said the staffers, who include hearing officers, attorneys and investigators throughout the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All those hoops constitute extra work for Labor Commissioner employees, too. They worried that sometimes the HR departments decide “ … after our staff [spends] countless hours interviewing and vetting candidates, that the candidates … from the list HR itself provided, do not meet minimum qualifications for the positions,” the letter stated.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Over 200 vacant positions\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nearly 240 positions were vacant at the Labor Commissioner’s Office in May 2022, according to public testimony by agency officials. Even in years when Gov. Gavin \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11913910/despite-record-budget-surplus-california-unlikely-to-fix-massive-wage-theft-claim-delays-anytime-soon\">Newsom proposed expanding the agency’s budget\u003c/a> to hire more employees, the agency remained severely understaffed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Industrial Relations did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for CalHR said the department is trying to improve the hiring process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CalHR is working on a number of strategies to help eliminate barriers to hiring and retaining employees,” said Camille Travis, deputy director of communications at CalHR, in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They include the Work for California recruitment campaign which kicked off in February, increasing the number of hiring events with our department partners (virtual and in-person), and improvements to CalCareers that will make it easier for candidates to navigate the state hiring process,” Travis wrote.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner’s wage claim process was created as a faster and free alternative for workers who lack the resources to hire an attorney and pursue their claim in court. Many of the workers who seek help from the state agency are living paycheck to paycheck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers rights advocates and labor officials agree that the longer a wage claim languishes without resolution, the harder it tends to be for workers who win their cases to ultimately recover any money. That’s in part because many businesses close, go bankrupt or move assets to avoid paying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But workers are often forced to wait years before receiving a hearing and a final decision from the state on their wage-theft cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of May 2022, about half of the 36,000 pending claims for unpaid wages at the agency had taken longer than a year to resolve, according to Labor Commissioner figures obtained and analyzed by KQED. Nearly 4,000 of those cases had languished for three years or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘I feel betrayed’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Landscaper Juan Carlos Alas has yet to receive a final decision on the complaint he began with the Labor Commissioner’s Office in September 2020, after his employer filed for bankruptcy and failed to pay him and co-workers the last of their wages. The father of two said he fell behind on rent payments and bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was hard because we needed the money they stole from us,” said Alas, 36, who lives in Redwood City. “If we work, we have the right to get paid for that work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But collecting any of the $22,000 in unpaid wages, overtime and penalties Alas claims may now be “difficult if not impossible,” said Jennifer Smith, Alas’ attorney at the nonprofit Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. The defendant has since moved away and can’t be located, she said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The nearly three-year wait has frustrated Alas, who argues the agency is supposed to help workers like him gain some justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel betrayed,” said Alas, who is originally from El Salvador. “We trusted California’s laws, and up to now, we haven’t seen any results.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chair of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, Assemblymember David Alvarez, told KQED the Labor Commissioner employee letter was “alarming” and that staffers’ concerns would inform a \u003ca href=\"https://legaudit.assembly.ca.gov/sites/legaudit.assembly.ca.gov/files/2023-104%20%20California%20Labor%20Commissioner%E2%80%99s%20Office%E2%80%94Backlog%20of%20Wage%20Theft%20Cases%20%28Sen.%20Glazer%29.pdf\">proposed audit (PDF)\u003c/a> into the backlog of wage-theft cases that is expected to begin in September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alvarez, a Democrat who represents parts of San Diego County, said he would communicate with the State Auditor’s Office to ensure they take into account the staffers’ concerns. The state needs to take a close look at how the hiring process and employee compensation can be improved, he said, so that vulnerable workers get timely decisions on their wage-theft claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t believe anyone should be waiting anywhere in the magnitude of years. That is not acceptable,” said Alvarez. “That is why we approved the audit … because everybody is concerned that workers are not getting their due pay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Vibrant night markets studded with food halls are a staple in major global cities like Taipei, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Now, a newly proposed state bill, AB 441, would make it even easier for food destinations like San Francisco to start and run bustling night markets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By eating away at some of the red tape involved with opening a night market, proponents of the bill hope these events can help turn the tide on the city’s slow economic recovery from the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Like everywhere in San Francisco, the businesses in the Sunset are having a tough time in this post-pandemic economy. There’s a lot of focus on revitalizing downtown, but we can’t forget about our neighborhood businesses here on the west side,” said San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio, who has made it his mission since stepping into office earlier this year to bring night markets to the city’s Sunset District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Engardio said he felt inspired to make the night market happen after visiting Taipei with his husband and reveling in the tastes, sights and sounds of the bustling food and merchant stalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I see the night market as a way to help address all those issues,” he said. “We are helping our merchant corridors, but also bringing people out in the community in the evening and taking back the street. That’s good for public safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/JoelEngardio/status/1608872844183900160?lang=en\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill, proposed Monday by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) would streamline the permitting process to make it easier to have multiple night markets per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, no specific permit exists for farmers markets or night markets in the state, so operators typically have to apply for an events permit multiple times a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That can cost thousands of dollars per year to apply over and over again — and Haney said it is a deterrent to opening lively, pop-up merchant corridors that have the potential to bring people out and together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio\"]‘We are helping our merchant corridors, but also bringing people out in the community in the evening and taking back the streets. That’s good for public safety.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His bill would create a specific statewide permit for night markets and farmers markets that organizers would need to apply for once a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are few things people love more than their farmers markets. It’s a source of joy, they pick up their produce, meet friends. And unfortunately, the state makes it hard to open a farmers market,” Haney told KQED. “We want people selling food and bringing people together in community, including in the evenings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is on track to open a pilot night market in the Sunset on Sept. 15, 2023, on Irving Street from 5:00–10:00 p.m. The initial event is funded through a $50,000 grant from the San Francisco nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.avenuegreenlightsf.org/\">Avenue Greenlight\u003c/a>. Other groups such as the San Francisco Parks Alliance and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cutfruitcollective.org/\">Cut Fruit Collective\u003c/a>, an AAPI arts nonprofit rooted in the Bay Area, also signed on to kick-start the Sunset night market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Engardio envisions there will be a “combination of all the things that makes the Sunset so amazing” including all different types of food, music and games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Celebrity chef and San Francisco icon Martin Yan will also be at the first night market, doing cooking demonstrations, signing cookbooks and greeting visitors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The beauty of the night market is that it’s for everyone,” Engardio said. “It starts at 5 p.m., so if you have a young family, you can come on out for an early dinner. At 9 p.m., teenagers can come out and get boba.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angie Petitt-Taylor, director and founder of \u003ca href=\"https://sunsetmercantilesf.com/osfmm/\">Sunset Mercantile\u003c/a>, is steering the effort to get the neighborhood’s night market up and running by the fall. She hopes to make it a monthly event after the pilot in September, and advocates say Haney’s bill could help make that goal easier to reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Petitt-Taylor wants to craft a fun experience for kids and adults, but hopes it will spur growth for different kinds of businesses as well. It can be another opportunity for home-based small businesses, for example, to pop up as vendors and meet new customers, she said.[aside label='More on Bay Area Food' tag='bay-area-food']She added that a night market would also increase foot traffic to an area and could support brick-and-mortar restaurants that were hit hard during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the pop-up vendors that are eager to be a part of the event are restaurants that previously had storefronts, but were forced to close during the pandemic. Since then, these businesses have turned to creative ways to keep their business afloat, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The night market in the Sunset would add to the city’s existing farmers markets and food truck events like \u003ca href=\"https://offthegrid.com/\">Off the Grid\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.undiscoveredsf.com/\">Undiscovered Block Party\u003c/a>, a recurring night market celebrating Filipino culture in the SoMa neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Above all, Petitt-Taylor wants to see people in her neighborhood on the city’s west side come together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is inspired by the night markets of Asia. Here in the Sunset, we have a large Chinese community and we are excited about a night market that can celebrate our Chinese culture,” Petitt-Taylor said. “I’m excited as a mom in the Sunset to give our youth a fun and safe place to hopefully want to come and hang out on a Friday night.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED reporter Billy Cruz also contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Vibrant night markets studded with food halls are a staple in major global cities like Taipei, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Now, a newly proposed state bill, AB 441, would make it even easier for food destinations like San Francisco to start and run bustling night markets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By eating away at some of the red tape involved with opening a night market, proponents of the bill hope these events can help turn the tide on the city’s slow economic recovery from the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Like everywhere in San Francisco, the businesses in the Sunset are having a tough time in this post-pandemic economy. There’s a lot of focus on revitalizing downtown, but we can’t forget about our neighborhood businesses here on the west side,” said San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio, who has made it his mission since stepping into office earlier this year to bring night markets to the city’s Sunset District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Engardio said he felt inspired to make the night market happen after visiting Taipei with his husband and reveling in the tastes, sights and sounds of the bustling food and merchant stalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I see the night market as a way to help address all those issues,” he said. “We are helping our merchant corridors, but also bringing people out in the community in the evening and taking back the street. That’s good for public safety.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>The bill, proposed Monday by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) would streamline the permitting process to make it easier to have multiple night markets per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, no specific permit exists for farmers markets or night markets in the state, so operators typically have to apply for an events permit multiple times a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That can cost thousands of dollars per year to apply over and over again — and Haney said it is a deterrent to opening lively, pop-up merchant corridors that have the potential to bring people out and together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His bill would create a specific statewide permit for night markets and farmers markets that organizers would need to apply for once a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are few things people love more than their farmers markets. It’s a source of joy, they pick up their produce, meet friends. And unfortunately, the state makes it hard to open a farmers market,” Haney told KQED. “We want people selling food and bringing people together in community, including in the evenings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is on track to open a pilot night market in the Sunset on Sept. 15, 2023, on Irving Street from 5:00–10:00 p.m. The initial event is funded through a $50,000 grant from the San Francisco nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.avenuegreenlightsf.org/\">Avenue Greenlight\u003c/a>. Other groups such as the San Francisco Parks Alliance and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cutfruitcollective.org/\">Cut Fruit Collective\u003c/a>, an AAPI arts nonprofit rooted in the Bay Area, also signed on to kick-start the Sunset night market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Engardio envisions there will be a “combination of all the things that makes the Sunset so amazing” including all different types of food, music and games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Celebrity chef and San Francisco icon Martin Yan will also be at the first night market, doing cooking demonstrations, signing cookbooks and greeting visitors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The beauty of the night market is that it’s for everyone,” Engardio said. “It starts at 5 p.m., so if you have a young family, you can come on out for an early dinner. At 9 p.m., teenagers can come out and get boba.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angie Petitt-Taylor, director and founder of \u003ca href=\"https://sunsetmercantilesf.com/osfmm/\">Sunset Mercantile\u003c/a>, is steering the effort to get the neighborhood’s night market up and running by the fall. She hopes to make it a monthly event after the pilot in September, and advocates say Haney’s bill could help make that goal easier to reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Petitt-Taylor wants to craft a fun experience for kids and adults, but hopes it will spur growth for different kinds of businesses as well. It can be another opportunity for home-based small businesses, for example, to pop up as vendors and meet new customers, she said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>She added that a night market would also increase foot traffic to an area and could support brick-and-mortar restaurants that were hit hard during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the pop-up vendors that are eager to be a part of the event are restaurants that previously had storefronts, but were forced to close during the pandemic. Since then, these businesses have turned to creative ways to keep their business afloat, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The night market in the Sunset would add to the city’s existing farmers markets and food truck events like \u003ca href=\"https://offthegrid.com/\">Off the Grid\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.undiscoveredsf.com/\">Undiscovered Block Party\u003c/a>, a recurring night market celebrating Filipino culture in the SoMa neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Above all, Petitt-Taylor wants to see people in her neighborhood on the city’s west side come together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is inspired by the night markets of Asia. Here in the Sunset, we have a large Chinese community and we are excited about a night market that can celebrate our Chinese culture,” Petitt-Taylor said. “I’m excited as a mom in the Sunset to give our youth a fun and safe place to hopefully want to come and hang out on a Friday night.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED reporter Billy Cruz also contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "demand-for-california-caregivers-is-rising-but-their-pay-isnt",
"title": "Demand for California Caregivers Is Rising, but Their Pay Isn't",
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"content": "\u003cp>The hardest parts of Grace Diaz’s caregiving job are the sleepless nights and aches and pains. And the time away from her family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even when Diaz’s client, an older Alzheimer’s patient, gets a good night’s sleep, Diaz wakes up at her slightest rustle or groan. Diaz’s shoulder bothers her because she often lifts her client from bed to wheelchair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She lives with her client in Westminster, a city in Orange County, seven days a week, making $15.50 an hour and sending some to her children back home in the Philippines, from which she emigrated 20 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diaz, who is 56, worries that when she needs care, she won’t be able to afford it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We take care of the elderly, but I’m not even sure that, if I stay here, I’m going to have the same care that I’m giving right now — if I’ll be able to afford it,” said Diaz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many of California’s caregivers, Diaz says she needs a living wage, safer working conditions and benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Grace Diaz, caregiver\"]‘We take care of the elderly, but I’m not even sure that, if I stay here, I’m going to have the same care that I’m giving right now — if I’ll be able to afford it.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s important not just for in-home workers, advocates say, but for California’s Baby Boomers, who will need to hire them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s caregiver workforce is already too small, experts say, and many are aging immigrants like Diaz, earning near-minimum wages. A few state lawmakers have introduced bills to protect workers and encourage growth in the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The need for care is going to more than double in the next 12 years here in California, and it’s happening across the country,” said Arnulfo De La Cruz, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2015, which represents long-term care workers throughout California. “We’re a country that’s aging, and how do we want to care for people when they age?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California caregivers undervalued, underpaid\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By 2030, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2019/05/wave-of-seniors-will-strain-california-caregiver-network-even-more/\">nearly 1 in 5 Californians\u003c/a> will be age 65 or older, according to the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California. The state will be facing a shortage of as many as \u003ca href=\"https://mpa.aging.ca.gov/Goals/4\">3.2 million care workers\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/CaliforniaDirectCareWorkforce.pdf\"> by then\u003c/a>, said Susan DeMarois, director of the California Department of Aging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caregiving has been an undervalued field, largely because its workers are predominantly immigrant women, said Fernando Torres-Gil, director of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t, as a society, value or honor persons that do caregiving,” Torres-Gil said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California 80% of care workers are women, 74% are people of color and 47% are immigrants, \u003ca href=\"https://www.phinational.org/policy-research/workforce-data-center/#states=06&var=Citizenship\">according to PHI\u003c/a>, a New York-based research and elder policy nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Californiau2019s caregiver workforce is mostly women and people of color\" aria-label=\"Split Bars\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-LBBzY\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/LBBzY/2/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"366\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caregivers who work in homes or nursing centers often earn minimum, or close to minimum, wages, Torres-Gil said, and they lack benefits and safety protections typical of 9-to-5 jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That makes careers in long-term care a hard sell for young people, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solution is two-pronged, said Aquilina Soriano Versoza, executive director of the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California. Long-term care workers should receive living wages and benefits good enough to attract and retain them, she said, and government systems should help Californians pay for the care they’ll need as they age.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a shortage of \u003cem>good\u003c/em> jobs,” she said of caregiving. “People are not going into care work, even though it’s one of the fastest growing jobs, because of the conditions and what it’s paid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Caregivers’ pay\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The state and counties help set that pay. The state’s In-Home Supportive Services Program serves 700,000 Californians, paying for in-home care for low-income residents age 65 and older and others who are disabled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s funded with a mix of government money. A state audit in \u003ca href=\"https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2020-109.pdf\">2020\u003c/a> showed California contributing $4.5 billion, counties $1.6 billion and the federal government $7.2 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The in-home program pays caregivers, who help people stay in their homes. Caregivers’ pay rates are negotiated by the counties where they work and the unions that represent them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers often complain about slow negotiations stymied by regional politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Contracts for the stateu2019s In-Home Supportive Services Program are negotiated with each county. What does your county pay providers?\" aria-label=\"Table\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-TuUnA\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/TuUnA/2/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"406\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Kern County, for instance, six years of bargaining for a new contract yielded a recent county offer of 50 cents an hour more on the $15.50 base pay. Sandy Moreno, who left a career in labor to care for her grandmother, said showing up at county supervisors’ meetings didn’t change things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just feels like they don’t really care about IHSS providers,” she said. “No matter how many times we go to their sessions to talk about our work, to let them know we need to invest in this program, it just feels like we’re at the end of their list.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fresno County Public Authority and SEIU Local 2015 also are in active negotiations for caregiver contracts. Sal Quintero, the only Latino Fresno County supervisor, said he supports organized labor and caregivers — his brother was a caregiver — but “we have to be careful with our county budget and see what’s affordable for us as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Statewide bargaining?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A few state lawmakers introduced bills designed to improve pay and working conditions for caregivers.[aside label='More Stories on Caregivers' tag='caregivers']Assemblymember Matt Haney, a Democrat from San Francisco, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1672\">authored a bill\u003c/a> earlier this year to shift collective bargaining for publicly funded caregiver contracts from counties to the state. Labor supporters said that would make contracts fairer across the state and allow care workers to move across county lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Who would you want caring for someone you love,” asked De La Cruz, “someone who’s making poverty wages, no retirement and little benefits? Or someone who has a living wage and is able to have benefits to care for their own families?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill passed the Assembly, but Haney said he pulled it before a Senate vote after agreeing, in discussions with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, that the state needs time to flesh out logistics and finances for statewide bargaining for caregivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/14307615/embed?auto=1\" width=\"800\" height=\"1100\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB102\">Newsom’s budget includes $1.5 million\u003c/a> for a working group on the issue. Haney said he expects its findings in 2025. Newsom also agreed to increase state fines for counties that fail to promptly reach contract agreements with caregivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The United Domestic Workers said in a statement, “This is a vital first step towards bringing equity and a true living wage” to in-home caregivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents of Haney’s proposal said counties have varying needs and costs of living that statewide rates likely won’t address. Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Riverside Republican, said in a statement he voted against the bill because it would impose a one-size-fits-all approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The way we can actually support these workers is by focusing on policies in Sacramento that address our affordability crisis,” he said. “For example, stopping the upcoming gas tax increase July 1 would greatly benefit IHSS workers, who drive more than other workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>In-home worker safety\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Senator María Elena Durazo, a Democrat from Los Angeles, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB686\">introduced a proposal this year\u003c/a> to include home caregivers in the state’s oversight of workplace safety. Her bill, which targets a variety of domestic workers, passed the Senate and is in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, California’s safety work rules don’t apply to domestic workers, including caregivers in private homes. If approved, Durazo’s bill would \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/03/domestic-worker-safety/\">change that\u003c/a>. It’s her third bill to improve domestic worker safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020 she proposed extending the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) protections to domestic workers, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/10/governor-vetoes-bill-domestic-workers/\">but Newsom vetoed it\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955600\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02.jpg\" alt=\"A woman's hand is seen on the shoulder of another older woman's shoulder. The older woman is in a wheelchair and is looking up at her caregiver in blue scrubs.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grace Diaz, a caregiver, at the home of her client in Orange County on June 7, 2023. \u003ccite>(Lauren Justice/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2021, taking feedback from Newsom, she proposed creating an advisory committee on domestic workers for Cal/OSHA. That led to California’s first \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/documents/Voluntary-Industry-Guidelines-SB-321.pdf\">voluntary occupational health and safety guidelines\u003c/a> for domestic workers.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Senator María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles)\"]‘It’s a very isolating job, to be one caregiver in a person’s home. They’re vulnerable to exploitation. So we want to make sure … they would have the same rights as other workers.’[/pullquote]If Durazo’s latest bill becomes law, Cal/OSHA would have the authority to develop and enforce its health and safety guidance for employers, making in-home work safer and more desirable, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a very isolating job, to be one caregiver in a person’s home,” Durazo said. “They’re vulnerable to exploitation. So we want to make sure … they would have the same rights as other workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sounds like a good idea to Diaz, who said it would help caregivers in difficult employment situations. Caregiving is not for the faint of heart, she said. It requires physical and emotional strength.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes her client yells at her out of the blue, she said. On better days, they do arm exercises in the garden or listen to soothing music in the living room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diaz likes her work. With her own family thousands of miles away, Diaz said her client has become like family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She’s like a mother to me,” Diaz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Many California caregivers are aging immigrants making near-minimum wage. Two bills to improve pay and safety could benefit older residents facing a caregiver shortage.",
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"title": "Demand for California Caregivers Is Rising, but Their Pay Isn't | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The hardest parts of Grace Diaz’s caregiving job are the sleepless nights and aches and pains. And the time away from her family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even when Diaz’s client, an older Alzheimer’s patient, gets a good night’s sleep, Diaz wakes up at her slightest rustle or groan. Diaz’s shoulder bothers her because she often lifts her client from bed to wheelchair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She lives with her client in Westminster, a city in Orange County, seven days a week, making $15.50 an hour and sending some to her children back home in the Philippines, from which she emigrated 20 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diaz, who is 56, worries that when she needs care, she won’t be able to afford it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We take care of the elderly, but I’m not even sure that, if I stay here, I’m going to have the same care that I’m giving right now — if I’ll be able to afford it,” said Diaz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many of California’s caregivers, Diaz says she needs a living wage, safer working conditions and benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We take care of the elderly, but I’m not even sure that, if I stay here, I’m going to have the same care that I’m giving right now — if I’ll be able to afford it.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s important not just for in-home workers, advocates say, but for California’s Baby Boomers, who will need to hire them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s caregiver workforce is already too small, experts say, and many are aging immigrants like Diaz, earning near-minimum wages. A few state lawmakers have introduced bills to protect workers and encourage growth in the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The need for care is going to more than double in the next 12 years here in California, and it’s happening across the country,” said Arnulfo De La Cruz, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2015, which represents long-term care workers throughout California. “We’re a country that’s aging, and how do we want to care for people when they age?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California caregivers undervalued, underpaid\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By 2030, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2019/05/wave-of-seniors-will-strain-california-caregiver-network-even-more/\">nearly 1 in 5 Californians\u003c/a> will be age 65 or older, according to the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California. The state will be facing a shortage of as many as \u003ca href=\"https://mpa.aging.ca.gov/Goals/4\">3.2 million care workers\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/CaliforniaDirectCareWorkforce.pdf\"> by then\u003c/a>, said Susan DeMarois, director of the California Department of Aging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caregiving has been an undervalued field, largely because its workers are predominantly immigrant women, said Fernando Torres-Gil, director of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t, as a society, value or honor persons that do caregiving,” Torres-Gil said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California 80% of care workers are women, 74% are people of color and 47% are immigrants, \u003ca href=\"https://www.phinational.org/policy-research/workforce-data-center/#states=06&var=Citizenship\">according to PHI\u003c/a>, a New York-based research and elder policy nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Californiau2019s caregiver workforce is mostly women and people of color\" aria-label=\"Split Bars\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-LBBzY\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/LBBzY/2/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"366\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caregivers who work in homes or nursing centers often earn minimum, or close to minimum, wages, Torres-Gil said, and they lack benefits and safety protections typical of 9-to-5 jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That makes careers in long-term care a hard sell for young people, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solution is two-pronged, said Aquilina Soriano Versoza, executive director of the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California. Long-term care workers should receive living wages and benefits good enough to attract and retain them, she said, and government systems should help Californians pay for the care they’ll need as they age.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a shortage of \u003cem>good\u003c/em> jobs,” she said of caregiving. “People are not going into care work, even though it’s one of the fastest growing jobs, because of the conditions and what it’s paid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Caregivers’ pay\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The state and counties help set that pay. The state’s In-Home Supportive Services Program serves 700,000 Californians, paying for in-home care for low-income residents age 65 and older and others who are disabled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s funded with a mix of government money. A state audit in \u003ca href=\"https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2020-109.pdf\">2020\u003c/a> showed California contributing $4.5 billion, counties $1.6 billion and the federal government $7.2 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The in-home program pays caregivers, who help people stay in their homes. Caregivers’ pay rates are negotiated by the counties where they work and the unions that represent them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers often complain about slow negotiations stymied by regional politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Contracts for the stateu2019s In-Home Supportive Services Program are negotiated with each county. What does your county pay providers?\" aria-label=\"Table\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-TuUnA\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/TuUnA/2/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"406\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Kern County, for instance, six years of bargaining for a new contract yielded a recent county offer of 50 cents an hour more on the $15.50 base pay. Sandy Moreno, who left a career in labor to care for her grandmother, said showing up at county supervisors’ meetings didn’t change things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just feels like they don’t really care about IHSS providers,” she said. “No matter how many times we go to their sessions to talk about our work, to let them know we need to invest in this program, it just feels like we’re at the end of their list.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fresno County Public Authority and SEIU Local 2015 also are in active negotiations for caregiver contracts. Sal Quintero, the only Latino Fresno County supervisor, said he supports organized labor and caregivers — his brother was a caregiver — but “we have to be careful with our county budget and see what’s affordable for us as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Statewide bargaining?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A few state lawmakers introduced bills designed to improve pay and working conditions for caregivers.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Assemblymember Matt Haney, a Democrat from San Francisco, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1672\">authored a bill\u003c/a> earlier this year to shift collective bargaining for publicly funded caregiver contracts from counties to the state. Labor supporters said that would make contracts fairer across the state and allow care workers to move across county lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Who would you want caring for someone you love,” asked De La Cruz, “someone who’s making poverty wages, no retirement and little benefits? Or someone who has a living wage and is able to have benefits to care for their own families?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill passed the Assembly, but Haney said he pulled it before a Senate vote after agreeing, in discussions with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, that the state needs time to flesh out logistics and finances for statewide bargaining for caregivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/14307615/embed?auto=1\" width=\"800\" height=\"1100\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB102\">Newsom’s budget includes $1.5 million\u003c/a> for a working group on the issue. Haney said he expects its findings in 2025. Newsom also agreed to increase state fines for counties that fail to promptly reach contract agreements with caregivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The United Domestic Workers said in a statement, “This is a vital first step towards bringing equity and a true living wage” to in-home caregivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents of Haney’s proposal said counties have varying needs and costs of living that statewide rates likely won’t address. Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Riverside Republican, said in a statement he voted against the bill because it would impose a one-size-fits-all approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The way we can actually support these workers is by focusing on policies in Sacramento that address our affordability crisis,” he said. “For example, stopping the upcoming gas tax increase July 1 would greatly benefit IHSS workers, who drive more than other workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>In-home worker safety\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Senator María Elena Durazo, a Democrat from Los Angeles, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB686\">introduced a proposal this year\u003c/a> to include home caregivers in the state’s oversight of workplace safety. Her bill, which targets a variety of domestic workers, passed the Senate and is in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, California’s safety work rules don’t apply to domestic workers, including caregivers in private homes. If approved, Durazo’s bill would \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/03/domestic-worker-safety/\">change that\u003c/a>. It’s her third bill to improve domestic worker safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020 she proposed extending the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) protections to domestic workers, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/10/governor-vetoes-bill-domestic-workers/\">but Newsom vetoed it\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955600\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02.jpg\" alt=\"A woman's hand is seen on the shoulder of another older woman's shoulder. The older woman is in a wheelchair and is looking up at her caregiver in blue scrubs.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaregiver02-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grace Diaz, a caregiver, at the home of her client in Orange County on June 7, 2023. \u003ccite>(Lauren Justice/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2021, taking feedback from Newsom, she proposed creating an advisory committee on domestic workers for Cal/OSHA. That led to California’s first \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/documents/Voluntary-Industry-Guidelines-SB-321.pdf\">voluntary occupational health and safety guidelines\u003c/a> for domestic workers.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>If Durazo’s latest bill becomes law, Cal/OSHA would have the authority to develop and enforce its health and safety guidance for employers, making in-home work safer and more desirable, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a very isolating job, to be one caregiver in a person’s home,” Durazo said. “They’re vulnerable to exploitation. So we want to make sure … they would have the same rights as other workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sounds like a good idea to Diaz, who said it would help caregivers in difficult employment situations. Caregiving is not for the faint of heart, she said. It requires physical and emotional strength.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes her client yells at her out of the blue, she said. On better days, they do arm exercises in the garden or listen to soothing music in the living room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diaz likes her work. With her own family thousands of miles away, Diaz said her client has become like family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She’s like a mother to me,” Diaz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11954879/how-californias-firefighter-union-could-get-guaranteed-raises-forever\">Cal Fire\u003c/a> Battalion Chief Jon Heggie wasn’t expecting much to worry about when a late summer fire erupted north of Santa Cruz, home to California’s moist and cool “asbestos forests.” This place doesn’t burn, he thought, with just three notable fires there in 70 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heggie’s job was to predict for the crews where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/wildfires\">wildfire\u003c/a> might go and when, working through calculations based on topography, weather and fuels — the “immutable” basics. For fire behavior analysts like Heggie, predictable and familiar are manageable, while weird and unexpected are synonyms for danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that 2020 fire was anything but predictable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 3 a.m. on Aug. 16, ominous thunder cells formed over the region. Tens of thousands of lightning strikes rained down, creating a convulsion of fire that became the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/8/16/czu-lightning-complex-including-warnella-fire/\">CZU Lightning Complex\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By noon there were nearly two dozen fires burning, and not nearly enough people to handle them. Flames were roaring throughout the Coast Range in deep-shaded forests and waist-high ferns in sight of the Pacific Ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No one had ever seen anything like it.\u003cem> \u003c/em>The blaze defied predictions and ran unchecked for a month. The fire spread to San Mateo County, burned through 86,000 acres, destroyed almost 1,500 structures and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/czu-lighting-complex-fire-victim-died-trying-to-flee-flames-6-rescued-while-trying-to-return-to-evacuated-homes/\">killed a fleeing resident\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was astonishing to see that behavior and consumption of heavy fuels,” Heggie said. “Seeing the devastation was mind-boggling. Things were burning outside the norm. I hadn’t seen anything burn that intensely in my 30 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost as troubling was what this fire \u003cem>didn’t\u003c/em> do — it didn’t back off at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would have burning periods increase in the afternoon, and we saw continuous high-intensity burns in the night,” Heggie said. “That’s when we are supposed to make up ground. That didn’t happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jon Heggie, battalion chief, Cal Fire\"]‘Seeing the devastation was mind-boggling. Things were burning outside the norm. I hadn’t seen anything burn that intensely in my 30 years.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That 2020 summer of fires, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/07/california-fires-2020/\">the worst in California history\u003c/a>, recalibrated what veteran firefighters understand about fire behavior: Nothing \u003cem>is\u003c/em> as it \u003cem>was.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Intensified by climate change, especially warmer nights and longer droughts, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-wildfires-explained/\">California’s fires often morph into megafires\u003c/a>, and even gigafires covering more than a million acres. U.S. wildfires have been \u003ca href=\"https://cires.colorado.edu/news/us-fires-four-times-larger-three-times-more-frequent-2000\">four times larger and three times more frequent\u003c/a> since 2000, according to University of Colorado researchers. And other scientists recently predicted that \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2213815120\">up to 52% more California forest acreage\u003c/a> will burn in summertime over the next two decades because of the changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California now heads into its peak time for wildfires, even with last year’s \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/california-wildfires/2022/12/california-wildfires-2022/\">quiet season\u003c/a> and the end of its three-year drought, the specter of megafires hasn’t receded. Last winter’s record winter rains, rather than tamping down fire threats, have promoted lush growth, which provides more fuel for summer fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire officials warn that this year’s conditions are similar to the summer and fall of 2017 — when a rainy winter was followed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017\">one of the state’s most destructive fire seasons\u003c/a>, killing 47 people and destroying almost 11,000 structures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955548\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955548 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01.jpg\" alt=\"Pictured in a dark room with two, large LCD screens illuminated with maps displayed on them. Two people are observing the screens with one man pointing up toward the screen on the left.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">US Forest Service teams deploy drones to capture photographs and infrared images, which are used to map fires to find areas where flames are still active and where they might spread. \u003ccite>(Andrew Avitt/US Forest Service)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s not just the size and power of modern wildfires, but their capricious behavior that has confounded fire veterans — the feints and shifts that bedevil efforts to predict what a fire might do and then devise strategies to stop it. It’s a dangerous calculation: In the literal heat of a fire, choices are consequential. People’s lives and livelihoods are at stake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire crews now often find themselves outflanked. Responding to larger and more erratic and intense fires requires more personnel and equipment. And staging crews and engines where flames are expected to go have been thrown off-kilter.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Gov. Gavin Newsom\"]‘We live in this new reality. … We’re enlisting cutting-edge technology in our efforts to fight wildfires, exploring how innovations like artificial intelligence can help us identify threats quicker and deploy resources smarter.’[/pullquote]“We live in this new reality,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a recent Cal Fire event, “where we can’t necessarily attach ourselves to some of the more predictive models of the past because of a world that is getting a lot hotter, a lot drier and a lot more uncertain because of climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalFire has responded by tapping into all the new technology — such as drones, military satellites, infrared images and AI-assisted maps — that can be brought to bear during a fire. Commanders now must consider a broader range of possibilities so they can pivot when the firefront shifts in an unexpected way. The agency also has beefed up its ability to fight nighttime fires with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/fire-protection/aviation-program\">new fleet of Fire Hawk helicopters\u003c/a> equipped to fly in darkness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has thrown every possible data point at the problem with its year-old \u003ca href=\"https://fireforecast.caloes.ca.gov/\">Wildfire Threat and Intelligence Integration Center\u003c/a>, which pulls information from dozens of federal, state and private sources to create a minute-by-minute picture of conditions conducive to sparking or spreading fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re enlisting cutting-edge technology in our efforts to fight wildfires,” Newsom said, “exploring how innovations like artificial intelligence can help us identify threats quicker and deploy resources smarter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An unforeseen assault on a coastal town\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/12/4/thomas-fire/\">2017 Thomas Fire\u003c/a> stands as an example of what happens when a massive fire, ignited after a rainy winter, veers and shifts in unexpected ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The blaze in coastal Ventura and Santa Barbara counties struck in December when fire season normally quieted down. Fire veterans knew fall and winter fires were tamed by a blanket of moist air and fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that didn’t happen.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Tim Chavez, assistant chief, Cal Fire\"]‘I looked at the maps and we both came to the conclusion that Carpinteria would be fine, don’t worry. Sure enough, that night it burned into Carpinteria and they had to evacuate the town.’[/pullquote]“We were on day five or six, and the incident commander comes to me and asks, ‘Are we going to have to evacuate Carpinteria tonight?’,” said Cal Fire Assistant Chief Tim Chavez, who was the fire behavior analyst for the Thomas Fire.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>“I looked at the maps and we both came to the conclusion that Carpinteria would be fine, don’t worry. Sure enough, that night it burned into Carpinteria and they had to evacuate the town.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on fire and weather data and informed hunches, no one expected the fire to continue advancing overnight. And, as the winds calmed, no one predicted the blaze would move toward the small seaside community of 13,000 south of Santa Barbara. But high temperatures, low humidity and a steep, dry landscape that hadn’t felt flames in more than 30 years drew the Thomas Fire to the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sudden shift put the town in peril. Some 300 residents were evacuated in the middle of the night as the blaze moved into the eastern edge of Carpinteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all, the fire, which was sparked by power lines downed by high winds, \u003ca href=\"https://vcfd.org/news/vcfd-determines-cause-of-the-thomas-fire/\">burned for nearly 40 days\u003c/a>, spread across 281,000 acres, destroyed more than 1,000 homes and other buildings and killed two people, including a firefighter. At the time, it was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/23/us/thomas-fire-california/index.html\">largest wildfire\u003c/a> in California’s modern history; now, just six years later, it ranks at number eight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955543\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955543 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM.jpg\" alt=\"A wildfire rushes toward a mansion in Southern California with two palm trees seen in the home's backyard. The sky is black and the fire glows an ominous, bright orange and red.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Thomas Fire threatened homes near the 101 freeway in Ventura on Dec. 5, 2017. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The unforeseen assault on Carpenteria was an I-told-you-so from nature, the sort of humbling slap-down that fire behavior analysts in California are experiencing more and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve learned more from being wrong than from being right,” Chavez said. “You cannot do this job and not be surprised by something you see. Even the small fires will surprise you sometimes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Warmer nights, drought and lack of fog alter fire behavior\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scientists say the past 20 years have brought a profound — and perhaps irreversible — \u003ca href=\"https://santamariatimes.com/photos-welcome-to-the-age-of-fire-california-wildfires-explained/collection_539ecbd3-827e-5387-aa14-518705d05980.html#1\">shift in the norms of wildfire behavior\u003c/a> and intensity. Fires burn along the coast even when there are no desert winds to drive them, fires refuse to lay down at night and fires pierced the so-called Redwood Curtain, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/04/big-basin-park-heals-wildfires/\">burning 97% of California’s oldest state park\u003c/a>, Big Basin Redwoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes in wildfires are driven by an array of factors: a megadrought from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01290-z\">driest period recorded\u003c/a> in the Western U.S.\u003cem> \u003c/em>in the past 1,200 years, the loss of fog along the California coast, and stubborn nighttime temperatures that propel flames well into the night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"California's nighttime fire conditions have worsened\" aria-label=\"Map\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-jyRUo\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jyRUo/5/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"662\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Higher temperatures and longer dry periods are linked to worsening fires in Western forests, with an eightfold increase from 1985 to 2017 in severely burned acreage, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL089858\">2020 study\u003c/a>. “Warmer and drier fire seasons corresponded with higher severity fire,” the researchers wrote, suggesting that “climate change will contribute to increased fire severity in future decades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we are seeing is a dramatic increase in extreme fire behavior,” Heggie said. “When you have a drought lasting 10 years, devastating the landscape, you have dead fuel loading and available fuel for when these fires start. That’s the catalyst for megafire. That’s been the driving force for change in fire behavior.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-11955555\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/Fire-Tornado_6.9.22-SIZED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"1000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/Fire-Tornado_6.9.22-SIZED.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/Fire-Tornado_6.9.22-SIZED-160x320.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/Fire-Tornado_6.9.22-SIZED-768x1536.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 33% of coastal summer fog has vanished since the turn of the century, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0915062107\">researchers at UC Berkeley\u003c/a>. That blanket of cool, moist air that kept major fires out of coastal areas can no longer be relied upon to safeguard California’s redwood forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firefighters are losing another ally, too, with the significant increase in overnight temperatures. \u003ca href=\"https://cires.colorado.edu/news/hotter-drier-nights-mean-more-runaway-fires\">Nighttime fires\u003c/a> were about 28% more intense in 2020 than in 2003. And there are more of them — 11 more “flammable nights” every year than 40 years ago, an increase of more than 40%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The upshot is that fires are increasingly less likely to “lie down” at night when fire crews could work to get ahead of the flames. The loss of those hours to perform critical suppression work — and the additional nighttime spread — gives California crews less time to catch up with fast-moving blazes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, fire whirls and so-called \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2022/aug/11/firenado-sparked-by-hot-winds-and-wildfires-burns-in-california-video\">firenados\u003c/a> are more common as a feature of erratic fire behavior. The twisting vortex of flames, heat and wind can rise in columns hundreds of feet high and are spun by high winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firenados are more than frightening to behold: They spread embers and strew debris for miles and make already dangerous fires all the more risky. One was spotted \u003ca href=\"https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/08/11/brush-fire-sparks-firenado-southern-california/10303678002/\">north of Los Angeles\u003c/a> last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fires are “really changing, and it’s a combination of all kinds of different changes,” said Jennifer Balch, director of the Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder and a longtime fire researcher who tracks trends that drive wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re losing fog. We’re seeing drier conditions longer and later into the season. And so what that means for California right now is, under these record heat waves, we’re also now butting up against the Santa Ana wind conditions,” she said. “I think we’re loading the dice in a certain direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A fire behaviorist’s routine\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Among the many specialists at work are fire behavior analysts, who are responsible for predicting a fire’s daily movements for the incident commander. As a fire rages, Cal Fire analysts get their information in an avalanche of highly technical data, including wind force and direction, temperature and humidity, the shape and height of slopes, the area’s burn history, which fuels are on the ground and, in some cases, how likely they are to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gleaned from satellites, drones, planes, remote sensors and computer mapping, the information is spat out in real-time and triaged by the fire behavior analyst, who often uses a computer program to prepare models to predict what the fire is likely to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That information is synthesized and relayed — quickly — to fire bosses. Laptops and hand-held computers are ubiquitous on modern firelines, replacing the time-honored practice of spreading a dog-eared map on the hood of a truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On a typical day I would get up at 4:30 or 5,” said Chavez, who has served as a fire behavior analyst for much of his career. “We get an infrared fire map from overnight aircraft, and that tells us where the fire is active. Other planes fly in a grid pattern and we look at those still images.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>I might look at computer models, fire spread models, and the weather forecast. There’s other data that tells you what fuels are in the area. You plug all that in to see where the fire will be 24 hours from now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the fire camp’s 8 a.m. briefing, “You get two minutes to tell people what to watch out for,” he said. Throughout the day, Chavez says he monitors available data and hitches a helicopter ride to view the fire from the air. At another meeting at 5 p.m., he and other officers prepare the next day’s incident action plan. Then he’s back to collating more weather and fire data. The aim is to get to bed before midnight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955545\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955545 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with blond hair and glasses stands in front of a white board that's covered in handwritten graphs and figures. It appears she's inside a classroom or lab.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘We’re losing fog. We’re seeing drier conditions longer and later into the season … I think we’re loading the dice in a certain direction,’ said Jennifer Balch, director of the Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. \u003ccite>(Aaron Ontivaeroz/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The importance of the fire behavior analyst’s job is reflected by the sophistication of the tools available: real-time NOAA satellite data, weather information from military flights, radar, computer-generated maps showing a 100-year history of previous burns in the area as well as the current fuel load and its combustibility, airplane and drone surveillance and AI-enabled models of future fire movements. Aircraft flying over fires provide more detail, faster, about what’s inside fire plumes, critical information to fire bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, the National Guard is entering the fourth year of an agreement to share non-classified information pulled from military satellites that scan for heat signatures from the boost phase of ballistic missiles. When those heat images are associated with wildfires, the agency’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article/3223104/fireguard-program-enhances-national-guard-wildfire-fighting/\">FireGuard system\u003c/a> can transmit detailed information to Cal Fire every 15 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meteorologist Craig Clements, director of the Fire Weather Research Laboratory at San Jose State University, has chased fires for a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can pull up on a fire, and the radar starts spinning and you’re peering into a plume within four minutes,” Clements said. “It gives us information about the particles inside, the structure of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955546\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955546 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM.jpg\" alt=\"A screenshot of a map of California and then a pop-up screen on top of the map shows coding in various colors.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map was produced by supercomputers at a lab at University of Colorado Boulder that is using metadata to better understand large wildfires and their increasingly erratic behavior. \u003ccite>(Aaron Ontivaeroz/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fire behavior decisions are not totally reliant on outside data inputs. Seasoned fire commanders remain firmly committed to a reliable indicator: the hair on the back of their necks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fireline experience and hard-earned knowledge still count when formulating tactics. But it’s a measure of how norms have shifted that even institutional knowledge can fail.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Future of firefighting: AI crunches billions of data points\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the biggest leap is applying artificial intelligence to understand fire behavior. Neil Sahota, an AI adviser to the United Nations and a lecturer at UC Irvine, is developing systems to train a computer to review reams of data and come to a predictive conclusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea is not to replace fire behavior analysts and jettison their decades of fireline experience, Sahota said, but to augment their work — and, mostly, to move much faster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can crunch billions of different data points in near real-time, in seconds,” he said. “The challenge is, what’s the right data? We may think there are seven variables that go into a wildfire, for example. AI may come back saying there are thousands.”[aside label='More Stories on California Wildfires' tag='wildfires']In order for their information to be useful, computers have to be taught: What’s the difference between a Boy Scout campfire and a wildfire? How to distinguish between an arsonist starting a fire and a firefighter setting a backfire with a drip torch?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the dizzying speed at which devices have been employed on the modern fireline, most fire behavior computer models are still based on algorithms devised by Mark Finney, a revered figure in the field of fire science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Working from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.firelab.org/\">Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory\u003c/a> in Montana, Finney has studied fire behavior through observation and, especially, by starting all manner of fires in combustion chambers and in the field. In another lab in Missoula, scientists bake all types of wood in special ovens to determine how fuels burn at different moisture levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Finney is unimpressed by much of the sophisticated technology brought to bear on wildfires as they burn. He said it provides only an illusion of control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once you are in a position to have to fight these extreme fires, you’ve already lost,” he said. “Don’t let anybody kid you, we do not suppress these fires, we don’t control them. We wait for the weather.”[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Mark Finney, research forester, US Forest Service\"]‘Once you are in a position to have to fight these extreme fires, you’ve already lost. Don’t let anybody kid you, we do not suppress these fires, we don’t control them. We wait for the weather.’[/pullquote]The Missoula research group developed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.firelab.org/project/national-fire-danger-rating-system\">National Fire Danger Rating System\u003c/a> in 1972, which is still in place today. Among the fire behavior tools Finney designed is the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/tools/farsite\">FARSITE system\u003c/a>, a simulation of fire growth invaluable to frontline fire bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finney and colleagues are working on a next-generation version of the behavior prediction system, which is now undergoing real-world tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This equation has an awful lot of assumptions in it,” he said. “We’re getting there. Nature is a lot more complicated. There are still a number of mysteries on fire behavior. We don’t have a road map to follow that tells us that this is good enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By far the best use of the predictive tools that he and others have developed is to learn how to \u003cem>avoid \u003c/em>firestarts, he said, by thinning and clearing forests to reduce the threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would love to tell you that the key to solving these problems is more research. But if we just stopped doing research and just use what we know, we’d be a lot better off.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, research about fire behavior races on, driven by the belief that you can’t fight an enemy you don’t understand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955547\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955547 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79.jpg\" alt=\"A man with a black and white checkered, button-up shirt, stands amid mountain and trees in Colorado.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mike Koontz is a postdoc researcher at University of Colorado Boulder who leads a project focusing on better understanding of California’s megafires to provide fire bosses the best information to fight fires. \u003ccite>(Aaron Ontivaeroz/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://earthlab.colorado.edu/our-team/michael-koontz\">Mike Koontz\u003c/a> is on the front lines of that battle, tucked into a semicircle of supercomputers. Koontz leads a team of researchers in Boulder, Colo., studying a new, volatile and compelling topic: California megafires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We began to see a clear uptick in extreme fire behavior in California since the 2000s,” said Koontz, a postdoctoral researcher with the Earth Lab at University of Colorado Boulder. “We keyed in on fires that moved quickly and blew up over a short period of time.” California is a trove of extreme fires, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Koontz is using supercomputers to scrape databases, maps and satellite images and apply the data to an analytical framework of his devising. The team tracks significant fires that grow unexpectedly, and layers in weather conditions, topography, fire spread rates and other factors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What comes out is a rough sketch of the elements driving California’s fires to grow so large. The next hurdle is to get the information quickly into the hands of fire commanders, Koontz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal: if not a new bible for fighting fires, at least an updated playbook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "California's Fight Against Wildfires Turns to AI, Drones and Satellites | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11954879/how-californias-firefighter-union-could-get-guaranteed-raises-forever\">Cal Fire\u003c/a> Battalion Chief Jon Heggie wasn’t expecting much to worry about when a late summer fire erupted north of Santa Cruz, home to California’s moist and cool “asbestos forests.” This place doesn’t burn, he thought, with just three notable fires there in 70 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heggie’s job was to predict for the crews where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/wildfires\">wildfire\u003c/a> might go and when, working through calculations based on topography, weather and fuels — the “immutable” basics. For fire behavior analysts like Heggie, predictable and familiar are manageable, while weird and unexpected are synonyms for danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that 2020 fire was anything but predictable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 3 a.m. on Aug. 16, ominous thunder cells formed over the region. Tens of thousands of lightning strikes rained down, creating a convulsion of fire that became the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/8/16/czu-lightning-complex-including-warnella-fire/\">CZU Lightning Complex\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By noon there were nearly two dozen fires burning, and not nearly enough people to handle them. Flames were roaring throughout the Coast Range in deep-shaded forests and waist-high ferns in sight of the Pacific Ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No one had ever seen anything like it.\u003cem> \u003c/em>The blaze defied predictions and ran unchecked for a month. The fire spread to San Mateo County, burned through 86,000 acres, destroyed almost 1,500 structures and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/czu-lighting-complex-fire-victim-died-trying-to-flee-flames-6-rescued-while-trying-to-return-to-evacuated-homes/\">killed a fleeing resident\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was astonishing to see that behavior and consumption of heavy fuels,” Heggie said. “Seeing the devastation was mind-boggling. Things were burning outside the norm. I hadn’t seen anything burn that intensely in my 30 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost as troubling was what this fire \u003cem>didn’t\u003c/em> do — it didn’t back off at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would have burning periods increase in the afternoon, and we saw continuous high-intensity burns in the night,” Heggie said. “That’s when we are supposed to make up ground. That didn’t happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Seeing the devastation was mind-boggling. Things were burning outside the norm. I hadn’t seen anything burn that intensely in my 30 years.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That 2020 summer of fires, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/07/california-fires-2020/\">the worst in California history\u003c/a>, recalibrated what veteran firefighters understand about fire behavior: Nothing \u003cem>is\u003c/em> as it \u003cem>was.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Intensified by climate change, especially warmer nights and longer droughts, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-wildfires-explained/\">California’s fires often morph into megafires\u003c/a>, and even gigafires covering more than a million acres. U.S. wildfires have been \u003ca href=\"https://cires.colorado.edu/news/us-fires-four-times-larger-three-times-more-frequent-2000\">four times larger and three times more frequent\u003c/a> since 2000, according to University of Colorado researchers. And other scientists recently predicted that \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2213815120\">up to 52% more California forest acreage\u003c/a> will burn in summertime over the next two decades because of the changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California now heads into its peak time for wildfires, even with last year’s \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/california-wildfires/2022/12/california-wildfires-2022/\">quiet season\u003c/a> and the end of its three-year drought, the specter of megafires hasn’t receded. Last winter’s record winter rains, rather than tamping down fire threats, have promoted lush growth, which provides more fuel for summer fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire officials warn that this year’s conditions are similar to the summer and fall of 2017 — when a rainy winter was followed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017\">one of the state’s most destructive fire seasons\u003c/a>, killing 47 people and destroying almost 11,000 structures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955548\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955548 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01.jpg\" alt=\"Pictured in a dark room with two, large LCD screens illuminated with maps displayed on them. Two people are observing the screens with one man pointing up toward the screen on the left.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/111822-USFS-Drone-Program-CM-01-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">US Forest Service teams deploy drones to capture photographs and infrared images, which are used to map fires to find areas where flames are still active and where they might spread. \u003ccite>(Andrew Avitt/US Forest Service)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s not just the size and power of modern wildfires, but their capricious behavior that has confounded fire veterans — the feints and shifts that bedevil efforts to predict what a fire might do and then devise strategies to stop it. It’s a dangerous calculation: In the literal heat of a fire, choices are consequential. People’s lives and livelihoods are at stake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire crews now often find themselves outflanked. Responding to larger and more erratic and intense fires requires more personnel and equipment. And staging crews and engines where flames are expected to go have been thrown off-kilter.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We live in this new reality. … We’re enlisting cutting-edge technology in our efforts to fight wildfires, exploring how innovations like artificial intelligence can help us identify threats quicker and deploy resources smarter.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We live in this new reality,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a recent Cal Fire event, “where we can’t necessarily attach ourselves to some of the more predictive models of the past because of a world that is getting a lot hotter, a lot drier and a lot more uncertain because of climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalFire has responded by tapping into all the new technology — such as drones, military satellites, infrared images and AI-assisted maps — that can be brought to bear during a fire. Commanders now must consider a broader range of possibilities so they can pivot when the firefront shifts in an unexpected way. The agency also has beefed up its ability to fight nighttime fires with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/fire-protection/aviation-program\">new fleet of Fire Hawk helicopters\u003c/a> equipped to fly in darkness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has thrown every possible data point at the problem with its year-old \u003ca href=\"https://fireforecast.caloes.ca.gov/\">Wildfire Threat and Intelligence Integration Center\u003c/a>, which pulls information from dozens of federal, state and private sources to create a minute-by-minute picture of conditions conducive to sparking or spreading fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re enlisting cutting-edge technology in our efforts to fight wildfires,” Newsom said, “exploring how innovations like artificial intelligence can help us identify threats quicker and deploy resources smarter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An unforeseen assault on a coastal town\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/12/4/thomas-fire/\">2017 Thomas Fire\u003c/a> stands as an example of what happens when a massive fire, ignited after a rainy winter, veers and shifts in unexpected ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The blaze in coastal Ventura and Santa Barbara counties struck in December when fire season normally quieted down. Fire veterans knew fall and winter fires were tamed by a blanket of moist air and fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that didn’t happen.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I looked at the maps and we both came to the conclusion that Carpinteria would be fine, don’t worry. Sure enough, that night it burned into Carpinteria and they had to evacuate the town.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We were on day five or six, and the incident commander comes to me and asks, ‘Are we going to have to evacuate Carpinteria tonight?’,” said Cal Fire Assistant Chief Tim Chavez, who was the fire behavior analyst for the Thomas Fire.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>“I looked at the maps and we both came to the conclusion that Carpinteria would be fine, don’t worry. Sure enough, that night it burned into Carpinteria and they had to evacuate the town.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on fire and weather data and informed hunches, no one expected the fire to continue advancing overnight. And, as the winds calmed, no one predicted the blaze would move toward the small seaside community of 13,000 south of Santa Barbara. But high temperatures, low humidity and a steep, dry landscape that hadn’t felt flames in more than 30 years drew the Thomas Fire to the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sudden shift put the town in peril. Some 300 residents were evacuated in the middle of the night as the blaze moved into the eastern edge of Carpinteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all, the fire, which was sparked by power lines downed by high winds, \u003ca href=\"https://vcfd.org/news/vcfd-determines-cause-of-the-thomas-fire/\">burned for nearly 40 days\u003c/a>, spread across 281,000 acres, destroyed more than 1,000 homes and other buildings and killed two people, including a firefighter. At the time, it was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/23/us/thomas-fire-california/index.html\">largest wildfire\u003c/a> in California’s modern history; now, just six years later, it ranks at number eight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955543\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955543 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM.jpg\" alt=\"A wildfire rushes toward a mansion in Southern California with two palm trees seen in the home's backyard. The sky is black and the fire glows an ominous, bright orange and red.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/040723-THOMAS-FIRE-AP-JCH-CM-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Thomas Fire threatened homes near the 101 freeway in Ventura on Dec. 5, 2017. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The unforeseen assault on Carpenteria was an I-told-you-so from nature, the sort of humbling slap-down that fire behavior analysts in California are experiencing more and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve learned more from being wrong than from being right,” Chavez said. “You cannot do this job and not be surprised by something you see. Even the small fires will surprise you sometimes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Warmer nights, drought and lack of fog alter fire behavior\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scientists say the past 20 years have brought a profound — and perhaps irreversible — \u003ca href=\"https://santamariatimes.com/photos-welcome-to-the-age-of-fire-california-wildfires-explained/collection_539ecbd3-827e-5387-aa14-518705d05980.html#1\">shift in the norms of wildfire behavior\u003c/a> and intensity. Fires burn along the coast even when there are no desert winds to drive them, fires refuse to lay down at night and fires pierced the so-called Redwood Curtain, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/04/big-basin-park-heals-wildfires/\">burning 97% of California’s oldest state park\u003c/a>, Big Basin Redwoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes in wildfires are driven by an array of factors: a megadrought from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01290-z\">driest period recorded\u003c/a> in the Western U.S.\u003cem> \u003c/em>in the past 1,200 years, the loss of fog along the California coast, and stubborn nighttime temperatures that propel flames well into the night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"California's nighttime fire conditions have worsened\" aria-label=\"Map\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-jyRUo\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jyRUo/5/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"662\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Higher temperatures and longer dry periods are linked to worsening fires in Western forests, with an eightfold increase from 1985 to 2017 in severely burned acreage, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL089858\">2020 study\u003c/a>. “Warmer and drier fire seasons corresponded with higher severity fire,” the researchers wrote, suggesting that “climate change will contribute to increased fire severity in future decades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we are seeing is a dramatic increase in extreme fire behavior,” Heggie said. “When you have a drought lasting 10 years, devastating the landscape, you have dead fuel loading and available fuel for when these fires start. That’s the catalyst for megafire. That’s been the driving force for change in fire behavior.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-11955555\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/Fire-Tornado_6.9.22-SIZED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"1000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/Fire-Tornado_6.9.22-SIZED.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/Fire-Tornado_6.9.22-SIZED-160x320.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/Fire-Tornado_6.9.22-SIZED-768x1536.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 33% of coastal summer fog has vanished since the turn of the century, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0915062107\">researchers at UC Berkeley\u003c/a>. That blanket of cool, moist air that kept major fires out of coastal areas can no longer be relied upon to safeguard California’s redwood forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firefighters are losing another ally, too, with the significant increase in overnight temperatures. \u003ca href=\"https://cires.colorado.edu/news/hotter-drier-nights-mean-more-runaway-fires\">Nighttime fires\u003c/a> were about 28% more intense in 2020 than in 2003. And there are more of them — 11 more “flammable nights” every year than 40 years ago, an increase of more than 40%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The upshot is that fires are increasingly less likely to “lie down” at night when fire crews could work to get ahead of the flames. The loss of those hours to perform critical suppression work — and the additional nighttime spread — gives California crews less time to catch up with fast-moving blazes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, fire whirls and so-called \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2022/aug/11/firenado-sparked-by-hot-winds-and-wildfires-burns-in-california-video\">firenados\u003c/a> are more common as a feature of erratic fire behavior. The twisting vortex of flames, heat and wind can rise in columns hundreds of feet high and are spun by high winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firenados are more than frightening to behold: They spread embers and strew debris for miles and make already dangerous fires all the more risky. One was spotted \u003ca href=\"https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/08/11/brush-fire-sparks-firenado-southern-california/10303678002/\">north of Los Angeles\u003c/a> last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fires are “really changing, and it’s a combination of all kinds of different changes,” said Jennifer Balch, director of the Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder and a longtime fire researcher who tracks trends that drive wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re losing fog. We’re seeing drier conditions longer and later into the season. And so what that means for California right now is, under these record heat waves, we’re also now butting up against the Santa Ana wind conditions,” she said. “I think we’re loading the dice in a certain direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A fire behaviorist’s routine\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Among the many specialists at work are fire behavior analysts, who are responsible for predicting a fire’s daily movements for the incident commander. As a fire rages, Cal Fire analysts get their information in an avalanche of highly technical data, including wind force and direction, temperature and humidity, the shape and height of slopes, the area’s burn history, which fuels are on the ground and, in some cases, how likely they are to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gleaned from satellites, drones, planes, remote sensors and computer mapping, the information is spat out in real-time and triaged by the fire behavior analyst, who often uses a computer program to prepare models to predict what the fire is likely to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That information is synthesized and relayed — quickly — to fire bosses. Laptops and hand-held computers are ubiquitous on modern firelines, replacing the time-honored practice of spreading a dog-eared map on the hood of a truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On a typical day I would get up at 4:30 or 5,” said Chavez, who has served as a fire behavior analyst for much of his career. “We get an infrared fire map from overnight aircraft, and that tells us where the fire is active. Other planes fly in a grid pattern and we look at those still images.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>I might look at computer models, fire spread models, and the weather forecast. There’s other data that tells you what fuels are in the area. You plug all that in to see where the fire will be 24 hours from now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the fire camp’s 8 a.m. briefing, “You get two minutes to tell people what to watch out for,” he said. Throughout the day, Chavez says he monitors available data and hitches a helicopter ride to view the fire from the air. At another meeting at 5 p.m., he and other officers prepare the next day’s incident action plan. Then he’s back to collating more weather and fire data. The aim is to get to bed before midnight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955545\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955545 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with blond hair and glasses stands in front of a white board that's covered in handwritten graphs and figures. It appears she's inside a classroom or lab.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-03-CM-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘We’re losing fog. We’re seeing drier conditions longer and later into the season … I think we’re loading the dice in a certain direction,’ said Jennifer Balch, director of the Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. \u003ccite>(Aaron Ontivaeroz/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The importance of the fire behavior analyst’s job is reflected by the sophistication of the tools available: real-time NOAA satellite data, weather information from military flights, radar, computer-generated maps showing a 100-year history of previous burns in the area as well as the current fuel load and its combustibility, airplane and drone surveillance and AI-enabled models of future fire movements. Aircraft flying over fires provide more detail, faster, about what’s inside fire plumes, critical information to fire bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, the National Guard is entering the fourth year of an agreement to share non-classified information pulled from military satellites that scan for heat signatures from the boost phase of ballistic missiles. When those heat images are associated with wildfires, the agency’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article/3223104/fireguard-program-enhances-national-guard-wildfire-fighting/\">FireGuard system\u003c/a> can transmit detailed information to Cal Fire every 15 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meteorologist Craig Clements, director of the Fire Weather Research Laboratory at San Jose State University, has chased fires for a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can pull up on a fire, and the radar starts spinning and you’re peering into a plume within four minutes,” Clements said. “It gives us information about the particles inside, the structure of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955546\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955546 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM.jpg\" alt=\"A screenshot of a map of California and then a pop-up screen on top of the map shows coding in various colors.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-04-CM-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map was produced by supercomputers at a lab at University of Colorado Boulder that is using metadata to better understand large wildfires and their increasingly erratic behavior. \u003ccite>(Aaron Ontivaeroz/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fire behavior decisions are not totally reliant on outside data inputs. Seasoned fire commanders remain firmly committed to a reliable indicator: the hair on the back of their necks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fireline experience and hard-earned knowledge still count when formulating tactics. But it’s a measure of how norms have shifted that even institutional knowledge can fail.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Future of firefighting: AI crunches billions of data points\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the biggest leap is applying artificial intelligence to understand fire behavior. Neil Sahota, an AI adviser to the United Nations and a lecturer at UC Irvine, is developing systems to train a computer to review reams of data and come to a predictive conclusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea is not to replace fire behavior analysts and jettison their decades of fireline experience, Sahota said, but to augment their work — and, mostly, to move much faster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can crunch billions of different data points in near real-time, in seconds,” he said. “The challenge is, what’s the right data? We may think there are seven variables that go into a wildfire, for example. AI may come back saying there are thousands.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In order for their information to be useful, computers have to be taught: What’s the difference between a Boy Scout campfire and a wildfire? How to distinguish between an arsonist starting a fire and a firefighter setting a backfire with a drip torch?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the dizzying speed at which devices have been employed on the modern fireline, most fire behavior computer models are still based on algorithms devised by Mark Finney, a revered figure in the field of fire science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Working from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.firelab.org/\">Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory\u003c/a> in Montana, Finney has studied fire behavior through observation and, especially, by starting all manner of fires in combustion chambers and in the field. In another lab in Missoula, scientists bake all types of wood in special ovens to determine how fuels burn at different moisture levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Finney is unimpressed by much of the sophisticated technology brought to bear on wildfires as they burn. He said it provides only an illusion of control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once you are in a position to have to fight these extreme fires, you’ve already lost,” he said. “Don’t let anybody kid you, we do not suppress these fires, we don’t control them. We wait for the weather.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Once you are in a position to have to fight these extreme fires, you’ve already lost. Don’t let anybody kid you, we do not suppress these fires, we don’t control them. We wait for the weather.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Missoula research group developed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.firelab.org/project/national-fire-danger-rating-system\">National Fire Danger Rating System\u003c/a> in 1972, which is still in place today. Among the fire behavior tools Finney designed is the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/tools/farsite\">FARSITE system\u003c/a>, a simulation of fire growth invaluable to frontline fire bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finney and colleagues are working on a next-generation version of the behavior prediction system, which is now undergoing real-world tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This equation has an awful lot of assumptions in it,” he said. “We’re getting there. Nature is a lot more complicated. There are still a number of mysteries on fire behavior. We don’t have a road map to follow that tells us that this is good enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By far the best use of the predictive tools that he and others have developed is to learn how to \u003cem>avoid \u003c/em>firestarts, he said, by thinning and clearing forests to reduce the threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would love to tell you that the key to solving these problems is more research. But if we just stopped doing research and just use what we know, we’d be a lot better off.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, research about fire behavior races on, driven by the belief that you can’t fight an enemy you don’t understand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955547\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11955547 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79.jpg\" alt=\"A man with a black and white checkered, button-up shirt, stands amid mountain and trees in Colorado.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/090822-COLORADO-WILDFIRE-BEHAVIOR-AO-CM-79-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mike Koontz is a postdoc researcher at University of Colorado Boulder who leads a project focusing on better understanding of California’s megafires to provide fire bosses the best information to fight fires. \u003ccite>(Aaron Ontivaeroz/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://earthlab.colorado.edu/our-team/michael-koontz\">Mike Koontz\u003c/a> is on the front lines of that battle, tucked into a semicircle of supercomputers. Koontz leads a team of researchers in Boulder, Colo., studying a new, volatile and compelling topic: California megafires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We began to see a clear uptick in extreme fire behavior in California since the 2000s,” said Koontz, a postdoctoral researcher with the Earth Lab at University of Colorado Boulder. “We keyed in on fires that moved quickly and blew up over a short period of time.” California is a trove of extreme fires, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Koontz is using supercomputers to scrape databases, maps and satellite images and apply the data to an analytical framework of his devising. The team tracks significant fires that grow unexpectedly, and layers in weather conditions, topography, fire spread rates and other factors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What comes out is a rough sketch of the elements driving California’s fires to grow so large. The next hurdle is to get the information quickly into the hands of fire commanders, Koontz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal: if not a new bible for fighting fires, at least an updated playbook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "In California, Immigrant Status Bars Many Undocumented Workers From Benefits",
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"content": "\u003cp>Driving a tractor for his job in the Oxnard lettuce fields doesn’t make Arturo Villanueva rich, but it’s usually been enough to make rent and support his family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farm labor is the only thing the 37-year-old father of five says he knows how to do well. When months of rain flooded the fields and made most of his usual work in February and March impossible, he struggled to earn enough to cover rent and allow his family “to live well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His family cut back on the amount and type of food they purchased. They rarely left the house, to save money on gas. They tried to buy only what they absolutely needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Months later, Villanueva still isn’t working his usual hours because rainy weather delayed planting some crops by at least two months. California set aside \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/cdss-programs/immigration-services/immigrant-storm-services\">$95 million\u003c/a> in \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/cdss-programs/immigration-services/immigrant-storm-services\">state funds\u003c/a> to help people like him \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/05/california-flooding-fund/\">who lost work\u003c/a> or experienced hardships due to storms and floods, but Villanueva told CalMatters in June he didn’t know how to access it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So many of us who work in the fields are undocumented,” he said in Spanish. “We who are the most affected receive the least. I would like there to be support for the undocumented workers — and not just those working in the fields.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Villanueva can’t receive unemployment insurance because he’s undocumented — one of about \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/immigrants-in-california/\">2.3 million Californians\u003c/a> whose immigration status bars them from receiving a variety of social safety net benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His predicament illustrates the gaps that remain in California’s safety net for undocumented immigrants despite a two-decade-long expansion of social and health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Arturo Villanueva, Oxnard farmworker\"]‘So many of us who work in the fields are undocumented. We who are the most affected receive the least. I would like there to be support for the undocumented workers.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a major reversal since the 1990s, California has opened up government programs to undocumented residents more than any other state — issuing driver’s licenses, college scholarships, low-income tax credits, direct cash aid during the pandemic and now Medi-Cal health coverage. In 2025 California will be the first state to issue food stamps to undocumented immigrants, allowing those 55 and older to qualify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But budget realities are putting the brakes on other expansions that advocates want like a $330 million proposal to offer unemployment benefits to undocumented workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas Zucker, co-executive director of the \u003ca href=\"https://causenow.org/\">Central Coast nonprofit CAUSE\u003c/a>, which advocates for working class and immigrant workers\u003cstrong>,\u003c/strong> said it can be a difficult hurdle to extend benefits because some Americans view immigrants primarily as a source of labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Providing someone a social safety net when they’re not able to work is almost counterintuitive to this racist and kind of exploitative way that we’ve been viewing immigrants in this country,” Zucker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955364\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955364\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a blue T-shirt walks through rows of lettuce crops in a field in Oxnard, California. The sky is gray above and farm equipment is seen in the background.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arturo Villanueva, 37, a tractor driver, walks through a lettuce field in Oxnard on July 2, 2023. \u003ccite>(Julie Leopo-Bermudez/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California has worked around limits in federal law that bar many immigrants — those with and without legal status — from social programs. That has meant building its own, state-funded programs during years of flush budget surpluses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this year, lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom had to plug a $31.5 billion deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has backed several program expansions including public health coverage for immigrants, which will total $2.6 billion annually. But he has said he wants to avoid cutting services in deficit years, so he \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/12/california-budget-deficit-safety-net/\">won’t commit\u003c/a> to further expanding programs unless the state has funds to sustain them long-term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposal for an unemployment program for workers like Villanueva failed to gain funding in the state budget for the second year in a row. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB227\">A bill\u003c/a> to create the program at a cost of $330 million a year — not counting implementation costs — has passed the Senate and awaits a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Newsom vetoed a similar measure last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Governor will weigh the merits of any bill that eventually reaches his desk,” Daniel Lopez, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in an email. “The state will continue to be a leader and uphold the dignity and respect of everyone who calls California home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics argue further expanding services to undocumented immigrants is financially unsustainable for the state.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Riverside Republican, opposes the unemployment proposal, saying the state should instead spend its funds paying off the existing unemployment system’s $20 billion loan from the federal government, to avoid raising payroll taxes on businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to prioritize,” he said. “If you really care about getting people out of poverty, you’d help ease the burden on businesses so they can hire people and pay them living wages.”[aside postID=news_11946661 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/04/SB_277_SafetyNet-1020x680.jpg']Still, to advocates, some proposals are popular enough with the Democratic supermajority to seem inevitable. Nourish California, a food policy advocacy group, is pushing the state to open its food stamps program to all low-income undocumented immigrants, regardless of age, said Betzabel Estudillo, director of engagement at Nourish California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Legislature has been very supportive and so has the governor,” she said. “The question is about when.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s 1.1 million undocumented workers \u003ca href=\"https://clc.ucmerced.edu/sites/clc.ucmerced.edu/files/page/documents/essential_fairness.pdf\">make up 6%\u003c/a> of its labor force, according to UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $3.7 billion in state and local taxes, \u003ca href=\"https://immigrantdataca.org/about\">according to\u003c/a> USC’s California Immigrant Data Portal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, like the rest of the population, immigrant workers are aging, so they’ll increasingly need retirement support and health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a report this year UC Merced estimated 165,000 of \u003ca href=\"https://clc.ucmerced.edu/sites/clc.ucmerced.edu/files/page/documents/a_golden_age.pdf\">California’s undocumented workers\u003c/a> were older than 55 in 2019, the highest “since Mexican mass migration began in the 1970s.” Undocumented immigrants also make up \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876285921003752#:~:text=Children%20in%20immigrant%20families%20are%20becoming%20a%20larger%20share%20of,of%20all%20children%20in%20poverty.&text=The%20vast%20majority%20of%20children,91%25)%20are%20US%20citizens.\">the largest share\u003c/a> of Californians without health insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leisy Abrego, chair of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA, said California has shown it can do more to help immigrants\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>in the absence of federal immigration policy reform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an economic need for immigrant labor, and California, they realize that that need is being met,” Abrego said. “And advocates are wanting to treat those people meeting those needs as human beings who also need health care, who also need educational opportunities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California’s road to inclusion\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before she qualified for full Medi-Cal coverage in 2022, Oliva Huerta had learned to live with little or sporadic medical care for a host of illnesses, including anxiety and pain linked to diabetes, high blood pressure and a cancer battle in the 1990s. Medi-Cal was paying for emergency care only.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 61, she’s unable to do much besides care for her four grandkids while their parents work in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when staff at \u003ca href=\"https://locator.lacounty.gov/dcfs/Location/3173568/maternal-and-child-health-access\">Maternal and Child Health Access\u003c/a>, a health nonprofit in Los Angeles, helped Huerta switch her emergency coverage to full coverage, she noticed an immediate difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was able to select a primary care doctor at the clinic where she usually went for specialist care. She could see a doctor for non-emergency care much quicker. Recently she scheduled a mammogram and consulted with a urologist in a virtual appointment.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can be hard for undocumented people,” Huerta said in Spanish. “I imagine a lot of other people are benefitting like we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Medi-Cal began covering undocumented children in 2018 and adults up to age 26 in 2020. Last May, older undocumented immigrants like Huerta became eligible. She is \u003ca href=\"https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/eligible-older-adult-expansion-individuals-enrolled-in-medi-cal/resource/7271b885-7340-49e2-ba56-5435b698a972\">one of nearly 350,000\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>who have signed up for full, state-funded coverage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955365\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with a relaxed expression poses with her hands clasped in front of her beside some large plants.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oliva Huerta, outside the Maternal and Child Health Access office in Los Angeles on July 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Julie A Hotz/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Next January coverage will open to low-income immigrants of all ages; an estimated 700,000 will be eligible. The full-fledged expansion will cost $2.6 billion a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It marks a significant turnaround from the policy debates of 1994 when California voters passed a measure barring immigrants without legal status from public services such as non-emergency health care, elementary and secondary schools and public colleges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure drew mass protests, but passed with 59% of the vote. A federal judge ultimately blocked it from taking effect on constitutional grounds. But activists saw xenophobic sentiments that galvanized them to rally around immigrants’ rights. Abrego said many Latino advocates and politicians today \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2019/11/looking-back-on-proposition-187-the-initiative-that-transformed-california-politics/\">remain fueled\u003c/a> by opposition to the policies of the 1990s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2001, California became one of the first states to make undocumented students eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges, if they’d graduated from high school in-state. Ten years later, it allowed undocumented students to get state financial aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, California allowed undocumented residents to get driver’s licenses. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/01/drivers-licenses-undocumented-immigrants/\">More than 1 million\u003c/a> have received them since 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, the state \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/09/18/governor-newsom-signs-bill-putting-money-back-into-the-pockets-of-more-california-workers-and-their-families/#:~:text=SACRAMENTO%20%E2%80%93%20Governor%20Gavin%20Newsom%20today,Child%20Tax%20Credit%20(YCTC).\">allowed\u003c/a> undocumented tax filers to receive the state’s earned income tax credit, returning thousands of dollars to low-income families each year. That year Californians \u003ca href=\"https://www.ftb.ca.gov/about-ftb/data-reports-plans/California-Earned-Income-Tax-Credit-and-Young-Child-Tax-credit-Report.pdf\">claimed $120 million more\u003c/a> in tax credits than the year before, according to the Franchise Tax Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Policymakers continue to make new proposals for immigrants living without legal status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bill \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1536\">introduced this year\u003c/a> would give undocumented residents access to the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, a state-funded\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>benefit created for elderly and disabled residents who don’t qualify for Social Security because federal law bars most noncitizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB4\">Another bill\u003c/a> aims to let undocumented residents who earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal get subsidized health insurance in the Covered California marketplace\u003cstrong>. \u003c/strong>That move would require federal approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Immigrant poverty\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Poverty plunged in California from 16.4% in 2019 to nearly 12% in 2021, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/11/child-tax-credit/\">thanks to such pandemic aid programs\u003c/a> as expanded child tax credits and food and cash assistance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/poverty-in-california/\">according to\u003c/a> the Public Policy Institute of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But undocumented immigrants were much harder hit. While 16% of immigrant Californians lived in poverty in 2021, 25% of undocumented immigrants did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876285921003752#:~:text=Children%20in%20immigrant%20families%20are%20becoming%20a%20larger%20share%20of,of%20all%20children%20in%20poverty.&text=The%20vast%20majority%20of%20children,91%25)%20are%20US%20citizens.\">disparities extend\u003c/a> to immigrants’ children — many of whom are U.S.-born. Thirteen percent of children in immigrant families live in poverty in California, which is double the rate for children of parents who are U.S. citizens, according to Patricia Malagon, a Public Policy Institute researcher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A March analysis by the Public Policy Institute predicts that fully expanding Medi-Cal next year could \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/the-impact-of-health-insurance-on-poverty-in-california/\">lower poverty\u003c/a> among non-citizen Californians by up to 3%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The programs that reduce poverty the most are tax credits and CalFresh — the state’s food stamps program, said Paulette Cha, a Public Policy Institute researcher.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Lucas Zucker, co-executive director, CAUSE\"]‘Providing someone a social safety net when they’re not able to work is almost counterintuitive to this racist and kind of exploitative way that we’ve been viewing immigrants.’[/pullquote]California already uses its own funds to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/06/california-food-assistance/\">pay for food assistance\u003c/a> for about 35,000 legally present immigrants — primarily recent green card holders — who are barred from the traditional food stamps program by federal law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Undocumented immigrants who are 55 and older \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/06/california-food-assistance/\">will qualify\u003c/a> in October 2025; administration officials said they \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/05/california-budget-deficit-newsom/\">need time\u003c/a> to make computer system upgrades before enrolling new recipients. At its peak, the state estimates 75,000 older immigrants will get food assistance at a cost of $113 million annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Unemployment benefits battle\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Advocates want California officials to commit to food stamps for undocumented immigrants of all ages. And they’re disappointed at the lack of action on unemployment benefits. Colorado and New York have started programs to pay jobless benefits to undocumented workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers passed a bill last year to start a pilot program that would pay unemployment benefits to workers who are ineligible because of immigration status, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/AB-2847-VETO.pdf?emrc=87cd0d\">Newsom vetoed\u003c/a> it, citing costs amid signs of a deficit. This spring hundreds of activists and workers marched on the Capitol to demand the benefits, pointing to those who lost work in both the pandemic and this year’s floods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bill this year would give undocumented workers who lose work $300 in weekly benefits for up to 20 weeks, the maximum time allowed in the traditional unemployment program. Aside from the cost of benefits, the Economic Development Department estimates it would need at least $271 million to implement the program.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Assemblymember Bill Essayli (R-Bakersfield)\"]‘We have to prioritize. If you really care about getting people out of poverty, you’d help ease the burden on businesses so they can hire people and pay them living wages.’[/pullquote]In May, after Newsom presented a bigger deficit than previously predicted, advocates pared down their proposal to instead seek a working group to study the issue. Still, that failed to make it into the budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates with the Safety Net For All Coalition said they hoped lawmakers could still reach a deal to fund the working group during this\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves relief still unavailable for California farmworkers — over half of whom are undocumented — still recovering from the winter floods, and the pandemic before them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jorge Ruiz, a Santa Maria area farmworker, is one of them. Usually, he works year-round, rotating between labor-intensive crops like lettuce, broccoli, grapes and other vegetables. Beginning in December, months of heavy rain cost him $3,000 to $4,000 in lost wages, he said. Plus his family is still recovering from the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Simply put, the government has tossed us aside,” Ruiz said in Spanish. “Even though we use all of our strength to get those products to the store, the government leaves us behind and doesn’t help us. So we are left without money.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "As California gives immigrants access to more public programs, its poverty rate declines, some say. But budget and recession worries slow that progress.",
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"title": "In California, Immigrant Status Bars Many Undocumented Workers From Benefits | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Driving a tractor for his job in the Oxnard lettuce fields doesn’t make Arturo Villanueva rich, but it’s usually been enough to make rent and support his family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farm labor is the only thing the 37-year-old father of five says he knows how to do well. When months of rain flooded the fields and made most of his usual work in February and March impossible, he struggled to earn enough to cover rent and allow his family “to live well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His family cut back on the amount and type of food they purchased. They rarely left the house, to save money on gas. They tried to buy only what they absolutely needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Months later, Villanueva still isn’t working his usual hours because rainy weather delayed planting some crops by at least two months. California set aside \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/cdss-programs/immigration-services/immigrant-storm-services\">$95 million\u003c/a> in \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/cdss-programs/immigration-services/immigrant-storm-services\">state funds\u003c/a> to help people like him \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/05/california-flooding-fund/\">who lost work\u003c/a> or experienced hardships due to storms and floods, but Villanueva told CalMatters in June he didn’t know how to access it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So many of us who work in the fields are undocumented,” he said in Spanish. “We who are the most affected receive the least. I would like there to be support for the undocumented workers — and not just those working in the fields.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Villanueva can’t receive unemployment insurance because he’s undocumented — one of about \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/immigrants-in-california/\">2.3 million Californians\u003c/a> whose immigration status bars them from receiving a variety of social safety net benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His predicament illustrates the gaps that remain in California’s safety net for undocumented immigrants despite a two-decade-long expansion of social and health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘So many of us who work in the fields are undocumented. We who are the most affected receive the least. I would like there to be support for the undocumented workers.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a major reversal since the 1990s, California has opened up government programs to undocumented residents more than any other state — issuing driver’s licenses, college scholarships, low-income tax credits, direct cash aid during the pandemic and now Medi-Cal health coverage. In 2025 California will be the first state to issue food stamps to undocumented immigrants, allowing those 55 and older to qualify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But budget realities are putting the brakes on other expansions that advocates want like a $330 million proposal to offer unemployment benefits to undocumented workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas Zucker, co-executive director of the \u003ca href=\"https://causenow.org/\">Central Coast nonprofit CAUSE\u003c/a>, which advocates for working class and immigrant workers\u003cstrong>,\u003c/strong> said it can be a difficult hurdle to extend benefits because some Americans view immigrants primarily as a source of labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Providing someone a social safety net when they’re not able to work is almost counterintuitive to this racist and kind of exploitative way that we’ve been viewing immigrants in this country,” Zucker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955364\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955364\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a blue T-shirt walks through rows of lettuce crops in a field in Oxnard, California. The sky is gray above and farm equipment is seen in the background.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers02-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arturo Villanueva, 37, a tractor driver, walks through a lettuce field in Oxnard on July 2, 2023. \u003ccite>(Julie Leopo-Bermudez/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California has worked around limits in federal law that bar many immigrants — those with and without legal status — from social programs. That has meant building its own, state-funded programs during years of flush budget surpluses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this year, lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom had to plug a $31.5 billion deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has backed several program expansions including public health coverage for immigrants, which will total $2.6 billion annually. But he has said he wants to avoid cutting services in deficit years, so he \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/12/california-budget-deficit-safety-net/\">won’t commit\u003c/a> to further expanding programs unless the state has funds to sustain them long-term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposal for an unemployment program for workers like Villanueva failed to gain funding in the state budget for the second year in a row. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB227\">A bill\u003c/a> to create the program at a cost of $330 million a year — not counting implementation costs — has passed the Senate and awaits a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Newsom vetoed a similar measure last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Governor will weigh the merits of any bill that eventually reaches his desk,” Daniel Lopez, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in an email. “The state will continue to be a leader and uphold the dignity and respect of everyone who calls California home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics argue further expanding services to undocumented immigrants is financially unsustainable for the state.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Riverside Republican, opposes the unemployment proposal, saying the state should instead spend its funds paying off the existing unemployment system’s $20 billion loan from the federal government, to avoid raising payroll taxes on businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to prioritize,” he said. “If you really care about getting people out of poverty, you’d help ease the burden on businesses so they can hire people and pay them living wages.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Still, to advocates, some proposals are popular enough with the Democratic supermajority to seem inevitable. Nourish California, a food policy advocacy group, is pushing the state to open its food stamps program to all low-income undocumented immigrants, regardless of age, said Betzabel Estudillo, director of engagement at Nourish California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Legislature has been very supportive and so has the governor,” she said. “The question is about when.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s 1.1 million undocumented workers \u003ca href=\"https://clc.ucmerced.edu/sites/clc.ucmerced.edu/files/page/documents/essential_fairness.pdf\">make up 6%\u003c/a> of its labor force, according to UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $3.7 billion in state and local taxes, \u003ca href=\"https://immigrantdataca.org/about\">according to\u003c/a> USC’s California Immigrant Data Portal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, like the rest of the population, immigrant workers are aging, so they’ll increasingly need retirement support and health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a report this year UC Merced estimated 165,000 of \u003ca href=\"https://clc.ucmerced.edu/sites/clc.ucmerced.edu/files/page/documents/a_golden_age.pdf\">California’s undocumented workers\u003c/a> were older than 55 in 2019, the highest “since Mexican mass migration began in the 1970s.” Undocumented immigrants also make up \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876285921003752#:~:text=Children%20in%20immigrant%20families%20are%20becoming%20a%20larger%20share%20of,of%20all%20children%20in%20poverty.&text=The%20vast%20majority%20of%20children,91%25)%20are%20US%20citizens.\">the largest share\u003c/a> of Californians without health insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leisy Abrego, chair of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA, said California has shown it can do more to help immigrants\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>in the absence of federal immigration policy reform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an economic need for immigrant labor, and California, they realize that that need is being met,” Abrego said. “And advocates are wanting to treat those people meeting those needs as human beings who also need health care, who also need educational opportunities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California’s road to inclusion\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before she qualified for full Medi-Cal coverage in 2022, Oliva Huerta had learned to live with little or sporadic medical care for a host of illnesses, including anxiety and pain linked to diabetes, high blood pressure and a cancer battle in the 1990s. Medi-Cal was paying for emergency care only.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 61, she’s unable to do much besides care for her four grandkids while their parents work in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when staff at \u003ca href=\"https://locator.lacounty.gov/dcfs/Location/3173568/maternal-and-child-health-access\">Maternal and Child Health Access\u003c/a>, a health nonprofit in Los Angeles, helped Huerta switch her emergency coverage to full coverage, she noticed an immediate difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was able to select a primary care doctor at the clinic where she usually went for specialist care. She could see a doctor for non-emergency care much quicker. Recently she scheduled a mammogram and consulted with a urologist in a virtual appointment.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can be hard for undocumented people,” Huerta said in Spanish. “I imagine a lot of other people are benefitting like we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Medi-Cal began covering undocumented children in 2018 and adults up to age 26 in 2020. Last May, older undocumented immigrants like Huerta became eligible. She is \u003ca href=\"https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/eligible-older-adult-expansion-individuals-enrolled-in-medi-cal/resource/7271b885-7340-49e2-ba56-5435b698a972\">one of nearly 350,000\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>who have signed up for full, state-funded coverage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955365\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with a relaxed expression poses with her hands clasped in front of her beside some large plants.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersFarmworkers03-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oliva Huerta, outside the Maternal and Child Health Access office in Los Angeles on July 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Julie A Hotz/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Next January coverage will open to low-income immigrants of all ages; an estimated 700,000 will be eligible. The full-fledged expansion will cost $2.6 billion a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It marks a significant turnaround from the policy debates of 1994 when California voters passed a measure barring immigrants without legal status from public services such as non-emergency health care, elementary and secondary schools and public colleges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure drew mass protests, but passed with 59% of the vote. A federal judge ultimately blocked it from taking effect on constitutional grounds. But activists saw xenophobic sentiments that galvanized them to rally around immigrants’ rights. Abrego said many Latino advocates and politicians today \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2019/11/looking-back-on-proposition-187-the-initiative-that-transformed-california-politics/\">remain fueled\u003c/a> by opposition to the policies of the 1990s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2001, California became one of the first states to make undocumented students eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges, if they’d graduated from high school in-state. Ten years later, it allowed undocumented students to get state financial aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, California allowed undocumented residents to get driver’s licenses. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/01/drivers-licenses-undocumented-immigrants/\">More than 1 million\u003c/a> have received them since 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, the state \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/09/18/governor-newsom-signs-bill-putting-money-back-into-the-pockets-of-more-california-workers-and-their-families/#:~:text=SACRAMENTO%20%E2%80%93%20Governor%20Gavin%20Newsom%20today,Child%20Tax%20Credit%20(YCTC).\">allowed\u003c/a> undocumented tax filers to receive the state’s earned income tax credit, returning thousands of dollars to low-income families each year. That year Californians \u003ca href=\"https://www.ftb.ca.gov/about-ftb/data-reports-plans/California-Earned-Income-Tax-Credit-and-Young-Child-Tax-credit-Report.pdf\">claimed $120 million more\u003c/a> in tax credits than the year before, according to the Franchise Tax Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Policymakers continue to make new proposals for immigrants living without legal status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bill \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1536\">introduced this year\u003c/a> would give undocumented residents access to the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, a state-funded\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>benefit created for elderly and disabled residents who don’t qualify for Social Security because federal law bars most noncitizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB4\">Another bill\u003c/a> aims to let undocumented residents who earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal get subsidized health insurance in the Covered California marketplace\u003cstrong>. \u003c/strong>That move would require federal approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Immigrant poverty\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Poverty plunged in California from 16.4% in 2019 to nearly 12% in 2021, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/11/child-tax-credit/\">thanks to such pandemic aid programs\u003c/a> as expanded child tax credits and food and cash assistance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/poverty-in-california/\">according to\u003c/a> the Public Policy Institute of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But undocumented immigrants were much harder hit. While 16% of immigrant Californians lived in poverty in 2021, 25% of undocumented immigrants did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876285921003752#:~:text=Children%20in%20immigrant%20families%20are%20becoming%20a%20larger%20share%20of,of%20all%20children%20in%20poverty.&text=The%20vast%20majority%20of%20children,91%25)%20are%20US%20citizens.\">disparities extend\u003c/a> to immigrants’ children — many of whom are U.S.-born. Thirteen percent of children in immigrant families live in poverty in California, which is double the rate for children of parents who are U.S. citizens, according to Patricia Malagon, a Public Policy Institute researcher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A March analysis by the Public Policy Institute predicts that fully expanding Medi-Cal next year could \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/the-impact-of-health-insurance-on-poverty-in-california/\">lower poverty\u003c/a> among non-citizen Californians by up to 3%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The programs that reduce poverty the most are tax credits and CalFresh — the state’s food stamps program, said Paulette Cha, a Public Policy Institute researcher.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Providing someone a social safety net when they’re not able to work is almost counterintuitive to this racist and kind of exploitative way that we’ve been viewing immigrants.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California already uses its own funds to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/06/california-food-assistance/\">pay for food assistance\u003c/a> for about 35,000 legally present immigrants — primarily recent green card holders — who are barred from the traditional food stamps program by federal law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Undocumented immigrants who are 55 and older \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/06/california-food-assistance/\">will qualify\u003c/a> in October 2025; administration officials said they \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/05/california-budget-deficit-newsom/\">need time\u003c/a> to make computer system upgrades before enrolling new recipients. At its peak, the state estimates 75,000 older immigrants will get food assistance at a cost of $113 million annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Unemployment benefits battle\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Advocates want California officials to commit to food stamps for undocumented immigrants of all ages. And they’re disappointed at the lack of action on unemployment benefits. Colorado and New York have started programs to pay jobless benefits to undocumented workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers passed a bill last year to start a pilot program that would pay unemployment benefits to workers who are ineligible because of immigration status, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/AB-2847-VETO.pdf?emrc=87cd0d\">Newsom vetoed\u003c/a> it, citing costs amid signs of a deficit. This spring hundreds of activists and workers marched on the Capitol to demand the benefits, pointing to those who lost work in both the pandemic and this year’s floods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bill this year would give undocumented workers who lose work $300 in weekly benefits for up to 20 weeks, the maximum time allowed in the traditional unemployment program. Aside from the cost of benefits, the Economic Development Department estimates it would need at least $271 million to implement the program.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We have to prioritize. If you really care about getting people out of poverty, you’d help ease the burden on businesses so they can hire people and pay them living wages.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In May, after Newsom presented a bigger deficit than previously predicted, advocates pared down their proposal to instead seek a working group to study the issue. Still, that failed to make it into the budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates with the Safety Net For All Coalition said they hoped lawmakers could still reach a deal to fund the working group during this\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves relief still unavailable for California farmworkers — over half of whom are undocumented — still recovering from the winter floods, and the pandemic before them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jorge Ruiz, a Santa Maria area farmworker, is one of them. Usually, he works year-round, rotating between labor-intensive crops like lettuce, broccoli, grapes and other vegetables. Beginning in December, months of heavy rain cost him $3,000 to $4,000 in lost wages, he said. Plus his family is still recovering from the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Simply put, the government has tossed us aside,” Ruiz said in Spanish. “Even though we use all of our strength to get those products to the store, the government leaves us behind and doesn’t help us. So we are left without money.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Probe Into 2022 Attack on Kern County PG&E Facility Hits Dead End",
"headTitle": "Probe Into 2022 Attack on Kern County PG&E Facility Hits Dead End | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Investigators have hit a dead end in their investigation of a July 2022 incident in which gunfire caused nearly $6 million in damage to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pge\">PG&E\u003c/a> substation near Bakersfield. It’s one of a string of unsolved acts of vandalism targeting the utility’s equipment in the past year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents KQED obtained under the California Public Records Act outline a probe by the Kern County Sheriff’s Office into the shooting at the Goose Lake substation, near the town of Wasco. The attack caused an outage that affected 1,100 customers, including gas stations and restaurants, at the busy interchange where State Route 46 crosses Interstate 5.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the sheriff’s investigation, those responsible for the incident cut a 4-inch hole in a chain-link fence surrounding the substation. Then, they fired 10 rounds from a shotgun and large-caliber handgun into two banks of transformers, puncturing a radiator and a tank filled with mineral oil used to insulate and cool the electrical equipment. The damaged tanks leaked about 5,000 gallons of oil onto the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The hole in the fence lines up with the angles of the bullet holes in the equipment within the facility,” a sheriff’s deputy wrote in a department report. That discovery prompted the deputy to contact a colleague who works as the sheriff’s liaison with the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Details of the shooting investigation are recounted in records released by the California Public Utilities Commission. In addition to a 29-page sheriff’s report, they include documents from the CPUC’s Safety and Enforcement Division and PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kern County investigators could not identify suspects in the case or determine a motive for the attack. But their report notes that deputies and a PG&E worker, who arrived at the substation shortly after problems at the substation were reported, noticed a car abandoned about a quarter-mile away on Highway 46.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955153\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955153\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Hanging electrical equipment connected to power lines.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">PG&E’s Goose Lake substation, near Wasco in Kern County, was attacked last July. A spokesperson for PG&E said the company has spent $2 million so far on ongoing repairs. \u003ccite>(Courtesy California Public Utilities Commission)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A deputy who inspected the car, which had been stolen the day before the attack in the Kern County town of Shafter, found footprints that headed in the direction of the substation. But the tracks vanished after a short distance. Sheriff’s investigators were unable to connect either the car or the tracks to the shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to questions about the case, a sheriff’s spokesperson said in an email late last month that the investigation “has been inactivated pending further leads.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Matt Nauman, spokesperson, PG&E\"]‘We have security measures in place, and we are constantly evaluating the security of all of our facilities. Our forecast is that the total cost will be approximately $5.9 million.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E emphasized in reply to KQED’s question that it takes its responsibility seriously to ensure safety around its electrical facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have security measures in place, and we are constantly evaluating the security of all of our facilities,” said company spokesperson Matt Nauman in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nauman added that so far PG&E has spent $2 million on ongoing repairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our forecast is that the total cost will be approximately $5.9 million,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The incident is one of several that have targeted \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101891276/how-can-pge-navigate-rising-costs-extreme-weather-and-modernizing-the-grid\">PG&E’s electricity infrastructure\u003c/a> in the last year and comes amid an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101891525/how-vulnerable-is-our-power-grid-2\">increase in attacks on power sites\u003c/a> throughout California and the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to data from the U.S. Department of Energy, California utilities reported a total of 31 incidents of vandalism to their property from Jan. 1, 2022, through March 31 of this year. Another 14 incidents were classified as actual physical attacks on facilities or “suspicious activity” meant to degrade power operations. That compares with just three such incidents reported statewide in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal data indicates that only a handful of the reported incidents, like the one in Kern County, have resulted in power outages.[aside postID=news_11943157 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/03/Untitled_Artwork-1020x765.jpg']Two months after the Kern County incident, someone shot and damaged nine PG&E transformers in rural Butte County, south of Chico. In late February, PG&E told the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office that it had recently discovered a transformer damaged by gunfire near the Sutter Bypass, southwest of Yuba City. FBI officials have said the agency is aware of all three incidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most widely publicized recent attack on power facilities in Northern California came to light in March when San José police arrested a man they say set off bombs that damaged a pair of PG&E substations in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These incidents came nearly a decade after a sniper attack on a major PG&E transmission complex in South San José that caused serious damage. The April 2013 incident caused an estimated $15 million in damage, attracted national attention and prompted state legislation aimed at improving security for electricity infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Investigators have hit a dead end in their investigation of a July 2022 incident in which gunfire caused nearly $6 million in damage to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pge\">PG&E\u003c/a> substation near Bakersfield. It’s one of a string of unsolved acts of vandalism targeting the utility’s equipment in the past year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents KQED obtained under the California Public Records Act outline a probe by the Kern County Sheriff’s Office into the shooting at the Goose Lake substation, near the town of Wasco. The attack caused an outage that affected 1,100 customers, including gas stations and restaurants, at the busy interchange where State Route 46 crosses Interstate 5.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the sheriff’s investigation, those responsible for the incident cut a 4-inch hole in a chain-link fence surrounding the substation. Then, they fired 10 rounds from a shotgun and large-caliber handgun into two banks of transformers, puncturing a radiator and a tank filled with mineral oil used to insulate and cool the electrical equipment. The damaged tanks leaked about 5,000 gallons of oil onto the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The hole in the fence lines up with the angles of the bullet holes in the equipment within the facility,” a sheriff’s deputy wrote in a department report. That discovery prompted the deputy to contact a colleague who works as the sheriff’s liaison with the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Details of the shooting investigation are recounted in records released by the California Public Utilities Commission. In addition to a 29-page sheriff’s report, they include documents from the CPUC’s Safety and Enforcement Division and PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kern County investigators could not identify suspects in the case or determine a motive for the attack. But their report notes that deputies and a PG&E worker, who arrived at the substation shortly after problems at the substation were reported, noticed a car abandoned about a quarter-mile away on Highway 46.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955153\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955153\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Hanging electrical equipment connected to power lines.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230707-PGE-ATTACK-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">PG&E’s Goose Lake substation, near Wasco in Kern County, was attacked last July. A spokesperson for PG&E said the company has spent $2 million so far on ongoing repairs. \u003ccite>(Courtesy California Public Utilities Commission)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A deputy who inspected the car, which had been stolen the day before the attack in the Kern County town of Shafter, found footprints that headed in the direction of the substation. But the tracks vanished after a short distance. Sheriff’s investigators were unable to connect either the car or the tracks to the shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to questions about the case, a sheriff’s spokesperson said in an email late last month that the investigation “has been inactivated pending further leads.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We have security measures in place, and we are constantly evaluating the security of all of our facilities. Our forecast is that the total cost will be approximately $5.9 million.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E emphasized in reply to KQED’s question that it takes its responsibility seriously to ensure safety around its electrical facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have security measures in place, and we are constantly evaluating the security of all of our facilities,” said company spokesperson Matt Nauman in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nauman added that so far PG&E has spent $2 million on ongoing repairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our forecast is that the total cost will be approximately $5.9 million,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The incident is one of several that have targeted \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101891276/how-can-pge-navigate-rising-costs-extreme-weather-and-modernizing-the-grid\">PG&E’s electricity infrastructure\u003c/a> in the last year and comes amid an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101891525/how-vulnerable-is-our-power-grid-2\">increase in attacks on power sites\u003c/a> throughout California and the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to data from the U.S. Department of Energy, California utilities reported a total of 31 incidents of vandalism to their property from Jan. 1, 2022, through March 31 of this year. Another 14 incidents were classified as actual physical attacks on facilities or “suspicious activity” meant to degrade power operations. That compares with just three such incidents reported statewide in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal data indicates that only a handful of the reported incidents, like the one in Kern County, have resulted in power outages.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Two months after the Kern County incident, someone shot and damaged nine PG&E transformers in rural Butte County, south of Chico. In late February, PG&E told the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office that it had recently discovered a transformer damaged by gunfire near the Sutter Bypass, southwest of Yuba City. FBI officials have said the agency is aware of all three incidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most widely publicized recent attack on power facilities in Northern California came to light in March when San José police arrested a man they say set off bombs that damaged a pair of PG&E substations in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These incidents came nearly a decade after a sniper attack on a major PG&E transmission complex in South San José that caused serious damage. The April 2013 incident caused an estimated $15 million in damage, attracted national attention and prompted state legislation aimed at improving security for electricity infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California lawmakers have been busy over the last decade trying to make it easier to build homes across a housing-strapped state. But there’s an 840-mile-long exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an undulating band that generally runs 1,000 yards from the shoreline, the 12 members of the California Coastal Commission have the final say over what gets built, where and how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voters empowered the commission to protect the state’s iconic beaches in 1972, responding to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/01/28/688219307/how-californias-worst-oil-spill-turned-beaches-black-and-the-nation-green\">crisis of despoiled seas\u003c/a> and the prospect of the Miami-fication of the California coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But five decades later, the state faces a different crisis as millions of Californians struggle to find an affordable place to call home. Now, a growing number of legislators and housing advocates are trying to wrest away some of the commission’s power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Legislation by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener would \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/04/california-housing-law-union-dispute-2/\">fast-track apartment development\u003c/a> in parts of the state that haven’t met their state-set housing goals, exempting them from lengthy public hearings and environmental legal challenges. The coast is no exception, effectively cutting the Coastal Commission out of the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Commission members, staff and environmental advocates say the bill may be the most direct assault yet at the agency’s voter-backed mandate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once you start exempting classes of development from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/coastact.pdf\">Coastal Act (PDF)\u003c/a> there will be no shutting that barn door,” said Sarah Christie, a lobbyist for the commission. “You’re going to lose some of the best things about California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as rising seas threaten to bring down bluffs and flood beachfront neighborhoods, coastal advocates argue that carefully considered development is more important than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener and his allies reject the argument that the commission is the only thing standing in the way of a development free-for-all, since current zoning rules and environmental protection laws would still apply. Ending what has become the regular practice of exempting the coast from California’s most aggressive pro-housing development laws is also fair, they argue. California’s beachfront happens to be home to some of the state’s richest residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The coastal zone is much whiter and wealthier than the rest of the state,” Wiener noted at a recent Assembly committee hearing. “The idea we would be applying state housing law inland … while we literally \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/FromBenC/status/1674113439395090432\">exempt whiter, wealthier coastal communities is offensive to me\u003c/a>.”[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco)\"]‘The idea we would be applying state housing law inland … while we literally exempt whiter, wealthier coastal communities is offensive to me.’[/pullquote]Wiener said he plans to introduce tweaks to the bill before its next hearing on July 10 in an effort to “compromise” with the commission. But the two sides remain far apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tension between the state’s aggressive housing goals and its longstanding commitment to coastal preservation is particularly acute in Southern California, where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-07/housing-building-density-zoning-coastal-inland-empire-southern-california-scag\">latest round of state housing goals\u003c/a> shifted the bulk of the region’s planned growth from inland communities — the traditional, sprawling outlets for pent-up housing demand — to coastal ones. That includes cities like Santa Monica, Malibu, Los Angeles, Encinitas and San Diego, all of which fall at least in part, if not entirely, within the coastal zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you have the Coastal Commission, with their ‘less is more’ mindset saying, ‘no, you can’t build here’ … how are cities even supposed to attempt to achieve meeting that (housing) goal?” said Elizabeth Hansburg, executive director of People For Housing, a pro-housing advocacy group in Orange County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Pederson, who served as chief counsel for the commission before retiring in 2018, said it’s possible for the state to build up the coast while maintaining “really strong protections” in undeveloped coastal land and for delicate ecosystems. In fact, he said, if the alternative to building in dense coastal cities is encouraging car-oriented sprawl in the exurbs, the two goals may necessarily go hand in hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From an environmental perspective, from a climate policy perspective, from a housing perspective and from a transportation perspective, I think it makes a lot of sense to encourage more multifamily housing in the coastal zone,” said Pederson.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Will the Coastal Commission hold the line?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>This isn’t the first time the Legislature has taken a crack at the Coastal Commission’s authority. It’s not even the first time this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Diego Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Democrat, introduced a bill in February that would encourage developers to set aside units for lower income residents by \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1287\">allowing them to build higher and denser projects\u003c/a>. The bill builds on past “density bonus” policies that have made their way through the Legislature. But unlike its predecessors — and unlike some of the most significant housing bills in recent years, including one that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2022/04/duplex-housing-resistance/\">allows the construction of duplexes in areas zoned for single-family homes\u003c/a> across the state — Alvarez’s bill explicitly went out of its way to include the coastal zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in April, the bill reached the Assembly Natural Resources Committee and a coastal exception was added back in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chair Luz Rivas of Arleta, and other Democrats including Gail Pellerin of Santa Cruz and Dawn Addis of San Luis Obispo, made clear at the hearing that overriding the commission was a no-go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alvarez accepted the change rather than see his bill die. But he was visibly frustrated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I heard a statement that coastal access is important and that people should have the opportunity to visit the coast,” he said, referring to one of the commission’s key mandates to keep California beaches open to the public. “People should also have the opportunity to live on the coast, not just visit the coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The ocean is coming’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>So far Wiener’s bill has not met the same fate, though it goes before the same committee later this month. His bill also, arguably, represents a bigger challenge to the commission’s authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ca href=\"https://cahcd.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=29fd695819064f38afee6c9880c30ae3\">most of the state’s cities and counties\u003c/a>, proposed multiplexes and apartment projects are allowed to skirt lengthy public approval processes. Instead they get automatic approval as long as they check the right boxes — among them, offering a certain share of units at below-market rents or prices and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/05/california-housing-development/\">abiding by stricter labor standards\u003c/a>.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11952870,news_11943154,news_11929505\"]But the Coastal Commission doesn’t \u003cem>do\u003c/em> box checking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along much of the coast, the commission has to approve city growth and zoning plans. In neighborhoods especially close to the water, foes of proposed developments can appeal directly to the commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in cities that haven’t come up with their own coastal protection plans, which \u003ca href=\"https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/assets/rflg/LCPStatusSummaryChart_October%202020.pdf\">includes about a quarter of coastal cities (PDF)\u003c/a> including Los Angeles, the Coastal Commission enforces the law alone, armed only with the Coastal Act. And the act itself is \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PRC&division=20.&title=&part=&chapter=3.&article=1.\">fairly light on specifics\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s for good reason, said Christie, the commission lobbyist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ensuring that a proposed development is built “far enough away from an eroding bluff that it’s not going to fall into the ocean in 20 years, there is no objective standard that can speak to that complexity,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change and rising sea levels add yet another level of complexity and another reason not to rush development, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The last thing that California should be doing is concentrating more new development in these hazardous flood-prone areas,” she said. “It’s going to be a managed retreat or an unmanaged retreat because the ocean is coming and nature bats last.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That view is shared by all 12 members of the commission, who are appointed by the governor or the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We take a lot of time and effort in evaluating each and every project that comes before us,” said Commissioner Dayna Bochco during a June 7 hearing. “You can’t just make a mathematical formula as to what works in any given project on the coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commission \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/06/caste-discrimination-bill/#wm-story-2\">voted unanimously to oppose Wiener’s bill\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Must fit plans for California coast\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bill does include its own set of checks on which projects get the red-carpet treatment and which get closer review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to receive the fast-tracked approval process, the land in question already has to be zoned by local governments for housing. A proposed building has to have pre-existing “urban” development on at least three of its four sides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to estimates put together by California YIMBY, a pro-housing development organization that supports the bill, of the nearly 1.5 million acres within the coastal zone, the bill would allow for streamlined development on just 277,160 acres. The vast majority of the land — wetlands, floodplains, beaches and river channels — either are explicitly exempted from the bill or aren’t zoned for housing by locals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955110\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955110\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A white man in a suit and tie speaks into a handheld microphone in front of a building.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State Sen. Scott Wiener speaks during a protest in front of San Francisco City Hall on Feb. 24, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Approximately 85% of the Coastal Zone is already excluded from the bill. The remaining 15% are existing urbanized, developed communities,” Wiener said in a written statement. He added that the state “can’t afford to continue excluding these areas if we are to meet our climate goals — the lack of housing in coastal zones these exclusions produce already means coastal workers have to drive 10% more on average than their inland counterparts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener and his allies also reject the idea that proper planning for rising oceans requires detailed, site-by-site analysis. The senator’s office pointed to voluntary planning guidelines produced by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayadapt.org/\">San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://oneshoreline.org/\">San Mateo County Flood Control District\u003c/a>. The San Mateo County planning document builds on \u003ca href=\"https://webapps.usgs.gov/infrm/estbfe/\">nationwide flood risk mapping\u003c/a> from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though his office has yet to provide details, Wiener said his proposed compromise language to the Coastal Commission includes preserving the current discretionary review process for the most at-risk slivers of the coast and adding specific “objective development standards” around rising sea levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not that anyone can say with certainty how much shore the sea is likely to swallow across the entire coast in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody admits that it’s not a hard science, it’s probabilities,” said Joseph Smith, a land-use consultant for \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiacoastalworks.com/\">California Coastal Works\u003c/a> who advises developers and governments navigating the Coastal Act. “But if it is absolutely important to get housing into the coastal zone, then yes, you could pick a number.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Building a California coast for all\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The commission and its defenders say pro-housing advocates and legislators are picking on the wrong enemy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the first decade of its life, the Coastal Commission was empowered to make the construction of affordable housing a condition of its approval of residential projects. In 1981, the Legislature took that power away over the commission’s objections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Revoking that power will “make sure that the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GroteCoastalCommissionTestimony.pdf\">ability to live near the coast is reserved for the wealthy\u003c/a>,” then-Chairman Lenard Grote warned at a legislative hearing at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susan Jordan, founder of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lopez-kitchen-20160809-snap-story.html\">nonprofit California Coastal Protection Network\u003c/a>, is a familiar face at the state’s public hearings, where she regularly challenges oceanside projects for violations of the Coastal Act. A recent win: the Poseidon Water \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/05/california-desalination-plant-coastal-commission/\">desalination project in Huntington Beach\u003c/a>, which the Coastal Commission rejected last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Legislature ‘broke’ it and now it needs to ‘fix’ it,” Jordan said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commission’s supporters regularly stress that it has never rejected a proposed affordable housing project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for many developers — including those who build deed-restricted units for lower-income residents — the possibility of years of delay with no certain outcome has created a “chilling effect,” said Jeannette Temple, a San Diego land use consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re an affordable housing developer, you’re already operating on the margins, so most of the time my clients, and people my clients know, don’t even look in the coastal zone,” she said. “In my opinion it’s just another kind of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/19/498536077/interactive-redlining-map-zooms-in-on-americas-history-of-discrimination\">redlining\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California lawmakers have been busy over the last decade trying to make it easier to build homes across a housing-strapped state. But there’s an 840-mile-long exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an undulating band that generally runs 1,000 yards from the shoreline, the 12 members of the California Coastal Commission have the final say over what gets built, where and how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voters empowered the commission to protect the state’s iconic beaches in 1972, responding to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/01/28/688219307/how-californias-worst-oil-spill-turned-beaches-black-and-the-nation-green\">crisis of despoiled seas\u003c/a> and the prospect of the Miami-fication of the California coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But five decades later, the state faces a different crisis as millions of Californians struggle to find an affordable place to call home. Now, a growing number of legislators and housing advocates are trying to wrest away some of the commission’s power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Legislation by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener would \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/04/california-housing-law-union-dispute-2/\">fast-track apartment development\u003c/a> in parts of the state that haven’t met their state-set housing goals, exempting them from lengthy public hearings and environmental legal challenges. The coast is no exception, effectively cutting the Coastal Commission out of the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Commission members, staff and environmental advocates say the bill may be the most direct assault yet at the agency’s voter-backed mandate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once you start exempting classes of development from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/coastact.pdf\">Coastal Act (PDF)\u003c/a> there will be no shutting that barn door,” said Sarah Christie, a lobbyist for the commission. “You’re going to lose some of the best things about California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as rising seas threaten to bring down bluffs and flood beachfront neighborhoods, coastal advocates argue that carefully considered development is more important than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener and his allies reject the argument that the commission is the only thing standing in the way of a development free-for-all, since current zoning rules and environmental protection laws would still apply. Ending what has become the regular practice of exempting the coast from California’s most aggressive pro-housing development laws is also fair, they argue. California’s beachfront happens to be home to some of the state’s richest residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The coastal zone is much whiter and wealthier than the rest of the state,” Wiener noted at a recent Assembly committee hearing. “The idea we would be applying state housing law inland … while we literally \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/FromBenC/status/1674113439395090432\">exempt whiter, wealthier coastal communities is offensive to me\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘The idea we would be applying state housing law inland … while we literally exempt whiter, wealthier coastal communities is offensive to me.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Wiener said he plans to introduce tweaks to the bill before its next hearing on July 10 in an effort to “compromise” with the commission. But the two sides remain far apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tension between the state’s aggressive housing goals and its longstanding commitment to coastal preservation is particularly acute in Southern California, where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-07/housing-building-density-zoning-coastal-inland-empire-southern-california-scag\">latest round of state housing goals\u003c/a> shifted the bulk of the region’s planned growth from inland communities — the traditional, sprawling outlets for pent-up housing demand — to coastal ones. That includes cities like Santa Monica, Malibu, Los Angeles, Encinitas and San Diego, all of which fall at least in part, if not entirely, within the coastal zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you have the Coastal Commission, with their ‘less is more’ mindset saying, ‘no, you can’t build here’ … how are cities even supposed to attempt to achieve meeting that (housing) goal?” said Elizabeth Hansburg, executive director of People For Housing, a pro-housing advocacy group in Orange County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Pederson, who served as chief counsel for the commission before retiring in 2018, said it’s possible for the state to build up the coast while maintaining “really strong protections” in undeveloped coastal land and for delicate ecosystems. In fact, he said, if the alternative to building in dense coastal cities is encouraging car-oriented sprawl in the exurbs, the two goals may necessarily go hand in hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From an environmental perspective, from a climate policy perspective, from a housing perspective and from a transportation perspective, I think it makes a lot of sense to encourage more multifamily housing in the coastal zone,” said Pederson.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Will the Coastal Commission hold the line?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>This isn’t the first time the Legislature has taken a crack at the Coastal Commission’s authority. It’s not even the first time this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Diego Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Democrat, introduced a bill in February that would encourage developers to set aside units for lower income residents by \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1287\">allowing them to build higher and denser projects\u003c/a>. The bill builds on past “density bonus” policies that have made their way through the Legislature. But unlike its predecessors — and unlike some of the most significant housing bills in recent years, including one that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2022/04/duplex-housing-resistance/\">allows the construction of duplexes in areas zoned for single-family homes\u003c/a> across the state — Alvarez’s bill explicitly went out of its way to include the coastal zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in April, the bill reached the Assembly Natural Resources Committee and a coastal exception was added back in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chair Luz Rivas of Arleta, and other Democrats including Gail Pellerin of Santa Cruz and Dawn Addis of San Luis Obispo, made clear at the hearing that overriding the commission was a no-go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alvarez accepted the change rather than see his bill die. But he was visibly frustrated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I heard a statement that coastal access is important and that people should have the opportunity to visit the coast,” he said, referring to one of the commission’s key mandates to keep California beaches open to the public. “People should also have the opportunity to live on the coast, not just visit the coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The ocean is coming’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>So far Wiener’s bill has not met the same fate, though it goes before the same committee later this month. His bill also, arguably, represents a bigger challenge to the commission’s authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ca href=\"https://cahcd.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=29fd695819064f38afee6c9880c30ae3\">most of the state’s cities and counties\u003c/a>, proposed multiplexes and apartment projects are allowed to skirt lengthy public approval processes. Instead they get automatic approval as long as they check the right boxes — among them, offering a certain share of units at below-market rents or prices and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/05/california-housing-development/\">abiding by stricter labor standards\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But the Coastal Commission doesn’t \u003cem>do\u003c/em> box checking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along much of the coast, the commission has to approve city growth and zoning plans. In neighborhoods especially close to the water, foes of proposed developments can appeal directly to the commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in cities that haven’t come up with their own coastal protection plans, which \u003ca href=\"https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/assets/rflg/LCPStatusSummaryChart_October%202020.pdf\">includes about a quarter of coastal cities (PDF)\u003c/a> including Los Angeles, the Coastal Commission enforces the law alone, armed only with the Coastal Act. And the act itself is \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PRC&division=20.&title=&part=&chapter=3.&article=1.\">fairly light on specifics\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s for good reason, said Christie, the commission lobbyist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ensuring that a proposed development is built “far enough away from an eroding bluff that it’s not going to fall into the ocean in 20 years, there is no objective standard that can speak to that complexity,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change and rising sea levels add yet another level of complexity and another reason not to rush development, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The last thing that California should be doing is concentrating more new development in these hazardous flood-prone areas,” she said. “It’s going to be a managed retreat or an unmanaged retreat because the ocean is coming and nature bats last.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That view is shared by all 12 members of the commission, who are appointed by the governor or the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We take a lot of time and effort in evaluating each and every project that comes before us,” said Commissioner Dayna Bochco during a June 7 hearing. “You can’t just make a mathematical formula as to what works in any given project on the coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commission \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/06/caste-discrimination-bill/#wm-story-2\">voted unanimously to oppose Wiener’s bill\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Must fit plans for California coast\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bill does include its own set of checks on which projects get the red-carpet treatment and which get closer review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to receive the fast-tracked approval process, the land in question already has to be zoned by local governments for housing. A proposed building has to have pre-existing “urban” development on at least three of its four sides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to estimates put together by California YIMBY, a pro-housing development organization that supports the bill, of the nearly 1.5 million acres within the coastal zone, the bill would allow for streamlined development on just 277,160 acres. The vast majority of the land — wetlands, floodplains, beaches and river channels — either are explicitly exempted from the bill or aren’t zoned for housing by locals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955110\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955110\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A white man in a suit and tie speaks into a handheld microphone in front of a building.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/RS53926_032_KQED_UkraineRally_02242022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State Sen. Scott Wiener speaks during a protest in front of San Francisco City Hall on Feb. 24, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Approximately 85% of the Coastal Zone is already excluded from the bill. The remaining 15% are existing urbanized, developed communities,” Wiener said in a written statement. He added that the state “can’t afford to continue excluding these areas if we are to meet our climate goals — the lack of housing in coastal zones these exclusions produce already means coastal workers have to drive 10% more on average than their inland counterparts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener and his allies also reject the idea that proper planning for rising oceans requires detailed, site-by-site analysis. The senator’s office pointed to voluntary planning guidelines produced by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayadapt.org/\">San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://oneshoreline.org/\">San Mateo County Flood Control District\u003c/a>. The San Mateo County planning document builds on \u003ca href=\"https://webapps.usgs.gov/infrm/estbfe/\">nationwide flood risk mapping\u003c/a> from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though his office has yet to provide details, Wiener said his proposed compromise language to the Coastal Commission includes preserving the current discretionary review process for the most at-risk slivers of the coast and adding specific “objective development standards” around rising sea levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not that anyone can say with certainty how much shore the sea is likely to swallow across the entire coast in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody admits that it’s not a hard science, it’s probabilities,” said Joseph Smith, a land-use consultant for \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiacoastalworks.com/\">California Coastal Works\u003c/a> who advises developers and governments navigating the Coastal Act. “But if it is absolutely important to get housing into the coastal zone, then yes, you could pick a number.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Building a California coast for all\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The commission and its defenders say pro-housing advocates and legislators are picking on the wrong enemy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the first decade of its life, the Coastal Commission was empowered to make the construction of affordable housing a condition of its approval of residential projects. In 1981, the Legislature took that power away over the commission’s objections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Revoking that power will “make sure that the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GroteCoastalCommissionTestimony.pdf\">ability to live near the coast is reserved for the wealthy\u003c/a>,” then-Chairman Lenard Grote warned at a legislative hearing at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susan Jordan, founder of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lopez-kitchen-20160809-snap-story.html\">nonprofit California Coastal Protection Network\u003c/a>, is a familiar face at the state’s public hearings, where she regularly challenges oceanside projects for violations of the Coastal Act. A recent win: the Poseidon Water \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/05/california-desalination-plant-coastal-commission/\">desalination project in Huntington Beach\u003c/a>, which the Coastal Commission rejected last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Legislature ‘broke’ it and now it needs to ‘fix’ it,” Jordan said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commission’s supporters regularly stress that it has never rejected a proposed affordable housing project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for many developers — including those who build deed-restricted units for lower-income residents — the possibility of years of delay with no certain outcome has created a “chilling effect,” said Jeannette Temple, a San Diego land use consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re an affordable housing developer, you’re already operating on the margins, so most of the time my clients, and people my clients know, don’t even look in the coastal zone,” she said. “In my opinion it’s just another kind of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/19/498536077/interactive-redlining-map-zooms-in-on-americas-history-of-discrimination\">redlining\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>An effort to ban \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11952188/california-caste-discrimination\">caste discrimination in California\u003c/a> survived in committee Wednesday, July 5, despite months of opposition organized by groups that alleged the bill would unfairly target South Asians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB403\">Senate Bill 403\u003c/a>, authored by Fremont Democratic Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/aisha-wahab-1987/\">Aisha Wahab\u003c/a>, would add caste — a centuries-old social hierarchy system that has historically determined what jobs or education people can attain — to the list of protected classes in the state’s civil rights, employment and housing laws, alongside race, gender and sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What would be the first law of its kind in the nation has been watered down somewhat, but was approved in a 9-0 vote by the Assembly Judiciary Committee and now goes to the full Assembly. The Senate approved a similar version by a 34-1 vote in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill that passed through the committee today includes amendments added over the weekend that categorize caste as a subset of ancestry — an already protected trait under state anti-discrimination laws. Wahab accepted that amendment, saying it represented a concept of the bill her office “discussed at length weeks ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the senator rejected earlier\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>suggestions from Assembly Judiciary Chairperson \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/brian-maienschein-1969/\">Brian Maienschein\u003c/a>, a San Diego Democrat, to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/06/robert-rivas-new-speaker/#wm-story-1\">remove the word “caste” from the bill\u003c/a> and replace it with “inherited social status.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“SB 403 will end caste discrimination. The definition and protections included in this bill will protect millions,” Wahab said in a statement after the committee’s hearing, which drew around 200 people representing both sides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Fremont Democratic Sen. Aisha Wahab, the bill’s author\"]‘SB 403 will end caste discrimination. The definition and protections included in this bill will protect millions.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters said current laws don’t go far enough to protect against caste-based discrimination because it’s difficult to make such claims against an employer or potential landlord who may share the same race or national origin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/SB403?src=hashtag_click\">SB 403\u003c/a> is a critical bill to make California a just and equitable place for all,” said workplace lawyer Tarina Mand, one of the two witnesses who spoke in support of the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the vote, supporters marched out of the hearing room chanting “SB 403 zindabad,” which translates to “Long live SB 403.” They continued to celebrate outside the Capitol with more chanting, joyful embraces and even a little dancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just feet away, opponents also regrouped, but in more somber tones — reflecting on their efforts, and a pledge by some to keep fighting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents — including groups who organized against a similar ordinance in Seattle — said the prevalence of caste in South Asian countries would lead to racial profiling. They oppose any mention of “caste” in the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samir Kalra, managing director of the \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/HinduAmerican/status/1676773377460039684?s=20\">Hindu American Foundation\u003c/a>, which organized some of the opposition, said he was disappointed, but that the group plans to continue to try to “educate lawmakers on the issue” before the full Assembly votes on the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We feel it was a step in the right direction but not far enough,” he told CalMatters after the hearing. “We’re disappointed that the committee didn’t remove ‘caste’ entirely from even the clarification of ancestry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a concession to critics, Wahab \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/06/gavin-newsom-pushback/#wm-story-1\">amended the bill on June 15 to strip out language\u003c/a> that references any South Asian origins of caste, but said that did not change the intent of the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955063\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955063\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02.jpg\" alt=\"Inside the Assembly Judiciary Committee chambers: There is a California state flag hanging in the background. There are various women in suits and business attire listening to one another. Seats with skinny, black microphones are also seen in the background.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Supporters testify on a caste discrimination bill before the Assembly Judiciary Committee at the state Capitol in Sacramento on July 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Semantha Norris/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The bill is the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/06/caste-discrimination-california/\">latest example of international conflict coming to California\u003c/a>, a magnet for immigrants. Due to immigration laws that favor skilled workers, immigrants from India’s lower caste are more recent arrivals — and some are left to escape discrimination, only to confront it in the workplace and social settings here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While caste systems exist in several countries, it’s commonly associated with India, where it was outlawed in 1950 but its legacy remains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But trying to legislate such conflicts is difficult and controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are two South Asians in the Legislature. Democratic Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/jasmeet-bains-1985/\">Jasmeet Bains\u003c/a> from Bakersfield signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.[aside postID=news_11952543 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/CalMatters01-1020x679.jpg']Democratic Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/ash-kalra-1972/\">Ash Kalra\u003c/a> of San Jose, who is on the committee, hadn’t spoken on the bill — until today. In an emotional testimony at times, he spoke about the divisions he had witnessed and said he understood concerns from constituents, but concluded that the amendments address those.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ultimately, there are certain things we must do as a state to protect everyone in our state,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wahab, the first Afghan American in the Legislature, isn’t South Asian, but represents many in her district. Since introducing the bill, she said she has been threatened and she’s now the target of a recall campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymembers \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/alex-lee-1995/\">Alex Lee\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/evan-low-1983/\">Evan Low\u003c/a> represent parts of Silicon Valley, where many tech workers are South Asian and where allegations of caste bias have hit top companies, including Cisco and Google. In a June letter, they suggested pausing the bill for further study. While Low leads the California Asian American and Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, the group declined to take a position on the matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"headline": "California's Caste Discrimination Bill Now Moves to Full Assembly Vote",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>An effort to ban \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11952188/california-caste-discrimination\">caste discrimination in California\u003c/a> survived in committee Wednesday, July 5, despite months of opposition organized by groups that alleged the bill would unfairly target South Asians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB403\">Senate Bill 403\u003c/a>, authored by Fremont Democratic Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/aisha-wahab-1987/\">Aisha Wahab\u003c/a>, would add caste — a centuries-old social hierarchy system that has historically determined what jobs or education people can attain — to the list of protected classes in the state’s civil rights, employment and housing laws, alongside race, gender and sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What would be the first law of its kind in the nation has been watered down somewhat, but was approved in a 9-0 vote by the Assembly Judiciary Committee and now goes to the full Assembly. The Senate approved a similar version by a 34-1 vote in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill that passed through the committee today includes amendments added over the weekend that categorize caste as a subset of ancestry — an already protected trait under state anti-discrimination laws. Wahab accepted that amendment, saying it represented a concept of the bill her office “discussed at length weeks ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the senator rejected earlier\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>suggestions from Assembly Judiciary Chairperson \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/brian-maienschein-1969/\">Brian Maienschein\u003c/a>, a San Diego Democrat, to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/06/robert-rivas-new-speaker/#wm-story-1\">remove the word “caste” from the bill\u003c/a> and replace it with “inherited social status.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“SB 403 will end caste discrimination. The definition and protections included in this bill will protect millions,” Wahab said in a statement after the committee’s hearing, which drew around 200 people representing both sides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘SB 403 will end caste discrimination. The definition and protections included in this bill will protect millions.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters said current laws don’t go far enough to protect against caste-based discrimination because it’s difficult to make such claims against an employer or potential landlord who may share the same race or national origin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/SB403?src=hashtag_click\">SB 403\u003c/a> is a critical bill to make California a just and equitable place for all,” said workplace lawyer Tarina Mand, one of the two witnesses who spoke in support of the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the vote, supporters marched out of the hearing room chanting “SB 403 zindabad,” which translates to “Long live SB 403.” They continued to celebrate outside the Capitol with more chanting, joyful embraces and even a little dancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just feet away, opponents also regrouped, but in more somber tones — reflecting on their efforts, and a pledge by some to keep fighting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents — including groups who organized against a similar ordinance in Seattle — said the prevalence of caste in South Asian countries would lead to racial profiling. They oppose any mention of “caste” in the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samir Kalra, managing director of the \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/HinduAmerican/status/1676773377460039684?s=20\">Hindu American Foundation\u003c/a>, which organized some of the opposition, said he was disappointed, but that the group plans to continue to try to “educate lawmakers on the issue” before the full Assembly votes on the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We feel it was a step in the right direction but not far enough,” he told CalMatters after the hearing. “We’re disappointed that the committee didn’t remove ‘caste’ entirely from even the clarification of ancestry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a concession to critics, Wahab \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/06/gavin-newsom-pushback/#wm-story-1\">amended the bill on June 15 to strip out language\u003c/a> that references any South Asian origins of caste, but said that did not change the intent of the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11955063\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11955063\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02.jpg\" alt=\"Inside the Assembly Judiciary Committee chambers: There is a California state flag hanging in the background. There are various women in suits and business attire listening to one another. Seats with skinny, black microphones are also seen in the background.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/CalMattersCaste02-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Supporters testify on a caste discrimination bill before the Assembly Judiciary Committee at the state Capitol in Sacramento on July 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Semantha Norris/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The bill is the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/06/caste-discrimination-california/\">latest example of international conflict coming to California\u003c/a>, a magnet for immigrants. Due to immigration laws that favor skilled workers, immigrants from India’s lower caste are more recent arrivals — and some are left to escape discrimination, only to confront it in the workplace and social settings here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While caste systems exist in several countries, it’s commonly associated with India, where it was outlawed in 1950 but its legacy remains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But trying to legislate such conflicts is difficult and controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are two South Asians in the Legislature. Democratic Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/jasmeet-bains-1985/\">Jasmeet Bains\u003c/a> from Bakersfield signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Democratic Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/ash-kalra-1972/\">Ash Kalra\u003c/a> of San Jose, who is on the committee, hadn’t spoken on the bill — until today. In an emotional testimony at times, he spoke about the divisions he had witnessed and said he understood concerns from constituents, but concluded that the amendments address those.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ultimately, there are certain things we must do as a state to protect everyone in our state,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wahab, the first Afghan American in the Legislature, isn’t South Asian, but represents many in her district. Since introducing the bill, she said she has been threatened and she’s now the target of a recall campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymembers \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/alex-lee-1995/\">Alex Lee\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/evan-low-1983/\">Evan Low\u003c/a> represent parts of Silicon Valley, where many tech workers are South Asian and where allegations of caste bias have hit top companies, including Cisco and Google. In a June letter, they suggested pausing the bill for further study. While Low leads the California Asian American and Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, the group declined to take a position on the matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
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"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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},
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},
"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/reveal",
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"rss": "http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"
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