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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/travis-air-force-base\">Travis Air Force Base\u003c/a> in Fairfield implemented enhanced safety measures this week in the wake of the recent U.S. and Israel’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913193/unpacking-the-latest-developments-in-iran\">attacks on Iran\u003c/a>, a spokesperson on the base confirmed Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Northern Command ordered heightened security at entry gates to military installations across the country on Sunday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spokesperson for Travis said valid identification would be required for all personnel and visitors and warned people to expect delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The base’s medical center also said in a message on social media that it was “operating under increased security measures” to “help ensure the safety and security of our installation and community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The security measures come after the U.S. and Israel \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075377/bay-area-lawmakers-stand-against-war-with-iran\">began combat operations in Iran\u003c/a> early Saturday, targeting military infrastructure and senior leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075006\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075006\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/022826_IRAN-BAY-AREA-RESPONSE_GH_008-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/022826_IRAN-BAY-AREA-RESPONSE_GH_008-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/022826_IRAN-BAY-AREA-RESPONSE_GH_008-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/022826_IRAN-BAY-AREA-RESPONSE_GH_008-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A demonstrator holds an Iranian flag as protesters gather outside the San Francisco Federal Building during a “Hands Off Iran” rally on Feb. 28, 2026, in San Francisco. The rally called for an end to U.S. involvement in the strikes. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since then, at least six American soldiers have died, according to the Pentagon, including Robert Marzan, a United States Army reservist from Sacramento who was killed in an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait on Sunday. Nearly 1,000 people in Iran are believed to have been killed, including children and staff at a school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement on social media on Sunday, FBI Director Kash Patel said following the initial strikes, he had instructed the agency’s counterterrorism and intelligence teams “to be on high alert and mobilize all assisting security assets needed.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In response to increased threats, the Department of Homeland Security’s Trusted Traveler Program, which generally allows preapproved people to undergo modified security screenings when entering military installations, has been suspended, the Travis spokesperson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They added that items people carry onto the base, as well as vehicles, would be subject to inspection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A U.S. official said in an email to KQED that the Department of Defense could not comment on what, if any, involvement the base has in the war in Iran, or if any service members stationed there are involved in current operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear how long heightened security measures could remain in place, as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on social media on Tuesday that U.S. military forces had “only just begun to fight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across California, lawmakers have called on President Donald Trump to end the military operations in Iran or seek Congressional authority, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075011/hundreds-rally-in-san-francisco-against-u-s-israel-strikes-on-iran\">hundreds of protesters\u003c/a> have gathered in San Francisco and Oakland on evenings since the strikes began, denouncing the escalation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Forever Eyes New Trump Initiative to Bring Its Shipbuilding Plans to Life",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california-forever\">California Forever\u003c/a>, the company behind a plan to build a new city in Solano County, announced its latest proposal on Thursday to make progress on another ambitious initiative: revitalizing the area’s shipbuilding industry with the goal of creating thousands of jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The real estate development corporation and Nimitz Group, which owns Vallejo’s Mare Island, are urging the federal government to designate the California Delta a “Maritime Prosperity Zone,” a designation created by President Donald Trump last year. The zone would span the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers through Suisun and San Pablo bays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This proposal responds directly to the national imperative to rebuild America’s maritime industrial base,” said Jan Sramek, founder & CEO of California Forever. “Solano County, and the broader California Delta region, are uniquely positioned to become a bridge between the past and the future of shipbuilding in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement comes as California Forever continues to pursue a deal for Suisun City to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043295/suisun-city-proposes-annexing-most-of-california-forevers-new-city\">annex much of its land\u003c/a> where it intends to build a mega-development in rural Solano County and develop a 2,100-acre \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12048321/california-forever-wants-to-build-a-manufacturing-town\">advanced manufacturing operation\u003c/a> nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The billionaire-backed company, one of the largest landowners in the county, said designating the delta area a Maritime Prosperity Zone could mean tax incentives and coordinated federal support, along with long-term maritime and industrial investment for the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036285\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036285\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jan Sramek, CEO of California Forever, speaks during a town hall meeting in Rio Vista on Dec. 5, 2023, for the proposed California city backed by Silicon Valley investors on farmland in eastern Solano County. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California Forever first announced its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12037142/california-forevers-shipbuilding-plans-need-more-details-solano-county-officials-say\">interest in shipbuilding\u003c/a> last March after Trump formed the White House Office of Shipbuilding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April, he signed an executive order for the purpose of “restoring America’s maritime dominance,” which called for creating a framework for Maritime Prosperity Zones and an action plan to build up shipbuilding capacity and the maritime industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group has eyed Collinsville, a small town in an unincorporated area across the delta from Pittsburg, as a potential shipbuilding site. But partners of this week’s proposal say it extends beyond that effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With something like shipbuilding, you really want to catalyze the entire region,” said Chris Rico, the president and CEO of Solano Economic Development Corporation, which is backing the proposal.[aside postID=news_12059985 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-53-KQED.jpg'] “If you’re looking at Collinsville … they understand that they’re going to need Benicia and Vallejo and even across the water in Pittsburg and Bay Point and Antioch. They all rise together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That appears to address pushback California Forever got when it announced plans for the “Solano Shipyard” last year. While the county has been \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12037142/california-forevers-shipbuilding-plans-need-more-details-solano-county-officials-say\">supportive of expanding the shipbuilding industry\u003c/a>, it told the organization at the time that it needed more information before it could support the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some residents have pushed for investment to restore such operations to go toward Mare Island, which was the first naval base on the Pacific Ocean and operated for nearly 150 years before it was decommissioned in 1996.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rico said building up the maritime industry throughout the county could create thousands of jobs in shipbuilding as well as industries along the supply chain. Currently, he said, 100,000 residents leave Solano County for work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To have the possibility to have those kinds of living-wage jobs here where people could live and work close to home, that’s really what we’ve been driving towards,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not yet clear what the exact incentives of a designated Maritime Prosperity Zone would be, but Trump’s April order said the zones would provide “opportunities to incentivize and facilitate domestic and allied investment in United States maritime industries and waterfront communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12048457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12048457\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1048\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2-160x84.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2-1536x805.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Solano Foundry would be located in an area previously designated for “industry and technology” within the new city. It would also be close to Collinsville, where the company wants to build a shipyard. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of California Forever)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The zones are expected to operate similarly to \u003ca href=\"https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/opportunity-zones\">Opportunity Zones\u003c/a>, which spur investment in specific low-income areas by offering tax incentives to investors. Trump’s executive order suggests that places in a Maritime Prosperity Zone would also get regulatory relief from the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bipartisan members of Congress have also introduced the SHIPS for America Act, with the goal of revitalizing shipbuilding and strengthening U.S. maritime security. That bill would establish a “\u003ca href=\"https://garamendi.house.gov/media/press-releases/garamendi-kelly-senators-young-and-kelly-introduce-ships-america-act\">Maritime Security Trust Fund,\u003c/a>” which would reinvest maritime fees into “security programs and infrastructure supporting maritime commerce.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s been an acknowledgement across the aisle that [the U.S.] not building ships is a national security issue, so we’re building on the backs of that work,” Rico said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Corey Cook, the vice president and CEO of Cal Poly Maritime Academy in Vallejo, the proposal this week highlights the Bay Area’s interest in being at the forefront of that work. He said the region has a long history of shipbuilding. According to California Forever, Northern California supported more than 220,000 shipbuilding jobs during World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023512\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023512\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sculptures and defunct cranes occupy the waterfront facing the Napa River on Mare Island in the city of Vallejo, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There are active shipyards still throughout the Bay Area. We want to position ourselves so that once the Department of Commerce comes out with guidelines around the Maritime Prosperity Zones, that we’re ready to articulate our region’s interests in being designated,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university, which is supporting California Forever’s proposal, expects to be a partner in preparing the workforce that a larger maritime industry will require, Cook said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We prepare Coast Guard-licensed deck officers and engineers. We also prepare students who are going to end up operating shipyards and can be involved in logistics, planning and ports and the whole realm of maritime operations,” he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook said the school would be looking to partner with community colleges and other California State University campuses, along with K-12 schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california-forever\">California Forever\u003c/a>, the company behind a plan to build a new city in Solano County, announced its latest proposal on Thursday to make progress on another ambitious initiative: revitalizing the area’s shipbuilding industry with the goal of creating thousands of jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The real estate development corporation and Nimitz Group, which owns Vallejo’s Mare Island, are urging the federal government to designate the California Delta a “Maritime Prosperity Zone,” a designation created by President Donald Trump last year. The zone would span the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers through Suisun and San Pablo bays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This proposal responds directly to the national imperative to rebuild America’s maritime industrial base,” said Jan Sramek, founder & CEO of California Forever. “Solano County, and the broader California Delta region, are uniquely positioned to become a bridge between the past and the future of shipbuilding in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement comes as California Forever continues to pursue a deal for Suisun City to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043295/suisun-city-proposes-annexing-most-of-california-forevers-new-city\">annex much of its land\u003c/a> where it intends to build a mega-development in rural Solano County and develop a 2,100-acre \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12048321/california-forever-wants-to-build-a-manufacturing-town\">advanced manufacturing operation\u003c/a> nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The billionaire-backed company, one of the largest landowners in the county, said designating the delta area a Maritime Prosperity Zone could mean tax incentives and coordinated federal support, along with long-term maritime and industrial investment for the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036285\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036285\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-39-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jan Sramek, CEO of California Forever, speaks during a town hall meeting in Rio Vista on Dec. 5, 2023, for the proposed California city backed by Silicon Valley investors on farmland in eastern Solano County. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California Forever first announced its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12037142/california-forevers-shipbuilding-plans-need-more-details-solano-county-officials-say\">interest in shipbuilding\u003c/a> last March after Trump formed the White House Office of Shipbuilding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April, he signed an executive order for the purpose of “restoring America’s maritime dominance,” which called for creating a framework for Maritime Prosperity Zones and an action plan to build up shipbuilding capacity and the maritime industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group has eyed Collinsville, a small town in an unincorporated area across the delta from Pittsburg, as a potential shipbuilding site. But partners of this week’s proposal say it extends beyond that effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With something like shipbuilding, you really want to catalyze the entire region,” said Chris Rico, the president and CEO of Solano Economic Development Corporation, which is backing the proposal.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> “If you’re looking at Collinsville … they understand that they’re going to need Benicia and Vallejo and even across the water in Pittsburg and Bay Point and Antioch. They all rise together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That appears to address pushback California Forever got when it announced plans for the “Solano Shipyard” last year. While the county has been \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12037142/california-forevers-shipbuilding-plans-need-more-details-solano-county-officials-say\">supportive of expanding the shipbuilding industry\u003c/a>, it told the organization at the time that it needed more information before it could support the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some residents have pushed for investment to restore such operations to go toward Mare Island, which was the first naval base on the Pacific Ocean and operated for nearly 150 years before it was decommissioned in 1996.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rico said building up the maritime industry throughout the county could create thousands of jobs in shipbuilding as well as industries along the supply chain. Currently, he said, 100,000 residents leave Solano County for work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To have the possibility to have those kinds of living-wage jobs here where people could live and work close to home, that’s really what we’ve been driving towards,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not yet clear what the exact incentives of a designated Maritime Prosperity Zone would be, but Trump’s April order said the zones would provide “opportunities to incentivize and facilitate domestic and allied investment in United States maritime industries and waterfront communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12048457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12048457\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1048\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2-160x84.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2-1536x805.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Solano Foundry would be located in an area previously designated for “industry and technology” within the new city. It would also be close to Collinsville, where the company wants to build a shipyard. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of California Forever)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The zones are expected to operate similarly to \u003ca href=\"https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/opportunity-zones\">Opportunity Zones\u003c/a>, which spur investment in specific low-income areas by offering tax incentives to investors. Trump’s executive order suggests that places in a Maritime Prosperity Zone would also get regulatory relief from the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bipartisan members of Congress have also introduced the SHIPS for America Act, with the goal of revitalizing shipbuilding and strengthening U.S. maritime security. That bill would establish a “\u003ca href=\"https://garamendi.house.gov/media/press-releases/garamendi-kelly-senators-young-and-kelly-introduce-ships-america-act\">Maritime Security Trust Fund,\u003c/a>” which would reinvest maritime fees into “security programs and infrastructure supporting maritime commerce.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s been an acknowledgement across the aisle that [the U.S.] not building ships is a national security issue, so we’re building on the backs of that work,” Rico said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Corey Cook, the vice president and CEO of Cal Poly Maritime Academy in Vallejo, the proposal this week highlights the Bay Area’s interest in being at the forefront of that work. He said the region has a long history of shipbuilding. According to California Forever, Northern California supported more than 220,000 shipbuilding jobs during World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023512\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023512\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island_DMB_00190-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sculptures and defunct cranes occupy the waterfront facing the Napa River on Mare Island in the city of Vallejo, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There are active shipyards still throughout the Bay Area. We want to position ourselves so that once the Department of Commerce comes out with guidelines around the Maritime Prosperity Zones, that we’re ready to articulate our region’s interests in being designated,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university, which is supporting California Forever’s proposal, expects to be a partner in preparing the workforce that a larger maritime industry will require, Cook said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We prepare Coast Guard-licensed deck officers and engineers. We also prepare students who are going to end up operating shipyards and can be involved in logistics, planning and ports and the whole realm of maritime operations,” he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook said the school would be looking to partner with community colleges and other California State University campuses, along with K-12 schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Thousands of Solano County workers launched a two-day strike Tuesday, after monthslong negotiations have yielded little progress on new labor agreements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 2,000 employees who walked off the job include social workers, engineers and administrative staff working under contracts that lapsed in October. They’re asking for higher wages and better benefits to ease what they say is a recruitment and retention crisis that’s harming both employees and residents in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside a county social services building in Fairfield on Tuesday morning, workers chanted and walked the picket lines. Among them was Richard Livingston Jr., a supervisor at Solano County Older and Disabled Adult Services who has worked for the county for 26 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While he’s been through contract fights before, Livingston noted that four unions have come together this time around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So you have workers, supervisors, managers; you have physicians; you have custodial; you have professional, technical; all these folks are here together,” Livingston said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you take care of the workers, the people that take care of the people, you’re taking care of the people,” he continued. “There’s a lot of people who work here in Solano County who said they can’t afford to live here now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_010-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_010-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_010-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_010-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Protesters hold up signs calling for fully funded mental health services during a Solano County workers strike on Jan. 13, 2026, in Fairfield. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Linda Cheesman, a supervisor in Solano County’s General Services department, said in a statement that workers are stretched thin and services are delayed because of hundreds of vacant positions, adding that the county’s employees are under “serious strain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“County workers want to help build a Solano for all, but we need the county to meet us with a fair and equitable contract so we can attract and retain the staff our community relies on,” she continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The workers represented by Service Employees International Union Local 1021, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21, International Union of Operating Engineers Local 39 and Union of American Physicians and Dentists are bargaining separate contracts, but social worker Elizabeth Harrison said many of their core demands are the same: better retention rates and recruitment efforts to ease chronic understaffing in county departments.[aside postID=news_12068383 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/04/001_KQED_Oakland_HighlandHospital_041152020-1020x680.jpg']“The bottom-line to that is … we’re talking about having a community that deserves fully staffed, safe and reliable public services,” Harrison, who is a member of SEIU Local 1021, said. “If we cannot get retention and recruitment under control, then what we have is as many people come in the front door to be hired as people go out the back door. They leave.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harrison, who has been an adult protective services social worker in the county for 13 years, said that vacant positions in her department means she and other employees have unmanageable caseloads and rising rates of burnout, while some of their clients experience long wait times for care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we have positions like mine, or [in] public works or agriculture, the chronic understaffing puts all of us at risk,” she told KQED. “People have growing safety concerns for the workers and the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unions are asking for higher wages and better benefit coverage to encourage people to come to work for the county, and to stay for longer periods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069601\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069601\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_002-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_002-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_002-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_002-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Union members and supporters march through downtown Fairfield as Solano County workers went on strike after contract talks with the county stalled on Jan. 13, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s not primarily the wages and the benefits, but those things play a part in retention and recruitment which then plays a part in having high quality public services. It all ties together,” Harrison told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>Tazamisha Alexander, a benefits eligibility specialist for the county and a member of her union’s negotiating team, said Tuesday on the picket line that talks with the county have been difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The county hasn’t really negotiated anything,” Alexander said. “The previous contract, there was a back-and-forth. We talked about things. That’s why we didn’t have to go out. This time around, it’s just been a bunch of no.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county said it’s offered a proposal that includes salary increases, higher insurance contributions and additional benefits totalling over $90 million, and is weighing the union’s requests with its current fiscal outlook and “ongoing budget pressures.” In negotiations, officials have emphasized the “need to balance fair compensation with the County’s responsibility to maintain essential services and fiscal sustainability for the community,” the county said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Megan Richards, a management analyst in the Solano County Administrator’s Office, said the county is anticipating possible cost increases to run federal programs like Medicare or CalFresh, which are implementing new work requirements and other qualification restrictions and could shift additional administrative tasks to the county level. She also said Solano faces uncertainty in state and federal budget plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069600\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_001-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_001-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_001-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_001-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Akbar Bibb, a member of SEIU Local 1021, speaks to a crowd of county workers and supporters during a strike rally outside the Solano County Government Center on Jan. 13, 2026, in Fairfield. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The strike that began Tuesday is directly over the county’s approach to bargaining after the unions jointly filed unfair labor practices charges with the state over the issue in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You go into a negotiation and you expect to have some movement back and forth, some real talks and real negotiations, but they’ve stalled,” Harrison said. “For lack of better words, it’s a waste of time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers formed strike lines beginning at 7 a.m. Tuesday outside both the county’s Health and Social Services and administrative building in Fairfield, with others planned near county worksites in Vallejo, Vacaville and Cordelia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The action was expected to have rippling impacts on county services Tuesday and Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Health and Human Services said most of its divisions will be open for emergency response, but appointments will be rescheduled, and some services will be delayed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069632\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069632\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_Solano-County-Strike-_GH_017_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_Solano-County-Strike-_GH_017_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_Solano-County-Strike-_GH_017_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_Solano-County-Strike-_GH_017_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A striking Solano County worker leads Solano County workers through downtown Fairfield during a strike march over contract negotiations on Jan. 13, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lynch Canyon Open Space and Patwino Worrtla Kodoi Dihi Open Space will both be closed, while other beaches and county parks remain open. The Fairfield Civic Center Library will remain open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., while other locations will be closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, other services could still be delayed, and closures could occur, the county said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contract negotiations are ongoing, and the parties could return to the bargaining table at any time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we’re looking to do is make sure that we have real movement and real respect at the bargaining table, and we have not experienced that from our employer here at Solano County,” said Harrison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rsgirldaisy/?hl=en\">\u003cem>Daisy Nguyen\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Thousands of Solano County workers launched a two-day strike Tuesday, after monthslong negotiations have yielded little progress on new labor agreements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 2,000 employees who walked off the job include social workers, engineers and administrative staff working under contracts that lapsed in October. They’re asking for higher wages and better benefits to ease what they say is a recruitment and retention crisis that’s harming both employees and residents in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside a county social services building in Fairfield on Tuesday morning, workers chanted and walked the picket lines. Among them was Richard Livingston Jr., a supervisor at Solano County Older and Disabled Adult Services who has worked for the county for 26 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While he’s been through contract fights before, Livingston noted that four unions have come together this time around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So you have workers, supervisors, managers; you have physicians; you have custodial; you have professional, technical; all these folks are here together,” Livingston said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you take care of the workers, the people that take care of the people, you’re taking care of the people,” he continued. “There’s a lot of people who work here in Solano County who said they can’t afford to live here now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_010-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_010-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_010-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_010-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Protesters hold up signs calling for fully funded mental health services during a Solano County workers strike on Jan. 13, 2026, in Fairfield. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Linda Cheesman, a supervisor in Solano County’s General Services department, said in a statement that workers are stretched thin and services are delayed because of hundreds of vacant positions, adding that the county’s employees are under “serious strain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“County workers want to help build a Solano for all, but we need the county to meet us with a fair and equitable contract so we can attract and retain the staff our community relies on,” she continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The workers represented by Service Employees International Union Local 1021, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21, International Union of Operating Engineers Local 39 and Union of American Physicians and Dentists are bargaining separate contracts, but social worker Elizabeth Harrison said many of their core demands are the same: better retention rates and recruitment efforts to ease chronic understaffing in county departments.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The bottom-line to that is … we’re talking about having a community that deserves fully staffed, safe and reliable public services,” Harrison, who is a member of SEIU Local 1021, said. “If we cannot get retention and recruitment under control, then what we have is as many people come in the front door to be hired as people go out the back door. They leave.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harrison, who has been an adult protective services social worker in the county for 13 years, said that vacant positions in her department means she and other employees have unmanageable caseloads and rising rates of burnout, while some of their clients experience long wait times for care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we have positions like mine, or [in] public works or agriculture, the chronic understaffing puts all of us at risk,” she told KQED. “People have growing safety concerns for the workers and the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unions are asking for higher wages and better benefit coverage to encourage people to come to work for the county, and to stay for longer periods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069601\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069601\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_002-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_002-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_002-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_002-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Union members and supporters march through downtown Fairfield as Solano County workers went on strike after contract talks with the county stalled on Jan. 13, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s not primarily the wages and the benefits, but those things play a part in retention and recruitment which then plays a part in having high quality public services. It all ties together,” Harrison told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>Tazamisha Alexander, a benefits eligibility specialist for the county and a member of her union’s negotiating team, said Tuesday on the picket line that talks with the county have been difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The county hasn’t really negotiated anything,” Alexander said. “The previous contract, there was a back-and-forth. We talked about things. That’s why we didn’t have to go out. This time around, it’s just been a bunch of no.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county said it’s offered a proposal that includes salary increases, higher insurance contributions and additional benefits totalling over $90 million, and is weighing the union’s requests with its current fiscal outlook and “ongoing budget pressures.” In negotiations, officials have emphasized the “need to balance fair compensation with the County’s responsibility to maintain essential services and fiscal sustainability for the community,” the county said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Megan Richards, a management analyst in the Solano County Administrator’s Office, said the county is anticipating possible cost increases to run federal programs like Medicare or CalFresh, which are implementing new work requirements and other qualification restrictions and could shift additional administrative tasks to the county level. She also said Solano faces uncertainty in state and federal budget plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069600\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_001-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_001-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_001-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_SOLANO-COUNTY-STRIKE-_GH_001-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Akbar Bibb, a member of SEIU Local 1021, speaks to a crowd of county workers and supporters during a strike rally outside the Solano County Government Center on Jan. 13, 2026, in Fairfield. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The strike that began Tuesday is directly over the county’s approach to bargaining after the unions jointly filed unfair labor practices charges with the state over the issue in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You go into a negotiation and you expect to have some movement back and forth, some real talks and real negotiations, but they’ve stalled,” Harrison said. “For lack of better words, it’s a waste of time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers formed strike lines beginning at 7 a.m. Tuesday outside both the county’s Health and Social Services and administrative building in Fairfield, with others planned near county worksites in Vallejo, Vacaville and Cordelia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The action was expected to have rippling impacts on county services Tuesday and Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Health and Human Services said most of its divisions will be open for emergency response, but appointments will be rescheduled, and some services will be delayed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069632\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069632\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_Solano-County-Strike-_GH_017_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_Solano-County-Strike-_GH_017_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_Solano-County-Strike-_GH_017_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011326_Solano-County-Strike-_GH_017_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A striking Solano County worker leads Solano County workers through downtown Fairfield during a strike march over contract negotiations on Jan. 13, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lynch Canyon Open Space and Patwino Worrtla Kodoi Dihi Open Space will both be closed, while other beaches and county parks remain open. The Fairfield Civic Center Library will remain open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., while other locations will be closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, other services could still be delayed, and closures could occur, the county said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contract negotiations are ongoing, and the parties could return to the bargaining table at any time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we’re looking to do is make sure that we have real movement and real respect at the bargaining table, and we have not experienced that from our employer here at Solano County,” said Harrison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rsgirldaisy/?hl=en\">\u003cem>Daisy Nguyen\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "esmeralda-courts-locals-as-it-tries-to-learn-from-california-forevers-mistakes",
"title": "Esmeralda Courts Locals as It Tries to Learn From California Forever’s Mistakes",
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"headTitle": "Esmeralda Courts Locals as It Tries to Learn From California Forever’s Mistakes | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Mark Thayer and his wife quietly perused the brightly colored presentation boards arranged around the Cloverdale Veterans Memorial Building on a recent Wednesday in October. They were curious, but skeptical, and wanted to learn more about a project called Esmeralda, potentially coming to their city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thayer had read some Facebook posts about the proposed project: a\u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomamag.com/a-temporary-village-is-popping-up-in-healdsburg-for-people-wanting-to-create-a-better-future/?gSlide=4\"> dense, walkable development\u003c/a> on the southern end of Cloverdale, where he lives, a city perched at the northernmost tip of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/sonoma-county\">Sonoma County\u003c/a>. That night was important: he would be getting information straight from the source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Esmeralda Land Company, the group behind the project, was hosting an informational open house. The development would include a resort hotel, hundreds of homes and an event space — a substantial change for the small city of nearly 9,000 people — and locals had questions, Thayer included.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Who would live there? How big would it be? What about water? Would this project actually pan out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m interested in how it will be developed,” Thayer said. Would it be a bunch of vacation homes? “I hope that it’s something that’s for people that live [there] full-time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But one of the biggest questions plaguing the company since it first introduced its plans \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20240801024109/https:/www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/cloverdale-alexander-valley-resort-esmeralda/\">last year\u003c/a>: Was it connected to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000185/this-tech-backed-company-tried-to-disrupt-californias-housing-crisis-it-couldnt\">California Forever\u003c/a>, the company that wants to build a mega-development in southeast Solano County?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063484\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063484 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-08-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-08-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-08-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The plot of land in Cloverdale that the Esmeralda Land Company is seeking to develop on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That proposed development faced a rocky start and backlash from residents who criticized California Forever for secretly buying land and suing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12005460/farmers-who-refused-to-sell-land-to-california-forever-settle-suits-against-them\">local farmers\u003c/a>. The project has remained controversial ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esmeralda is not related to the Solano-based company, but as it prepares to submit a formal project application to Cloverdale city officials, \u003ca href=\"https://esmeralda.org/public-process\">expected Nov. 12\u003c/a>, leaders have tried to distance their project from California Forever and learn from its mistakes. The Esmeralda Land Company has spent the past two years on outreach, even before securing the property, though it has an exclusive negotiating deal to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the efforts seem to be paying off with local leaders rallying around the project, and many residents are cautiously optimistic about it. Urbanist and author Alex Schafran credited the warmer reception to the company’s approach of getting local buy-in before submitting an official development application.[aside postID=news_12059985 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250804-CALIFORNIAFOREVERSUISUNCITY-53-KQED.jpg']Compared to California Forever, he said, “It’s night and day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Esmeralda] is — at least on paper — trying to do things the way a lot of folks have been hoping that urban planning and development would be done: starting with a consultation, starting with the conversations, incorporating local people in the visioning of what’s there, and then being able to actually deliver on the vision that they created,” Schafran said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, some residents remain skeptical of whether Esmeralda will actually deliver on its ambitious plan and whether the new development will truly be affordable and accessible to the rest of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cloverdale is a great town, so people are protective of it,” Esmeralda CEO and Founder Devon Zuegel said. “We’re really committed to making sure that we create a place that people are proud of being part of this community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both California Forever and Esmeralda want to build walkable neighborhoods, but the latter project is much smaller. Preliminary plans show the Cloverdale project would include a 184-room hotel, retail space, an outdoor amphitheater and around 600 homes, ranging from apartments to single-family homes to senior housing. Year-round, the neighborhood would host educational events for visitors and Cloverdale residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the 266-acre lot where the development would be built is largely vacant, with low rolling hills and a lone truck repair facility. But Zuegel imagines her project will transform the area into a “\u003ca href=\"https://esmeralda.org/\">mini college campus\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063481\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063481 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-05-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The proposed plot of land abuts rolling Sonoma County hillsides on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s modeled after \u003ca href=\"https://www.chq.org/\">Chautauqua\u003c/a>, a small resort town in upstate New York that became home to a cultural movement named after the city. When Zuegel talks about her inspiration for the project, she reminisces over summers spent in Chautauqua, where her grandmother lived. During that time, she attended seminars, including one hosted by Jane Goodall, and saw the Beach Boys perform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zuegel said she chose to develop Esmeralda in Cloverdale precisely because of its small-town feel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love Cloverdale, I think it’s such a charming town,” she said. “It really reminded me of Chautauqua, and so, I think leaning into what Cloverdale is already so amazing at, and bringing that out even further, was something that really drew to me.”[aside postID=news_12043295 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed.jpg']While the company has been working hard to garner trust in the community and distance itself from California Forever, Esmeralda shares similarities with the Solano-based company. Like California Forever CEO Jan Sramek, Zuegel worked in Silicon Valley, including at the software developer platform Github and blockchain company Bloom Protocol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And similar to California Forever’s experience in Solano County, residents in Cloverdale raised questions about Esmeralda’s investors. Rumors circulated early on, claiming Esmeralda is backed by venture capitalist Peter Thiel. While Zuegel has refuted that rumor and denied any relations to the conservative libertarian, she has declined to reveal the identities of the project’s 19 backers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the question came up during a project open house in October, Zuegel was nonspecific, saying they “tend to actually be private individuals who live in the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like California Forever, Esmeralda has its detractors. Skeptical residents pointed to similar proposals for Cloverdale that have failed to materialize and concerns that the new development will be populated by rich Silicon Valley tech-types.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063494\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/250724_VISIT-TO-ESMERALDA_-0008_GH-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/250724_VISIT-TO-ESMERALDA_-0008_GH-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/250724_VISIT-TO-ESMERALDA_-0008_GH-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/250724_VISIT-TO-ESMERALDA_-0008_GH-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Devon Zuegel, Esmeralda development leader, addresses residents at the Cloverdale Museum of History open house on July 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nilda Andrews, who attended the company’s first project open house in July, came away with mixed feelings. She recently moved to the small city from San Francisco and said the whole project sounded “very elitist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How are they going to bring in the rest of Cloverdale?” she asked. “I’m good for change. But I’m for change for everybody. Not just for the few, the elite.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Ann Brigham, a Cloverdale resident and former mayor of the city, attended Esmeralda’s second open house in October. She has seen multiple projects proposed — and dropped — on the vacant site where Esmeralda would be located and doubts this project will be an exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most recently, in 2004, a developer completed an \u003ca href=\"https://ceqanet.lci.ca.gov/2003072142/2\">environmental impact report\u003c/a> for a similar project called the Alexander Valley Resort Project, which included a 150-room hotel, a spa, and a golf course, along with 165 single-family homes. But, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20240801034717/https:/www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/for-sale-again-in-cloverdale-267-acres-of-resort-property/\">Press Democrat\u003c/a>, the project fell through in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063479\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063479 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-03-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bicyclists out for a ride in Cloverdale on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“They all end up wasting a lot of the city’s time and money, and then they never go through with it. So, am I skeptical? Yeah,” Brigham said. “I don’t believe anything until a check’s in my hand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But perhaps one of the sharpest differences between the two companies is their relationships with local elected officials, with California Forever starting on shaky ground and never quite recovering. Esmeralda is hoping to find surer footing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon after California Forever formally announced its ambitious plan, the project became a political hot potato as some local and county officials were \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11976108/california-forever-faces-resistance-from-federal-lawmakers-and-local-leaders-in-solano-county\">vocal in their opposition\u003c/a>, while others declined to comment on it. Some \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11985711/fairfield-officials-wife-returns-money-from-campaign-for-new-california-city\">distanced themselves\u003c/a> after initially trying to work with California Forever or learn more about the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project was scheduled to go before voters in November 2024, but the company scrapped its ballot measure, in part due to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000185/this-tech-backed-company-tried-to-disrupt-californias-housing-crisis-it-couldnt\">lack of support among local elects\u003c/a>. California Forever is now pursuing its project through an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059985/california-forever-clears-first-hurdle-in-suisun-city-annexation\">annexation deal\u003c/a> with nearby Suisun City. But even there — after attempting to bypass reluctant county officials and a contentious vote — there are headwinds. Residents are \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/suisun-city-neighbors-push-to-recall-entire-city-council/\">gathering signatures\u003c/a> in a bid to recall the entire Suisun City Council.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The start of the process was always going to be controversial — the secrecy [of the land acquisition] raises understandable concerns,” California Forever CEO Jan Sramek \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/jansramek/status/1981014132632830099\">recently tweeted\u003c/a>. “We made mistakes when rolling it out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11991791\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11991791 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jan Sramek, CEO of California Forever, speaks during a town hall meeting in Rio Vista on Dec. 5, 2023, for the proposed California city backed by Silicon Valley investors on farmland in eastern Solano County. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Zuegel said she watched those mistakes and tried to learn from them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Seeing the frustration that people had with California Forever definitely further underlined ‘Okay [community outreach] is really important to do,’’ she said. “We’re all learning from different examples that we see out there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Cloverdale, Mayor Todd Lands said that when he first heard about Esmeralda, he was worried it was connected to California Forever and became one of its biggest critics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I made fun of them. They came in here with a project called ‘Edge Esmeralda.’ I called them ‘Utopia,’ I called them ‘the Emerald City,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his opinion changed as he learned more and got to know Zuegel. “I listened to their pitch, and I went through what they were actually proposing to the city, and it was done very well. And it was the exact opposite of what I was expecting it to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063486\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063486 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-10-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">PLANK Coffee in downtown Cloverdale on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beginning in the summer of 2024, the company hosted Edge Esmeralda, a month-long “pop-up village” in Healdsburg, which illustrated what amenities the future development could include. Zuegel said the pop-up was a way to embed into the community and get to know the locals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Developers often don’t necessarily know how to speak to a local community,” she said. “We wanted to show the ‘Chautauqua way’ of having this multi-generational community in a place that people can walk around. Instead of just having a presentation… we wanted people to be able to live it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Company staff also reached out to local organizations, including the Cloverdale Senior Center, the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce and the Veterans Memorial Building, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Melanie Hall, the Senior Center’s program manager, said Zuegel came to the center for a tour and eagerly engaged with staff and residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063482 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-06-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oak trees stand on the plot of land in Cloverdale that the Esmeralda Land Company is proposing to develop on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This doesn’t happen that often,” she said. “You don’t usually hear a developer say, ‘We want to hear from the community first if what we’re going to do is going to fit for them.’ So I’m really impressed with that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zuegel said she has tried to incorporate feedback from locals into her company’s plan. After speaking with local businesses, she expressed interest in opening what she called “outposts” within Esmeralda — Plank Coffee could have a grab-and-go station in the hotel. Dahlia & Sage, a small grocery store, could offer hotel guests deli sandwiches and baked goods with their morning coffee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Erik Terreri, a local realtor who attended the July event, said he hopes those outposts lead to visitors patronizing downtown Cloverdale, too, which currently sees little foot traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In order to sort of bring people from outside, you’ve got to have more than one good restaurant that’s attracting them. You’ve got to have a few. There’s a critical tipping point, right?” he said. “I see a symbiotic relationship between what they’re going to try and do there and what we’ve been trying to do here in town.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "As executives from the Esmeralda Land Company prepare to present their plans to Cloverdale officials on Wednesday, they’ve been trying to distance themselves from California Forever. ",
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"title": "Esmeralda Courts Locals as It Tries to Learn From California Forever’s Mistakes | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Mark Thayer and his wife quietly perused the brightly colored presentation boards arranged around the Cloverdale Veterans Memorial Building on a recent Wednesday in October. They were curious, but skeptical, and wanted to learn more about a project called Esmeralda, potentially coming to their city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thayer had read some Facebook posts about the proposed project: a\u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomamag.com/a-temporary-village-is-popping-up-in-healdsburg-for-people-wanting-to-create-a-better-future/?gSlide=4\"> dense, walkable development\u003c/a> on the southern end of Cloverdale, where he lives, a city perched at the northernmost tip of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/sonoma-county\">Sonoma County\u003c/a>. That night was important: he would be getting information straight from the source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Esmeralda Land Company, the group behind the project, was hosting an informational open house. The development would include a resort hotel, hundreds of homes and an event space — a substantial change for the small city of nearly 9,000 people — and locals had questions, Thayer included.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Who would live there? How big would it be? What about water? Would this project actually pan out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m interested in how it will be developed,” Thayer said. Would it be a bunch of vacation homes? “I hope that it’s something that’s for people that live [there] full-time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But one of the biggest questions plaguing the company since it first introduced its plans \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20240801024109/https:/www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/cloverdale-alexander-valley-resort-esmeralda/\">last year\u003c/a>: Was it connected to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000185/this-tech-backed-company-tried-to-disrupt-californias-housing-crisis-it-couldnt\">California Forever\u003c/a>, the company that wants to build a mega-development in southeast Solano County?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063484\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063484 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-08-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-08-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-08-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The plot of land in Cloverdale that the Esmeralda Land Company is seeking to develop on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That proposed development faced a rocky start and backlash from residents who criticized California Forever for secretly buying land and suing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12005460/farmers-who-refused-to-sell-land-to-california-forever-settle-suits-against-them\">local farmers\u003c/a>. The project has remained controversial ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esmeralda is not related to the Solano-based company, but as it prepares to submit a formal project application to Cloverdale city officials, \u003ca href=\"https://esmeralda.org/public-process\">expected Nov. 12\u003c/a>, leaders have tried to distance their project from California Forever and learn from its mistakes. The Esmeralda Land Company has spent the past two years on outreach, even before securing the property, though it has an exclusive negotiating deal to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the efforts seem to be paying off with local leaders rallying around the project, and many residents are cautiously optimistic about it. Urbanist and author Alex Schafran credited the warmer reception to the company’s approach of getting local buy-in before submitting an official development application.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Compared to California Forever, he said, “It’s night and day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Esmeralda] is — at least on paper — trying to do things the way a lot of folks have been hoping that urban planning and development would be done: starting with a consultation, starting with the conversations, incorporating local people in the visioning of what’s there, and then being able to actually deliver on the vision that they created,” Schafran said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, some residents remain skeptical of whether Esmeralda will actually deliver on its ambitious plan and whether the new development will truly be affordable and accessible to the rest of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cloverdale is a great town, so people are protective of it,” Esmeralda CEO and Founder Devon Zuegel said. “We’re really committed to making sure that we create a place that people are proud of being part of this community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both California Forever and Esmeralda want to build walkable neighborhoods, but the latter project is much smaller. Preliminary plans show the Cloverdale project would include a 184-room hotel, retail space, an outdoor amphitheater and around 600 homes, ranging from apartments to single-family homes to senior housing. Year-round, the neighborhood would host educational events for visitors and Cloverdale residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the 266-acre lot where the development would be built is largely vacant, with low rolling hills and a lone truck repair facility. But Zuegel imagines her project will transform the area into a “\u003ca href=\"https://esmeralda.org/\">mini college campus\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063481\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063481 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-05-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The proposed plot of land abuts rolling Sonoma County hillsides on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s modeled after \u003ca href=\"https://www.chq.org/\">Chautauqua\u003c/a>, a small resort town in upstate New York that became home to a cultural movement named after the city. When Zuegel talks about her inspiration for the project, she reminisces over summers spent in Chautauqua, where her grandmother lived. During that time, she attended seminars, including one hosted by Jane Goodall, and saw the Beach Boys perform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zuegel said she chose to develop Esmeralda in Cloverdale precisely because of its small-town feel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love Cloverdale, I think it’s such a charming town,” she said. “It really reminded me of Chautauqua, and so, I think leaning into what Cloverdale is already so amazing at, and bringing that out even further, was something that really drew to me.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While the company has been working hard to garner trust in the community and distance itself from California Forever, Esmeralda shares similarities with the Solano-based company. Like California Forever CEO Jan Sramek, Zuegel worked in Silicon Valley, including at the software developer platform Github and blockchain company Bloom Protocol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And similar to California Forever’s experience in Solano County, residents in Cloverdale raised questions about Esmeralda’s investors. Rumors circulated early on, claiming Esmeralda is backed by venture capitalist Peter Thiel. While Zuegel has refuted that rumor and denied any relations to the conservative libertarian, she has declined to reveal the identities of the project’s 19 backers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the question came up during a project open house in October, Zuegel was nonspecific, saying they “tend to actually be private individuals who live in the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like California Forever, Esmeralda has its detractors. Skeptical residents pointed to similar proposals for Cloverdale that have failed to materialize and concerns that the new development will be populated by rich Silicon Valley tech-types.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063494\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/250724_VISIT-TO-ESMERALDA_-0008_GH-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/250724_VISIT-TO-ESMERALDA_-0008_GH-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/250724_VISIT-TO-ESMERALDA_-0008_GH-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/250724_VISIT-TO-ESMERALDA_-0008_GH-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Devon Zuegel, Esmeralda development leader, addresses residents at the Cloverdale Museum of History open house on July 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nilda Andrews, who attended the company’s first project open house in July, came away with mixed feelings. She recently moved to the small city from San Francisco and said the whole project sounded “very elitist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How are they going to bring in the rest of Cloverdale?” she asked. “I’m good for change. But I’m for change for everybody. Not just for the few, the elite.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Ann Brigham, a Cloverdale resident and former mayor of the city, attended Esmeralda’s second open house in October. She has seen multiple projects proposed — and dropped — on the vacant site where Esmeralda would be located and doubts this project will be an exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most recently, in 2004, a developer completed an \u003ca href=\"https://ceqanet.lci.ca.gov/2003072142/2\">environmental impact report\u003c/a> for a similar project called the Alexander Valley Resort Project, which included a 150-room hotel, a spa, and a golf course, along with 165 single-family homes. But, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20240801034717/https:/www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/for-sale-again-in-cloverdale-267-acres-of-resort-property/\">Press Democrat\u003c/a>, the project fell through in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063479\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063479 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-03-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bicyclists out for a ride in Cloverdale on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“They all end up wasting a lot of the city’s time and money, and then they never go through with it. So, am I skeptical? Yeah,” Brigham said. “I don’t believe anything until a check’s in my hand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But perhaps one of the sharpest differences between the two companies is their relationships with local elected officials, with California Forever starting on shaky ground and never quite recovering. Esmeralda is hoping to find surer footing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon after California Forever formally announced its ambitious plan, the project became a political hot potato as some local and county officials were \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11976108/california-forever-faces-resistance-from-federal-lawmakers-and-local-leaders-in-solano-county\">vocal in their opposition\u003c/a>, while others declined to comment on it. Some \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11985711/fairfield-officials-wife-returns-money-from-campaign-for-new-california-city\">distanced themselves\u003c/a> after initially trying to work with California Forever or learn more about the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project was scheduled to go before voters in November 2024, but the company scrapped its ballot measure, in part due to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000185/this-tech-backed-company-tried-to-disrupt-californias-housing-crisis-it-couldnt\">lack of support among local elects\u003c/a>. California Forever is now pursuing its project through an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059985/california-forever-clears-first-hurdle-in-suisun-city-annexation\">annexation deal\u003c/a> with nearby Suisun City. But even there — after attempting to bypass reluctant county officials and a contentious vote — there are headwinds. Residents are \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/suisun-city-neighbors-push-to-recall-entire-city-council/\">gathering signatures\u003c/a> in a bid to recall the entire Suisun City Council.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The start of the process was always going to be controversial — the secrecy [of the land acquisition] raises understandable concerns,” California Forever CEO Jan Sramek \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/jansramek/status/1981014132632830099\">recently tweeted\u003c/a>. “We made mistakes when rolling it out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11991791\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11991791 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-40-BL_scr-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jan Sramek, CEO of California Forever, speaks during a town hall meeting in Rio Vista on Dec. 5, 2023, for the proposed California city backed by Silicon Valley investors on farmland in eastern Solano County. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Zuegel said she watched those mistakes and tried to learn from them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Seeing the frustration that people had with California Forever definitely further underlined ‘Okay [community outreach] is really important to do,’’ she said. “We’re all learning from different examples that we see out there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Cloverdale, Mayor Todd Lands said that when he first heard about Esmeralda, he was worried it was connected to California Forever and became one of its biggest critics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I made fun of them. They came in here with a project called ‘Edge Esmeralda.’ I called them ‘Utopia,’ I called them ‘the Emerald City,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his opinion changed as he learned more and got to know Zuegel. “I listened to their pitch, and I went through what they were actually proposing to the city, and it was done very well. And it was the exact opposite of what I was expecting it to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063486\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063486 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-10-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">PLANK Coffee in downtown Cloverdale on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beginning in the summer of 2024, the company hosted Edge Esmeralda, a month-long “pop-up village” in Healdsburg, which illustrated what amenities the future development could include. Zuegel said the pop-up was a way to embed into the community and get to know the locals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Developers often don’t necessarily know how to speak to a local community,” she said. “We wanted to show the ‘Chautauqua way’ of having this multi-generational community in a place that people can walk around. Instead of just having a presentation… we wanted people to be able to live it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Company staff also reached out to local organizations, including the Cloverdale Senior Center, the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce and the Veterans Memorial Building, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Melanie Hall, the Senior Center’s program manager, said Zuegel came to the center for a tour and eagerly engaged with staff and residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12063482 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251107-ESMERALDA-WANTS-TO-LEARN-MD-06-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oak trees stand on the plot of land in Cloverdale that the Esmeralda Land Company is proposing to develop on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This doesn’t happen that often,” she said. “You don’t usually hear a developer say, ‘We want to hear from the community first if what we’re going to do is going to fit for them.’ So I’m really impressed with that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zuegel said she has tried to incorporate feedback from locals into her company’s plan. After speaking with local businesses, she expressed interest in opening what she called “outposts” within Esmeralda — Plank Coffee could have a grab-and-go station in the hotel. Dahlia & Sage, a small grocery store, could offer hotel guests deli sandwiches and baked goods with their morning coffee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Erik Terreri, a local realtor who attended the July event, said he hopes those outposts lead to visitors patronizing downtown Cloverdale, too, which currently sees little foot traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In order to sort of bring people from outside, you’ve got to have more than one good restaurant that’s attracting them. You’ve got to have a few. There’s a critical tipping point, right?” he said. “I see a symbiotic relationship between what they’re going to try and do there and what we’ve been trying to do here in town.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "everybody-needs-food-how-a-solano-county-food-bank-is-dealing-with-snap-delays",
"title": "‘Everybody Needs Food’: How a Solano County Food Pantry Is Dealing with SNAP Delays",
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"headTitle": "‘Everybody Needs Food’: How a Solano County Food Pantry Is Dealing with SNAP Delays | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-brPLxw gubhrO\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">The ongoing federal government shutdown has reduced and delayed SNAP benefits this month. As a result, food banks in the Bay Area are bracing for an even greater surge in demand. We join Heather Pierini, the executive director of \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"e-91036-text-link e-91036-baseline e-91036-overflow-wrap-anywhere encore-internal-color-text-announcement e-91036-text-link--use-focus sc-ihgnxF fGbrTd\" href=\"https://fifbayarea.org/\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-brPLxw gubhrO\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">Food Is Free Bay Area\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\" data-slate-fragment=\"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\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-brPLxw gubhrO\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">, on a donation day at the Solano County Fairgrounds. \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982957/snap-calfresh-ebt-november-shutdown-meals-food-assistance-san-francisco-bay-area#calfresh-snap-ebt-free-meals\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Bay Area restaurants offering free meals to families using CalFresh\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5704201846&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:35] \u003c/em> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara, and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. It was a sunny Monday morning at the Solano County Fairgrounds when I went to meet Heather Perrini, the executive director of Food is Free Bay Area. On this day, they were receiving donations and getting ready to distribute things like produce, bread, and canned goods for the following day. Even the office manager was helping lift donations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:15] \u003c/em>We got two drivers and our office manager doing not office management stuff because everybody needs to do it. All hands on deck. Office manager lifting 50 pound bags of produce, right? Those are huge bags of carrots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:32] \u003c/em>Nearly 42 million Americans who rely on federal SNAP benefits are worried about how they’ll feed their families this month as the government shutdown continues into its 36th day, now the longest shutdown in U.S. History. And although the Trump administration said it would issue partial payments this month thanks to a court order, people like Heather don’t expect the lines to get shorter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:05] \u003c/em>It’s increasing every month with or without an emergency as more people are feeling the effects of inflation, as more are feeling of the rising grocery prices and all of the things that are happening in our community right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:26] \u003c/em>Heather says the needs in Solano County are especially dire compared to other wealthier counties in the Bay Area. So today we take you to Food is Free’s distribution site in Vallejo as they prepare for another day of giving out food under the government shutdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062725\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062725\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-01-KQED-1_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-01-KQED-1_1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-01-KQED-1_1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-01-KQED-1_1-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Natalie DeNicholas inspects food donations at the Food is Free Solano facility at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo on Nov. 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:35] \u003c/em>Can you introduce yourself for us, Heather? Tell us who you are, what you do, and where we are right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:42] \u003c/em>Hi, my name is Heather Pierini. I am the executive director of Food is Free Bay Area, a nonprofit based here in Vallejo in Solano County. Right now we’re standing in McCormick Hall at the Solano county fairgrounds in Vallejo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:56] \u003c/em>This is an actually a familiar place to me. My family comes here every year for a fiesta, but I’ve never seen it in this form, which is like, it’s now, I mean, a food distribution, food donation space. I mean can you like describe for us what is happening here today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:19] \u003c/em>So we use this site for our Tuesday and Thursday food distributions. We distribute food on average to about 400 to 450 families before the EBT and SNAP shut down. 450 families would come here on a Tuesday and a Thursday afternoon each day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:39] \u003c/em>That’s a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:39] \u003c/em>Yeah, it’s a lot. Food is Free started as a idea put together that we all come together as a community and kind of share with what is available. I loved that idea many, many, many years ago and I put in a permaculture food forest with the help of sustainable Solano at my house in Benicia and we always would grow way too much food and I gave it away in our front yard. And Over the years, it became kind of a community sharing space. And then COVID hit and I saw people looking at our food stand for food in this little neighborhood in Benicia where you wouldn’t expect to see a lot of food insecurity and we were seeing it. You hadn’t seen anything like that before. I hadn’t see the volume of people. So what we did was we coordinated with a bunch of other organizations and neighbors and friends in the community to collect donations, to start finding food, to create more food stands. And so Food is Free Benicia all of a sudden became Food is free Solano and then all of the sudden became Food is Free Bay Area. So we go everywhere from Rio Vista, Dixon. All the way down to Contra Costa County for picking up food, delivering food. And we allow anyone anywhere to come and access food. People will ask me what the requirements are and I’m like, you’re an alive human. That is your requirement right there. You’re a live human asking for food and we will make sure there’s something for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:29] \u003c/em>It’s hard to imagine that you started just like with a table in your front yard because now we’re standing in McCormick Hall on the Solano County fairgrounds. Like this is very much an operation. You have, I mean, dozens and dozens of pallets of food here. This electric vehicle van thing I mean, did you expect to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:50] \u003c/em> Absolutely not. There was no expectation that this would grow. There, was for me, it was I want to try and make sure people don’t experience food insecurity during this huge pandemic issue because I grew up food insecure and I was a single mom for a long time and I thought, you know, I’m stable now. What if I weren’t? And then all of a sudden I’m… Learning about food insecurity in Solano County, I’m seeing that Solano County is the lowest funded county for non-profit money. So we are magnificently underfunded and we are extraordinarily high need. So right now what we’re looking at with this SNAP and EBT shutdown, we’re looking at kind of a perfect storm and once again we’re going into emergency response mode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062721\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062721\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-02-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pallets of food at the Food is Free Solano facility at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo on Nov. 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:42] \u003c/em>I mean Heather, it’s been like a month now since the start of the government shutdown. I wonder if there was like a specific moment that things seemed to get bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:54] \u003c/em>Third week of October was when things seemed to get bad, when people thought, okay, what if they don’t fund SNAP? We’d started seeing impacts from people from Travis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:05] \u003c/em>Travis Air Force Base.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:06] \u003c/em>So we started seeing more furloughed workers and then as the shutdown continues, because of SNAP and EBT being halted, for the last two weeks we have seen a drastic increase in numbers. We distribute food on average to about 400 to 450 families before the EBT and SNAP down in mid-October. We started seeing a large amount of new families coming in at each distribution. So Tuesday the 21st, we served, I think, 573 families, which was a massive increase. Then that Thursday we served even more. And the next Tuesday we topped 600 families, which was record. And then Thursday the 30th, so day before Halloween, we served 673 families. In three hours here at the Fairgrounds. Had you ever seen anything like that before? At our regular food distributions, no. I personally do all the check-in because, truthfully, it’s one of the things I love about this work is talking with our community and being able to say, hi, I’m glad you’re here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:23] \u003c/em>So you’re presumably checking in folks who are standing in line to receive food. It sounds like many folks who came the last couple of days have been first timers. I mean, what have you been hearing from people about why they’re standing in line and just like what they’re experiencing right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:43] \u003c/em>People are afraid. People are scared that they’re not going to have enough food for their family. We have seen everything from people crying in line, to people giving hugs in line to people seeing neighbors or friends. And then in the line, we have people telling the new people, kind of this is what information you’ll need to give when you get up there. They’re really nice, it’s okay. And we have this community supporting the new people, I feel like. There are a lot of elderly people, there are a lots of disabled people, there are lot of families with children who come through. So they come to the front desk where I’m set up and I ask the three questions. I just need a first name, a zip code, and how many people you’re feeding. Beyond that, any other information is a bonus. People will come in with their ID out and say, what do I need to qualify? Here’s my pay stub, and I’m like, no, it’s okay. We’re here to make sure that you have the food and the resources you need. I don’t need that from you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:46] \u003c/em>Do you get people who are, I mean, especially with the increase in immigration and customs enforcement actions around the Bay… I mean have you seen fewer people wanting to show up into the community, or people being worried\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:59] \u003c/em>Yes, we did see that. We saw a drop in our Latino population when there was a larger risk of ice coming out. One of the things I saw was children coming through for their families. And what the gossip was around that from other participants was that if the parents were undocumented, the kids had legal status and felt more comfortable sending the kids through to pick up food. And we have always allowed kids to come through and get food because we know that it’s probably a pretty hard situation going on. I get asked this very frequently actually, how do you know they need it? How do you they need food? And I asked them, well, how many times have you come out to stand in line at the fairgrounds for free food? Because if you’re coming and spending hours of your day waiting in line, in the heat, in rain, in wind, to come get food that someone else has provided that you have some choice about what you’d pick, but you don’t have choice like you would in a grocery store. You’re not doing that for fun. You’re doing that to scam the system. What you’re doing is trying to make it. You’re trying to survive. And… And that could be really hard to have to do. Oh yes. Could be a lot of shame associated with that, I imagine. Yes, there can be a lotta shame associated with that and so I really try, when we train our volunteers, we try and let them know, you know, if someone comes in here with a bad attitude. Our job is not to police somebody’s attitude. When people come here, they’re coming in the full gamut of humanity. Our job, is to be here to provide the food, to give them a smile, to hopefully help them make it through this day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062723\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062723\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Angel Torres unloads food that was picked up from a local grocery store at the Food is Free Solano facility at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo on Nov. 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:05] \u003c/em>We were talking earlier about how last week a federal judge actually ordered the Trump administration to begin redistributing SNAP benefits, mentioning a moral obligation to do so, but of course we don’t know how soon those benefits will come or how much people will actually be getting. So I mean, do you still have concerns?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:28] \u003c/em>Yes, I definitely have concerns. Number one, there’s this erosion of trust in the system, and that erosion in trust in the system is what’s going to keep people in fear. I don’t know how fast the system can ramp back up. I don’t know how much will be paid, if any. And if I’m in that position of not knowing and I’m tapped into all of the email lists and I mean, food insecurity is my job, then someone who is working and taking care of a family, getting verifiable information is difficult right now. Even if EBT goes out, I don’t think we’re gonna go back to normal, whatever normal was before this. And the food bank sees the same thing. Once the numbers increase, they don’t really go back down to. Either pre-pandemic levels or pre-emergency levels. We have failed as a society to create a system where working a full-time job doesn’t pay for rent and basic necessities for a small family. It just doesn’t. This right here, I wish I didn’t have to do it. I would love to be worked out of a job. I think that nonprofits are bearing the brunt and bearing the weight of the failures of our social services system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:58] \u003c/em>Well, Heather, thank you so much for making the time to chat with me. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:04] \u003c/em>You’re very welcome and thank you for coming and helping us kind of share about what we do, helping kind of let the community know what we, do and hopefully people who are able will be able to donate, volunteer, share the word. All of that is amazing. Thank you, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-brPLxw gubhrO\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">The ongoing federal government shutdown has reduced and delayed SNAP benefits this month. As a result, food banks in the Bay Area are bracing for an even greater surge in demand. We join Heather Pierini, the executive director of \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"e-91036-text-link e-91036-baseline e-91036-overflow-wrap-anywhere encore-internal-color-text-announcement e-91036-text-link--use-focus sc-ihgnxF fGbrTd\" href=\"https://fifbayarea.org/\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-brPLxw gubhrO\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">Food Is Free Bay Area\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\" data-slate-fragment=\"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\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-brPLxw gubhrO\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">, on a donation day at the Solano County Fairgrounds. \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982957/snap-calfresh-ebt-november-shutdown-meals-food-assistance-san-francisco-bay-area#calfresh-snap-ebt-free-meals\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Bay Area restaurants offering free meals to families using CalFresh\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5704201846&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:35] \u003c/em> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara, and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. It was a sunny Monday morning at the Solano County Fairgrounds when I went to meet Heather Perrini, the executive director of Food is Free Bay Area. On this day, they were receiving donations and getting ready to distribute things like produce, bread, and canned goods for the following day. Even the office manager was helping lift donations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:15] \u003c/em>We got two drivers and our office manager doing not office management stuff because everybody needs to do it. All hands on deck. Office manager lifting 50 pound bags of produce, right? Those are huge bags of carrots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:32] \u003c/em>Nearly 42 million Americans who rely on federal SNAP benefits are worried about how they’ll feed their families this month as the government shutdown continues into its 36th day, now the longest shutdown in U.S. History. And although the Trump administration said it would issue partial payments this month thanks to a court order, people like Heather don’t expect the lines to get shorter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:05] \u003c/em>It’s increasing every month with or without an emergency as more people are feeling the effects of inflation, as more are feeling of the rising grocery prices and all of the things that are happening in our community right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:26] \u003c/em>Heather says the needs in Solano County are especially dire compared to other wealthier counties in the Bay Area. So today we take you to Food is Free’s distribution site in Vallejo as they prepare for another day of giving out food under the government shutdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062725\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062725\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-01-KQED-1_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-01-KQED-1_1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-01-KQED-1_1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-01-KQED-1_1-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Natalie DeNicholas inspects food donations at the Food is Free Solano facility at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo on Nov. 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:35] \u003c/em>Can you introduce yourself for us, Heather? Tell us who you are, what you do, and where we are right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:42] \u003c/em>Hi, my name is Heather Pierini. I am the executive director of Food is Free Bay Area, a nonprofit based here in Vallejo in Solano County. Right now we’re standing in McCormick Hall at the Solano county fairgrounds in Vallejo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:56] \u003c/em>This is an actually a familiar place to me. My family comes here every year for a fiesta, but I’ve never seen it in this form, which is like, it’s now, I mean, a food distribution, food donation space. I mean can you like describe for us what is happening here today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:19] \u003c/em>So we use this site for our Tuesday and Thursday food distributions. We distribute food on average to about 400 to 450 families before the EBT and SNAP shut down. 450 families would come here on a Tuesday and a Thursday afternoon each day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:39] \u003c/em>That’s a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:39] \u003c/em>Yeah, it’s a lot. Food is Free started as a idea put together that we all come together as a community and kind of share with what is available. I loved that idea many, many, many years ago and I put in a permaculture food forest with the help of sustainable Solano at my house in Benicia and we always would grow way too much food and I gave it away in our front yard. And Over the years, it became kind of a community sharing space. And then COVID hit and I saw people looking at our food stand for food in this little neighborhood in Benicia where you wouldn’t expect to see a lot of food insecurity and we were seeing it. You hadn’t seen anything like that before. I hadn’t see the volume of people. So what we did was we coordinated with a bunch of other organizations and neighbors and friends in the community to collect donations, to start finding food, to create more food stands. And so Food is Free Benicia all of a sudden became Food is free Solano and then all of the sudden became Food is Free Bay Area. So we go everywhere from Rio Vista, Dixon. All the way down to Contra Costa County for picking up food, delivering food. And we allow anyone anywhere to come and access food. People will ask me what the requirements are and I’m like, you’re an alive human. That is your requirement right there. You’re a live human asking for food and we will make sure there’s something for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:29] \u003c/em>It’s hard to imagine that you started just like with a table in your front yard because now we’re standing in McCormick Hall on the Solano County fairgrounds. Like this is very much an operation. You have, I mean, dozens and dozens of pallets of food here. This electric vehicle van thing I mean, did you expect to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:50] \u003c/em> Absolutely not. There was no expectation that this would grow. There, was for me, it was I want to try and make sure people don’t experience food insecurity during this huge pandemic issue because I grew up food insecure and I was a single mom for a long time and I thought, you know, I’m stable now. What if I weren’t? And then all of a sudden I’m… Learning about food insecurity in Solano County, I’m seeing that Solano County is the lowest funded county for non-profit money. So we are magnificently underfunded and we are extraordinarily high need. So right now what we’re looking at with this SNAP and EBT shutdown, we’re looking at kind of a perfect storm and once again we’re going into emergency response mode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062721\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062721\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-02-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pallets of food at the Food is Free Solano facility at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo on Nov. 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:42] \u003c/em>I mean Heather, it’s been like a month now since the start of the government shutdown. I wonder if there was like a specific moment that things seemed to get bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:54] \u003c/em>Third week of October was when things seemed to get bad, when people thought, okay, what if they don’t fund SNAP? We’d started seeing impacts from people from Travis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:05] \u003c/em>Travis Air Force Base.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:06] \u003c/em>So we started seeing more furloughed workers and then as the shutdown continues, because of SNAP and EBT being halted, for the last two weeks we have seen a drastic increase in numbers. We distribute food on average to about 400 to 450 families before the EBT and SNAP down in mid-October. We started seeing a large amount of new families coming in at each distribution. So Tuesday the 21st, we served, I think, 573 families, which was a massive increase. Then that Thursday we served even more. And the next Tuesday we topped 600 families, which was record. And then Thursday the 30th, so day before Halloween, we served 673 families. In three hours here at the Fairgrounds. Had you ever seen anything like that before? At our regular food distributions, no. I personally do all the check-in because, truthfully, it’s one of the things I love about this work is talking with our community and being able to say, hi, I’m glad you’re here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:23] \u003c/em>So you’re presumably checking in folks who are standing in line to receive food. It sounds like many folks who came the last couple of days have been first timers. I mean, what have you been hearing from people about why they’re standing in line and just like what they’re experiencing right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:43] \u003c/em>People are afraid. People are scared that they’re not going to have enough food for their family. We have seen everything from people crying in line, to people giving hugs in line to people seeing neighbors or friends. And then in the line, we have people telling the new people, kind of this is what information you’ll need to give when you get up there. They’re really nice, it’s okay. And we have this community supporting the new people, I feel like. There are a lot of elderly people, there are a lots of disabled people, there are lot of families with children who come through. So they come to the front desk where I’m set up and I ask the three questions. I just need a first name, a zip code, and how many people you’re feeding. Beyond that, any other information is a bonus. People will come in with their ID out and say, what do I need to qualify? Here’s my pay stub, and I’m like, no, it’s okay. We’re here to make sure that you have the food and the resources you need. I don’t need that from you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:46] \u003c/em>Do you get people who are, I mean, especially with the increase in immigration and customs enforcement actions around the Bay… I mean have you seen fewer people wanting to show up into the community, or people being worried\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:59] \u003c/em>Yes, we did see that. We saw a drop in our Latino population when there was a larger risk of ice coming out. One of the things I saw was children coming through for their families. And what the gossip was around that from other participants was that if the parents were undocumented, the kids had legal status and felt more comfortable sending the kids through to pick up food. And we have always allowed kids to come through and get food because we know that it’s probably a pretty hard situation going on. I get asked this very frequently actually, how do you know they need it? How do you they need food? And I asked them, well, how many times have you come out to stand in line at the fairgrounds for free food? Because if you’re coming and spending hours of your day waiting in line, in the heat, in rain, in wind, to come get food that someone else has provided that you have some choice about what you’d pick, but you don’t have choice like you would in a grocery store. You’re not doing that for fun. You’re doing that to scam the system. What you’re doing is trying to make it. You’re trying to survive. And… And that could be really hard to have to do. Oh yes. Could be a lot of shame associated with that, I imagine. Yes, there can be a lotta shame associated with that and so I really try, when we train our volunteers, we try and let them know, you know, if someone comes in here with a bad attitude. Our job is not to police somebody’s attitude. When people come here, they’re coming in the full gamut of humanity. Our job, is to be here to provide the food, to give them a smile, to hopefully help them make it through this day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062723\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062723\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251103-SOLANO-FREE-FOOD-04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Angel Torres unloads food that was picked up from a local grocery store at the Food is Free Solano facility at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo on Nov. 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:05] \u003c/em>We were talking earlier about how last week a federal judge actually ordered the Trump administration to begin redistributing SNAP benefits, mentioning a moral obligation to do so, but of course we don’t know how soon those benefits will come or how much people will actually be getting. So I mean, do you still have concerns?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:28] \u003c/em>Yes, I definitely have concerns. Number one, there’s this erosion of trust in the system, and that erosion in trust in the system is what’s going to keep people in fear. I don’t know how fast the system can ramp back up. I don’t know how much will be paid, if any. And if I’m in that position of not knowing and I’m tapped into all of the email lists and I mean, food insecurity is my job, then someone who is working and taking care of a family, getting verifiable information is difficult right now. Even if EBT goes out, I don’t think we’re gonna go back to normal, whatever normal was before this. And the food bank sees the same thing. Once the numbers increase, they don’t really go back down to. Either pre-pandemic levels or pre-emergency levels. We have failed as a society to create a system where working a full-time job doesn’t pay for rent and basic necessities for a small family. It just doesn’t. This right here, I wish I didn’t have to do it. I would love to be worked out of a job. I think that nonprofits are bearing the brunt and bearing the weight of the failures of our social services system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:58] \u003c/em>Well, Heather, thank you so much for making the time to chat with me. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heather Pierini: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:04] \u003c/em>You’re very welcome and thank you for coming and helping us kind of share about what we do, helping kind of let the community know what we, do and hopefully people who are able will be able to donate, volunteer, share the word. All of that is amazing. Thank you, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated at 11:35 a.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, officials from California Forever \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12011148/sold-out-california-forevers-uphill-battle-to-build-a-walkable-city\">pulled an initiative from the ballot box\u003c/a> to build a city from scratch in Solano County. Now, it’s back with a plan to build something else there, too: the largest site for advanced manufacturing in North America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEO Jan Sramek announced the plans at the Reindustrialize Summit in Detroit on Thursday. The proposed 2,100-acre site, called the “Solano Foundry,” would be located within the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043295/suisun-city-proposes-annexing-most-of-california-forevers-new-city\">mega-development \u003c/a>the company is pursuing in southeast Solano County. It includes dedicated manufacturing space for companies focused on robotics, logistics, energy, aerospace and defense, among other fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andreas Lieber, the Foundry’s general manager, said the proposal solves several problems plaguing Silicon Valley — and the United States — right now: \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/\">a shrinking middle class\u003c/a> and a \u003ca href=\"https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2021/may/investigating-us-reliance-foreign-suppliers#:~:text=In%20a%20further%20breakdown%20of,machinery%20and%20equipment%20(18.4%25)%3B\">dependence on other countries to build things\u003c/a>, among other issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You cannot really operate as a country if you’re only doing service jobs and basically outsource your middle class,” he said. “And then you’re not building anything anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But opponents of California Forever’s proposed megaproject argue the company doesn’t have to build a whole new city to bring jobs to the county. It could just build factories in existing cities. Nate Huntington, a member of Solano Together, a coalition opposed to the project, said the Foundry announcement could be “just another marketing gimmick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are sites that can accommodate industries such as this that do not require… the development of an entire new community to make this happen,” he said. “Many of the things that they put out [are] to create hype and potential attraction to this project, but some of those things fade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement comes nearly four months after executives expressed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12037142/california-forevers-shipbuilding-plans-need-more-details-solano-county-officials-say\">interest in building ships\u003c/a> in Collinsville, an unincorporated town in Solano County that sits at the mouth of the Sacramento River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12048457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12048457\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1048\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2-160x84.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2-1536x805.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Solano Foundry would be located in an area previously designated for “industry and technology” within the new city. It would also be close to Collinsville, where the company wants to build a shipyard. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of California Forever)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Foundry would be located just seven miles away and includes space for companies working on advanced transportation systems and supply chain technology, which officials say could help support \u003ca href=\"https://californiaforever.com/california-forevers-statement-on-bringing-shipbuilding-back-to-solano-county/\">shipbuilding\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The white paper projected the Foundry could produce about 40,000 jobs — and even more with shipbuilding — adding billions of dollars to the county’s economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a significant increase from the 15,000 jobs the company proposed last year, when it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986569/california-forever-says-12-start-ups-will-open-workplaces-in-its-new-city\">announced 12 start-ups would open\u003c/a> in its proposed city. The Foundry would be built next to homes, in an area that has been designated for industrial space, according to previous maps the company released. California Forever will work with commercial real estate broker JLL to lease space on the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12048464\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1199px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12048464\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CaliforniaForeverMap-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1199\" height=\"763\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CaliforniaForeverMap-1.jpg 1199w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CaliforniaForeverMap-1-160x102.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1199px) 100vw, 1199px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Forever’s proposed plans for its new city last year. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of California Forever)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to a whitepaper JLL published Thursday, several companies expressed interest, including some that had already pledged support last year: aerospace company Hadrian and Serve Robotics. The expressed interest is not legally binding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, Lieber said these companies realize that the state is at an inflection point. It’s not that manufacturing doesn’t happen at all in Silicon Valley, the birthplace of semiconductors and the microchip, but that it doesn’t happen at a large enough scale. And when companies want to expand their factories, they leave California, often to states with lower tax and regulatory burdens, or to \u003ca href=\"https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/94bf8985-1e87-438b-9a3a-e3334489dd30/background-on-issues-in-us-manufacturing-and-supply-chains-final.pdf\">other countries entirely\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a recent report from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/are-company-headquarters-leaving-california/#overall-trends-in-headquarter-relocations\">Public Policy Institute of California\u003c/a>, fewer than 2% of the state’s more than 47,000 headquarters left the state between 2011 and 2021. But of those, roughly half were in manufacturing, wholesale trade or business services.[aside postID=news_12043295 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed.jpg']The perception that manufacturing jobs are fleeing California and the country has been echoed by \u003ca href=\"https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/governor-newsom-signs-broadest-ceqa-reform-ever-boost-affordability-cut-red-tape\">state\u003c/a> leaders and the administrations of both Presidents \u003ca href=\"https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/08/09/fact-sheet-two-years-after-the-chips-and-science-act-biden-%E2%81%A0harris-administration-celebrates-historic-achievements-in-bringing-semiconductor-supply-chains-home-creating-jobs-supporting-inn/\">Joe Biden\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/02/chipmakers-get-bigger-tax-credits-in-trumps-latest-big-beautiful-bill.html\">Donald Trump\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046558/california-lawmakers-approve-major-overhaul-of-landmark-environmental-law\">Governor Newsom refused to sign the state’s budget\u003c/a> unless two bills aimed at streamlining reviews under the state’s landmark environmental law were included. One of those bills included a carve-out to hasten environmental reviews specifically for advanced manufacturing sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The burgeoning \u003ca href=\"https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/our-country-has-building-problem\">Abundance movement also highlights this issue\u003c/a> as one of the biggest impediments to the country’s economic progress. And, in late June, a company called \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12044710/a-company-wants-to-build-a-city-for-ai-on-alameda-point-but-the-land-is-already-spoken-for\">Frontier Valley\u003c/a> proposed building a similar site on the former Naval Air Station in Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Russell Hancock, president and CEO of think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley, studies economic and social trends of the region and said that, while California Forever might not be well-liked — or even trusted — amongst locals, the company’s premise is realistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re going in with a lot of attitude. I call them swashbucklers,” he said. “They need to spend time with the locals. They need to talk it through. Lots of lunches, lots of community meetings. They have to sit there and listen to the public comment. And they’re not doing that very well. But the idea is fairly sound.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12043297\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12043297\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wind turbines in Solano County outside of Suisun City on May 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some leaders, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/technology/apple-iphone-trump-india-china.html\">Trump\u003c/a>, have called for consumer products, like smartphones, to be built in the United States. But economists and \u003ca href=\"https://tech.yahoo.com/business/articles/trump-pushes-apple-iphones-u-181027224.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIDG0dn2U58Xz3RI61CO9mezIPLk_NGf-PpHojSvkhOxnDmfNT24LYSIxUYMCxa4LIa7T9mJjDuUq_4Lu-whbPr7Ezlx3IP7ldG0xCVtw59egwlQsmyjBjbNXcV0-fNIpU5KqV9yoDUhT9-tuti0LOcf9qN1fGp3rjzqtOb-t_c5\">history\u003c/a> have shown those ventures to be economically infeasible for companies to realistically pursue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hancock said the factories California Forever wants to build likely won’t be for “stamping out widgets,” but instead for building complicated electronics that require highly-skilled workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Manveer Sandhu, a city council member for Fairfield, a city that neighbors California Forever’s proposed development, said he has seen his constituents and friends commute long distances to work in Silicon Valley. Sometimes, they move out of the city entirely.[aside postID=news_12046558 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/GavinNewsomAP3.jpg']But if jobs were closer to Fairfield, the city could keep those residents and maybe benefit from the tax revenue, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In order to sustain the future of Fairfield, the future of Solano County, you have to continue to grow your commercial base,” he said. “And the only way to do that, I think, [is] you have to have new industries come in to diversify your economy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company is currently working with nearby \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12040357/2-solano-cities-could-annex-some-california-forevers-land-heres-how\">Rio Vista\u003c/a> and Suisun City to annex \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043295/suisun-city-proposes-annexing-most-of-california-forevers-new-city\">most of its proposed development\u003c/a>. The Solano Foundry would be included in the development’s master plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Rico, head of the Solano Economic Development Corporation, said the opportunity is a great one, but he worried that county offices are not properly staffed to deal with a project of this scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.thereporter.com/2025/06/10/solano-supes-ask-suisun-city-to-halt-california-forever-annexation-talks/\">county supervisors requested a pause\u003c/a> on annexation talks until it’s further along in updating its general plan — a process that can take years to complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you have these opportunities, you get up there and say, ‘We’re here to do whatever it takes to get this, and we’ll figure out the details as we go along because we’re gonna have to,’” he said. “[County officials are] gonna have to react and act in a way that they’re not used to acting in order to make this happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Company executives say a proposed manufacturing site will provide space for start-ups focused on robotics, defense tech, advanced transportation and other industries only a couple hours away from Silicon Valley. ",
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"title": "California Forever Wants to Build a Manufacturing Town | KQED",
"description": "Company executives say a proposed manufacturing site will provide space for start-ups focused on robotics, defense tech, advanced transportation and other industries only a couple hours away from Silicon Valley. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated at 11:35 a.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, officials from California Forever \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12011148/sold-out-california-forevers-uphill-battle-to-build-a-walkable-city\">pulled an initiative from the ballot box\u003c/a> to build a city from scratch in Solano County. Now, it’s back with a plan to build something else there, too: the largest site for advanced manufacturing in North America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEO Jan Sramek announced the plans at the Reindustrialize Summit in Detroit on Thursday. The proposed 2,100-acre site, called the “Solano Foundry,” would be located within the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043295/suisun-city-proposes-annexing-most-of-california-forevers-new-city\">mega-development \u003c/a>the company is pursuing in southeast Solano County. It includes dedicated manufacturing space for companies focused on robotics, logistics, energy, aerospace and defense, among other fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andreas Lieber, the Foundry’s general manager, said the proposal solves several problems plaguing Silicon Valley — and the United States — right now: \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/\">a shrinking middle class\u003c/a> and a \u003ca href=\"https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2021/may/investigating-us-reliance-foreign-suppliers#:~:text=In%20a%20further%20breakdown%20of,machinery%20and%20equipment%20(18.4%25)%3B\">dependence on other countries to build things\u003c/a>, among other issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You cannot really operate as a country if you’re only doing service jobs and basically outsource your middle class,” he said. “And then you’re not building anything anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But opponents of California Forever’s proposed megaproject argue the company doesn’t have to build a whole new city to bring jobs to the county. It could just build factories in existing cities. Nate Huntington, a member of Solano Together, a coalition opposed to the project, said the Foundry announcement could be “just another marketing gimmick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are sites that can accommodate industries such as this that do not require… the development of an entire new community to make this happen,” he said. “Many of the things that they put out [are] to create hype and potential attraction to this project, but some of those things fade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement comes nearly four months after executives expressed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12037142/california-forevers-shipbuilding-plans-need-more-details-solano-county-officials-say\">interest in building ships\u003c/a> in Collinsville, an unincorporated town in Solano County that sits at the mouth of the Sacramento River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12048457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12048457\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1048\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2-160x84.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAForever2-1536x805.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Solano Foundry would be located in an area previously designated for “industry and technology” within the new city. It would also be close to Collinsville, where the company wants to build a shipyard. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of California Forever)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Foundry would be located just seven miles away and includes space for companies working on advanced transportation systems and supply chain technology, which officials say could help support \u003ca href=\"https://californiaforever.com/california-forevers-statement-on-bringing-shipbuilding-back-to-solano-county/\">shipbuilding\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The white paper projected the Foundry could produce about 40,000 jobs — and even more with shipbuilding — adding billions of dollars to the county’s economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a significant increase from the 15,000 jobs the company proposed last year, when it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986569/california-forever-says-12-start-ups-will-open-workplaces-in-its-new-city\">announced 12 start-ups would open\u003c/a> in its proposed city. The Foundry would be built next to homes, in an area that has been designated for industrial space, according to previous maps the company released. California Forever will work with commercial real estate broker JLL to lease space on the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12048464\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1199px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12048464\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CaliforniaForeverMap-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1199\" height=\"763\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CaliforniaForeverMap-1.jpg 1199w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CaliforniaForeverMap-1-160x102.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1199px) 100vw, 1199px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Forever’s proposed plans for its new city last year. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of California Forever)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to a whitepaper JLL published Thursday, several companies expressed interest, including some that had already pledged support last year: aerospace company Hadrian and Serve Robotics. The expressed interest is not legally binding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, Lieber said these companies realize that the state is at an inflection point. It’s not that manufacturing doesn’t happen at all in Silicon Valley, the birthplace of semiconductors and the microchip, but that it doesn’t happen at a large enough scale. And when companies want to expand their factories, they leave California, often to states with lower tax and regulatory burdens, or to \u003ca href=\"https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/94bf8985-1e87-438b-9a3a-e3334489dd30/background-on-issues-in-us-manufacturing-and-supply-chains-final.pdf\">other countries entirely\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a recent report from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/are-company-headquarters-leaving-california/#overall-trends-in-headquarter-relocations\">Public Policy Institute of California\u003c/a>, fewer than 2% of the state’s more than 47,000 headquarters left the state between 2011 and 2021. But of those, roughly half were in manufacturing, wholesale trade or business services.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The perception that manufacturing jobs are fleeing California and the country has been echoed by \u003ca href=\"https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/governor-newsom-signs-broadest-ceqa-reform-ever-boost-affordability-cut-red-tape\">state\u003c/a> leaders and the administrations of both Presidents \u003ca href=\"https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/08/09/fact-sheet-two-years-after-the-chips-and-science-act-biden-%E2%81%A0harris-administration-celebrates-historic-achievements-in-bringing-semiconductor-supply-chains-home-creating-jobs-supporting-inn/\">Joe Biden\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/02/chipmakers-get-bigger-tax-credits-in-trumps-latest-big-beautiful-bill.html\">Donald Trump\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046558/california-lawmakers-approve-major-overhaul-of-landmark-environmental-law\">Governor Newsom refused to sign the state’s budget\u003c/a> unless two bills aimed at streamlining reviews under the state’s landmark environmental law were included. One of those bills included a carve-out to hasten environmental reviews specifically for advanced manufacturing sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The burgeoning \u003ca href=\"https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/our-country-has-building-problem\">Abundance movement also highlights this issue\u003c/a> as one of the biggest impediments to the country’s economic progress. And, in late June, a company called \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12044710/a-company-wants-to-build-a-city-for-ai-on-alameda-point-but-the-land-is-already-spoken-for\">Frontier Valley\u003c/a> proposed building a similar site on the former Naval Air Station in Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Russell Hancock, president and CEO of think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley, studies economic and social trends of the region and said that, while California Forever might not be well-liked — or even trusted — amongst locals, the company’s premise is realistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re going in with a lot of attitude. I call them swashbucklers,” he said. “They need to spend time with the locals. They need to talk it through. Lots of lunches, lots of community meetings. They have to sit there and listen to the public comment. And they’re not doing that very well. But the idea is fairly sound.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12043297\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12043297\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-38-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wind turbines in Solano County outside of Suisun City on May 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some leaders, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/technology/apple-iphone-trump-india-china.html\">Trump\u003c/a>, have called for consumer products, like smartphones, to be built in the United States. But economists and \u003ca href=\"https://tech.yahoo.com/business/articles/trump-pushes-apple-iphones-u-181027224.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIDG0dn2U58Xz3RI61CO9mezIPLk_NGf-PpHojSvkhOxnDmfNT24LYSIxUYMCxa4LIa7T9mJjDuUq_4Lu-whbPr7Ezlx3IP7ldG0xCVtw59egwlQsmyjBjbNXcV0-fNIpU5KqV9yoDUhT9-tuti0LOcf9qN1fGp3rjzqtOb-t_c5\">history\u003c/a> have shown those ventures to be economically infeasible for companies to realistically pursue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hancock said the factories California Forever wants to build likely won’t be for “stamping out widgets,” but instead for building complicated electronics that require highly-skilled workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Manveer Sandhu, a city council member for Fairfield, a city that neighbors California Forever’s proposed development, said he has seen his constituents and friends commute long distances to work in Silicon Valley. Sometimes, they move out of the city entirely.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But if jobs were closer to Fairfield, the city could keep those residents and maybe benefit from the tax revenue, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In order to sustain the future of Fairfield, the future of Solano County, you have to continue to grow your commercial base,” he said. “And the only way to do that, I think, [is] you have to have new industries come in to diversify your economy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company is currently working with nearby \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12040357/2-solano-cities-could-annex-some-california-forevers-land-heres-how\">Rio Vista\u003c/a> and Suisun City to annex \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043295/suisun-city-proposes-annexing-most-of-california-forevers-new-city\">most of its proposed development\u003c/a>. The Solano Foundry would be included in the development’s master plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Rico, head of the Solano Economic Development Corporation, said the opportunity is a great one, but he worried that county offices are not properly staffed to deal with a project of this scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.thereporter.com/2025/06/10/solano-supes-ask-suisun-city-to-halt-california-forever-annexation-talks/\">county supervisors requested a pause\u003c/a> on annexation talks until it’s further along in updating its general plan — a process that can take years to complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you have these opportunities, you get up there and say, ‘We’re here to do whatever it takes to get this, and we’ll figure out the details as we go along because we’re gonna have to,’” he said. “[County officials are] gonna have to react and act in a way that they’re not used to acting in order to make this happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Suisun City Could Grow by 9 Times Its Current Size",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suisun City in Solano County will begin studying annexing land owned by California Forever, the billionaire-backed group that bought up thousands of acres of land with plans to build a brand new city from scratch in Solano County. KQED’s Adhiti Bandlamudi joins us to discuss the implications of this decision and why it has divided the local community. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2281823459\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:01:43] Right now, Suisun City is the smallest city in Solano County, geographically speaking. Because it’s the smallest city in Solano County, what the city manager says is that it’s unable to grow a lot and it’s tax-based then is like very small. So, Suisun City has faced a budget crisis for years. They’re currently using reserves to kind of sustain certain city services. But if it were to annex this area, which is almost nine times its current size, it would become one of the biggest cities in the county. And it could be good for the city’s long-term budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:35] Yeah, I mean, since I was a kid, I feel like Suisun City has pretty much stayed and looked exactly the same as it always has been, but now it’s considering, as you were just saying, to expand outward in size. How exactly do they plan to do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:02:57] The city has been talking about annexation for a long time, basically since the beginning of this year. We didn’t really know how much land it was going to annex or where exactly it was gonna annex this land, but Suisun is kind of surrounded by Fairfield and land that is predominantly owned by California Forever. California Forever, the billionaire backed company that you might remember last year, they kind of introduced this plan to like build a city from scratch. They own a lot of land near Suisun City and they had this grand plan for all of this land, which was to build a city from scratch. It was gonna be walkable and there were gonna be jobs and manufacturing sites. And basically it was going to solve Solano County’s problems of not having enough jobs where people live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:03:56] So if a developer wants to build something out there, they have to get voter approval first. But a couple months before the election, they pulled their initiative from the ballot because a lot of people were asking for environmental reports and information about these jobs and where they would come from and how the company could basically ensure that the promises that they made along the campaign trail could actually be realized. So the company said, got it. We’re not going to bring this to the voters this November. Instead, we’re gonna wait until 2026 and then we’ll bring it back once we have all these studies done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:04:37] In January, Suisun City says, Hey, we’re facing budgetary issues. We need to talk about annexation. And so if Suisun City wants to annex, it kind of has to talk with California Forever. And what the city is proposing to do is to annex almost 23,000 acres of land located pretty much in the same place that California Forever wanted to build its new city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:05] So how would annexation actually work, Adhiti? Would Suisun City basically be paying California Forever for this land?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:05:15] Really what annexation means is that basically, the landowner, California Forever, will still own that land. So the company will pay for all the consultants and the people who will conduct environmental and fiscal studies and basically a team of people who will start compiling a series of reports that will answer some of these big questions. Then the city can figure out whether this makes sense for them in the long run. Suisun City then becomes the jurisdiction, so it controls what happens on that land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:54] Why would both Suisun City and California Forever want to do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:05:59] So right now, there’s a lot of questions ahead. Will there be really big environmental impacts? Will it be fiscally good for the city if it kind of expands its borders and tries to develop there? What this opportunity gives Suisun is the ability to hopefully get to the bottom of those questions. What California Forever hopes to get is basically California Forever, it seems, could realize its vision for its new city by working with a city like Suisun or Rio Vista, which is also interested in annexing some of their land. But if their land gets annexed into an existing city, it doesn’t require a countywide vote. It’s up to the officials there to kind of work out the logistics of getting this big development built. So it could be a smoother path to get their vision realized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:07:07] I want to talk about the reaction and the response to this idea because there was a public meeting in Suisun last week where council members voted on this proposal to start exploring the idea of annexation. What was your sense of how the public is feeling about this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:07:40] The opinions are really split. And you know, these mixed emotions and also the level of passion that people feel one side or another was really on display during public comment on Tuesday’s meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Public comment \u003c/strong>[00:07:54] This is universal change in a positive way for this county and for this region so that apprentices like these folks who are here in the room can learn their trade over here and work within half an hour of where they went to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>[00:08:10] Oakland lost the A’s and they lost the Raiders because of a missed opportunity. This is an opportunity for us and I would highly recommend that you take it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:08:21] Some people really like the plan because they feel like it could bring opportunity and jobs and housing. You know, there are people who I’ve spoken to who were kind of, you know, pushed out of Oakland and San Francisco into Solano County because of the cost of living. And now the cost of living is starting to increase in Solano and people are really worried about getting pushed out again. And so the hope that they feel is that California Forever will provide them the housing and the jobs needed to stay in Solano and make a life there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Public comment \u003c/strong>[00:08:59] I think the only responsible thing to do is explore. You have other cities in our county that have decided for decades to have no growth. And now they’re staring at financial crisis if one of their biggest employers leaves their city. And heaven forbid, you would ever have to face that as well. So please continue this, go down this road and create more opportunities for our men and women to work. Thank you for your time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:09:25] But there are other people who are really opposed to California Forever. They don’t trust the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Public comment \u003c/strong>[00:09:32] These are profiteers, and they know they can make a hundred times more money than they can in the stock market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:09:39] I have grandchildren who are in their preteens. I live in a neighborhood that has so many kids. They and their parents will be the ones to face the consequences of orderly or disorderly growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:09:54] There is a lot to lose and I’m not talking about your money. I’m actually talking about this incredible amount of biological diversity that exists in basically in Suisun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:10:08] You know, the company, when it was buying up all of that land, it sued farmers. And they also don’t like the fact that the company didn’t have a lot of questions answered when they pitched this plan. So there’s a lot distrust and mixed emotions about this company and anything related to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:10:29] And what about city officials in Suisun? How are they feeling about this idea?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:10:36] Most of the city council itself is kind of open to seeing what this means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bret Prebula \u003c/strong>[00:10:42] For too long, Suisun City has been treated like an afterthought, boxed in and bypassed, and left out of the prosperity that has lifted other communities around us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:10:53] The city manager, Bret Prebula, is very excited about this opportunity. He spoke at a city council meeting recently, basically saying that like, this is an opportunity for the city to potentially grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bret Prebula \u003c/strong>[00:11:07] We are looking at expansion in Suisun City because we know we have to. We know we can take more responsibility for the delivery of regional services if we do. And we know this is the right decision to explore for our community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:11:22] And Bret has talked about the fact that, like, the city has been in this position before and chose not to grow, and it didn’t help their budget. Back in the 1960s, you know, there was a piece of land that Suisun had the opportunity to annex and it later became home to a Budweiser Brewery and the Jelly Belly Factory. And Fairfield, Suisun’s neighbor, annexed that land instead and it helped their city budget. And now Suisun is in this position again. And I think there’s an element of like FOMO here of like we missed out once, we don’t wanna miss out again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bret Prebula \u003c/strong>[00:12:01] We miss 100% of the shots we don’t take. That’s a Wayne Gretzky quote. That’s where we are, ready to take our shot and on the edge of something bigger than ourselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Princess Washington \u003c/strong>[00:12:19] I’m no fool up here, I’m gonna be the only no vote, I’m well aware of that. But I just wanna express my concerns as to why I’m voting this way in respect to my council who I do know are acting in the best interest of the city along with staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:12:32] Council member Princess Washington also spoke at the meeting and she has consistently voted against annexation because she has major hesitations about the project and the city just taking on a bunch of land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Princess Washington \u003c/strong>[00:12:47] I think that this is a large undertaking and quite frankly, a large headache. And will it really yield the benefit that we want? I haven’t heard with certainty that it will.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:12:58] She feels like it’s gonna just take a lot of time and effort to answer the questions that are involved and it could just be a distraction from what the city needs to solve like its housing crisis and other issues that she feels are kind of more front of front of mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Princess Washington \u003c/strong>[00:13:17] There’s some agility in being small. And I think that this idea that being huge, it will solve all our problems is a fallacy. Because if that were the case, no other city would have deficits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:28] What about California Forever? What are they saying about this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:13:32] California Forever hasn’t really offered a lot of public comment, at least not the way that they were last year. They have offered statements time and time again, basically saying that they’re interested in working with cities that want to talk about annexation. They’re interested in trying to figure out what’s right for everyone and working with various stakeholders. Members of the company have come out during city council meetings to speak during public comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jennifer Hernandez \u003c/strong>[00:14:01] It has to be a net gain for the the citizens of Suisun to pass muster, to pass muster but you can’t know that until you study it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:14:13] Jennifer Hernandez, for example, she is the lawyer representing California Forever. She spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, basically saying, like, let us study this. Like, nothing is set in stone. We’re just trying to get some answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jennifer Hernandez \u003c/strong>[00:14:27] You have a team already in place that is set up to make sure everything’s right for you. Let us study this with you and let’s make sure it’s at no cost to the city or its taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:14:48] I mean, all that said, Adhiti, how ultimately did Suisun City vote on the idea of studying annexing California Forever’s land?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:14:57] The city council voted almost unanimously. Council member Washington voted against it. And so now what we’re looking at is the city will spend the next few months hiring consultants and basically a team of people who will start compiling a series of reports that will answer some of these big questions. One question that they’re going to have to answer is, how will this affect the environment? How is it managing the services, you know, water, sewage, police department, fire department? How is managing all of that within its existing borders? And how will it manage that land that it wants to annex?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:15:49] These are really big questions, and as we know, it takes a lot of time and effort to even build in California. But I do have to ask, I mean, what is in it for California Forever here? I mean is this basically their way of getting around voters to move forward with its vision of a new city?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:16:16] What this process means is that yes, there will not be an opportunity for this kind of like direct democracy angle where people will get to kind of say, yes, I want this in my county, or no, I don’t want it in my county. You know, California Forever’s most vocal and I would argue largest opponent group, which is called Solano Together, they are very adamant that they want a vote in this. They want a say in whether this happens or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Schafran \u003c/strong>[00:16:47] This is the Suisun City’s way of saying we’re all in on California Forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:16:54] Alex Schafran, he’s a land use expert and someone who has raised serious questions about California Forever’s project. And he kind of had a different take, which is that annexation could be a less bad way of getting this project built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Schafran \u003c/strong>[00:17:11] The ballot measure they wrote was such a terrible document for democracy, this 90-page, endless document that people are supposedly voting on. It was an absolute travesty of how they were going to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:17:23] Even if they pass that up-down vote, let’s just say that they got voter approval, we actually don’t know what happens after that. We don’t what legal bearing California Forever has over that land and what gets developed there if the voters approve something like that, if the voter’s don’t approve it, like, like we, you know, we don’t no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Schafran \u003c/strong>[00:17:41] We have a system that is designed to do governance and that now it is in that system and that’s where it should be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:17:49] But annexation is a process that already exists, and we kind of know the steps along the way. Annexation also involves a lot of negotiation. It’s a lot like talking with public agencies and private entities and elected officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Schafran \u003c/strong>[00:18:05] At least this gives them some voice and some control. They will be able to negotiate some benefit out of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:18:16] I guess what questions do you have about what this could all mean for Suisun City? Because again, I mean, we’re talking about a city expanding by nine times, and that would be huge, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:18:34] As a housing reporter, the question that is front of mind right now is, is this actually sustainable for Suisun? Will this actually be good for the city or is this just a way for California Forever to realize its vision? Now that we’re getting into this very public process, it will also be interesting. To see how the company influences the elected officials who are now in charge of these decisions. So we’ll be watching.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suisun City in Solano County will begin studying annexing land owned by California Forever, the billionaire-backed group that bought up thousands of acres of land with plans to build a brand new city from scratch in Solano County. KQED’s Adhiti Bandlamudi joins us to discuss the implications of this decision and why it has divided the local community. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2281823459\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:01:43] Right now, Suisun City is the smallest city in Solano County, geographically speaking. Because it’s the smallest city in Solano County, what the city manager says is that it’s unable to grow a lot and it’s tax-based then is like very small. So, Suisun City has faced a budget crisis for years. They’re currently using reserves to kind of sustain certain city services. But if it were to annex this area, which is almost nine times its current size, it would become one of the biggest cities in the county. And it could be good for the city’s long-term budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:35] Yeah, I mean, since I was a kid, I feel like Suisun City has pretty much stayed and looked exactly the same as it always has been, but now it’s considering, as you were just saying, to expand outward in size. How exactly do they plan to do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:02:57] The city has been talking about annexation for a long time, basically since the beginning of this year. We didn’t really know how much land it was going to annex or where exactly it was gonna annex this land, but Suisun is kind of surrounded by Fairfield and land that is predominantly owned by California Forever. California Forever, the billionaire backed company that you might remember last year, they kind of introduced this plan to like build a city from scratch. They own a lot of land near Suisun City and they had this grand plan for all of this land, which was to build a city from scratch. It was gonna be walkable and there were gonna be jobs and manufacturing sites. And basically it was going to solve Solano County’s problems of not having enough jobs where people live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:03:56] So if a developer wants to build something out there, they have to get voter approval first. But a couple months before the election, they pulled their initiative from the ballot because a lot of people were asking for environmental reports and information about these jobs and where they would come from and how the company could basically ensure that the promises that they made along the campaign trail could actually be realized. So the company said, got it. We’re not going to bring this to the voters this November. Instead, we’re gonna wait until 2026 and then we’ll bring it back once we have all these studies done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:04:37] In January, Suisun City says, Hey, we’re facing budgetary issues. We need to talk about annexation. And so if Suisun City wants to annex, it kind of has to talk with California Forever. And what the city is proposing to do is to annex almost 23,000 acres of land located pretty much in the same place that California Forever wanted to build its new city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:05] So how would annexation actually work, Adhiti? Would Suisun City basically be paying California Forever for this land?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:05:15] Really what annexation means is that basically, the landowner, California Forever, will still own that land. So the company will pay for all the consultants and the people who will conduct environmental and fiscal studies and basically a team of people who will start compiling a series of reports that will answer some of these big questions. Then the city can figure out whether this makes sense for them in the long run. Suisun City then becomes the jurisdiction, so it controls what happens on that land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:54] Why would both Suisun City and California Forever want to do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:05:59] So right now, there’s a lot of questions ahead. Will there be really big environmental impacts? Will it be fiscally good for the city if it kind of expands its borders and tries to develop there? What this opportunity gives Suisun is the ability to hopefully get to the bottom of those questions. What California Forever hopes to get is basically California Forever, it seems, could realize its vision for its new city by working with a city like Suisun or Rio Vista, which is also interested in annexing some of their land. But if their land gets annexed into an existing city, it doesn’t require a countywide vote. It’s up to the officials there to kind of work out the logistics of getting this big development built. So it could be a smoother path to get their vision realized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:07:07] I want to talk about the reaction and the response to this idea because there was a public meeting in Suisun last week where council members voted on this proposal to start exploring the idea of annexation. What was your sense of how the public is feeling about this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:07:40] The opinions are really split. And you know, these mixed emotions and also the level of passion that people feel one side or another was really on display during public comment on Tuesday’s meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Public comment \u003c/strong>[00:07:54] This is universal change in a positive way for this county and for this region so that apprentices like these folks who are here in the room can learn their trade over here and work within half an hour of where they went to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>[00:08:10] Oakland lost the A’s and they lost the Raiders because of a missed opportunity. This is an opportunity for us and I would highly recommend that you take it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:08:21] Some people really like the plan because they feel like it could bring opportunity and jobs and housing. You know, there are people who I’ve spoken to who were kind of, you know, pushed out of Oakland and San Francisco into Solano County because of the cost of living. And now the cost of living is starting to increase in Solano and people are really worried about getting pushed out again. And so the hope that they feel is that California Forever will provide them the housing and the jobs needed to stay in Solano and make a life there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Public comment \u003c/strong>[00:08:59] I think the only responsible thing to do is explore. You have other cities in our county that have decided for decades to have no growth. And now they’re staring at financial crisis if one of their biggest employers leaves their city. And heaven forbid, you would ever have to face that as well. So please continue this, go down this road and create more opportunities for our men and women to work. Thank you for your time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:09:25] But there are other people who are really opposed to California Forever. They don’t trust the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Public comment \u003c/strong>[00:09:32] These are profiteers, and they know they can make a hundred times more money than they can in the stock market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:09:39] I have grandchildren who are in their preteens. I live in a neighborhood that has so many kids. They and their parents will be the ones to face the consequences of orderly or disorderly growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:09:54] There is a lot to lose and I’m not talking about your money. I’m actually talking about this incredible amount of biological diversity that exists in basically in Suisun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:10:08] You know, the company, when it was buying up all of that land, it sued farmers. And they also don’t like the fact that the company didn’t have a lot of questions answered when they pitched this plan. So there’s a lot distrust and mixed emotions about this company and anything related to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:10:29] And what about city officials in Suisun? How are they feeling about this idea?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:10:36] Most of the city council itself is kind of open to seeing what this means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bret Prebula \u003c/strong>[00:10:42] For too long, Suisun City has been treated like an afterthought, boxed in and bypassed, and left out of the prosperity that has lifted other communities around us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:10:53] The city manager, Bret Prebula, is very excited about this opportunity. He spoke at a city council meeting recently, basically saying that like, this is an opportunity for the city to potentially grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bret Prebula \u003c/strong>[00:11:07] We are looking at expansion in Suisun City because we know we have to. We know we can take more responsibility for the delivery of regional services if we do. And we know this is the right decision to explore for our community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:11:22] And Bret has talked about the fact that, like, the city has been in this position before and chose not to grow, and it didn’t help their budget. Back in the 1960s, you know, there was a piece of land that Suisun had the opportunity to annex and it later became home to a Budweiser Brewery and the Jelly Belly Factory. And Fairfield, Suisun’s neighbor, annexed that land instead and it helped their city budget. And now Suisun is in this position again. And I think there’s an element of like FOMO here of like we missed out once, we don’t wanna miss out again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bret Prebula \u003c/strong>[00:12:01] We miss 100% of the shots we don’t take. That’s a Wayne Gretzky quote. That’s where we are, ready to take our shot and on the edge of something bigger than ourselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Princess Washington \u003c/strong>[00:12:19] I’m no fool up here, I’m gonna be the only no vote, I’m well aware of that. But I just wanna express my concerns as to why I’m voting this way in respect to my council who I do know are acting in the best interest of the city along with staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:12:32] Council member Princess Washington also spoke at the meeting and she has consistently voted against annexation because she has major hesitations about the project and the city just taking on a bunch of land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Princess Washington \u003c/strong>[00:12:47] I think that this is a large undertaking and quite frankly, a large headache. And will it really yield the benefit that we want? I haven’t heard with certainty that it will.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:12:58] She feels like it’s gonna just take a lot of time and effort to answer the questions that are involved and it could just be a distraction from what the city needs to solve like its housing crisis and other issues that she feels are kind of more front of front of mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Princess Washington \u003c/strong>[00:13:17] There’s some agility in being small. And I think that this idea that being huge, it will solve all our problems is a fallacy. Because if that were the case, no other city would have deficits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:28] What about California Forever? What are they saying about this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:13:32] California Forever hasn’t really offered a lot of public comment, at least not the way that they were last year. They have offered statements time and time again, basically saying that they’re interested in working with cities that want to talk about annexation. They’re interested in trying to figure out what’s right for everyone and working with various stakeholders. Members of the company have come out during city council meetings to speak during public comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jennifer Hernandez \u003c/strong>[00:14:01] It has to be a net gain for the the citizens of Suisun to pass muster, to pass muster but you can’t know that until you study it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:14:13] Jennifer Hernandez, for example, she is the lawyer representing California Forever. She spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, basically saying, like, let us study this. Like, nothing is set in stone. We’re just trying to get some answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jennifer Hernandez \u003c/strong>[00:14:27] You have a team already in place that is set up to make sure everything’s right for you. Let us study this with you and let’s make sure it’s at no cost to the city or its taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:14:48] I mean, all that said, Adhiti, how ultimately did Suisun City vote on the idea of studying annexing California Forever’s land?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:14:57] The city council voted almost unanimously. Council member Washington voted against it. And so now what we’re looking at is the city will spend the next few months hiring consultants and basically a team of people who will start compiling a series of reports that will answer some of these big questions. One question that they’re going to have to answer is, how will this affect the environment? How is it managing the services, you know, water, sewage, police department, fire department? How is managing all of that within its existing borders? And how will it manage that land that it wants to annex?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:15:49] These are really big questions, and as we know, it takes a lot of time and effort to even build in California. But I do have to ask, I mean, what is in it for California Forever here? I mean is this basically their way of getting around voters to move forward with its vision of a new city?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:16:16] What this process means is that yes, there will not be an opportunity for this kind of like direct democracy angle where people will get to kind of say, yes, I want this in my county, or no, I don’t want it in my county. You know, California Forever’s most vocal and I would argue largest opponent group, which is called Solano Together, they are very adamant that they want a vote in this. They want a say in whether this happens or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Schafran \u003c/strong>[00:16:47] This is the Suisun City’s way of saying we’re all in on California Forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:16:54] Alex Schafran, he’s a land use expert and someone who has raised serious questions about California Forever’s project. And he kind of had a different take, which is that annexation could be a less bad way of getting this project built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Schafran \u003c/strong>[00:17:11] The ballot measure they wrote was such a terrible document for democracy, this 90-page, endless document that people are supposedly voting on. It was an absolute travesty of how they were going to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:17:23] Even if they pass that up-down vote, let’s just say that they got voter approval, we actually don’t know what happens after that. We don’t what legal bearing California Forever has over that land and what gets developed there if the voters approve something like that, if the voter’s don’t approve it, like, like we, you know, we don’t no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Schafran \u003c/strong>[00:17:41] We have a system that is designed to do governance and that now it is in that system and that’s where it should be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:17:49] But annexation is a process that already exists, and we kind of know the steps along the way. Annexation also involves a lot of negotiation. It’s a lot like talking with public agencies and private entities and elected officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Schafran \u003c/strong>[00:18:05] At least this gives them some voice and some control. They will be able to negotiate some benefit out of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:18:16] I guess what questions do you have about what this could all mean for Suisun City? Because again, I mean, we’re talking about a city expanding by nine times, and that would be huge, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi \u003c/strong>[00:18:34] As a housing reporter, the question that is front of mind right now is, is this actually sustainable for Suisun? Will this actually be good for the city or is this just a way for California Forever to realize its vision? Now that we’re getting into this very public process, it will also be interesting. To see how the company influences the elected officials who are now in charge of these decisions. So we’ll be watching.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "2 Solano Cities Could Annex Some of California Forever’s Land. Here’s How",
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"headTitle": "2 Solano Cities Could Annex Some of California Forever’s Land. Here’s How | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12035971/california-forever-2-solano-cities-team-up-annexation-talks-move-forward\">Two of Solano County’s smallest cities\u003c/a> are exploring whether to get bigger — by taking over portions of California Forever’s property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company is behind a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972769/not-just-a-crazy-idea-california-forever-releases-ballot-details-for-new-bay-area-city\">proposed ballot initiative\u003c/a> that, if approved, would allow it to eventually build an \u003ca href=\"https://californiaforever.com/the-bold-city-project-of-the-tech-elite/\">Oakland-sized city\u003c/a> from scratch over what is currently farmland. Earlier this year, elected officials in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031818/another-solano-county-city-wants-annex-some-california-forevers-land\">Suisun City\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12029950/rio-vista-explores-annexing-some-california-forevers-land\">Rio Vista\u003c/a>, two of California Forever’s closest neighbors, directed staff in their respective cities to explore annexing some of the company’s 60,000 acres of unincorporated land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since news of the potential annexations broke, county residents have raised questions about the process, how it could impact their cities and the county, and whether voters will be able to weigh in on the proposed ballot initiative, expected to go before voters in November 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We break it all down: why the cities are considering annexation, what that process could look like and how it might impact the company’s proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why would Suisun City and Rio Vista want to annex California Forever’s land?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At just 4 and 6.6 square miles, respectively, Suisun City and Rio Vista are the smallest cities in the county, geographically speaking. And staff from both cities have said they want to explore annexation to broaden their cities’ tax bases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12040857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12040857\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The town of Collinsville in Solano County on May 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, in Rio Vista, staff have also said they want to maintain the city’s character as a “\u003ca href=\"https://riovista-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=1&event_id=2363&meta_id=59354\">quaint river town\u003c/a>.” They hope, by controlling some of California Forever’s land, they can influence what eventually gets built there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City managers from both Suisun City and Rio Vista have not said how much land either city might annex. They’re both in the process of drafting reimbursement agreements with California Forever that would allow them to explore annexation on the company’s dime.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s in it for California Forever?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The company said it isn’t sure yet. Representatives have repeatedly told KQED they are interested in working with both cities as they explore annexation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is still early innings and there are important procedural steps to work through, but we’re looking forward to getting a reimbursement agreement signed with the cities and getting into discussions of what could be possible,” California Forever CEO Jan Sramek told KQED in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apart from the company’s specific motivations, there are myriad reasons a landowner might want to incorporate into a city, said Jim Burling, vice president of legal affairs with the Pacific Legal Foundation and a property rights expert. He said annexation talks usually start after a developer or landowner approaches a city with a plan to build something in an unincorporated area. In this case, the situation was reversed, with Suisun City and Rio Vista initiating the discussions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The landowner may not have access to various city services: water, sewer, utilities, police departments — that kind of thing — and the landowner might want to become part of the city in order to get those kinds of services,” he said. “The city might want to get the development, especially if it’s a commercial development, because the city can acquire the tax revenues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all landowners want to be annexed. When Suisun City reached out to other nearby property holders, some said \u003ca href=\"https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/3265707/Attachment_2_-_Response_Letters.pdf\">they weren’t interested\u003c/a> because they already have their own trash, water and septic services and didn’t want their property taxes to increase.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who gets to decide?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In California, the ultimate decision of whether land can be incorporated into a city lies in the hands of the Local Agency Formation Commissions. LAFCOs are independent government agencies made up of elected and appointed officials from cities, the county and the general public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agencies were created in 2000 under the \u003ca href=\"https://alcl.assembly.ca.gov/system/files/2024-11/4416-ckh-guide-2023-final.pdf\">Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act\u003c/a> to manage city growth and make sure they could provide services to areas under their jurisdictions. According to urbanist and land use expert Alex Schafran, that’s because during the 1940s and ’50s, California experienced a huge boom in population following a \u003ca href=\"https://www.contracostalafco.org/documents/handbook/ii%20Why%20LAFCO%20final%205-07.pdf\">surge in land speculation and development\u003c/a>. Cities across the state grew aggressively and ate up farmland in the process.[aside postID=news_12035971 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/240502-CaliforniaForever-96-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']That was the case in Solano County, as well, with cities growing rapidly from the 1970s through the early 2000s, County Administrator Bill Emlen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Schafran said some cities, such as Richmond, grew and annexed land that was geographically disconnected from other parts of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “checkerboard” nature of city growth made it difficult to provide municipal services and infrastructure to all the areas the city controlled. As a result, some counties were left with their own checkerboard of less valuable unincorporated land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“LAFCO was created to rein in this crazy annexation wave and, in particular, to put some guardrails around it so that you weren’t leaving the county with islands of less valuable land that it was on the hook to somehow maintain and provide services to,” Schafran said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apart from Suisun and Rio Vista in Solano County, Emlen sees a new wave of cities, including Dixon and Vacaville, that are also interested in further expanding their boundaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How does annexation work?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The short answer is that a city will put together an application to present to LAFCO, and then the commission votes to approve or deny the annexation. But the process of just getting to the application phase is incredibly lengthy and involves dozens of hearings, negotiations and reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first report is a \u003ca href=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/proudcity/solanocountylafcoca/2024/10/MSR-Guidelines.pdf\">municipal services review\u003c/a>, which outlines the infrastructure and public services that would be needed in the incorporated area and how the city has managed those services within its current boundaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12040859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12040859\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The intersection of Highway 12 and Highway 113 in Solano County outside of Suisun City on May 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then comes the “\u003ca href=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/proudcity/solanocountylafcoca/uploads/2023/05/Standards-and-Procedures-June-2019.pdf\">Sphere of Influence\u003c/a>” report, which lays out what the annexed land will be used for — whether it will remain farmland, for instance, or be redeveloped into homes, retail or office space. It also establishes a physical boundary for the annexed land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The annexation proposal has to be compliant with the California Environmental Quality Act and reviewed for potential impacts to the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if a developer wants to build something on the annexed land, it might also enter into a development agreement with the city to clarify what the project would include and how it could impact the city. Burling said this agreement can also assure the developer that its project can be built on the annexed land after it becomes part of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once a city completes the necessary reviews to submit an application to LAFCO, the agency reviews it and conducts studies of its own, if necessary, on how the city will service the unincorporated land. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.solanolafco.com/\">commission\u003c/a> then votes on whether the annexation can move forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When can the public weigh in?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Most of the reports included in the annexation process will be presented during public meetings, where residents can voice opinions in support or opposition of incorporating the land into the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there are landowners or registered voters in the unincorporated area who don’t want their land to be annexed, they can file documentation asking for a protest hearing. If enough landowners are opposed, the proposal either dies or goes to an election among residents in the area slated to be annexed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Christina Love, the deputy executive director for Solano LAFCO, who worked in the city of Vacaville for 13 years, said protest hearings are unusual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Speaking from my experience from the city-side of it, the developers have done their homework and either work with the property owners or own the land, so a protest hearing is usually not a big deal,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How soon could this all happen?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On average, it can take two to five years, but in extreme cases, it can take up to a decade to complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How would annexation impact California Forever’s proposal?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We don’t know yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because Rio Vista and Suisun City have not decided how much land they will each annex, or where the annexed land could be located in relation to California Forever’s proposed new city, it’s still unclear how annexation could affect the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12040012\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12040012\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A barn stands along the road near Birds Landing in Solano County on May 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The company has also not stated whether it will delay placing its initiative on the 2026 ballot if annexation talks move forward, though both processes could happen simultaneously if the proposed city remains in an unincorporated part of the county. Although California Forever owns some 60,000 acres, its proposed city would sit on only 17,500 acres, with the rest preserved as a buffer zone for the nearby Travis Air Force Base, agricultural land and open space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emlen has previously indicated that if either city were successful in annexing all of the land for the new city, California Forever would not be required to present its plan to Solano voters because the company would no longer be building in an unincorporated area and would not be subject to the county’s Orderly Growth Ordinance. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.solanocounty.com/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=6506\">county law\u003c/a> requires voter approval to build on agricultural land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he said it is unlikely that would happen because LAFCO would require the cities to be able to provide services to the new community, and right now, neither city has that capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Do counties have any say?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The county enters the group chat pretty early.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a city updates its “sphere of influence” plan, the county must sign off and make sure it is consistent with its own general plan. Love said that if the county and city can agree on the sphere of influence, it makes her job a lot easier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If not, LAFCO would have to prepare an analysis, including a list of pros and cons for how annexation would impact the county and the city. The commission would have to consider that for its final vote.[aside postID=news_12031818 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240502-CaliforniaForever-43-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']While an area of the county is unincorporated, it’s the county’s responsibility to provide services there. It also receives taxes from landowners on properties within its jurisdiction. During the annexation process, the county and city have to agree on how both parties will split the tax revenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The county is going to be losing [its] portion of the property tax,” she said. “So, there is an impact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last July, Solano County officials \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/SolanoCountyReport.pdf\">released a damning report\u003c/a> on California Forever’s proposed new town and predicted it would cost the county more than it would bring in revenue. Emlen said the county has not established a position on the potential annexations because he and other staff have not seen a specific proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burling said it will likely take years to get answers to the many questions surrounding annexation and California Forever’s project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something of the magnitude of California Forever is not going to happen in the blink of an eye,” he said. “I would suspect that you’re going to have an army of lawyers from both sides negotiating this stuff for quite a bit of time. It’s not going to happen overnight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Elected officials in Suisun City and Rio Vista have expressed interest in annexing some of California Forever’s land. We break down how that process would work. ",
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"title": "2 Solano Cities Could Annex Some of California Forever’s Land. Here’s How | KQED",
"description": "Elected officials in Suisun City and Rio Vista have expressed interest in annexing some of California Forever’s land. We break down how that process would work. ",
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"headline": "2 Solano Cities Could Annex Some of California Forever’s Land. Here’s How",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12035971/california-forever-2-solano-cities-team-up-annexation-talks-move-forward\">Two of Solano County’s smallest cities\u003c/a> are exploring whether to get bigger — by taking over portions of California Forever’s property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company is behind a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972769/not-just-a-crazy-idea-california-forever-releases-ballot-details-for-new-bay-area-city\">proposed ballot initiative\u003c/a> that, if approved, would allow it to eventually build an \u003ca href=\"https://californiaforever.com/the-bold-city-project-of-the-tech-elite/\">Oakland-sized city\u003c/a> from scratch over what is currently farmland. Earlier this year, elected officials in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031818/another-solano-county-city-wants-annex-some-california-forevers-land\">Suisun City\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12029950/rio-vista-explores-annexing-some-california-forevers-land\">Rio Vista\u003c/a>, two of California Forever’s closest neighbors, directed staff in their respective cities to explore annexing some of the company’s 60,000 acres of unincorporated land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since news of the potential annexations broke, county residents have raised questions about the process, how it could impact their cities and the county, and whether voters will be able to weigh in on the proposed ballot initiative, expected to go before voters in November 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We break it all down: why the cities are considering annexation, what that process could look like and how it might impact the company’s proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why would Suisun City and Rio Vista want to annex California Forever’s land?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At just 4 and 6.6 square miles, respectively, Suisun City and Rio Vista are the smallest cities in the county, geographically speaking. And staff from both cities have said they want to explore annexation to broaden their cities’ tax bases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12040857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12040857\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-42-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The town of Collinsville in Solano County on May 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, in Rio Vista, staff have also said they want to maintain the city’s character as a “\u003ca href=\"https://riovista-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=1&event_id=2363&meta_id=59354\">quaint river town\u003c/a>.” They hope, by controlling some of California Forever’s land, they can influence what eventually gets built there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City managers from both Suisun City and Rio Vista have not said how much land either city might annex. They’re both in the process of drafting reimbursement agreements with California Forever that would allow them to explore annexation on the company’s dime.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s in it for California Forever?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The company said it isn’t sure yet. Representatives have repeatedly told KQED they are interested in working with both cities as they explore annexation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is still early innings and there are important procedural steps to work through, but we’re looking forward to getting a reimbursement agreement signed with the cities and getting into discussions of what could be possible,” California Forever CEO Jan Sramek told KQED in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apart from the company’s specific motivations, there are myriad reasons a landowner might want to incorporate into a city, said Jim Burling, vice president of legal affairs with the Pacific Legal Foundation and a property rights expert. He said annexation talks usually start after a developer or landowner approaches a city with a plan to build something in an unincorporated area. In this case, the situation was reversed, with Suisun City and Rio Vista initiating the discussions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The landowner may not have access to various city services: water, sewer, utilities, police departments — that kind of thing — and the landowner might want to become part of the city in order to get those kinds of services,” he said. “The city might want to get the development, especially if it’s a commercial development, because the city can acquire the tax revenues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all landowners want to be annexed. When Suisun City reached out to other nearby property holders, some said \u003ca href=\"https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/3265707/Attachment_2_-_Response_Letters.pdf\">they weren’t interested\u003c/a> because they already have their own trash, water and septic services and didn’t want their property taxes to increase.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who gets to decide?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In California, the ultimate decision of whether land can be incorporated into a city lies in the hands of the Local Agency Formation Commissions. LAFCOs are independent government agencies made up of elected and appointed officials from cities, the county and the general public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agencies were created in 2000 under the \u003ca href=\"https://alcl.assembly.ca.gov/system/files/2024-11/4416-ckh-guide-2023-final.pdf\">Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act\u003c/a> to manage city growth and make sure they could provide services to areas under their jurisdictions. According to urbanist and land use expert Alex Schafran, that’s because during the 1940s and ’50s, California experienced a huge boom in population following a \u003ca href=\"https://www.contracostalafco.org/documents/handbook/ii%20Why%20LAFCO%20final%205-07.pdf\">surge in land speculation and development\u003c/a>. Cities across the state grew aggressively and ate up farmland in the process.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That was the case in Solano County, as well, with cities growing rapidly from the 1970s through the early 2000s, County Administrator Bill Emlen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Schafran said some cities, such as Richmond, grew and annexed land that was geographically disconnected from other parts of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “checkerboard” nature of city growth made it difficult to provide municipal services and infrastructure to all the areas the city controlled. As a result, some counties were left with their own checkerboard of less valuable unincorporated land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“LAFCO was created to rein in this crazy annexation wave and, in particular, to put some guardrails around it so that you weren’t leaving the county with islands of less valuable land that it was on the hook to somehow maintain and provide services to,” Schafran said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apart from Suisun and Rio Vista in Solano County, Emlen sees a new wave of cities, including Dixon and Vacaville, that are also interested in further expanding their boundaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How does annexation work?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The short answer is that a city will put together an application to present to LAFCO, and then the commission votes to approve or deny the annexation. But the process of just getting to the application phase is incredibly lengthy and involves dozens of hearings, negotiations and reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first report is a \u003ca href=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/proudcity/solanocountylafcoca/2024/10/MSR-Guidelines.pdf\">municipal services review\u003c/a>, which outlines the infrastructure and public services that would be needed in the incorporated area and how the city has managed those services within its current boundaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12040859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12040859\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CaliforniaForeverAnnexExplainer-15-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The intersection of Highway 12 and Highway 113 in Solano County outside of Suisun City on May 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then comes the “\u003ca href=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/proudcity/solanocountylafcoca/uploads/2023/05/Standards-and-Procedures-June-2019.pdf\">Sphere of Influence\u003c/a>” report, which lays out what the annexed land will be used for — whether it will remain farmland, for instance, or be redeveloped into homes, retail or office space. It also establishes a physical boundary for the annexed land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The annexation proposal has to be compliant with the California Environmental Quality Act and reviewed for potential impacts to the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if a developer wants to build something on the annexed land, it might also enter into a development agreement with the city to clarify what the project would include and how it could impact the city. Burling said this agreement can also assure the developer that its project can be built on the annexed land after it becomes part of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once a city completes the necessary reviews to submit an application to LAFCO, the agency reviews it and conducts studies of its own, if necessary, on how the city will service the unincorporated land. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.solanolafco.com/\">commission\u003c/a> then votes on whether the annexation can move forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When can the public weigh in?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Most of the reports included in the annexation process will be presented during public meetings, where residents can voice opinions in support or opposition of incorporating the land into the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there are landowners or registered voters in the unincorporated area who don’t want their land to be annexed, they can file documentation asking for a protest hearing. If enough landowners are opposed, the proposal either dies or goes to an election among residents in the area slated to be annexed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Christina Love, the deputy executive director for Solano LAFCO, who worked in the city of Vacaville for 13 years, said protest hearings are unusual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Speaking from my experience from the city-side of it, the developers have done their homework and either work with the property owners or own the land, so a protest hearing is usually not a big deal,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How soon could this all happen?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On average, it can take two to five years, but in extreme cases, it can take up to a decade to complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How would annexation impact California Forever’s proposal?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We don’t know yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because Rio Vista and Suisun City have not decided how much land they will each annex, or where the annexed land could be located in relation to California Forever’s proposed new city, it’s still unclear how annexation could affect the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12040012\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12040012\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250513-CALIFORNIAFOREVERANNEXEXPLAINER-39-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A barn stands along the road near Birds Landing in Solano County on May 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The company has also not stated whether it will delay placing its initiative on the 2026 ballot if annexation talks move forward, though both processes could happen simultaneously if the proposed city remains in an unincorporated part of the county. Although California Forever owns some 60,000 acres, its proposed city would sit on only 17,500 acres, with the rest preserved as a buffer zone for the nearby Travis Air Force Base, agricultural land and open space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emlen has previously indicated that if either city were successful in annexing all of the land for the new city, California Forever would not be required to present its plan to Solano voters because the company would no longer be building in an unincorporated area and would not be subject to the county’s Orderly Growth Ordinance. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.solanocounty.com/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=6506\">county law\u003c/a> requires voter approval to build on agricultural land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he said it is unlikely that would happen because LAFCO would require the cities to be able to provide services to the new community, and right now, neither city has that capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Do counties have any say?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The county enters the group chat pretty early.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a city updates its “sphere of influence” plan, the county must sign off and make sure it is consistent with its own general plan. Love said that if the county and city can agree on the sphere of influence, it makes her job a lot easier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If not, LAFCO would have to prepare an analysis, including a list of pros and cons for how annexation would impact the county and the city. The commission would have to consider that for its final vote.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While an area of the county is unincorporated, it’s the county’s responsibility to provide services there. It also receives taxes from landowners on properties within its jurisdiction. During the annexation process, the county and city have to agree on how both parties will split the tax revenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The county is going to be losing [its] portion of the property tax,” she said. “So, there is an impact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last July, Solano County officials \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/SolanoCountyReport.pdf\">released a damning report\u003c/a> on California Forever’s proposed new town and predicted it would cost the county more than it would bring in revenue. Emlen said the county has not established a position on the potential annexations because he and other staff have not seen a specific proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burling said it will likely take years to get answers to the many questions surrounding annexation and California Forever’s project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something of the magnitude of California Forever is not going to happen in the blink of an eye,” he said. “I would suspect that you’re going to have an army of lawyers from both sides negotiating this stuff for quite a bit of time. It’s not going to happen overnight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In her home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Eboni Moen, 42, struggled to find help. Some days she would rock back and forth in her shower, crying uncontrollably and thinking back to her son’s murder. She needed a therapist, she said, someone who could help her process what happened and find appropriate medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in rural Amador County, where she lives, mental health providers are few and far between, and it took Moen about two and a half years to find help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was actually turned away,” she said. “I was told that my mental health problem wasn’t severe enough. I had to get to a point to where suicide was a thought for them to help me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All across the state, but especially in rural areas like Amador County, finding a therapist is challenging. California has a “major, ongoing” shortage of mental health providers, and it’s “especially dire” in rural areas, according to a 2022 \u003ca href=\"https://www.workforce.buildingcalhhs.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Behavioral-Health-Workforce-Full-Report_508.pdf\">survey\u003c/a> commissioned by the state. Nearly one-third of California’s residents were living in an area with an insufficient ratio of providers to patients, the report found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, state leaders began pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into increasing the pipeline for therapists, but many students say the educational requirements are still too onerous or costly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the problem is that it takes a long time to become a therapist. Every licensed therapist needs at least a bachelor’s and master’s degree. Psychiatrists have a medical degree, and psychologists often have a doctorate. For the master’s degree route, which is \u003ca href=\"https://hcai.ca.gov/document/agenda-item-9-the-state-of-the-behavioral-health-workforce-in-california/\">most common\u003c/a>, students can take a variety of different paths, including programs in social work, marriage and family therapy, clinical counseling or school counseling. Most master’s programs take about two years and some cost over $60,000. Often, students have to work hundreds of hours in an unpaid internship in order to graduate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, after graduating with a master’s degree in social work or marriage and family therapy, they have to spend at least 3,000 hours under supervision before they can bill most insurance companies for their services. Some graduates take up to six years to meet their required hours before they can make a regular salary as a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The long road to becoming a therapist\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Jan. 21, 2011, Moen asked a neighbor to babysit her 2-year-old son while she went to work at a local U-Haul store in Cleveland, where she was living at the time. The babysitter attacked the boy, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2012/02/lakewood_baby_sitter_pleads_gu.html\">strangling him\u003c/a>. Moen said she found her son’s body when she came home from work that evening. She said the babysitter was asleep on the couch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a long time that image was burned into my brain,” she said. “That whole situation is what started my mental health problems: My anxiety, my constant thought of death, and PTSD.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She moved to the Bay Area, where she became homeless. But in 2017, a friend helped her build a new life in Amador County, where the cost of living is much lower. She found a job at a casino and began reflecting on her own mental health, ultimately deciding that she wanted to become a therapist to help others like her.[aside postID=\"mindshift_65465,news_12038376,news_12033412\" label=\"Related Stories\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She started college in 2021 but it’s unlikely she’ll reach her goal before 2030. With the help of a private scholarship, she started taking online courses at a community college in Orange County but had to stop after being diagnosed with cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She re-enrolled in 2024 and is now taking a full course load while simultaneously homeschooling her daughter. Through the scholarship, she also found a paid internship at a local organization, the Sierra Wind Wellness and Recovery Center, which offers mental health services. She said she’s maxed out her federal and state financial aid, receiving just under $20,000 this academic year, though she said that’s still not enough to cover the cost of housing, food and transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The money is not the most important part to me,” Moen said. “I’m doing it because I want to be able to add to this lacking workforce. I know that we don’t have enough so I will be one extra person to help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12039716\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12039716\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman wearing a white shirt and black and white skirt rests her arms on a rock outside.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eboni Moen in the outdoor meditation garden of Sierra Wind Wellness and Recovery Center in Jackson on April 11, 2025. Moen is interning at the center while she prepares to become a therapist. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves/ CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If all goes according to plan, she’s set to graduate with an associate degree in social and human services in January, at which point she hopes to transfer to either Cal State Chico or Humboldt and pursue a bachelor’s degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, to become a licensed therapist, she’ll need at least a master’s degree. Along with two additional years of school — and more if the student is part-time — the master’s degree programs in social work require at least 900 hours in an internship, which is typically unpaid. Master’s programs for marriage and family therapists require 225 internship hours. While social workers and marriage and family therapists can offer similar mental health services, social workers have a broader training and more potential career paths, said Kimberly Warmsley, the former executive director of California’s association of social workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many master’s students, meeting the internship requirement often means quitting a part-time job. While pursuing a master’s in social work at California Baptist University, Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/corey-jackson-165443\">Corey Jackson\u003c/a>, a Moreno Valley Democrat, continued to serve as the CEO of a nonprofit organization, but he left that position in order to take an unpaid internship that would meet his graduation requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an interview with CalMatters, he said he still has “a little over $40,000” in student debt for that program, plus another $40,000 because he pursued a doctorate.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Are interns employees?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the Legislature, Jackson helps oversee the state’s licensing board for mental health providers, and he is pushing for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab427\">a law\u003c/a> that would make it easier for some out-of-state therapists to get licensed in California. But the workforce shortage requires major investments and has no easy solution, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It reminds me of the housing crisis, the homelessness crisis. We have dug such a big hole, especially with so many retirements and people who have left the field.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12039717\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12039717\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man wearing glasses and a dark suit looks up.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Corey Jackson looks into the crowd during a heated Q&A at the “State of Black California” event at the California Museum in Sacramento on Sept. 14, 2024. \u003ccite>(Jungho Kim / CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A group of social work students across the country is advocating for more graduate students to be compensated during their required internship hours, and the movement, called “Payment for Placements,” has chapters at seven California universities, including San Diego State, UCLA and UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While social work master’s students are required to work at least 900 internship hours, San Diego State’s program asks its students to work 1,050 hours. For Jacqueline Guan, a student in the program, these required internships “should be compensated labor.” Like Jackson, she said she quit a full-time job in order to take on an unpaid internship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organizations and government agencies that offer unpaid internships take on additional liability by hiring graduate student interns and the students get a “unique training opportunity,” said Amanda Lee, the director of field education at San Diego State’s School of Social Work. While these employers aren’t required to pay interns, she said “quite a few students” receive some money, either through their employer or through a fellowship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Jackson said he “absolutely” supports paying more social work students for their internships but hasn’t pushed for it in the Legislature. “It’s hard to advocate for additional funds for just about anything right now,” he said, referring to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/01/gavin-newsom-2025-california-budget/\">the state’s fiscal uncertainties.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, he said he’s interested in expanding loan forgiveness and limited forms of tuition assistance, as well as finding ways to improve social work licensing exams, which have \u003ca href=\"https://www.aswb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-ASWB-Exam-Pass-Rate-Analysis.pdf\">disproportionate pass rates\u003c/a> for certain groups of students: those who identify as Black, Hispanic or Native American score lower than their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The ‘toughest’ clients with the fewest mental health workers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2022, San Diego County found that it \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Executive-Summary-San-Diego-Behavioral-Health-Workforce-Report-August-2022-1.pdf\">needed roughly 8,100 more mental health providers \u003c/a>to meet the region’s demand — but that 7,800 were likely to leave the profession in the following five years, either because of retirement, burnout, or other reasons, such as a career change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All across the state, mental health providers are nearing retirement, according to the 2022 state survey, which found that roughly 40% of psychologists and certain kinds of therapists were over 50 years old. Demand for mental health services is going up too, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2022/09/california-shortage-mental-health-workers/\">especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a new initiative, pumping $4.4 billion into youth behavioral health, including $700 million to train the next generation of providers, said Andrew DiLuccia, a public information officer with the state’s department of health care access. He said the money has mostly been spent and has created thousands of new scholarships, grants and training programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More therapists may soon join the workforce. A 2025 \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/bbs_2025_sunset_report.pdf#page=50\">state report\u003c/a> found that the number of licensed social workers, marriage and family therapists, clinical counselors and school counselors has increased by about 3% over the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those new therapists may not work in the areas with the highest need. In Solano County, where the Bay Area’s suburban sprawl mixes with rural farming towns, recruitment is a persistent challenge, said Jennifer Mullane, director of the county’s behavioral health department. Private hospitals, such as Kaiser, pay better, she said, while many other therapists want to do telehealth or private practice. “We have to compete with all of the Bay Area counties for the same workforce and you can guess how we fare,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Solano County behavioral health system served more than 5,300 patients last year, said Mullane, including some of “the toughest clients” — those with mild to severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia or substance use disorders. And yet, she added, “We have the smallest workforce pool to draw from.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her department is supposed to have just under 290 positions but she said that about 20% are currently vacant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vacancies also persist in Amador County, where Moen lives and which is \u003ca href=\"https://data.hrsa.gov/tools/shortage-area/hpsa-find\">designated\u003c/a> by the federal government as an area with a shortage of mental health providers. Roughly half of California’s counties meet that designation, which reflects the ratio of providers to the number of residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like it here because it’s beautiful,” said Moen, who lives just below the snow line of the mountains. “There’s just not enough resources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was recently inducted into an honor society at her community college, and it’s made her more aware of her own potential, including ways to advance policy that might improve her county’s provider shortage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would like there to be a lot more trained providers,” Moen said. “And I would like there to be more affordable, attainable ways to get to these providers.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In her home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Eboni Moen, 42, struggled to find help. Some days she would rock back and forth in her shower, crying uncontrollably and thinking back to her son’s murder. She needed a therapist, she said, someone who could help her process what happened and find appropriate medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in rural Amador County, where she lives, mental health providers are few and far between, and it took Moen about two and a half years to find help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was actually turned away,” she said. “I was told that my mental health problem wasn’t severe enough. I had to get to a point to where suicide was a thought for them to help me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All across the state, but especially in rural areas like Amador County, finding a therapist is challenging. California has a “major, ongoing” shortage of mental health providers, and it’s “especially dire” in rural areas, according to a 2022 \u003ca href=\"https://www.workforce.buildingcalhhs.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Behavioral-Health-Workforce-Full-Report_508.pdf\">survey\u003c/a> commissioned by the state. Nearly one-third of California’s residents were living in an area with an insufficient ratio of providers to patients, the report found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, state leaders began pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into increasing the pipeline for therapists, but many students say the educational requirements are still too onerous or costly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the problem is that it takes a long time to become a therapist. Every licensed therapist needs at least a bachelor’s and master’s degree. Psychiatrists have a medical degree, and psychologists often have a doctorate. For the master’s degree route, which is \u003ca href=\"https://hcai.ca.gov/document/agenda-item-9-the-state-of-the-behavioral-health-workforce-in-california/\">most common\u003c/a>, students can take a variety of different paths, including programs in social work, marriage and family therapy, clinical counseling or school counseling. Most master’s programs take about two years and some cost over $60,000. Often, students have to work hundreds of hours in an unpaid internship in order to graduate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, after graduating with a master’s degree in social work or marriage and family therapy, they have to spend at least 3,000 hours under supervision before they can bill most insurance companies for their services. Some graduates take up to six years to meet their required hours before they can make a regular salary as a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The long road to becoming a therapist\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Jan. 21, 2011, Moen asked a neighbor to babysit her 2-year-old son while she went to work at a local U-Haul store in Cleveland, where she was living at the time. The babysitter attacked the boy, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2012/02/lakewood_baby_sitter_pleads_gu.html\">strangling him\u003c/a>. Moen said she found her son’s body when she came home from work that evening. She said the babysitter was asleep on the couch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a long time that image was burned into my brain,” she said. “That whole situation is what started my mental health problems: My anxiety, my constant thought of death, and PTSD.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She moved to the Bay Area, where she became homeless. But in 2017, a friend helped her build a new life in Amador County, where the cost of living is much lower. She found a job at a casino and began reflecting on her own mental health, ultimately deciding that she wanted to become a therapist to help others like her.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She started college in 2021 but it’s unlikely she’ll reach her goal before 2030. With the help of a private scholarship, she started taking online courses at a community college in Orange County but had to stop after being diagnosed with cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She re-enrolled in 2024 and is now taking a full course load while simultaneously homeschooling her daughter. Through the scholarship, she also found a paid internship at a local organization, the Sierra Wind Wellness and Recovery Center, which offers mental health services. She said she’s maxed out her federal and state financial aid, receiving just under $20,000 this academic year, though she said that’s still not enough to cover the cost of housing, food and transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The money is not the most important part to me,” Moen said. “I’m doing it because I want to be able to add to this lacking workforce. I know that we don’t have enough so I will be one extra person to help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12039716\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12039716\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman wearing a white shirt and black and white skirt rests her arms on a rock outside.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/041125_Therapy-Training_FG_CM_11-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eboni Moen in the outdoor meditation garden of Sierra Wind Wellness and Recovery Center in Jackson on April 11, 2025. Moen is interning at the center while she prepares to become a therapist. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves/ CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If all goes according to plan, she’s set to graduate with an associate degree in social and human services in January, at which point she hopes to transfer to either Cal State Chico or Humboldt and pursue a bachelor’s degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, to become a licensed therapist, she’ll need at least a master’s degree. Along with two additional years of school — and more if the student is part-time — the master’s degree programs in social work require at least 900 hours in an internship, which is typically unpaid. Master’s programs for marriage and family therapists require 225 internship hours. While social workers and marriage and family therapists can offer similar mental health services, social workers have a broader training and more potential career paths, said Kimberly Warmsley, the former executive director of California’s association of social workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many master’s students, meeting the internship requirement often means quitting a part-time job. While pursuing a master’s in social work at California Baptist University, Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/corey-jackson-165443\">Corey Jackson\u003c/a>, a Moreno Valley Democrat, continued to serve as the CEO of a nonprofit organization, but he left that position in order to take an unpaid internship that would meet his graduation requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an interview with CalMatters, he said he still has “a little over $40,000” in student debt for that program, plus another $40,000 because he pursued a doctorate.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Are interns employees?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the Legislature, Jackson helps oversee the state’s licensing board for mental health providers, and he is pushing for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab427\">a law\u003c/a> that would make it easier for some out-of-state therapists to get licensed in California. But the workforce shortage requires major investments and has no easy solution, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It reminds me of the housing crisis, the homelessness crisis. We have dug such a big hole, especially with so many retirements and people who have left the field.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12039717\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12039717\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man wearing glasses and a dark suit looks up.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/091424_State-of-Black-CA_JK_CM_38-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Corey Jackson looks into the crowd during a heated Q&A at the “State of Black California” event at the California Museum in Sacramento on Sept. 14, 2024. \u003ccite>(Jungho Kim / CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A group of social work students across the country is advocating for more graduate students to be compensated during their required internship hours, and the movement, called “Payment for Placements,” has chapters at seven California universities, including San Diego State, UCLA and UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While social work master’s students are required to work at least 900 internship hours, San Diego State’s program asks its students to work 1,050 hours. For Jacqueline Guan, a student in the program, these required internships “should be compensated labor.” Like Jackson, she said she quit a full-time job in order to take on an unpaid internship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organizations and government agencies that offer unpaid internships take on additional liability by hiring graduate student interns and the students get a “unique training opportunity,” said Amanda Lee, the director of field education at San Diego State’s School of Social Work. While these employers aren’t required to pay interns, she said “quite a few students” receive some money, either through their employer or through a fellowship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Jackson said he “absolutely” supports paying more social work students for their internships but hasn’t pushed for it in the Legislature. “It’s hard to advocate for additional funds for just about anything right now,” he said, referring to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/01/gavin-newsom-2025-california-budget/\">the state’s fiscal uncertainties.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, he said he’s interested in expanding loan forgiveness and limited forms of tuition assistance, as well as finding ways to improve social work licensing exams, which have \u003ca href=\"https://www.aswb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-ASWB-Exam-Pass-Rate-Analysis.pdf\">disproportionate pass rates\u003c/a> for certain groups of students: those who identify as Black, Hispanic or Native American score lower than their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The ‘toughest’ clients with the fewest mental health workers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2022, San Diego County found that it \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Executive-Summary-San-Diego-Behavioral-Health-Workforce-Report-August-2022-1.pdf\">needed roughly 8,100 more mental health providers \u003c/a>to meet the region’s demand — but that 7,800 were likely to leave the profession in the following five years, either because of retirement, burnout, or other reasons, such as a career change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All across the state, mental health providers are nearing retirement, according to the 2022 state survey, which found that roughly 40% of psychologists and certain kinds of therapists were over 50 years old. Demand for mental health services is going up too, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2022/09/california-shortage-mental-health-workers/\">especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a new initiative, pumping $4.4 billion into youth behavioral health, including $700 million to train the next generation of providers, said Andrew DiLuccia, a public information officer with the state’s department of health care access. He said the money has mostly been spent and has created thousands of new scholarships, grants and training programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More therapists may soon join the workforce. A 2025 \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/bbs_2025_sunset_report.pdf#page=50\">state report\u003c/a> found that the number of licensed social workers, marriage and family therapists, clinical counselors and school counselors has increased by about 3% over the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those new therapists may not work in the areas with the highest need. In Solano County, where the Bay Area’s suburban sprawl mixes with rural farming towns, recruitment is a persistent challenge, said Jennifer Mullane, director of the county’s behavioral health department. Private hospitals, such as Kaiser, pay better, she said, while many other therapists want to do telehealth or private practice. “We have to compete with all of the Bay Area counties for the same workforce and you can guess how we fare,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Solano County behavioral health system served more than 5,300 patients last year, said Mullane, including some of “the toughest clients” — those with mild to severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia or substance use disorders. And yet, she added, “We have the smallest workforce pool to draw from.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her department is supposed to have just under 290 positions but she said that about 20% are currently vacant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vacancies also persist in Amador County, where Moen lives and which is \u003ca href=\"https://data.hrsa.gov/tools/shortage-area/hpsa-find\">designated\u003c/a> by the federal government as an area with a shortage of mental health providers. Roughly half of California’s counties meet that designation, which reflects the ratio of providers to the number of residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like it here because it’s beautiful,” said Moen, who lives just below the snow line of the mountains. “There’s just not enough resources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was recently inducted into an honor society at her community college, and it’s made her more aware of her own potential, including ways to advance policy that might improve her county’s provider shortage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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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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"marketplace": {
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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.",
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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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"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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"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.",
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"possible": {
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"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.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"radiolab": {
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"reveal": {
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"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.",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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"snap-judgment": {
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"title": "Snap Judgment",
"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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