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"content": "\u003cp>Over the past six years, a shuttered Vallejo elementary school stood vacant, serving as a visual reminder of the Bay Area city’s declining student population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever a bell rings, residents around the former Beverly Hills Elementary School know that it isn’t the sound of classes starting, but of an alarm triggered by vandals breaking in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But starting earlier this month, a new sound could be heard in the neighborhood: preschoolers playing in the yard. After undergoing a major overhaul, the campus reopened as an early learning center for up to 200 young kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new \u003ca href=\"https://www.risevallejo.com/\">Rise Vallejo Early Education center\u003c/a> is the latest example of a school repurposed to provide child care, following similar moves in San Jose and Hayward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California school districts continue to grapple with rising expenses and falling enrollment — with \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2026/declining-school-enrollment-california/756174\">the sharpest drop since the pandemic \u003c/a>recorded this year — education leaders and child care providers say this kind of conversion could help revitalize communities and create sorely-needed child care spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s definitely a project that is scalable in all communities that really want to help meet the need of providing child care,” said Juan Cisneros, executive director of Child Start Inc., which operates Head Start classrooms in the center alongside four other early childhood education and care programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just have to have the resources and the community will to do something like that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081808\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081808\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-37-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-37-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-37-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-37-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children play in an outdoor area at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Across the Bay Area, other school districts facing declining enrollment, such as Alum Rock and Berryessa Union school districts in San Jose and Hayward Unified School District, are leasing underutilized classrooms to child care operators and family resource centers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, the child care organization Kidango plans to open an early learning center in partnership with the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And just last week, the education board of the\u003ca href=\"https://media.edlio.net/4e6ffa79/cb3c8c98/895cb4aa/fd33c949db26461d800dcfc3beb0d387?_=04-21-26RegBdOBpostRev.pdf\"> Los Angeles Unified School District approved\u003c/a> placing more preschool classrooms on elementary school campuses as part of an ambitious plan to open more space for infants and toddlers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district saw the steepest decline in enrollment in California over the last year — 4.5% compared to 1.3% statewide — and is hoping that families who send their child to a publicly-subsidized preschool program will stay in the same campus when they begin elementary school.[aside postID=news_12075761 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-AFFORDABILITYCHILDCARE00263_TV-KQED.jpg']But unlike these arrangements, Solano County transferred ownership of Vallejo Rise to Child Start, allowing the nonprofit to operate five classrooms and lease ten others to privately-owned child care providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $20 million project began in 2020, when Child Start needed to vacate a building it was leasing from the county. The agency had a tough time finding a facility in Vallejo that met the needs of its existing students, not to mention a space big enough to accommodate the long waitlist of families hoping to join.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Responding to the severe shortage of licensed child care spaces — which were only available for 23% of Solano County children, \u003ca href=\"https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/asr1451/viz/SolanoCountyCommunityIndicators/Home?publish=yes\">according to a 2023 study\u003c/a> — county leaders asked the Vallejo City Unified School District for a few spare rooms. As it happened, the district had an entire school available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All over the state and nation, a declining birth rate and slowing immigration rates have contributed to enrollment loss. In Vallejo, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fcmat.org/PublicationsReports/Vallejo%20City%20FHRA%202025%20final.pdf#:~:text=Between%20the%202014%2D15%20and%202023%2D24%20school%20years%2C%20noncharter%20school%20enrollment%20decreased%20by%2031%25.\">school enrollment fell 30% \u003c/a>between the 2014-15 and 2023-24 school years. The plummeting enrollment fueled a fiscal crisis that has forced the district to downsize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First 5 Solano County, which distributes funds from a statewide tobacco tax to support local early childhood programs, worked with county leaders to buy the school for $2.8 million. Then, they pulled together county, state and federal dollars, along with private donations, to fund the rest of the redesign and renovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers outfitted the classrooms with tiny toilets, sinks and kitchenettes, resurfaced the yards with artificial turf, and installed smaller-scale playgrounds and shade structures. In the hallways, new murals of animals greet the children at their eye level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081819\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081819\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-17-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-17-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-17-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-17-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A classroom at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. The center recently opened, repurposing a former elementary school into a campus with classrooms, outdoor areas, and childcare space specifically designed for young children. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It really makes sense to take a public asset, make a one-time investment and turn it into something that you know isn’t just sitting empty but can really feed the community,” said Michele Harris, executive director of First 5 Solano.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The providers don’t pay facility fees. Instead, they share the costs of utilities and staff to manage the day-to-day operations of the center, allowing them to run their businesses at about half the cost, Cisneros said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>It helps them expand their business, but it also builds the workforce,” he said. “People who want to teach in this environment now have this space to be able to do it, and it’s going to bring a lot of new jobs into this community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cisneros said Vallejo Rise is the only early learning center he knows of that houses multiple programs with their own early education philosophies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081818\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081818\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-28-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-28-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-28-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-28-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A classroom at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. The center recently opened, repurposing a former elementary school into a campus with classrooms, outdoor areas, and childcare space specifically designed for young children.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Dionna Perkins, the new center is giving her a chance to grow her home-based Montessori preschool, Joyful Journeys, into something much bigger. She’s currently licensed to serve up to 14 children and often has a waitlist of seven to 10 families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s crazy because I get a lot of parents that [sign up] when their child is in the womb,” Perkins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, she’ll have three classrooms that can serve up to 48 kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can happily say that we do have at least half available right now,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081809\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081809\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-36-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-36-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-36-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-36-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Janet Walton, known as Ms. Janet, holds a child at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. The center recently opened, repurposing a former elementary school into a campus with classrooms, outdoor areas, and childcare space specifically designed for young children. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The providers will share the cost of other resources, like the laundry machines, and save on big purchases, like cribs and classroom furniture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a huge benefit because if you’re expanding, you have to find all of the funds for that by yourself,” Perkins said. “And in this economy, it’s hard, you know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fundraising is underway to build a family resource center near the parking lot for anyone in the community seeking child care, a food pantry, and social services. The county’s Office of Education will also provide on-site coaching to early childhood educators who might need help supporting a child with special needs or developmental concerns, Harris said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To have that professional development on site where [the coaches] can respond right away, it’s just such a tremendous difference than being in isolation by yourself all day, every day,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081812\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081812\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-43-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-43-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-43-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-43-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. The center recently opened, repurposing a former elementary school into a campus with classrooms, outdoor areas, and childcare space specifically designed for young children. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Ruben Aurelio, the superintendent of Vallejo City Unified School District, the partnerships that were formed to create the center give him hope for the future of Vallejo. In its heyday, long before he led the district, more than 22,000 students were enrolled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re currently sitting around 9,000 students,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The closure of Mare Island Naval Shipyard in 1996 devastated the local economy, and the 2008 financial crisis led the city to declare bankruptcy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A high crime rate, police misconduct scandals and neglected infrastructure gave Vallejo a bad reputation. Declining enrollment and overspending also brought the school district to the brink of bankruptcy. After receiving a $60 million bailout from the state, it lost local control for 20 years and is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046637/vallejo-city-unified-takes-back-local-control-of-schools-after-21-years\">emerging from state oversight\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081814\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12081814 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-12-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-12-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-12-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-12-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students play at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aurelio said the district will close three more elementary schools by the end of this school year as it seeks to “right-size” itself, and is looking at ways to reopen vacant or surplus facilities to benefit the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>We just don’t like seeing them sit empty,” he said. “That’s a blight on the community, and it diminishes that sort of pride that the community has.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After touring Rise Vallejo on its opening day celebration, Aurelio said he was heartened to see the school reimagined into something that brings value to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, there’s another benefit, he said, “Those preschoolers will hopefully feed my schools one day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "As school districts across California grapple with falling enrollment and rising expenses, experts say this kind of conversion could help revitalize communities and increase access to child care.",
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"title": "Struggling Bay Area Schools Get New Life as Badly Needed Child Care Centers | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Over the past six years, a shuttered Vallejo elementary school stood vacant, serving as a visual reminder of the Bay Area city’s declining student population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever a bell rings, residents around the former Beverly Hills Elementary School know that it isn’t the sound of classes starting, but of an alarm triggered by vandals breaking in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But starting earlier this month, a new sound could be heard in the neighborhood: preschoolers playing in the yard. After undergoing a major overhaul, the campus reopened as an early learning center for up to 200 young kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new \u003ca href=\"https://www.risevallejo.com/\">Rise Vallejo Early Education center\u003c/a> is the latest example of a school repurposed to provide child care, following similar moves in San Jose and Hayward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California school districts continue to grapple with rising expenses and falling enrollment — with \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2026/declining-school-enrollment-california/756174\">the sharpest drop since the pandemic \u003c/a>recorded this year — education leaders and child care providers say this kind of conversion could help revitalize communities and create sorely-needed child care spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s definitely a project that is scalable in all communities that really want to help meet the need of providing child care,” said Juan Cisneros, executive director of Child Start Inc., which operates Head Start classrooms in the center alongside four other early childhood education and care programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just have to have the resources and the community will to do something like that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081808\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081808\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-37-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-37-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-37-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-37-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children play in an outdoor area at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Across the Bay Area, other school districts facing declining enrollment, such as Alum Rock and Berryessa Union school districts in San Jose and Hayward Unified School District, are leasing underutilized classrooms to child care operators and family resource centers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, the child care organization Kidango plans to open an early learning center in partnership with the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And just last week, the education board of the\u003ca href=\"https://media.edlio.net/4e6ffa79/cb3c8c98/895cb4aa/fd33c949db26461d800dcfc3beb0d387?_=04-21-26RegBdOBpostRev.pdf\"> Los Angeles Unified School District approved\u003c/a> placing more preschool classrooms on elementary school campuses as part of an ambitious plan to open more space for infants and toddlers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district saw the steepest decline in enrollment in California over the last year — 4.5% compared to 1.3% statewide — and is hoping that families who send their child to a publicly-subsidized preschool program will stay in the same campus when they begin elementary school.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But unlike these arrangements, Solano County transferred ownership of Vallejo Rise to Child Start, allowing the nonprofit to operate five classrooms and lease ten others to privately-owned child care providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $20 million project began in 2020, when Child Start needed to vacate a building it was leasing from the county. The agency had a tough time finding a facility in Vallejo that met the needs of its existing students, not to mention a space big enough to accommodate the long waitlist of families hoping to join.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Responding to the severe shortage of licensed child care spaces — which were only available for 23% of Solano County children, \u003ca href=\"https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/asr1451/viz/SolanoCountyCommunityIndicators/Home?publish=yes\">according to a 2023 study\u003c/a> — county leaders asked the Vallejo City Unified School District for a few spare rooms. As it happened, the district had an entire school available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All over the state and nation, a declining birth rate and slowing immigration rates have contributed to enrollment loss. In Vallejo, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fcmat.org/PublicationsReports/Vallejo%20City%20FHRA%202025%20final.pdf#:~:text=Between%20the%202014%2D15%20and%202023%2D24%20school%20years%2C%20noncharter%20school%20enrollment%20decreased%20by%2031%25.\">school enrollment fell 30% \u003c/a>between the 2014-15 and 2023-24 school years. The plummeting enrollment fueled a fiscal crisis that has forced the district to downsize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First 5 Solano County, which distributes funds from a statewide tobacco tax to support local early childhood programs, worked with county leaders to buy the school for $2.8 million. Then, they pulled together county, state and federal dollars, along with private donations, to fund the rest of the redesign and renovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers outfitted the classrooms with tiny toilets, sinks and kitchenettes, resurfaced the yards with artificial turf, and installed smaller-scale playgrounds and shade structures. In the hallways, new murals of animals greet the children at their eye level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081819\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081819\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-17-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-17-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-17-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-17-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A classroom at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. The center recently opened, repurposing a former elementary school into a campus with classrooms, outdoor areas, and childcare space specifically designed for young children. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It really makes sense to take a public asset, make a one-time investment and turn it into something that you know isn’t just sitting empty but can really feed the community,” said Michele Harris, executive director of First 5 Solano.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The providers don’t pay facility fees. Instead, they share the costs of utilities and staff to manage the day-to-day operations of the center, allowing them to run their businesses at about half the cost, Cisneros said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>It helps them expand their business, but it also builds the workforce,” he said. “People who want to teach in this environment now have this space to be able to do it, and it’s going to bring a lot of new jobs into this community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cisneros said Vallejo Rise is the only early learning center he knows of that houses multiple programs with their own early education philosophies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081818\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081818\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-28-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-28-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-28-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-28-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A classroom at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. The center recently opened, repurposing a former elementary school into a campus with classrooms, outdoor areas, and childcare space specifically designed for young children.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Dionna Perkins, the new center is giving her a chance to grow her home-based Montessori preschool, Joyful Journeys, into something much bigger. She’s currently licensed to serve up to 14 children and often has a waitlist of seven to 10 families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s crazy because I get a lot of parents that [sign up] when their child is in the womb,” Perkins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, she’ll have three classrooms that can serve up to 48 kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can happily say that we do have at least half available right now,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081809\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081809\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-36-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-36-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-36-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-36-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Janet Walton, known as Ms. Janet, holds a child at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. The center recently opened, repurposing a former elementary school into a campus with classrooms, outdoor areas, and childcare space specifically designed for young children. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The providers will share the cost of other resources, like the laundry machines, and save on big purchases, like cribs and classroom furniture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a huge benefit because if you’re expanding, you have to find all of the funds for that by yourself,” Perkins said. “And in this economy, it’s hard, you know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fundraising is underway to build a family resource center near the parking lot for anyone in the community seeking child care, a food pantry, and social services. The county’s Office of Education will also provide on-site coaching to early childhood educators who might need help supporting a child with special needs or developmental concerns, Harris said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To have that professional development on site where [the coaches] can respond right away, it’s just such a tremendous difference than being in isolation by yourself all day, every day,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081812\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081812\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-43-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-43-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-43-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-43-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. The center recently opened, repurposing a former elementary school into a campus with classrooms, outdoor areas, and childcare space specifically designed for young children. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Ruben Aurelio, the superintendent of Vallejo City Unified School District, the partnerships that were formed to create the center give him hope for the future of Vallejo. In its heyday, long before he led the district, more than 22,000 students were enrolled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re currently sitting around 9,000 students,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The closure of Mare Island Naval Shipyard in 1996 devastated the local economy, and the 2008 financial crisis led the city to declare bankruptcy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A high crime rate, police misconduct scandals and neglected infrastructure gave Vallejo a bad reputation. Declining enrollment and overspending also brought the school district to the brink of bankruptcy. After receiving a $60 million bailout from the state, it lost local control for 20 years and is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046637/vallejo-city-unified-takes-back-local-control-of-schools-after-21-years\">emerging from state oversight\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081814\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12081814 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-12-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-12-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-12-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-VallejoChildCare-12-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students play at Rise Vallejo, an early education center, in Vallejo on April 28, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aurelio said the district will close three more elementary schools by the end of this school year as it seeks to “right-size” itself, and is looking at ways to reopen vacant or surplus facilities to benefit the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>We just don’t like seeing them sit empty,” he said. “That’s a blight on the community, and it diminishes that sort of pride that the community has.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After touring Rise Vallejo on its opening day celebration, Aurelio said he was heartened to see the school reimagined into something that brings value to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, there’s another benefit, he said, “Those preschoolers will hopefully feed my schools one day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "the-west-coasts-first-naval-base-is-now-a-whiskey-distillery",
"title": "The West Coast’s First Naval Base Is Now A Whiskey Distillery",
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"headTitle": "The West Coast’s First Naval Base Is Now A Whiskey Distillery | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>For her series \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiafoodways\">California Foodways\u003c/a>, Lisa Morehouse is reporting a story about food and farming from each of California’s 58 counties.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you stand on the edge of Vallejo’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023708/surprising-ways-former-bay-area-military-bases-are-transforming-and-why-it-takes-so-long\">Mare Island, on the mouth of the Napa River, \u003c/a>and look out over the water, you can’t help but feel tiny.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the right are imposing cranes and dry docks that look like the world’s biggest bathtubs. Two huge metal frames called gantries loom overhead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behind you is a beautiful and weird collection of structures: warehouses, grand Victorians and a number of empty brick buildings that look like they have stories to tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the beginning of this year, some of those buildings have been home to \u003ca href=\"https://redwoodempirewhiskey.com/\">Redwood Empire Whiskey\u003c/a> — the drink company’s new headquarters for distilling and entertaining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kunjan Joshi, Redwood Empire’s general manager, said that everyone who visits asks the same thing: “What was this place? What significance does it have?\u003cstrong>”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The short answer: it was the first Naval base on the West Coast, opened in 1854.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058771\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058771\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kunjan Joshi, manager of the Redwood Empire hospitality building, poses for a photo on Mare Island in Vallejo on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And during World War II, Mare Island was one of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101864153/forum-on-the-road-the-past-present-and-future-of-mare-island-naval-base\"> busiest Naval facilities\u003c/a> in the world. They built nearly 400 ships and repaired 1200 more. After the war, they built 17 nuclear submarines here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now we’re here selling whiskey on the same spot,” Joshi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California bourbon today\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The trees in Sonoma County inspire the distillery’s name, where the company began making whiskey 10 years ago. When it outgrew that facility, Redwood Empire bought out the Savage & Cook distillery on Mare Island in Vallejo and moved in at the beginning of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joshi joined the team soon after. Born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal, he came to Castro Valley as a teenager, then moved to the East Coast to play in a metal band — he still has a pierced lip and a skull ring.[aside postID=news_12042713 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250301-ANDERSONVALLEYGRANGE-01-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg']Back East, he got a job at a distillery in Nantucket. “And ever since then, I’ve only been working in the beer, wine and whiskey world. I only drink on the job,” he said, laughing. “I don’t drink at home at all. I only drink at the job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the distillery’s events space, Joshi pointed out the brick walls, original from the 1800s, and a concrete vault in the middle of the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was told this used to be where they kept a lot of old spy files during the Cold War,” Joshi added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next stop on the tour is the distillery, where Jeff Duckhorn, Redwood’s Master Distiller, explains how bourbon and scotch fit into the greater whiskey family. “Both bourbon and scotch are types of whiskey.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Technically, it can only be called bourbon if it’s made from more than 51% corn and produced in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would be a very small producer in Kentucky. Here in the state of California, we’re one of the largest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians have made whiskey since the Gold Rush, but craft bourbon has taken off in the last couple decades — with as many as 150 distilleries in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what is California bourbon today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that’s kind of the beauty of it for us is that we get to help define that,” Duckhorn said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058774\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058774\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Redwood Empire Master Blender Lauren Patz, and Master Distiller Jeff Duckhorn, right, pose for a photo in the Redwood Empire barrel room, on Mare Island in Vallejo on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To make the grain mixture for their bourbon, Redwood Empire sources corn, rye, wheat and other grains from the Sacramento Valley, delivered by trucks weekly and sorted into three huge silos. They mill 10,000 pounds of it a day, according to Master Blender Lauren Patz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s almost like pastry flour when it comes out of there,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That “flour” is then deposited into what’s called a mashtun — which Duckhorn described as “a very sexy, large stainless tank. It looks kind of like an R2-D2.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They then add water and enzymes, heat it up and cool it down to “create the perfect environment for the yeast to do what they need to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mixture gets fermented, distilled and then pumped into barrels, where it will age a minimum of five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Mare Island’s slow and steady renaissance\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Redwood Empire is now part of what developers are marketing as Mare Island’s “Wet Mile” — along with a coffee shop, wine bar and brewery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local historian Mel Orpilla had several relatives who used to work in these buildings. He shakes his head when he imagines what they would make of these new businesses.[aside postID=news_12047368 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250702-OaklandProduceMarket-13-BL_qed.jpg']“You know, those old Filipino men, they were hard drinkers,” Orpilla said. “My dad and his brothers, they loved their whiskey. They loved their beer. But I don’t think it would have ever been part of their reality that Mare Island would turn into the Wet Mile.”\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Migrants came from around the country and world to work on Mare Island. Vallejo is still one of the most \u003ca href=\"https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2019/02/12/vallejo-is-diverse-but-segregated-new-study-finds/\">diverse\u003c/a> places in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Diversity comes from the employees that were hired to work on Mare Island,” Orpiilla said. “So during the Great Depression, there was an exodus of people from the Deep South, mainly African Americans who came to work on Mare Island.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were Dust Bowl migrants from Oklahoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, “Filipinos were recruited, also, to work in Mare Island,” Orpilla said, including his dad and uncles, who were barely adults when they moved here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I always wonder how difficult it must have been for them to leave their family and their friends. In the Philippines, they were farmers and fishermen, and it was a hard life, and I’m sure that they thought they could do better here in America,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1932, Orpilla’s relatives were all working on Mare Island. As unskilled laborers, they’d be assigned to a shop in the shipyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Shop 32 had a lot of Filipinos in it,” Orpilla said. They unloaded box cars, swept the shops, took orders. Whatever needed to be done, they would do it. And my father did that until the day he retired in 1972.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023594\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1026px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023594\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1026\" height=\"816\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago.jpg 1026w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago-800x636.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago-1020x811.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago-160x127.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1026px) 100vw, 1026px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The USS Chicago being prepared for launching on Mare Island, April 8, 1930. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Mare Island Historic Park Foundation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058769\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058769\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mel Orpilla poses for a photo on Mare Island in Vallejo on Oct. 2, 2025. His father and two uncles began working in the Navy shipyard in 1932. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“But no matter what job you had at Mare Island, even if it was an unskilled laborer, it was a living wage. And these men [could] buy houses and raise families with that salary. They were civilian employees on Mare Island.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Navy made the weather around here,” said Kent Fortner, the board president of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mihpf.org/\">Mare Island Historic Park Foundation\u003c/a>. “If you can imagine, up to 50,000 people worked on Mare Island and the town of Vallejo was only 70,000. So it was the economic engine. It was the governmental engine. It was everything around Vallejo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then suddenly that was all taken away,” Fortner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1996, the Navy base \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101864153/forum-on-the-road-the-past-present-and-future-of-mare-island-naval-base\">closed\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of course, the economy in Vallejo suffered because people were moving out. Businesses that relied on the people that worked at Mare Island had to close shop. Vallejo started changing dramatically,” Mel Orpilla said[aside postID=news_12029568 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/20250308_BESANS-MARKET_DMB_00963-KQED-1020x680.jpg']Since the Navy left, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023708/surprising-ways-former-bay-area-military-bases-are-transforming-and-why-it-takes-so-long\">Mare Island has grappled with environmental contamination\u003c/a>. Clean up and renovation have taken decades longer, and been much more expensive, than originally anticipated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Orpilla believes in Mare Island’s slow and steady renaissance. Along with the Wet Mile, there are other businesses on the island: a university for health sciences, soundstages for films and manufacturers of modular apartments and boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sometimes wish I could go to sleep and wake up 20 years in the future,” Orpilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, he knows what it’s like to celebrate Mare Island with the whole Vallejo community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up, he said, when a ship launched, his family and neighbors would gather across the Mare Island Strait, “watching it from that side as it slipped into the water after the governor’s wife or whatever dignitary cracked the champagne bottle to christen it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I think what made it special is everyone in Vallejo has somebody that worked in Mare Island, and everybody was proud to be part of that effort. Even though they may not have directly worked on the submarine or the ship, it was still a pride that it came from Mare Island and our dads work there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now it’s sort of coming back through entrepreneurship, through efforts to retain history, to package history,” Kent Fortner said, “and just a whole new group of artisans that are coming to inhabit these amazing buildings that we’re standing around.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058767\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058767\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1294\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED-1536x994.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kent Fortner, president of the Mare Island Historic Park Foundation, poses for a photo on Mare Island in Vallejo on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fortner should know. In 2017, he and a partner in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mareislandbrewingco.com/story\">Mare Island Brewing Company\u003c/a> began crafting beers in renovated, historic coal sheds on the island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During Redwood Empire’s September launch party, the distillery’s patio, where ships were once built, was packed. Joshi took orders and served up signature cocktails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We stopped [accepting] RSVPs at 1,500. And we were thinking even if half of them show up, that’s still 6-700 people. But I feel like everyone showed up,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attendees came from as far as Modesto and Cotati, but many were Vallejo locals like Cheryl Smith and Thomas Robinson. Smith enjoyed a citrusy bourbon cocktail called a Paper Plane and Robinson ordered a whiskey flight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m just getting ready to dive in,” Robinson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinson said that, as a local, he’s enjoyed the benefits of Mare Island’s transformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I was a kid back in the ‘90s and ‘80s, there was a guard at the front there,” Robinson recalled. “You couldn’t just drive on the island like that because this [was] a very strategic part of the U.S. Navy. “So now we’re able to come in and enjoy all the older buildings, the water, you can see all of the ferries from each side, and it’s beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In Redwood Empire Whiskey’s new Mare Island space, you can sip California bourbon where the Navy once built ships and submarines.",
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"headline": "The West Coast’s First Naval Base Is Now A Whiskey Distillery",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>For her series \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiafoodways\">California Foodways\u003c/a>, Lisa Morehouse is reporting a story about food and farming from each of California’s 58 counties.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you stand on the edge of Vallejo’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023708/surprising-ways-former-bay-area-military-bases-are-transforming-and-why-it-takes-so-long\">Mare Island, on the mouth of the Napa River, \u003c/a>and look out over the water, you can’t help but feel tiny.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the right are imposing cranes and dry docks that look like the world’s biggest bathtubs. Two huge metal frames called gantries loom overhead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behind you is a beautiful and weird collection of structures: warehouses, grand Victorians and a number of empty brick buildings that look like they have stories to tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the beginning of this year, some of those buildings have been home to \u003ca href=\"https://redwoodempirewhiskey.com/\">Redwood Empire Whiskey\u003c/a> — the drink company’s new headquarters for distilling and entertaining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kunjan Joshi, Redwood Empire’s general manager, said that everyone who visits asks the same thing: “What was this place? What significance does it have?\u003cstrong>”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The short answer: it was the first Naval base on the West Coast, opened in 1854.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058771\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058771\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-16-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kunjan Joshi, manager of the Redwood Empire hospitality building, poses for a photo on Mare Island in Vallejo on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And during World War II, Mare Island was one of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101864153/forum-on-the-road-the-past-present-and-future-of-mare-island-naval-base\"> busiest Naval facilities\u003c/a> in the world. They built nearly 400 ships and repaired 1200 more. After the war, they built 17 nuclear submarines here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now we’re here selling whiskey on the same spot,” Joshi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California bourbon today\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The trees in Sonoma County inspire the distillery’s name, where the company began making whiskey 10 years ago. When it outgrew that facility, Redwood Empire bought out the Savage & Cook distillery on Mare Island in Vallejo and moved in at the beginning of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joshi joined the team soon after. Born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal, he came to Castro Valley as a teenager, then moved to the East Coast to play in a metal band — he still has a pierced lip and a skull ring.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Back East, he got a job at a distillery in Nantucket. “And ever since then, I’ve only been working in the beer, wine and whiskey world. I only drink on the job,” he said, laughing. “I don’t drink at home at all. I only drink at the job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the distillery’s events space, Joshi pointed out the brick walls, original from the 1800s, and a concrete vault in the middle of the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was told this used to be where they kept a lot of old spy files during the Cold War,” Joshi added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next stop on the tour is the distillery, where Jeff Duckhorn, Redwood’s Master Distiller, explains how bourbon and scotch fit into the greater whiskey family. “Both bourbon and scotch are types of whiskey.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Technically, it can only be called bourbon if it’s made from more than 51% corn and produced in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would be a very small producer in Kentucky. Here in the state of California, we’re one of the largest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians have made whiskey since the Gold Rush, but craft bourbon has taken off in the last couple decades — with as many as 150 distilleries in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what is California bourbon today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that’s kind of the beauty of it for us is that we get to help define that,” Duckhorn said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058774\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058774\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-21-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Redwood Empire Master Blender Lauren Patz, and Master Distiller Jeff Duckhorn, right, pose for a photo in the Redwood Empire barrel room, on Mare Island in Vallejo on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To make the grain mixture for their bourbon, Redwood Empire sources corn, rye, wheat and other grains from the Sacramento Valley, delivered by trucks weekly and sorted into three huge silos. They mill 10,000 pounds of it a day, according to Master Blender Lauren Patz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s almost like pastry flour when it comes out of there,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That “flour” is then deposited into what’s called a mashtun — which Duckhorn described as “a very sexy, large stainless tank. It looks kind of like an R2-D2.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They then add water and enzymes, heat it up and cool it down to “create the perfect environment for the yeast to do what they need to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mixture gets fermented, distilled and then pumped into barrels, where it will age a minimum of five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Mare Island’s slow and steady renaissance\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Redwood Empire is now part of what developers are marketing as Mare Island’s “Wet Mile” — along with a coffee shop, wine bar and brewery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local historian Mel Orpilla had several relatives who used to work in these buildings. He shakes his head when he imagines what they would make of these new businesses.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“You know, those old Filipino men, they were hard drinkers,” Orpilla said. “My dad and his brothers, they loved their whiskey. They loved their beer. But I don’t think it would have ever been part of their reality that Mare Island would turn into the Wet Mile.”\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Migrants came from around the country and world to work on Mare Island. Vallejo is still one of the most \u003ca href=\"https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2019/02/12/vallejo-is-diverse-but-segregated-new-study-finds/\">diverse\u003c/a> places in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Diversity comes from the employees that were hired to work on Mare Island,” Orpiilla said. “So during the Great Depression, there was an exodus of people from the Deep South, mainly African Americans who came to work on Mare Island.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were Dust Bowl migrants from Oklahoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, “Filipinos were recruited, also, to work in Mare Island,” Orpilla said, including his dad and uncles, who were barely adults when they moved here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I always wonder how difficult it must have been for them to leave their family and their friends. In the Philippines, they were farmers and fishermen, and it was a hard life, and I’m sure that they thought they could do better here in America,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1932, Orpilla’s relatives were all working on Mare Island. As unskilled laborers, they’d be assigned to a shop in the shipyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Shop 32 had a lot of Filipinos in it,” Orpilla said. They unloaded box cars, swept the shops, took orders. Whatever needed to be done, they would do it. And my father did that until the day he retired in 1972.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023594\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1026px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023594\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1026\" height=\"816\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago.jpg 1026w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago-800x636.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago-1020x811.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Chicago-160x127.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1026px) 100vw, 1026px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The USS Chicago being prepared for launching on Mare Island, April 8, 1930. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Mare Island Historic Park Foundation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058769\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058769\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-6-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mel Orpilla poses for a photo on Mare Island in Vallejo on Oct. 2, 2025. His father and two uncles began working in the Navy shipyard in 1932. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“But no matter what job you had at Mare Island, even if it was an unskilled laborer, it was a living wage. And these men [could] buy houses and raise families with that salary. They were civilian employees on Mare Island.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Navy made the weather around here,” said Kent Fortner, the board president of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mihpf.org/\">Mare Island Historic Park Foundation\u003c/a>. “If you can imagine, up to 50,000 people worked on Mare Island and the town of Vallejo was only 70,000. So it was the economic engine. It was the governmental engine. It was everything around Vallejo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then suddenly that was all taken away,” Fortner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1996, the Navy base \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101864153/forum-on-the-road-the-past-present-and-future-of-mare-island-naval-base\">closed\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of course, the economy in Vallejo suffered because people were moving out. Businesses that relied on the people that worked at Mare Island had to close shop. Vallejo started changing dramatically,” Mel Orpilla said\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Since the Navy left, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023708/surprising-ways-former-bay-area-military-bases-are-transforming-and-why-it-takes-so-long\">Mare Island has grappled with environmental contamination\u003c/a>. Clean up and renovation have taken decades longer, and been much more expensive, than originally anticipated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Orpilla believes in Mare Island’s slow and steady renaissance. Along with the Wet Mile, there are other businesses on the island: a university for health sciences, soundstages for films and manufacturers of modular apartments and boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sometimes wish I could go to sleep and wake up 20 years in the future,” Orpilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, he knows what it’s like to celebrate Mare Island with the whole Vallejo community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up, he said, when a ship launched, his family and neighbors would gather across the Mare Island Strait, “watching it from that side as it slipped into the water after the governor’s wife or whatever dignitary cracked the champagne bottle to christen it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I think what made it special is everyone in Vallejo has somebody that worked in Mare Island, and everybody was proud to be part of that effort. Even though they may not have directly worked on the submarine or the ship, it was still a pride that it came from Mare Island and our dads work there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now it’s sort of coming back through entrepreneurship, through efforts to retain history, to package history,” Kent Fortner said, “and just a whole new group of artisans that are coming to inhabit these amazing buildings that we’re standing around.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058767\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058767\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1294\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-3-KQED-1536x994.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kent Fortner, president of the Mare Island Historic Park Foundation, poses for a photo on Mare Island in Vallejo on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fortner should know. In 2017, he and a partner in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mareislandbrewingco.com/story\">Mare Island Brewing Company\u003c/a> began crafting beers in renovated, historic coal sheds on the island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During Redwood Empire’s September launch party, the distillery’s patio, where ships were once built, was packed. Joshi took orders and served up signature cocktails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We stopped [accepting] RSVPs at 1,500. And we were thinking even if half of them show up, that’s still 6-700 people. But I feel like everyone showed up,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attendees came from as far as Modesto and Cotati, but many were Vallejo locals like Cheryl Smith and Thomas Robinson. Smith enjoyed a citrusy bourbon cocktail called a Paper Plane and Robinson ordered a whiskey flight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m just getting ready to dive in,” Robinson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinson said that, as a local, he’s enjoyed the benefits of Mare Island’s transformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I was a kid back in the ‘90s and ‘80s, there was a guard at the front there,” Robinson recalled. “You couldn’t just drive on the island like that because this [was] a very strategic part of the U.S. Navy. “So now we’re able to come in and enjoy all the older buildings, the water, you can see all of the ferries from each side, and it’s beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "vallejo-city-unified-takes-back-local-control-of-schools-after-21-years",
"title": "Vallejo City Unified Takes Back Local Control of Schools After 21 Years",
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"content": "\u003cp>Vallejo City Unified School District has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11913592/bay-area-schools-see-families-leave-cities-flock-to-suburbs\">full local control of its schools\u003c/a> for the first time in more than two decades, after it announced this week that state oversight of the district has officially ended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not just an administrative shift — it’s a full-circle moment for a district that has worked tirelessly to rebuild credibility, restore fiscal solvency, and center student success,” Superintendent Rubén Aurelio said in a statement. “Our entire community — educators, families, partners, and students — has contributed to this recovery, and we are ready to lead with discipline and vision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Solano County Superintendent Lisette Estrella-Henderson formally recommended that the district exit state receivership after what the district said was years of difficult financial planning, stable leadership and steps toward financial recovery. The district was joined by nearby Oakland Unified School District, which also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043062/as-ousd-gets-closer-to-controlling-its-finances-new-budget-challenges-loom\">exited state receivership on Monday\u003c/a> after 22 years of state control, the \u003cem>Mercury News\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/06/30/oakland-unified-school-district-control-receivership/\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state took over Vallejo schools in 2004 after the threat of financial ruin forced the district to take out a $60 million emergency loan from the state to stay solvent. For the last 20 years, a state-appointed administrator has been responsible for overseeing the school district’s financial and managerial operations, although partial control was eventually returned to the district’s Board of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Declining enrollment, depleted cash reserves and overspending brought the district to the brink of bankruptcy, Aurelio said. As the financial crisis mounted, district officials such as the superintendent were unable to make unilateral decisions without consulting with entities such as the teachers’ union, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046659\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/GettyImages-1321886659-scaled-e1751332683484.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046659\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/GettyImages-1321886659-scaled-e1751332683484.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1289\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On March 29, 2005, former Solano County Superintendent of Schools Dee Alarcon listened in Fairfield, Calif., as auditors delivered their findings to the Solano Office of Education in regards to troubled Vallejo City Unified School District, which “willfully overstated student enrollment, took out loans to cover debts and shuffled money between accounts to hide millions of dollars in losses,” leading up to the $60 million bailout. \u003ccite>(Michael Macor / San Francisco Chronicle (Photo By Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After the state took over, the administrator who was put in place was able to make “sweeping changes” without needing to bargain and negotiate, leading to more aggressive budget cuts and two school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to paying off the loan, the school district had to demonstrate to the Solano County Office of Education that an accountability plan was in place to prevent future financial distress, according to district officials.[aside postID=news_12043062 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/026_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed.jpg']As the district exits receivership, monthly budget meetings as well as partnerships with the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, a state-run advisory group, and the county’s education office are set to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moving forward into the next fiscal year, Aurelio said the district will need to stay mindful of its finances. While nothing is certain, there may need to be more school closures and possible layoffs in order to address the district’s ongoing structural deficits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the district will be transparent about any tough choices that need to be made, and that community members are welcome to reach out with any concerns as they continue to reorganize and assess the financial situation for the next school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The safety net is gone as we move forward,” Aurelio told KQED. “Every decision that is made now is made wholeheartedly by the board, and they must stand on that decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their fiduciary responsibilities are obviously number one and of course, making sure our students are getting what they need,” he continued. “They have not shied away from things like closing schools or reducing the budget, and those are sometimes painful decisions … They’re doing what’s necessary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rpalmer\">\u003cem>Riley Palmer\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Both Vallejo City and Oakland Unified School Districts regained local control on Monday after more than 20 years of state oversight, local officials said. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Vallejo City Unified School District has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11913592/bay-area-schools-see-families-leave-cities-flock-to-suburbs\">full local control of its schools\u003c/a> for the first time in more than two decades, after it announced this week that state oversight of the district has officially ended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not just an administrative shift — it’s a full-circle moment for a district that has worked tirelessly to rebuild credibility, restore fiscal solvency, and center student success,” Superintendent Rubén Aurelio said in a statement. “Our entire community — educators, families, partners, and students — has contributed to this recovery, and we are ready to lead with discipline and vision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Solano County Superintendent Lisette Estrella-Henderson formally recommended that the district exit state receivership after what the district said was years of difficult financial planning, stable leadership and steps toward financial recovery. The district was joined by nearby Oakland Unified School District, which also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043062/as-ousd-gets-closer-to-controlling-its-finances-new-budget-challenges-loom\">exited state receivership on Monday\u003c/a> after 22 years of state control, the \u003cem>Mercury News\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/06/30/oakland-unified-school-district-control-receivership/\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state took over Vallejo schools in 2004 after the threat of financial ruin forced the district to take out a $60 million emergency loan from the state to stay solvent. For the last 20 years, a state-appointed administrator has been responsible for overseeing the school district’s financial and managerial operations, although partial control was eventually returned to the district’s Board of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Declining enrollment, depleted cash reserves and overspending brought the district to the brink of bankruptcy, Aurelio said. As the financial crisis mounted, district officials such as the superintendent were unable to make unilateral decisions without consulting with entities such as the teachers’ union, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046659\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/GettyImages-1321886659-scaled-e1751332683484.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046659\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/GettyImages-1321886659-scaled-e1751332683484.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1289\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On March 29, 2005, former Solano County Superintendent of Schools Dee Alarcon listened in Fairfield, Calif., as auditors delivered their findings to the Solano Office of Education in regards to troubled Vallejo City Unified School District, which “willfully overstated student enrollment, took out loans to cover debts and shuffled money between accounts to hide millions of dollars in losses,” leading up to the $60 million bailout. \u003ccite>(Michael Macor / San Francisco Chronicle (Photo By Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After the state took over, the administrator who was put in place was able to make “sweeping changes” without needing to bargain and negotiate, leading to more aggressive budget cuts and two school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to paying off the loan, the school district had to demonstrate to the Solano County Office of Education that an accountability plan was in place to prevent future financial distress, according to district officials.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>As the district exits receivership, monthly budget meetings as well as partnerships with the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, a state-run advisory group, and the county’s education office are set to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moving forward into the next fiscal year, Aurelio said the district will need to stay mindful of its finances. While nothing is certain, there may need to be more school closures and possible layoffs in order to address the district’s ongoing structural deficits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the district will be transparent about any tough choices that need to be made, and that community members are welcome to reach out with any concerns as they continue to reorganize and assess the financial situation for the next school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The safety net is gone as we move forward,” Aurelio told KQED. “Every decision that is made now is made wholeheartedly by the board, and they must stand on that decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their fiduciary responsibilities are obviously number one and of course, making sure our students are getting what they need,” he continued. “They have not shied away from things like closing schools or reducing the budget, and those are sometimes painful decisions … They’re doing what’s necessary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rpalmer\">\u003cem>Riley Palmer\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "three-months-after-homeless-man-is-killed-in-city-clean-up-vallejo-pauses-encampment-sweeps",
"title": "Three Months After Homeless Man Is Killed in City Cleanup, Vallejo Pauses Encampment Sweeps",
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"headTitle": "Three Months After Homeless Man Is Killed in City Cleanup, Vallejo Pauses Encampment Sweeps | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In recent weeks, the public has learned that a 58-year-old man named James Oakley was crushed to death during a city-run trash cleanup on Christmas Eve, sparking outrage and shock among unhoused residents and advocates. Now, the city has put a temporary pause on encampment sweeps. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">\n\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=KQINC4765919077&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul style=\"text-align: left\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031016/report-unhoused-man-seen-alive-before-being-crushed-during-vallejo-cleanup\">Report: Unhoused Man Seen Alive Before Being Crushed During Vallejo Cleanup\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\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>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:15] \u003c/em>Well, Vanessa, I wonder if you can take us back to Christmas Eve in Vallejo when the city was conducting a cleanup. Where exactly was this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:28] \u003c/em>So it was at the northern edge of the city, sort of near the border with American Canyon. In what appears to have been basically a field or along the edge of this empty land right off of Broadway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:54] \u003c/em>What exactly were they cleaning? I guess what did the city of Vallejo say they were doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:01] \u003c/em>They described it as an illegal dumping site and they said that a public works crew was out there doing a cleanup. So really all the city acknowledged at the time was that on the morning of December 24th this public works crew was out there doing this cleanup and they came across a body. Officials said that the city was investigating this incident and that the employees involved we’re getting some supportive services. and then the Solano County Coroner’s Office at the time also told reporters that they were investigating. But that’s basically all we knew.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:42] \u003c/em>Yeah, it seemed like a sort of incomplete picture at the time. And that was sort of the official story that the city had given on this cleanup. But how much time passes until we actually learn anything new? And what did we learn?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:01] \u003c/em>Right, so about two months later at the end of February, the city announced that a man had in fact been killed during that trash cleanup. The coroner’s office identified him as a 58-year-old black man named James Oakley II, and determined that he died of blunt force trauma, likely caused by heavy machinery. It also became clear at that point that Oakley was unhoused. Local homeless advocates said that they knew him as someone who had been homeless in the city for many years and had lived in the area where that public works crew was doing the trash cleanup. We also learned at that point that the police department’s investigation didn’t find any indication that there was an intent to cause harm. and the Solano County District Attorney’s Office found that there wasn’t enough evidence to file criminal charges. The city manager at that point referred to this as a, quote, tragic accident and said that the city sent its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:21] \u003c/em>And I mean, obviously, this was just shocking information to hear. It sort of really changes and changed, I think, what a lot of people understood and knew about this cleanup and what had actually happened. And you, from there as a reporter, made a couple of records requests, right? What records did you get and what exactly did they show?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:49] \u003c/em>Yeah, we started submitting public records requests at that point for records from the coroner’s office, the police department, other city departments, really in hopes of piecing together what had happened. We’re still waiting on the city to get back to us on multiple fronts, but what we were able to get was the death investigation report and autopsy report from the coroner’s office. I think one of the most significant revelations is the fact that Oakley was seen alive the same morning that he was killed. According to the death investigation report, waste collection workers with this private company, Recology, told police that they had been at the site earlier that morning to pick up trash, but they decided not to pick up the trash when they saw a man there with the stuff. When the Vallejo Public Works crew got there to clear the trash later that morning, They reported seeing a mattress covered with a tarp. along with some tote bags, a shopping cart, and bags of trash. And the workers reported that they kicked this mattress and called out to ask if anybody was there. And when they didn’t get a response, they started clearing the items without lifting this tarp that was covering the mattress. The backhoe operator then went ahead and used the front bucket on this machine to crush the mattress and sort of scoop it up. Between this investigation and the autopsy, the coroner’s office determined that Oakley was killed when the backhoe crushed him and this mattress that he was lying on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:52] \u003c/em>I mean, Vanessa, the details of this story and of this death investigation are just like horrifying to hear. But what do we know about the man who was killed, James Oakley?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:08] \u003c/em>He was 58 at the time of his death. He’d grown up in American Canyon and it sounds like he had been living in this area sort of on the border between Vallejo and American Canyon for some time. We know from old newspaper articles and court records and friends that he was a star athlete In high school, in the 80s, we played football, basketball, baseball. wrestled. But later on, he struggled with drug addiction and served time in prison for manslaughter at one point and then for drug charges as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:51] \u003c/em>I met him. I knew his girlfriend at the time. This is probably a year and a half ago.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:58] \u003c/em>I talked to a man named Sean O’Malley, and O’Malley himself is unhoused and has been for many years in Vallejo. He’s also one of the leaders of the Vallejo Homeless Union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:11] \u003c/em>He’s a big guy, like a gentle giant guy, man. You know, they try to paint this narrative of him. I mean, he did go to prison years ago. I didn’t know him as that. I knew him later, you know what I mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:19] \u003c/em>He first met Oakley a couple of years ago, he said, when his car broke down in the middle of the road and Oakley offered him a jump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:30] \u003c/em>And he come with his truck, he used to have a jeep, like a red jeep, and he gave me a jump. And I thought it was really cool. Like, you know, I didn’t even know him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:37] \u003c/em>The two of them went on to play dice together. He said they played these weekly dice games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:42] \u003c/em>He always accused me of cheating. He said my dice were loaded because he’s always lost. I was just better, that’s all. You know what I mean? Sore loser, but I am too, so I can’t fault him for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:51] \u003c/em>He said that Oakley was living in this shed in a parking lot adjacent to the field where he was killed. That’s not something that we were able to confirm, but I was out there and I saw that shed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:05] \u003c/em>What else did Sean tell you about his reaction to what happened to his friend? I mean, I’m sure he was shocked and horrified to hear the details of this cleanup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:18] \u003c/em>Yeah, he was immensely critical of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:22] \u003c/em>You know, it’s definitely incompetence. Most definitely on the city’s part. Is it criminal incompetence? I don’t know, but it’s definitely incompetence. That’s for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:30] \u003c/em>He described it as careless, reckless, and negligent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:35] \u003c/em>You know, somebody should be held accountable, you know, most definitely. I mean, okay, an accident, but an accident due to negligence, completely. That kind of accident does not happen. That scooper should never touch the person, ever, period. Shouldn’t even get near a person. Shouldn’t be within 20 feet of somebody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:56] \u003c/em>What other reactions have you seen from unhoused folks in Vallejo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:02] \u003c/em>Last week, advocates held a protest and vigil for Oakley in front of Vallejo City Hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker at the vigil: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:11] \u003c/em>You know, we are here today to uphold brother James, who was brutally killed by state-sponsored violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:20] \u003c/em>There were a couple dozen people out there. They were burning cobalt, there was drumming, there were a number of different speakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker at the vigil: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:31] \u003c/em>We pray that Brother James is in the spirit world with those that love him, getting all the love and hugs that he deserves, that his family has peace right now because we know they’re suffering his loss. Our hearts go out to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:52] \u003c/em>They called on the city to reconsider its approach to handling homeless encampments. And in some cases, advocates were calling for an all-out freeze on sweeps. What they were arguing is that while this death may not have been intentional, it is, in their eyes, the logical end result of policies and practices and rhetoric. that they say dehumanizes homeless people and encourages what they describe as a sort of violence in the form of encampment sweeps. And they were out there really warning that there will be more deaths if things don’t change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:42] \u003c/em>Coming up, how the city of Vallejo responded to James Oakley’s death. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:57] \u003c/em>Well, it seems like there’s a lot of focus then on Vallejo’s policies around homelessness. Has the city or any city official said anything since all of this information has come out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:13] \u003c/em>I had been reaching out to the city council, to the mayor, to other officials, and heard nothing except for a very brief statement from the city manager. But last week, the mayor did call for a special council meeting to talk about homelessness broadly. And so that finally happened this Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mayor Andrea Sorce: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:35] \u003c/em>I want the community, we haven’t spent enough time on this issue, and so I want the community to say what needs to be said. We have a lot of speakers, so we’re going to be, you know, listening to speakers, and I think that’s an important part of this process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:47] \u003c/em>The mayor, Andrea Sorce, framed this as a forum for the council to hear from the community. And she opened by highlighting that the city has new leadership. So the city council has four new members who were elected in November, including Sorce herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mayor Andrea Sorce: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:05] \u003c/em>I think we’re really ready to tackle this, and that was what I was hoping to do tonight is really start developing effective policy and having this council take the leadership on the issue and get going on this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:16] \u003c/em>So she encouraged folks to say whatever they wanted at this meeting, but really to bring any ideas that they have forward about how to handle this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:28] \u003c/em>And what did you hear from public comment at this meeting? What was sort of the range of, I guess, feelings and requests that folks brought to the council?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:39] \u003c/em>There was some anger and some angst and a lot of frustration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:45] \u003c/em>These sweeps have got to stop, man. They’re ungodly. They kill not only humans, animals, but the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:55] \u003c/em>Unhoused people who had been through sweeps talked about the trauma that they experienced. They talked about losing all their belongings in some cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:06] \u003c/em>The current policies of the city of Vallejo are inhumane and violate the basic human rights that should be granted to everyone with or without shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:15] \u003c/em>I don’t want to be unhoused. I’ve never wanted to be unhoused. The sweeps don’t work. You take my stuff, throw it away. I used to have an RV. You took it. Now I live in a pickup truck. There’s gotta be a better way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:31] \u003c/em>Residents talked about frustration with encampments. People talked about feeling threatened by unhoused residents with severe mental health issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:46] \u003c/em>My wife was rudely harassed in my presence by a disturbed homeless man outside of the St. Vincent’s Hill Neighborhood Associations meeting downtown. I’m dedicated to Vallejo, but these experiences will scare many away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:00] \u003c/em>Legal camping, the trash, the filth, the toxic smoke, the drug use, and criminal behavior cannot be tolerated in this cash-strapped city. Finally, I must stand up for an innocent Public Works employee who was doing his job clearing an illegal dump site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:18] \u003c/em>Unhoused residents and their advocates and then housed residents and business owners. What they all had in common was a real sense that the status quo is totally unacceptable and that there’s been a real lack of leadership and the city needs to step up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:46] \u003c/em>What came out of this meeting beyond council members hearing from the public? I mean, does the city have anything to say about what it’s going to do to make sure this kind of thing, like what happened to James Oakley, doesn’t happen again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:16:04] \u003c/em>Yeah, it was interesting because this incident was the subtext, I think, of this whole conversation. And while several members of the public brought it up explicitly, the council members themselves did not address it at all. It was only at the very end of the meeting that Mayor Source adjourned in honor of James Oakley. It was quite a long meeting. It didn’t end until midnight. And the council members at that point said it was too late to make any productive decisions. What they did agree to do was pick up the conversation again on April 1st. And in the meantime, they directed staff barring some sort of imminent public health issue to pause encampment sweeps. One thing Sean O’Malley told me that he is working on with other advocates is a slate of guidelines to give the city around how to handle encampment removals and debris cleanups. So examples of recommendations that he gave me include providing dumpsters so that garbage doesn’t pile up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:24] \u003c/em>It costs a lot to do debris removal. If they put a dumpster out there, it costs about $600 a month. And the bathrooms, they should be able to subsidize the bathrooms like porta-parties and stuff at every camp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:34] \u003c/em>And he said that they are planning to meet with city officials in the coming weeks to go over this stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:45] \u003c/em>And I guess it remains to be seen as well how what happened to James Oakley changes or doesn’t change the city’s policy around encampment sweeps?\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:59] \u003c/em>Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that’s one of the things that we’re all going to be watching for. And how do city leaders navigate the pressure coming from advocates in the wake of this incident alongside the continued pressure that they’re facing from housed residents who are deeply frustrated with the situation. So it will be interesting to see how the city navigates that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">\u003cem>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/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "Three Months After Homeless Man Is Killed in City Cleanup, Vallejo Pauses Encampment Sweeps | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In recent weeks, the public has learned that a 58-year-old man named James Oakley was crushed to death during a city-run trash cleanup on Christmas Eve, sparking outrage and shock among unhoused residents and advocates. Now, the city has put a temporary pause on encampment sweeps. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">\n\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=KQINC4765919077&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul style=\"text-align: left\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031016/report-unhoused-man-seen-alive-before-being-crushed-during-vallejo-cleanup\">Report: Unhoused Man Seen Alive Before Being Crushed During Vallejo Cleanup\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\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>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:15] \u003c/em>Well, Vanessa, I wonder if you can take us back to Christmas Eve in Vallejo when the city was conducting a cleanup. Where exactly was this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:28] \u003c/em>So it was at the northern edge of the city, sort of near the border with American Canyon. In what appears to have been basically a field or along the edge of this empty land right off of Broadway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:54] \u003c/em>What exactly were they cleaning? I guess what did the city of Vallejo say they were doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:01] \u003c/em>They described it as an illegal dumping site and they said that a public works crew was out there doing a cleanup. So really all the city acknowledged at the time was that on the morning of December 24th this public works crew was out there doing this cleanup and they came across a body. Officials said that the city was investigating this incident and that the employees involved we’re getting some supportive services. and then the Solano County Coroner’s Office at the time also told reporters that they were investigating. But that’s basically all we knew.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:42] \u003c/em>Yeah, it seemed like a sort of incomplete picture at the time. And that was sort of the official story that the city had given on this cleanup. But how much time passes until we actually learn anything new? And what did we learn?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:01] \u003c/em>Right, so about two months later at the end of February, the city announced that a man had in fact been killed during that trash cleanup. The coroner’s office identified him as a 58-year-old black man named James Oakley II, and determined that he died of blunt force trauma, likely caused by heavy machinery. It also became clear at that point that Oakley was unhoused. Local homeless advocates said that they knew him as someone who had been homeless in the city for many years and had lived in the area where that public works crew was doing the trash cleanup. We also learned at that point that the police department’s investigation didn’t find any indication that there was an intent to cause harm. and the Solano County District Attorney’s Office found that there wasn’t enough evidence to file criminal charges. The city manager at that point referred to this as a, quote, tragic accident and said that the city sent its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:21] \u003c/em>And I mean, obviously, this was just shocking information to hear. It sort of really changes and changed, I think, what a lot of people understood and knew about this cleanup and what had actually happened. And you, from there as a reporter, made a couple of records requests, right? What records did you get and what exactly did they show?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:49] \u003c/em>Yeah, we started submitting public records requests at that point for records from the coroner’s office, the police department, other city departments, really in hopes of piecing together what had happened. We’re still waiting on the city to get back to us on multiple fronts, but what we were able to get was the death investigation report and autopsy report from the coroner’s office. I think one of the most significant revelations is the fact that Oakley was seen alive the same morning that he was killed. According to the death investigation report, waste collection workers with this private company, Recology, told police that they had been at the site earlier that morning to pick up trash, but they decided not to pick up the trash when they saw a man there with the stuff. When the Vallejo Public Works crew got there to clear the trash later that morning, They reported seeing a mattress covered with a tarp. along with some tote bags, a shopping cart, and bags of trash. And the workers reported that they kicked this mattress and called out to ask if anybody was there. And when they didn’t get a response, they started clearing the items without lifting this tarp that was covering the mattress. The backhoe operator then went ahead and used the front bucket on this machine to crush the mattress and sort of scoop it up. Between this investigation and the autopsy, the coroner’s office determined that Oakley was killed when the backhoe crushed him and this mattress that he was lying on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:52] \u003c/em>I mean, Vanessa, the details of this story and of this death investigation are just like horrifying to hear. But what do we know about the man who was killed, James Oakley?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:08] \u003c/em>He was 58 at the time of his death. He’d grown up in American Canyon and it sounds like he had been living in this area sort of on the border between Vallejo and American Canyon for some time. We know from old newspaper articles and court records and friends that he was a star athlete In high school, in the 80s, we played football, basketball, baseball. wrestled. But later on, he struggled with drug addiction and served time in prison for manslaughter at one point and then for drug charges as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:51] \u003c/em>I met him. I knew his girlfriend at the time. This is probably a year and a half ago.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:58] \u003c/em>I talked to a man named Sean O’Malley, and O’Malley himself is unhoused and has been for many years in Vallejo. He’s also one of the leaders of the Vallejo Homeless Union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:11] \u003c/em>He’s a big guy, like a gentle giant guy, man. You know, they try to paint this narrative of him. I mean, he did go to prison years ago. I didn’t know him as that. I knew him later, you know what I mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:19] \u003c/em>He first met Oakley a couple of years ago, he said, when his car broke down in the middle of the road and Oakley offered him a jump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:30] \u003c/em>And he come with his truck, he used to have a jeep, like a red jeep, and he gave me a jump. And I thought it was really cool. Like, you know, I didn’t even know him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:37] \u003c/em>The two of them went on to play dice together. He said they played these weekly dice games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:42] \u003c/em>He always accused me of cheating. He said my dice were loaded because he’s always lost. I was just better, that’s all. You know what I mean? Sore loser, but I am too, so I can’t fault him for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:51] \u003c/em>He said that Oakley was living in this shed in a parking lot adjacent to the field where he was killed. That’s not something that we were able to confirm, but I was out there and I saw that shed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:05] \u003c/em>What else did Sean tell you about his reaction to what happened to his friend? I mean, I’m sure he was shocked and horrified to hear the details of this cleanup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:18] \u003c/em>Yeah, he was immensely critical of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:22] \u003c/em>You know, it’s definitely incompetence. Most definitely on the city’s part. Is it criminal incompetence? I don’t know, but it’s definitely incompetence. That’s for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:30] \u003c/em>He described it as careless, reckless, and negligent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:35] \u003c/em>You know, somebody should be held accountable, you know, most definitely. I mean, okay, an accident, but an accident due to negligence, completely. That kind of accident does not happen. That scooper should never touch the person, ever, period. Shouldn’t even get near a person. Shouldn’t be within 20 feet of somebody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:56] \u003c/em>What other reactions have you seen from unhoused folks in Vallejo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:02] \u003c/em>Last week, advocates held a protest and vigil for Oakley in front of Vallejo City Hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker at the vigil: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:11] \u003c/em>You know, we are here today to uphold brother James, who was brutally killed by state-sponsored violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:20] \u003c/em>There were a couple dozen people out there. They were burning cobalt, there was drumming, there were a number of different speakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker at the vigil: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:31] \u003c/em>We pray that Brother James is in the spirit world with those that love him, getting all the love and hugs that he deserves, that his family has peace right now because we know they’re suffering his loss. Our hearts go out to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:52] \u003c/em>They called on the city to reconsider its approach to handling homeless encampments. And in some cases, advocates were calling for an all-out freeze on sweeps. What they were arguing is that while this death may not have been intentional, it is, in their eyes, the logical end result of policies and practices and rhetoric. that they say dehumanizes homeless people and encourages what they describe as a sort of violence in the form of encampment sweeps. And they were out there really warning that there will be more deaths if things don’t change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:42] \u003c/em>Coming up, how the city of Vallejo responded to James Oakley’s death. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:57] \u003c/em>Well, it seems like there’s a lot of focus then on Vallejo’s policies around homelessness. Has the city or any city official said anything since all of this information has come out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:13] \u003c/em>I had been reaching out to the city council, to the mayor, to other officials, and heard nothing except for a very brief statement from the city manager. But last week, the mayor did call for a special council meeting to talk about homelessness broadly. And so that finally happened this Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mayor Andrea Sorce: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:35] \u003c/em>I want the community, we haven’t spent enough time on this issue, and so I want the community to say what needs to be said. We have a lot of speakers, so we’re going to be, you know, listening to speakers, and I think that’s an important part of this process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:47] \u003c/em>The mayor, Andrea Sorce, framed this as a forum for the council to hear from the community. And she opened by highlighting that the city has new leadership. So the city council has four new members who were elected in November, including Sorce herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mayor Andrea Sorce: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:05] \u003c/em>I think we’re really ready to tackle this, and that was what I was hoping to do tonight is really start developing effective policy and having this council take the leadership on the issue and get going on this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:16] \u003c/em>So she encouraged folks to say whatever they wanted at this meeting, but really to bring any ideas that they have forward about how to handle this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:28] \u003c/em>And what did you hear from public comment at this meeting? What was sort of the range of, I guess, feelings and requests that folks brought to the council?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:39] \u003c/em>There was some anger and some angst and a lot of frustration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:45] \u003c/em>These sweeps have got to stop, man. They’re ungodly. They kill not only humans, animals, but the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:13:55] \u003c/em>Unhoused people who had been through sweeps talked about the trauma that they experienced. They talked about losing all their belongings in some cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:06] \u003c/em>The current policies of the city of Vallejo are inhumane and violate the basic human rights that should be granted to everyone with or without shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:15] \u003c/em>I don’t want to be unhoused. I’ve never wanted to be unhoused. The sweeps don’t work. You take my stuff, throw it away. I used to have an RV. You took it. Now I live in a pickup truck. There’s gotta be a better way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:31] \u003c/em>Residents talked about frustration with encampments. People talked about feeling threatened by unhoused residents with severe mental health issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:46] \u003c/em>My wife was rudely harassed in my presence by a disturbed homeless man outside of the St. Vincent’s Hill Neighborhood Associations meeting downtown. I’m dedicated to Vallejo, but these experiences will scare many away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Public Comment: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:00] \u003c/em>Legal camping, the trash, the filth, the toxic smoke, the drug use, and criminal behavior cannot be tolerated in this cash-strapped city. Finally, I must stand up for an innocent Public Works employee who was doing his job clearing an illegal dump site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:18] \u003c/em>Unhoused residents and their advocates and then housed residents and business owners. What they all had in common was a real sense that the status quo is totally unacceptable and that there’s been a real lack of leadership and the city needs to step up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:46] \u003c/em>What came out of this meeting beyond council members hearing from the public? I mean, does the city have anything to say about what it’s going to do to make sure this kind of thing, like what happened to James Oakley, doesn’t happen again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:16:04] \u003c/em>Yeah, it was interesting because this incident was the subtext, I think, of this whole conversation. And while several members of the public brought it up explicitly, the council members themselves did not address it at all. It was only at the very end of the meeting that Mayor Source adjourned in honor of James Oakley. It was quite a long meeting. It didn’t end until midnight. And the council members at that point said it was too late to make any productive decisions. What they did agree to do was pick up the conversation again on April 1st. And in the meantime, they directed staff barring some sort of imminent public health issue to pause encampment sweeps. One thing Sean O’Malley told me that he is working on with other advocates is a slate of guidelines to give the city around how to handle encampment removals and debris cleanups. So examples of recommendations that he gave me include providing dumpsters so that garbage doesn’t pile up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sean O’Malley: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:24] \u003c/em>It costs a lot to do debris removal. If they put a dumpster out there, it costs about $600 a month. And the bathrooms, they should be able to subsidize the bathrooms like porta-parties and stuff at every camp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:34] \u003c/em>And he said that they are planning to meet with city officials in the coming weeks to go over this stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:45] \u003c/em>And I guess it remains to be seen as well how what happened to James Oakley changes or doesn’t change the city’s policy around encampment sweeps?\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:59] \u003c/em>Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that’s one of the things that we’re all going to be watching for. And how do city leaders navigate the pressure coming from advocates in the wake of this incident alongside the continued pressure that they’re facing from housed residents who are deeply frustrated with the situation. So it will be interesting to see how the city navigates that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>An unhoused man was seen alive on the morning he was crushed to death during a city-run trash cleanup in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/vallejo\">Vallejo\u003c/a> on Christmas Eve, according to a death investigation report released to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Solano County Coroner’s Office late last month identified the man as 58-year-old James Edward Oakley II, originally of American Canyon. Local advocates for unhoused residents \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028660/unhoused-man-killed-vallejo-trash-cleanup-christmas-eve-city-acknowledges\">said they knew him\u003c/a> as a longtime member of the homeless community who had for some time lived in the area bordering Vallejo and American Canyon, where he was killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New details revealed by the death investigation report shed light on what happened that day and raise questions about how city workers handled the cleanup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just shows more and more the ineptitude of the city, how they just botched the whole thing,” said Sean O’Malley, an unhoused Vallejo resident who was a friend of Oakley’s. “It’s just crazy. It’s horrible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Vallejo City Manager Andrew Murray said the city is “deeply saddened by this tragic accident” and is in the process of reviewing its policies and procedures. The mayor and council members did not respond to KQED’s requests for comment, but at a Tuesday meeting of the City Council, Mayor Andrea Sorce called for a special session on homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031110\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031110\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Friends and supporters of James Oakley deliver speeches during a demonstration outside of Vallejo City Hall on March 11th, 2025. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031115\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031115\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"833\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-800x267.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-1020x340.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-1536x512.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-2048x682.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-1920x640.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A participant of a rally outside of Vallejo City Hall for James Oakley holds up a homemade sign on March 11, 2025. Right: Kathryn Salm delivers words of support to a small crowd gathered in front of Vallejo City Hall to protest the death of Oakley on March 11th, 2025. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to the report prepared by Solano County Sheriff’s Deputy Jessica Dew, who responded to the scene, waste collection workers with the company Recology told police they had approached the site to pick up trash earlier that morning but opted against it when they saw a man among the items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City officials described the area as an “illegal dumping” site. People who knew Oakley said he was living there after being asked to leave a nearby shed.[aside postID=news_12028660 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/20241217_UnhousedDemonstration_GC-19_qed-1020x680.jpg']When a Vallejo public works crew arrived to clear the trash later that morning, they reported seeing a mattress covered with a “tarp,” along with several tote bags, a shopping cart and bags of trash. Workers reported kicking the mattress and calling out, asking if anyone was there, according to the death investigation. When they didn’t get a response, they started clearing the items without lifting the “tarp” covering the mattress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dew clarified in her report that she did not see a tarp but noted that blankets and clothing were piled on the mattress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The backhoe operator then used the machine’s front bucket to crush the mattress before scooping it up. As the driver moved it toward a nearby dump truck, another worker spotted a human leg hanging from the bucket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Dew got to the site, Oakley’s body had been taken out of the backhoe bucket and Dew noted blood inside. Oakley and the mattress were both in the roadway, next to a dump truck. Dew noted the trash pile “appeared to have a void where the mattress was previously sitting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031107\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031107\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Muteado Silencio performs a traditional dance in honor of James Oakley on March 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dew wrote in her report that she found a wallet next to Oakley containing his California ID card. In his back pocket, he had $1.59.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An autopsy and death investigation by the coroner’s office determined that Oakley died from multiple blunt force injuries caused by the backhoe crushing the mattress he was lying on. The toxicology report showed Oakley had methamphetamine but no alcohol in his system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a high school student in the ’80s, Oakley had been a celebrated athlete. He later served prison sentences for manslaughter and drug charges and struggled with drug addiction, according to court records and articles in the Napa Valley Register.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>O’Malley first met Oakley a couple of years ago when his car broke down, and Oakley offered him a jump. “I thought it was really cool. I didn’t even know him,” he said, describing Oakley as “a gentle giant.” The two went on to play dice together regularly.[aside postID=news_12028502 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/Evelyn-Alfred-3-1020x765.jpg']“He said my dice were loaded because he always lost,” O’Malley said, laughing at the recollection. “That’s what I say, too, when I lose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the death investigation report, Oakley is survived by his father, sister and two adult children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Vallejo Police Department investigated the death and found no indication of “intent to cause harm, bodily injury or death,” city officials said, and the district attorney’s office found there wasn’t enough evidence to file criminal charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the incident, Vallejo officials said only that a dead body had been discovered during a cleanup at an illegal dumping site. Two months later, the city acknowledged Oakley had been crushed by city workers, calling it a “tragic accident.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a vigil for Oakley outside Vallejo City Hall on Tuesday, O’Malley and other activists called on the city to reconsider its approach to clearing homeless encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re out here saying James should never have died,” said Tiny Gray-Garcia, co-founder of POOR Magazine. “We have to change [this] policy of hate because more of us are going to die.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031106\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031106\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Participants of a rally outside of Vallejo City Hall for James Oakley hold homemade signs on March 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She suspects similar deaths often go unreported. “The case of James is just one that we saw, and they can’t deny it,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>O’Malley said he and other advocates are working on a slate of guidelines to give the city around handling encampment removals and debris cleanups. The recommendations include providing dumpsters so garbage doesn’t pile up and offering services before clearing camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If anything comes from this, it’ll be them changing their policies,” O’Malley said. “How many more people need to die?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZ-ZKtuSHdeWqxooQwfEcr-oiOpdpJcf2RLZInU7aqjjQlRQ/viewform?embedded=true\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>An unhoused man was seen alive on the morning he was crushed to death during a city-run trash cleanup in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/vallejo\">Vallejo\u003c/a> on Christmas Eve, according to a death investigation report released to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Solano County Coroner’s Office late last month identified the man as 58-year-old James Edward Oakley II, originally of American Canyon. Local advocates for unhoused residents \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028660/unhoused-man-killed-vallejo-trash-cleanup-christmas-eve-city-acknowledges\">said they knew him\u003c/a> as a longtime member of the homeless community who had for some time lived in the area bordering Vallejo and American Canyon, where he was killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New details revealed by the death investigation report shed light on what happened that day and raise questions about how city workers handled the cleanup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just shows more and more the ineptitude of the city, how they just botched the whole thing,” said Sean O’Malley, an unhoused Vallejo resident who was a friend of Oakley’s. “It’s just crazy. It’s horrible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Vallejo City Manager Andrew Murray said the city is “deeply saddened by this tragic accident” and is in the process of reviewing its policies and procedures. The mayor and council members did not respond to KQED’s requests for comment, but at a Tuesday meeting of the City Council, Mayor Andrea Sorce called for a special session on homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031110\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031110\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-05-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Friends and supporters of James Oakley deliver speeches during a demonstration outside of Vallejo City Hall on March 11th, 2025. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031115\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031115\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"833\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-800x267.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-1020x340.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-1536x512.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-2048x682.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image-12-1920x640.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A participant of a rally outside of Vallejo City Hall for James Oakley holds up a homemade sign on March 11, 2025. Right: Kathryn Salm delivers words of support to a small crowd gathered in front of Vallejo City Hall to protest the death of Oakley on March 11th, 2025. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to the report prepared by Solano County Sheriff’s Deputy Jessica Dew, who responded to the scene, waste collection workers with the company Recology told police they had approached the site to pick up trash earlier that morning but opted against it when they saw a man among the items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City officials described the area as an “illegal dumping” site. People who knew Oakley said he was living there after being asked to leave a nearby shed.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When a Vallejo public works crew arrived to clear the trash later that morning, they reported seeing a mattress covered with a “tarp,” along with several tote bags, a shopping cart and bags of trash. Workers reported kicking the mattress and calling out, asking if anyone was there, according to the death investigation. When they didn’t get a response, they started clearing the items without lifting the “tarp” covering the mattress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dew clarified in her report that she did not see a tarp but noted that blankets and clothing were piled on the mattress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The backhoe operator then used the machine’s front bucket to crush the mattress before scooping it up. As the driver moved it toward a nearby dump truck, another worker spotted a human leg hanging from the bucket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Dew got to the site, Oakley’s body had been taken out of the backhoe bucket and Dew noted blood inside. Oakley and the mattress were both in the roadway, next to a dump truck. Dew noted the trash pile “appeared to have a void where the mattress was previously sitting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031107\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031107\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Muteado Silencio performs a traditional dance in honor of James Oakley on March 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dew wrote in her report that she found a wallet next to Oakley containing his California ID card. In his back pocket, he had $1.59.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An autopsy and death investigation by the coroner’s office determined that Oakley died from multiple blunt force injuries caused by the backhoe crushing the mattress he was lying on. The toxicology report showed Oakley had methamphetamine but no alcohol in his system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a high school student in the ’80s, Oakley had been a celebrated athlete. He later served prison sentences for manslaughter and drug charges and struggled with drug addiction, according to court records and articles in the Napa Valley Register.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>O’Malley first met Oakley a couple of years ago when his car broke down, and Oakley offered him a jump. “I thought it was really cool. I didn’t even know him,” he said, describing Oakley as “a gentle giant.” The two went on to play dice together regularly.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“He said my dice were loaded because he always lost,” O’Malley said, laughing at the recollection. “That’s what I say, too, when I lose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the death investigation report, Oakley is survived by his father, sister and two adult children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Vallejo Police Department investigated the death and found no indication of “intent to cause harm, bodily injury or death,” city officials said, and the district attorney’s office found there wasn’t enough evidence to file criminal charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the incident, Vallejo officials said only that a dead body had been discovered during a cleanup at an illegal dumping site. Two months later, the city acknowledged Oakley had been crushed by city workers, calling it a “tragic accident.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a vigil for Oakley outside Vallejo City Hall on Tuesday, O’Malley and other activists called on the city to reconsider its approach to clearing homeless encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re out here saying James should never have died,” said Tiny Gray-Garcia, co-founder of POOR Magazine. “We have to change [this] policy of hate because more of us are going to die.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031106\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031106\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250311-VALLEJO-HOMELESS-DEATH-VIGIL-MD-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Participants of a rally outside of Vallejo City Hall for James Oakley hold homemade signs on March 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She suspects similar deaths often go unreported. “The case of James is just one that we saw, and they can’t deny it,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>O’Malley said he and other advocates are working on a slate of guidelines to give the city around handling encampment removals and debris cleanups. The recommendations include providing dumpsters so garbage doesn’t pile up and offering services before clearing camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If anything comes from this, it’ll be them changing their policies,” O’Malley said. “How many more people need to die?”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe\n src='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZ-ZKtuSHdeWqxooQwfEcr-oiOpdpJcf2RLZInU7aqjjQlRQ/viewform?embedded=true?embedded=true'\n title='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZ-ZKtuSHdeWqxooQwfEcr-oiOpdpJcf2RLZInU7aqjjQlRQ/viewform?embedded=true'\n width='760' height='500'\n frameborder='0'\n marginheight='0' marginwidth='0'>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A man was crushed to death in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/vallejo\">Vallejo\u003c/a> during a city-run cleanup on Christmas Eve, city officials said Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vallejo homeless advocate Eli Smith said she knew the man, James Oakley II, as a local unhoused resident. She said he was living in the area where workers were clearing debris. The Solano County Coroner’s Office confirmed Oakley’s name, identifying him as a 58-year-old American Canyon resident. Smith said he grew up there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disclosure comes two months after the Dec. 24 incident, during which officials said a public works crew “encountered” an injured man who was later confirmed to have been “compressed within the debris.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coroner determined the cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries. In a press release, the city said those were “likely sustained accidentally by the heavy equipment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City officials did not immediately return requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12028502 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/Evelyn-Alfred-3-1020x765.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith said accelerated efforts to clear encampments and remove unhoused people’s property have left them more vulnerable to incidents like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are forced to become less visible because they no longer have tents. They are not in a community. They are no longer as noticeable because they don’t have shelter,” she said. “People will sleep under a tarp. People will try to find something to kind of get underneath.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Vallejo Police Department investigated the death and found no indication of “intent to cause harm, bodily injury or death,” city officials said, and the district attorney’s office found there wasn’t enough evidence to file criminal charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other people experiencing homelessness have been killed in similar incidents. A 33-year-old woman was \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-modesto-death-20180830-story.html\">killed in Modesto in 2018\u003c/a> when a frontloader hit her during a CalTrans cleanup. Last month, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/homeless-atlanta-ebenezer-mlk-ff421e31ebc13dc53919190074931c42\">an Atlanta man\u003c/a> was crushed inside a tent by a bulldozer during a cleanup ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day festivities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities across California and beyond have ramped up encampment sweeps since the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11983492/how-a-pivotal-case-on-homelessness-could-redefine-policies-in-california-and-the-nation\">Supreme Court granted them more power\u003c/a> to enforce anti-camping laws last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city sends its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased person,” Vallejo City Manager Andrew Murray said in a statement. “This was a tragic accident.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith said accelerated efforts to clear encampments and remove unhoused people’s property have left them more vulnerable to incidents like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are forced to become less visible because they no longer have tents. They are not in a community. They are no longer as noticeable because they don’t have shelter,” she said. “People will sleep under a tarp. People will try to find something to kind of get underneath.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Vallejo Police Department investigated the death and found no indication of “intent to cause harm, bodily injury or death,” city officials said, and the district attorney’s office found there wasn’t enough evidence to file criminal charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other people experiencing homelessness have been killed in similar incidents. A 33-year-old woman was \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-modesto-death-20180830-story.html\">killed in Modesto in 2018\u003c/a> when a frontloader hit her during a CalTrans cleanup. Last month, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/homeless-atlanta-ebenezer-mlk-ff421e31ebc13dc53919190074931c42\">an Atlanta man\u003c/a> was crushed inside a tent by a bulldozer during a cleanup ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day festivities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities across California and beyond have ramped up encampment sweeps since the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11983492/how-a-pivotal-case-on-homelessness-could-redefine-policies-in-california-and-the-nation\">Supreme Court granted them more power\u003c/a> to enforce anti-camping laws last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city sends its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased person,” Vallejo City Manager Andrew Murray said in a statement. “This was a tragic accident.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Over the course of two years, Evelyn Alfred built a home on vacant city-owned land in Vallejo. Using wooden beams, insulation, tarps and some experience in construction, she built a two-room structure, complete with windows and blinds, a shower, leather couches and a raised bed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Alfred, who is 64 years old, has several disabilities, and has been unhoused for more than two decades, her makeshift home provided shelter and stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when city officials told her she had to leave in late October, her eviction seemed all but inevitable. Just a few months earlier, the Supreme Court \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11991340/supreme-court-says-laws-criminalizing-homeless-camping-do-not-violate-constitution\">had given cities greater leeway to remove people\u003c/a> living in structures like hers, under threat of fines and jail time — even if no alternative shelter was available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of a sudden, I got a notice, [a] lady came and said you got 72 hours notice … And I said ‘I can’t move in 72 hours,’” Alfred recalled. “There’s no way.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sued. And earlier this month, a district court judge determined she could stay until the case is resolved in a victory legal advocates say is the first of its kind in the country since the Supreme Court’s order last year — and one they say could have broad implications for legal fights over homeless encampments across the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People experiencing homelessness and their allies have long used the courts to fight what they see as overly aggressive tactics to remove them from city streets, but the Supreme Court’s recent decision \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000606/scenes-from-san-franciscos-unhoused-encampment-sweeps\">dealt them a major blow\u003c/a>. Now, with Alfred’s case, they’re hoping another legal strategy has gained a foothold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sends a message that the courts recognize unhoused people have multiple constitutional rights that may be violated by criminalization or sweeps policies,” said Tristia Bauman, an attorney with the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley who specializes in laws related to homelessness but wasn’t involved in the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone, however, thinks it’s a winning argument. Ilan Wurman, an attorney who’s pioneered legal arguments brought by business owners against cities in an effort to force them to clean encampments, said the Supreme Court’s decision upheld an established legal precedent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The courts are going to see through it,” Wurman said. “The nub of the Supreme Court’s prior ruling was that these municipal regulations and ordinances fit comfortably within a longstanding tradition of reasonable police powers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, even Wurman admitted Alfred’s case was likely to inspire new litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since last year’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11983492/how-a-pivotal-case-on-homelessness-could-redefine-policies-in-california-and-the-nation\">Supreme Court decision in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson\u003c/a>, cities across California have moved to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/09/camping-ban-ordinances/\">crackdown on encampments\u003c/a>. By the National Homelessness Law Center’s tally, some 40 California jurisdictions have passed or strengthened laws governing homelessness, among them Fremont, which earlier this month adopted what’s believed to be one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026580/this-bay-area-city-just-passed-the-most-extreme-encampment-ban-in-california\">broadest anti-camping laws\u003c/a> in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12026580]Vallejo has a \u003ca href=\"https://library.municode.com/ca/vallejo/codes/municipal_code?nodeId=TIT7PUHESAWE_IVOFAGPUHESA_CH7.67UNCASTPEPRPU\">longstanding camping ban on the books\u003c/a>, and relied on that, its \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofvallejo.net/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=17972007\">encampment policy\u003c/a> and the state penal code and in its attempt to clear the camp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Alfred’s case, however, federal District Court Judge Dena Coggins found that Vallejo’s plan to raze her shelter while failing to offer Alfred any alternative and barring her from camping anywhere in the city would likely “expose her to more dangerous conditions than she currently faces” — a violation of her due process rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her order, Coggins pointed out Alfred had submitted applications with multiple services providers and had reached out to more than a dozen apartment buildings, only to run into waiting lists. The city, meanwhile, had done next to nothing to connect Alfred with housing resources and had given her closer to 65 hours notice to leave, in an apparent violation of its own policies, according to the judge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city did not provide an interview or written statement in response to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12028489\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1131px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12028489\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1131\" height=\"848\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112.jpg 1131w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1131px) 100vw, 1131px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Evelyn Alfred built this makeshift structure on vacant city-owned land across from the Vallejo marina over the course of two years. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Eli Smith)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In her scathing dissent on the Grants Pass ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed to the due process clause as a possible avenue for challenging “anti-homelessness ordinances,” writing it “may well place constitutional limits” on such policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the legal argument Alfred’s lawyers presented to Coggins, but until her ruling, those arguments \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11993380/unhoused-oakland-residents-eviction-battle-is-early-test-of-supreme-court-ruling\">had only been successful in buying unhoused people a few extra days\u003c/a> or weeks to pack their belongings before being forced to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney Andrea Henson, who has supported several unhoused people in those cases, including in Alfred’s Vallejo suit, said the Supreme Court’s decision has made it more difficult to ask judges to block encampment sweeps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been extraordinarily hard going to court about these [sweeps] because of the environment,” Henson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more cities establish new policies to crack down on encampments, Henson said she hopes they’ll look to Alfred’s legal victory as a cautionary tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t offer anything, and you don’t let people camp anywhere, there’s precedent now that that can be seen as deliberate indifference,” Henson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12000987]Before Henson got involved, advocates with the local chapter of the California Homeless Union initially filed the lawsuit. Their win is the latest illustration of the impact of the group’s organizing efforts, which have led to lawsuits around the state filed by unhoused people and activists without formal legal schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal is to build leadership and build a movement,” said union member Eli Smith, who initiated the Vallejo action, though she’s not a trained lawyer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eli is heartened by all the new faces that showed up at the local union’s weekly meeting after their win made news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am hoping that it will help not just fortify the tools we have to fight and set a legal precedent, which is incredibly significant,” Eli said, “but that it’ll also give people hope in this political landscape that is so bleak.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alfred said she’s now waiting to get approved for a subsidized unit in senior housing. For her, the injunction was a vindication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If anybody’s homeless, I just tell them to fight because they don’t have the right to do what they’re doing to us, so just fight and let everybody know that you’re human too.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Over the course of two years, Evelyn Alfred built a home on vacant city-owned land in Vallejo. Using wooden beams, insulation, tarps and some experience in construction, she built a two-room structure, complete with windows and blinds, a shower, leather couches and a raised bed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Alfred, who is 64 years old, has several disabilities, and has been unhoused for more than two decades, her makeshift home provided shelter and stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when city officials told her she had to leave in late October, her eviction seemed all but inevitable. Just a few months earlier, the Supreme Court \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11991340/supreme-court-says-laws-criminalizing-homeless-camping-do-not-violate-constitution\">had given cities greater leeway to remove people\u003c/a> living in structures like hers, under threat of fines and jail time — even if no alternative shelter was available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of a sudden, I got a notice, [a] lady came and said you got 72 hours notice … And I said ‘I can’t move in 72 hours,’” Alfred recalled. “There’s no way.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sued. And earlier this month, a district court judge determined she could stay until the case is resolved in a victory legal advocates say is the first of its kind in the country since the Supreme Court’s order last year — and one they say could have broad implications for legal fights over homeless encampments across the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People experiencing homelessness and their allies have long used the courts to fight what they see as overly aggressive tactics to remove them from city streets, but the Supreme Court’s recent decision \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000606/scenes-from-san-franciscos-unhoused-encampment-sweeps\">dealt them a major blow\u003c/a>. Now, with Alfred’s case, they’re hoping another legal strategy has gained a foothold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sends a message that the courts recognize unhoused people have multiple constitutional rights that may be violated by criminalization or sweeps policies,” said Tristia Bauman, an attorney with the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley who specializes in laws related to homelessness but wasn’t involved in the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone, however, thinks it’s a winning argument. Ilan Wurman, an attorney who’s pioneered legal arguments brought by business owners against cities in an effort to force them to clean encampments, said the Supreme Court’s decision upheld an established legal precedent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The courts are going to see through it,” Wurman said. “The nub of the Supreme Court’s prior ruling was that these municipal regulations and ordinances fit comfortably within a longstanding tradition of reasonable police powers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, even Wurman admitted Alfred’s case was likely to inspire new litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since last year’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11983492/how-a-pivotal-case-on-homelessness-could-redefine-policies-in-california-and-the-nation\">Supreme Court decision in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson\u003c/a>, cities across California have moved to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/09/camping-ban-ordinances/\">crackdown on encampments\u003c/a>. By the National Homelessness Law Center’s tally, some 40 California jurisdictions have passed or strengthened laws governing homelessness, among them Fremont, which earlier this month adopted what’s believed to be one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026580/this-bay-area-city-just-passed-the-most-extreme-encampment-ban-in-california\">broadest anti-camping laws\u003c/a> in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Vallejo has a \u003ca href=\"https://library.municode.com/ca/vallejo/codes/municipal_code?nodeId=TIT7PUHESAWE_IVOFAGPUHESA_CH7.67UNCASTPEPRPU\">longstanding camping ban on the books\u003c/a>, and relied on that, its \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofvallejo.net/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=17972007\">encampment policy\u003c/a> and the state penal code and in its attempt to clear the camp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Alfred’s case, however, federal District Court Judge Dena Coggins found that Vallejo’s plan to raze her shelter while failing to offer Alfred any alternative and barring her from camping anywhere in the city would likely “expose her to more dangerous conditions than she currently faces” — a violation of her due process rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her order, Coggins pointed out Alfred had submitted applications with multiple services providers and had reached out to more than a dozen apartment buildings, only to run into waiting lists. The city, meanwhile, had done next to nothing to connect Alfred with housing resources and had given her closer to 65 hours notice to leave, in an apparent violation of its own policies, according to the judge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city did not provide an interview or written statement in response to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12028489\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1131px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12028489\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1131\" height=\"848\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112.jpg 1131w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/image00000112-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1131px) 100vw, 1131px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Evelyn Alfred built this makeshift structure on vacant city-owned land across from the Vallejo marina over the course of two years. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Eli Smith)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In her scathing dissent on the Grants Pass ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed to the due process clause as a possible avenue for challenging “anti-homelessness ordinances,” writing it “may well place constitutional limits” on such policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the legal argument Alfred’s lawyers presented to Coggins, but until her ruling, those arguments \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11993380/unhoused-oakland-residents-eviction-battle-is-early-test-of-supreme-court-ruling\">had only been successful in buying unhoused people a few extra days\u003c/a> or weeks to pack their belongings before being forced to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney Andrea Henson, who has supported several unhoused people in those cases, including in Alfred’s Vallejo suit, said the Supreme Court’s decision has made it more difficult to ask judges to block encampment sweeps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been extraordinarily hard going to court about these [sweeps] because of the environment,” Henson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more cities establish new policies to crack down on encampments, Henson said she hopes they’ll look to Alfred’s legal victory as a cautionary tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t offer anything, and you don’t let people camp anywhere, there’s precedent now that that can be seen as deliberate indifference,” Henson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Before Henson got involved, advocates with the local chapter of the California Homeless Union initially filed the lawsuit. Their win is the latest illustration of the impact of the group’s organizing efforts, which have led to lawsuits around the state filed by unhoused people and activists without formal legal schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal is to build leadership and build a movement,” said union member Eli Smith, who initiated the Vallejo action, though she’s not a trained lawyer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eli is heartened by all the new faces that showed up at the local union’s weekly meeting after their win made news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am hoping that it will help not just fortify the tools we have to fight and set a legal precedent, which is incredibly significant,” Eli said, “but that it’ll also give people hope in this political landscape that is so bleak.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alfred said she’s now waiting to get approved for a subsidized unit in senior housing. For her, the injunction was a vindication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If anybody’s homeless, I just tell them to fight because they don’t have the right to do what they’re doing to us, so just fight and let everybody know that you’re human too.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Matthew Daniel Muller — a former U.S. Marine and Harvard-educated lawyer turned convicted kidnapper and rapist at the center of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81620852\">Netflix docuseries \u003cem>American Nightmare\u003c/em>\u003c/a> — is facing three more felony charges, as investigators continue to unravel his string of crimes dating back decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 47-year-old, who is serving a 40-year federal prison sentence for the 2015 kidnapping and rape of Denise Huskins in Vallejo, has recently confessed to additional crimes he committed in multiple Bay Area counties, authorities allege.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office on Tuesday announced that Muller had confessed to detaining three people in San Ramon and extorting tens of thousands of dollars from them in March 2015, just two weeks after kidnapping Huskins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three victims hadn’t reported the crime to police out of fear, said Simon O’Connell, Contra Costa’s chief assistant district attorney. He noted that his office was only alerted of the crimes last month after local and federal investigators began questioning Muller about other allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unlike a traditional cold case where law enforcement is working up from a crime that was known but a perpetrator was unknown, this was just the opposite,” O’Connell said. “They were working with an admission to a crime without any victim known or location specific as to where those crimes had occurred.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using details Muller allegedly provided them, investigators say they were able to locate the victims in that case. On top of his existing sentence, Muller now faces three counts of felony kidnapping for ransom, which carries a mandatory life sentence with the possibility of parole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020066\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12020066\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-800x947.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"947\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-800x947.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-1020x1208.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-160x189.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-1297x1536.jpg 1297w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-1729x2048.jpg 1729w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-1920x2274.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This June 2015 booking photo released by the Dublin Police Department shows Matthew Muller after he was arrested on robbery and assault charges. \u003ccite>(Dublin Police Department via AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“One can imagine, just based on the nature of those charges, an incredibly traumatic event transpired,” O’Connell said. “There were concerns not knowing who the person was, who was committing this kidnapping for ransom. They didn’t feel safe, and for that reason, we will endeavor to protect their identity for as long as possible as we pursue the prosecution of Muller.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, prosecutors in Santa Clara County also filed two felony charges against Muller for home invasions and sexual assault committed near the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto and Mountain View in 2009. In those cases — in which Muller also faces life in prison — he allegedly broke into women’s homes, bound and drugged them, and either sexually assaulted them or threatened to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller is currently being held in Santa Clara County, where he’s scheduled to make a plea on those charges on Jan. 17.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities allege \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020200/gone-girl-kidnapping-victims-advocacy-helps-solve-2009-silicon-valley-attacks-prosecutors-say\">Muller confessed to his various crimes\u003c/a> in signed affidavits and interviews as part of a recent correspondence with Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges, who reached out to Muller after watching the Netflix documentary and inviting Huskins and her husband, Aaron Quinn, to speak at a police training last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March 2015, Vallejo police initially rejected claims made by Huskins and Quinn — her boyfriend at the time — that the two had been drugged, bound and blindfolded by masked intruders, dismissing it as a hoax and declining to follow up on any leads, comparing it to the movie \u003cem>Gone Girl\u003c/em>.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12020200,news_12020062\"]But the couple’s claims were validated after a Dublin police detective connected Muller to a similar type of attack at a Dublin home months later. That discovery, in turn, came after authorities raided Muller’s South Lake Tahoe home and found a blonde hair sticking to a pair of blacked-out swim goggles, which Huskins told police her kidnapper had put on her before she was driven away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huskins’ claims that she was then held captive for two days and raped twice were subsequently corroborated in the case that led to Muller’s conviction. The city of Vallejo later settled a lawsuit with Huskins and Quinn for $2.5 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a press conference Tuesday in Seaside, near Monterey, Huskins said she spoke to one of Muller’s other victims after learning of the newly announced criminal charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She just said, ‘I didn’t know how much I needed this,’” said Huskins, who along with Quinn, has become an advocate for victims’ rights, and been applauded by law enforcement for helping other victims find closure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller also recently confessed to committing his first kidnapping and sexual assault in 1993, when he was 16, authorities said, but declined to provide further details on that investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s two decades of this mindset that he was living in by the time our case came about,” Huskins said, adding investigators found storage units filled with equipment he used “to facilitate terrorism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s something that he’s crafted and perfected over a long period of time, and then now to find out, two weeks after our kidnapping, he attacked again,” she said. “This man had all the markers of the serial predator.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three victims hadn’t reported the crime to police out of fear, said Simon O’Connell, Contra Costa’s chief assistant district attorney. He noted that his office was only alerted of the crimes last month after local and federal investigators began questioning Muller about other allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unlike a traditional cold case where law enforcement is working up from a crime that was known but a perpetrator was unknown, this was just the opposite,” O’Connell said. “They were working with an admission to a crime without any victim known or location specific as to where those crimes had occurred.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using details Muller allegedly provided them, investigators say they were able to locate the victims in that case. On top of his existing sentence, Muller now faces three counts of felony kidnapping for ransom, which carries a mandatory life sentence with the possibility of parole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020066\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12020066\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-800x947.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"947\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-800x947.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-1020x1208.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-160x189.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-1297x1536.jpg 1297w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-1729x2048.jpg 1729w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366032682798-1920x2274.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This June 2015 booking photo released by the Dublin Police Department shows Matthew Muller after he was arrested on robbery and assault charges. \u003ccite>(Dublin Police Department via AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“One can imagine, just based on the nature of those charges, an incredibly traumatic event transpired,” O’Connell said. “There were concerns not knowing who the person was, who was committing this kidnapping for ransom. They didn’t feel safe, and for that reason, we will endeavor to protect their identity for as long as possible as we pursue the prosecution of Muller.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, prosecutors in Santa Clara County also filed two felony charges against Muller for home invasions and sexual assault committed near the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto and Mountain View in 2009. In those cases — in which Muller also faces life in prison — he allegedly broke into women’s homes, bound and drugged them, and either sexually assaulted them or threatened to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller is currently being held in Santa Clara County, where he’s scheduled to make a plea on those charges on Jan. 17.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities allege \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020200/gone-girl-kidnapping-victims-advocacy-helps-solve-2009-silicon-valley-attacks-prosecutors-say\">Muller confessed to his various crimes\u003c/a> in signed affidavits and interviews as part of a recent correspondence with Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges, who reached out to Muller after watching the Netflix documentary and inviting Huskins and her husband, Aaron Quinn, to speak at a police training last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March 2015, Vallejo police initially rejected claims made by Huskins and Quinn — her boyfriend at the time — that the two had been drugged, bound and blindfolded by masked intruders, dismissing it as a hoax and declining to follow up on any leads, comparing it to the movie \u003cem>Gone Girl\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But the couple’s claims were validated after a Dublin police detective connected Muller to a similar type of attack at a Dublin home months later. That discovery, in turn, came after authorities raided Muller’s South Lake Tahoe home and found a blonde hair sticking to a pair of blacked-out swim goggles, which Huskins told police her kidnapper had put on her before she was driven away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huskins’ claims that she was then held captive for two days and raped twice were subsequently corroborated in the case that led to Muller’s conviction. The city of Vallejo later settled a lawsuit with Huskins and Quinn for $2.5 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a press conference Tuesday in Seaside, near Monterey, Huskins said she spoke to one of Muller’s other victims after learning of the newly announced criminal charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She just said, ‘I didn’t know how much I needed this,’” said Huskins, who along with Quinn, has become an advocate for victims’ rights, and been applauded by law enforcement for helping other victims find closure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller also recently confessed to committing his first kidnapping and sexual assault in 1993, when he was 16, authorities said, but declined to provide further details on that investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s two decades of this mindset that he was living in by the time our case came about,” Huskins said, adding investigators found storage units filled with equipment he used “to facilitate terrorism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s something that he’s crafted and perfected over a long period of time, and then now to find out, two weeks after our kidnapping, he attacked again,” she said. “This man had all the markers of the serial predator.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Vallejo’s New Mayor, Andrea Sorce, Wants to Turn ‘Potential Into Progress’",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Tuesday, Vallejo will swear in its new mayor. Andrea Sorce, chair of the city’s Surveillance Advisory Board and co-founder of the ACLU’s Solano County chapter, won by running as a political outsider promising change. Today, Ericka sits down with the mayor-elect in Vallejo to discuss what barriers she sees to fulfilling Vallejo’s “potential,” the Vallejo Police Department, housing and homelessness and more. \u003c/span>\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=KQINC3860431061&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 style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:17] I wonder if you could just start by introducing yourself, telling us who you are and a little bit about you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:02:23] So my name is Andrea Sorce. I am now the mayor elect of Vallejo, California. I’m also an economics professor at Diablo Valley College and have been in public service my whole career. I decided to run for office because I love this city and wanted to bring positive change and get the government working for people. And I’m excited to get to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:42] Tell me a little bit about your journey to Vallejo and and how that journey has sort of led you to run for mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:02:51] Yeah, we came to Vallejo because my husband got a job here. We were both coming out of grad school. We met in the Peace Corps. Prior to Peace Corps, we were both living in Oakland, so we knew we were going to come back to the Bay Area. We went to grad school and out of grad school he got a fellowship to come to go and work on economic development and neither one of us had really thought of Vallejo as a place to to live, to buy our home, to settle. You know, we’d moved around a lot and we just fell in love with the community. So we lived in an apartment on Georgia Street for a little bit downtown and then and then bought our house. I started getting involved civically, kind of in the activist space. I worked with some of the families impacted by police violence to start up an ACLU chapter here. We worked on things with unhoused. We worked on police reform and accountability. And I think I had never imagined that I would run for office, never something I had ambition to do. But over time, I think it just became clear that the type of change that I felt that I wanted to see in the community and what that I was feeling demand for in the community wasn’t going to be possible without a change up top. And I realized that my best way to push for change was to run for office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:03:59] Well, I want to talk a little bit about what being mayor means to you. For folks who don’t know, Vallejo has a what’s known as a weak mayor system. All the people on city council and including mayor are part time. You hire a city manager who really kind of gets things working for the city. But what does it mean for you to be mayor in spite of that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:04:22] I think there is a lot of power in the mayor’s role, the soft power and the power to set the culture from the top. We need a culture change in city hall. We need to we need a government that’s more inclusive, that’s more responsive to the needs of the community. We need to stop making excuses and operate from a position of strength, really highlight the good narratives and everything that’s great about our city. And I think the mayor can do that. The mayor can be a culture carrier and the mayor can also advocate for Vallejo regionally and with state and federal officials to bring resources in and kind of get us on the map, especially since Vallejo just moved to district elections. The mayor is now the only seat that’s at large in the whole city. So I think the mayor has a duty to and responsibility to bring the community together. And that’s something that I’m really eager to do and excited to do. While the city manager is managing the day to day operations of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:13] So it’s more of the symbolism of it, of of being the only person who is elected to serve every person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:05:21] Exactly. And that’s one of the reasons why I decided to run for mayor. I wanted to represent the whole community. And I think culture comes from the top. You know, I think you can’t you can’t get the level of change transformation that we need in this community without a really aligned group of leaders starting from the very top. And we’re very fortunate that we have some great council members coming in as well. I mean, we’re going to have a city council in Vallejo where nobody was in politics before 2023, and that that can be a little bit scary in some senses. But I think for Vallejo, it’s great. I think the voters signaled that they wanted something new. And I take that very seriously. And, you know, we’re not going to be able to change everything overnight or fix everything overnight. It’s not going to be perfect. But the community is really, I think, ready to try something different. And I’m excited to do the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:06:10] It sounds like the longer you lived here, the more clear it became, what problems there were with the city. Despite the beauty of it, the amazing community that you had fallen in love with. One way people talk about that is with this word “potential,” Vallejo’s potential. What do you think people mean when they talk about the Vallejo potential?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:06:33] Yeah, the buzzword here. People are sick of it, but it’s true. Vallejo is. It’s a gem. We’ve got this amazing history. The naval base. The naval history. We have an island on the San Francisco Bay, a gorgeous waterfront. And we’re so ideally positioned between the East Bay. We’ve got the ferry to San Francisco where an hour from Sacramento. We’re right on the way to Napa and we’re one of the last semi affordable places in the Bay Area. So we get a really nice slice of folks. We’ve got working class union roots. We’ve got, you know, professionals, white collar, blue collar families. There’s so much diversity in this community in every sense of the word. But we’ve had. You know, setback after setback after setback and leaders and special interests and folks running the city that just have not delivered and haven’t had the community in mind. And so we just keep hearing people get give this promise of potential and and folks are sick of the they’re sick of the stagnation because they go, how can we have such a gorgeous waterfront? How can we have this diversity? How can we have all of this culture and arts and, you know, athletes coming from here and musicians coming from here and all of this stuff. And yet we are still always in the news for scandal. There’s so much good happening here. Why are we not unlocking it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:07:54] Going into some of the issues, I mean, one of probably the biggest symbols of scandal and, you know, probably the number one reason why many people in the Bay Area are familiar with Vallejo is because of our police department. You and I think are very aware of the the many violent police killings, scandals, high profile police shootings. I mean, how would you like to see the community’s relationship with the police change under your leadership?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:08:27] It has to change. Any objective observer looking at this situation knows that there’s a problem. It’s the worst kept secret in the region and in the country. It’s why we can’t attract and retain officers. And so that’s one of the things that I said during the campaign, is that Reno reform is not optional at this point. Reform is required and reform doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can actually be a really positive thing. What I would like to lead out of the mayor’s office is an initiative where we can actually sit down with the community and build our vision for public safety in Vallejo. So actually bring in different groups, bring in those impacted because people deserve to feel safe in their community. But it’s going to take acknowledging some of the wrongdoing as well. I think one of the things that most frustrated me over the past several years is you’ve just I don’t know that I’ve ever heard an official from the city of Vallejo actually acknowledge that there’s a problem in the police department or that there was a problem or that there has been a problem. And it’s not about pointing fingers or going after people. It’s about doing right by the community and saying, you know what you’re feeling, what you’re experiencing, this mistrust, this is real, and we are going to help get through it together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:09:37] And on the issue of of staffing, I mean, staffing in the Vallejo Police Department is low and response times are really low. I mean, is that something that you hear anecdotally that is contributing to people’s fears around safety and just sort of feeling unsafe here? And what do you think needs to be done about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:09:59] 100%. I think the the lack of police response is one of the key reasons why people feel don’t feel safe, because if you look at crime statistics, they’re not up. They’re kind of flat. Some areas are up, some areas are down. You know, everything kind of ebbs and flows. But what has really changed in Vallejo are the response times and perception of public safety and people’s individual experiences is just as important. I maintain that. I think our police staffing is low because of the reputation of the department and the lack of accountability in the department. What we’re experiencing in Vallejo is not what other cities are experiencing. Vallejo has a $62 million police budget. It’s the highest budget we’ve ever had, and we were budgeted for 137 officers and we only have 70 something. Where is the rest of that money going? No one can tell you this isn’t we have police. We don’t have police responding because we don’t have the resources. This is something’s wrong. I just don’t know who would want to come here with that reputation with, you know, no one really having been held accountable for the wrongdoing and with the understaffing, no support, you know, going out on patrol, you only got four officers and then you’re consistently going out and dealing with the worst of human behavior without trust in the community. So it’s just, you know, we’re setting we’re setting these folks up to not be successful and to not be able to to stay here and grow here because they’re going to burn out. And then, I mean, I’ve told leaders in the city and members of department, I’ll be the first one out there recruiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:11:35] I want to talk about homelessness and housing in Vallejo. I know you support safe parking sites, essentially areas for folks who live in their cars to safely park and not be asked to move. Vallejo currently doesn’t have one, correct. Do you have a safe parking site in mind?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:11:54] I don’t. I think that’s a that’s a conversation that needs to happen with community because understandably, the folks that are in the neighborhoods near the existing encampments are frustrated. I, too, am angry. I’m angry at the city’s waste and negligence of the situation. But I will always advocate for a compassionate approach. I think you judge us. You judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable and playing Whac-A-Mole with people’s lives. With these sweeps, it doesn’t matter if you if you criminalize sleeping on the street and sweet people and there’s nowhere for them to go, they’re just going to go somewhere else in the community. And now you’ve made it even harder for them to get on their feet. So we need to clean up our public spaces and we need to create safety for everybody, including the unhoused, that are just trying to get their lives together. But they’re also victims of crime and arson and dumping and all of these things. So the solution to that for me is to create a space where people can go, where we can have dumpsters, basic sanitation, porta potties, maybe even security, you know, in better monitoring, lighting, the things I was talking about earlier with public safety, the location is something that I think the community has to be a part of deciding. So I have a few things in my head of where I think we could potentially have it, but we’ve got to get a sense of, okay, where are all the city properties? Where are the spaces that are even possibilities for this? And then bring the community in and talk, you know, have a real conversation about do we want to have a couple of these so that one neighborhood is a burden. Do we want to try to find a good spot where we can really secure it? You know, and I think there has to be there has to be public community buy in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:28] And I mean, we’re talking about folks who are living in their cars. What do you imagine happening with folks living in their tents or just living on the streets? Is it about building more shelter in Vallejo? Is it about building more housing? Like, how do you and where do you imagine those people going?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:13:44] Yeah, I mean, nobody’s really figured out how to do this, how to do this. Well, we’re struggling across the state. And I think the one thing that the city below hasn’t tried really much of anything, there’s been there have been a couple of big housing projects that have been, in my opinion, just disastrous, just horribly mismanaged, hugely wasteful. You know, we have one in progress now that’s going to have 47 units. We don’t even know if they’re going to go to Vallejo. People, the thing cost $27 million. It’s just been an absolute mess in terms of the management. So one thing that the city didn’t do prior to those projects was actually survey our population and see what they need. Do they need privacy? You know, they might. They might because of certain conditions, they might want a locking key. So maybe we look at tiny homes. So I think you need to know your population. You’ve got to survey folks and say, what’s the nature of this population Are, you know, what percentage of these people are from Vallejo and, you know, lost their housing here? Why did they lose their housing? What can we do to prevent. Folks that are housed from losing their housing. Do we need to work with the county? Do we need to just build more transitional housing? Okay, let’s get funding from the state. Let’s convert a motel into affordable housing. But before we do that, let’s make sure that that’s actually what our folks need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:14:59] At the same time, it it can take a lot of work and time to do that. To give everyone a seat at the table who is impacted. I mean, does that worry you at all? Because people do want to see results. And and when we’re talking about homelessness and seeing people off the streets, I mean, that’s a thing people want to see immediately. Right. And going out and surveying folks who live on the streets and asking them what they need is going to It’s going to take some time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:15:28] Yeah. And we’re going to have to find a balance. You know, one of the things that I’ve said a few times in the campaign and even to the, you know, when I when I am working with the new city managers is something I’m really going to emphasize. Unfortunately, in Vallejo, trust is broken in government, trust in the police department’s broken and trust in the city is broken. And so we’re going to have to go above and beyond in a lot of ways. We might actually have to over go a little bit over over transparent just in the short term in order to rebuild the trust. And we have to be okay and prepared to do that, even if it’s not our preference, even if it’s in a perfect world, what we want to do, we need to on the side of oversharing over, including being over transparent because that’s what’s going to be required to rebuild given the situation we’re in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:16:17] And then, I mean, overall, we have a housing shortage in California. Many cities and counties are facing a lot of pressure from the state to build more. Do you think Will needs more housing and if so, what kind?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:16:29] Yes, we need more housing and we need all of the types of housing. I’m very much I’m an economics professor as my day job. And the best way to address the housing shortage is to build more housing. And, you know, we have statewide rent control and a lot of advocates for rent control. That’s a Band-Aid. You got to fix the supply issue. And at the moment, Vallejo’s affordable housing is a little too concentrated in one part of the city. So I think there are models in other cities where you kind of mix do mix developments that have multiple types of housing. We need market rate housing, we need homes that people can buy, things like townhomes that are more accessible to first time home buyers rather than just your single family homes. I think we need to look at everything and mix it up and mix it throughout the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:17:16] Any sense in particular of areas of the city that you think need more housing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:17:21] So there’s a lot more housing that can go in East Vallejo. I’d like to see more housing downtown. I would like to see market rate housing downtown. You want the low income housing in the market rate, housing to be mixed. And we’ve got the ferry downtown, the farmer’s market. There’s there’s a great opportunity to have some market rate apartments down there. But yeah, I think honestly, everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:17:39] At the same time, I feel like anecdotally there is some fear from people who live here and who’ve lived here their whole lives that people are starting to notice that there might be something here and that and that, you know, this is the last affordable city to live in in the Bay Area that, you know, there’s an opportunity maybe to come in, move here, buy a home. I mean, how do you balance the needs of new arrivals and building more with the concerns of people who worry about being pushed out, just like what’s happened in cities like Oakland and San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:18:21] Yeah, the affordability crisis is already happening. I mean, it’s already hitting people, but it hasn’t fully hit the way it’s hit the East Bay yet. And so we know the wave is coming and we have a choice. We can either sit back and let the wave crash over us like it crashed over every community in the Bay Area. And our culture and our ethos and part of our community is going to be lost and people are going to get left behind. Or we can plan and we can be proactive and we can ride the wave because economic development, people coming here, that creates economic activity, that creates job opportunities, that creates tax revenue for the government to provide services. If you plan for your development to be inclusive, you can have the rising tide lifts all boats theory. I want to make sure that. When when it continues to hit Vallejo that we are lifting our most vulnerable. Providing opportunities for people to get if people are on the cusp of being able to get into homeownership that are renting, let’s get them into homeownership so they can be part of the the wave and they can build assets for people that are renting. Let’s try to put protections in for them against eviction. Let’s try to make sure that when development comes, it creates living wage jobs so that they can get a job so they can afford it. If their rent is going to increase, they can afford the rising rent because now they can have a higher wage. And let’s make sure we’re building housing of all types so that when people come here, we’re ready to build so that the prices don’t go up too much. But we got to act now. We don’t have we don’t have time to waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:19:57] What do you love about Vallejo – specific things, and how do you explain to people when they ask you, why do you live in Vallejo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:20:05] I it’s the intangible. We have all these assets on paper. Obviously we have the diversity on paper. We have the waterfront. I mean, I live in Glen Cove. We have a view. I mean, we have views, we have gorgeous natural beauty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:20:19] Best weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:20:20] Best weather, arts and culture. Like I said earlier, we’re accessible to all different parts of the Bay. We I mean, we just the history. You’ve got Mare Island. I mean, there’s just so much so many assets on paper and so many things that honestly, you cannot find anywhere else. Find me, find me somewhere that has what Vallejo has. I don’t think you’ll be able to.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Tuesday, Vallejo will swear in its new mayor. Andrea Sorce, chair of the city’s Surveillance Advisory Board and co-founder of the ACLU’s Solano County chapter, won by running as a political outsider promising change. Today, Ericka sits down with the mayor-elect in Vallejo to discuss what barriers she sees to fulfilling Vallejo’s “potential,” the Vallejo Police Department, housing and homelessness and more. \u003c/span>\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=KQINC3860431061&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 style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:17] I wonder if you could just start by introducing yourself, telling us who you are and a little bit about you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:02:23] So my name is Andrea Sorce. I am now the mayor elect of Vallejo, California. I’m also an economics professor at Diablo Valley College and have been in public service my whole career. I decided to run for office because I love this city and wanted to bring positive change and get the government working for people. And I’m excited to get to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:42] Tell me a little bit about your journey to Vallejo and and how that journey has sort of led you to run for mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:02:51] Yeah, we came to Vallejo because my husband got a job here. We were both coming out of grad school. We met in the Peace Corps. Prior to Peace Corps, we were both living in Oakland, so we knew we were going to come back to the Bay Area. We went to grad school and out of grad school he got a fellowship to come to go and work on economic development and neither one of us had really thought of Vallejo as a place to to live, to buy our home, to settle. You know, we’d moved around a lot and we just fell in love with the community. So we lived in an apartment on Georgia Street for a little bit downtown and then and then bought our house. I started getting involved civically, kind of in the activist space. I worked with some of the families impacted by police violence to start up an ACLU chapter here. We worked on things with unhoused. We worked on police reform and accountability. And I think I had never imagined that I would run for office, never something I had ambition to do. But over time, I think it just became clear that the type of change that I felt that I wanted to see in the community and what that I was feeling demand for in the community wasn’t going to be possible without a change up top. And I realized that my best way to push for change was to run for office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:03:59] Well, I want to talk a little bit about what being mayor means to you. For folks who don’t know, Vallejo has a what’s known as a weak mayor system. All the people on city council and including mayor are part time. You hire a city manager who really kind of gets things working for the city. But what does it mean for you to be mayor in spite of that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:04:22] I think there is a lot of power in the mayor’s role, the soft power and the power to set the culture from the top. We need a culture change in city hall. We need to we need a government that’s more inclusive, that’s more responsive to the needs of the community. We need to stop making excuses and operate from a position of strength, really highlight the good narratives and everything that’s great about our city. And I think the mayor can do that. The mayor can be a culture carrier and the mayor can also advocate for Vallejo regionally and with state and federal officials to bring resources in and kind of get us on the map, especially since Vallejo just moved to district elections. The mayor is now the only seat that’s at large in the whole city. So I think the mayor has a duty to and responsibility to bring the community together. And that’s something that I’m really eager to do and excited to do. While the city manager is managing the day to day operations of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:13] So it’s more of the symbolism of it, of of being the only person who is elected to serve every person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:05:21] Exactly. And that’s one of the reasons why I decided to run for mayor. I wanted to represent the whole community. And I think culture comes from the top. You know, I think you can’t you can’t get the level of change transformation that we need in this community without a really aligned group of leaders starting from the very top. And we’re very fortunate that we have some great council members coming in as well. I mean, we’re going to have a city council in Vallejo where nobody was in politics before 2023, and that that can be a little bit scary in some senses. But I think for Vallejo, it’s great. I think the voters signaled that they wanted something new. And I take that very seriously. And, you know, we’re not going to be able to change everything overnight or fix everything overnight. It’s not going to be perfect. But the community is really, I think, ready to try something different. And I’m excited to do the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:06:10] It sounds like the longer you lived here, the more clear it became, what problems there were with the city. Despite the beauty of it, the amazing community that you had fallen in love with. One way people talk about that is with this word “potential,” Vallejo’s potential. What do you think people mean when they talk about the Vallejo potential?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:06:33] Yeah, the buzzword here. People are sick of it, but it’s true. Vallejo is. It’s a gem. We’ve got this amazing history. The naval base. The naval history. We have an island on the San Francisco Bay, a gorgeous waterfront. And we’re so ideally positioned between the East Bay. We’ve got the ferry to San Francisco where an hour from Sacramento. We’re right on the way to Napa and we’re one of the last semi affordable places in the Bay Area. So we get a really nice slice of folks. We’ve got working class union roots. We’ve got, you know, professionals, white collar, blue collar families. There’s so much diversity in this community in every sense of the word. But we’ve had. You know, setback after setback after setback and leaders and special interests and folks running the city that just have not delivered and haven’t had the community in mind. And so we just keep hearing people get give this promise of potential and and folks are sick of the they’re sick of the stagnation because they go, how can we have such a gorgeous waterfront? How can we have this diversity? How can we have all of this culture and arts and, you know, athletes coming from here and musicians coming from here and all of this stuff. And yet we are still always in the news for scandal. There’s so much good happening here. Why are we not unlocking it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:07:54] Going into some of the issues, I mean, one of probably the biggest symbols of scandal and, you know, probably the number one reason why many people in the Bay Area are familiar with Vallejo is because of our police department. You and I think are very aware of the the many violent police killings, scandals, high profile police shootings. I mean, how would you like to see the community’s relationship with the police change under your leadership?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:08:27] It has to change. Any objective observer looking at this situation knows that there’s a problem. It’s the worst kept secret in the region and in the country. It’s why we can’t attract and retain officers. And so that’s one of the things that I said during the campaign, is that Reno reform is not optional at this point. Reform is required and reform doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can actually be a really positive thing. What I would like to lead out of the mayor’s office is an initiative where we can actually sit down with the community and build our vision for public safety in Vallejo. So actually bring in different groups, bring in those impacted because people deserve to feel safe in their community. But it’s going to take acknowledging some of the wrongdoing as well. I think one of the things that most frustrated me over the past several years is you’ve just I don’t know that I’ve ever heard an official from the city of Vallejo actually acknowledge that there’s a problem in the police department or that there was a problem or that there has been a problem. And it’s not about pointing fingers or going after people. It’s about doing right by the community and saying, you know what you’re feeling, what you’re experiencing, this mistrust, this is real, and we are going to help get through it together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:09:37] And on the issue of of staffing, I mean, staffing in the Vallejo Police Department is low and response times are really low. I mean, is that something that you hear anecdotally that is contributing to people’s fears around safety and just sort of feeling unsafe here? And what do you think needs to be done about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:09:59] 100%. I think the the lack of police response is one of the key reasons why people feel don’t feel safe, because if you look at crime statistics, they’re not up. They’re kind of flat. Some areas are up, some areas are down. You know, everything kind of ebbs and flows. But what has really changed in Vallejo are the response times and perception of public safety and people’s individual experiences is just as important. I maintain that. I think our police staffing is low because of the reputation of the department and the lack of accountability in the department. What we’re experiencing in Vallejo is not what other cities are experiencing. Vallejo has a $62 million police budget. It’s the highest budget we’ve ever had, and we were budgeted for 137 officers and we only have 70 something. Where is the rest of that money going? No one can tell you this isn’t we have police. We don’t have police responding because we don’t have the resources. This is something’s wrong. I just don’t know who would want to come here with that reputation with, you know, no one really having been held accountable for the wrongdoing and with the understaffing, no support, you know, going out on patrol, you only got four officers and then you’re consistently going out and dealing with the worst of human behavior without trust in the community. So it’s just, you know, we’re setting we’re setting these folks up to not be successful and to not be able to to stay here and grow here because they’re going to burn out. And then, I mean, I’ve told leaders in the city and members of department, I’ll be the first one out there recruiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:11:35] I want to talk about homelessness and housing in Vallejo. I know you support safe parking sites, essentially areas for folks who live in their cars to safely park and not be asked to move. Vallejo currently doesn’t have one, correct. Do you have a safe parking site in mind?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:11:54] I don’t. I think that’s a that’s a conversation that needs to happen with community because understandably, the folks that are in the neighborhoods near the existing encampments are frustrated. I, too, am angry. I’m angry at the city’s waste and negligence of the situation. But I will always advocate for a compassionate approach. I think you judge us. You judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable and playing Whac-A-Mole with people’s lives. With these sweeps, it doesn’t matter if you if you criminalize sleeping on the street and sweet people and there’s nowhere for them to go, they’re just going to go somewhere else in the community. And now you’ve made it even harder for them to get on their feet. So we need to clean up our public spaces and we need to create safety for everybody, including the unhoused, that are just trying to get their lives together. But they’re also victims of crime and arson and dumping and all of these things. So the solution to that for me is to create a space where people can go, where we can have dumpsters, basic sanitation, porta potties, maybe even security, you know, in better monitoring, lighting, the things I was talking about earlier with public safety, the location is something that I think the community has to be a part of deciding. So I have a few things in my head of where I think we could potentially have it, but we’ve got to get a sense of, okay, where are all the city properties? Where are the spaces that are even possibilities for this? And then bring the community in and talk, you know, have a real conversation about do we want to have a couple of these so that one neighborhood is a burden. Do we want to try to find a good spot where we can really secure it? You know, and I think there has to be there has to be public community buy in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:28] And I mean, we’re talking about folks who are living in their cars. What do you imagine happening with folks living in their tents or just living on the streets? Is it about building more shelter in Vallejo? Is it about building more housing? Like, how do you and where do you imagine those people going?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:13:44] Yeah, I mean, nobody’s really figured out how to do this, how to do this. Well, we’re struggling across the state. And I think the one thing that the city below hasn’t tried really much of anything, there’s been there have been a couple of big housing projects that have been, in my opinion, just disastrous, just horribly mismanaged, hugely wasteful. You know, we have one in progress now that’s going to have 47 units. We don’t even know if they’re going to go to Vallejo. People, the thing cost $27 million. It’s just been an absolute mess in terms of the management. So one thing that the city didn’t do prior to those projects was actually survey our population and see what they need. Do they need privacy? You know, they might. They might because of certain conditions, they might want a locking key. So maybe we look at tiny homes. So I think you need to know your population. You’ve got to survey folks and say, what’s the nature of this population Are, you know, what percentage of these people are from Vallejo and, you know, lost their housing here? Why did they lose their housing? What can we do to prevent. Folks that are housed from losing their housing. Do we need to work with the county? Do we need to just build more transitional housing? Okay, let’s get funding from the state. Let’s convert a motel into affordable housing. But before we do that, let’s make sure that that’s actually what our folks need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:14:59] At the same time, it it can take a lot of work and time to do that. To give everyone a seat at the table who is impacted. I mean, does that worry you at all? Because people do want to see results. And and when we’re talking about homelessness and seeing people off the streets, I mean, that’s a thing people want to see immediately. Right. And going out and surveying folks who live on the streets and asking them what they need is going to It’s going to take some time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:15:28] Yeah. And we’re going to have to find a balance. You know, one of the things that I’ve said a few times in the campaign and even to the, you know, when I when I am working with the new city managers is something I’m really going to emphasize. Unfortunately, in Vallejo, trust is broken in government, trust in the police department’s broken and trust in the city is broken. And so we’re going to have to go above and beyond in a lot of ways. We might actually have to over go a little bit over over transparent just in the short term in order to rebuild the trust. And we have to be okay and prepared to do that, even if it’s not our preference, even if it’s in a perfect world, what we want to do, we need to on the side of oversharing over, including being over transparent because that’s what’s going to be required to rebuild given the situation we’re in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:16:17] And then, I mean, overall, we have a housing shortage in California. Many cities and counties are facing a lot of pressure from the state to build more. Do you think Will needs more housing and if so, what kind?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:16:29] Yes, we need more housing and we need all of the types of housing. I’m very much I’m an economics professor as my day job. And the best way to address the housing shortage is to build more housing. And, you know, we have statewide rent control and a lot of advocates for rent control. That’s a Band-Aid. You got to fix the supply issue. And at the moment, Vallejo’s affordable housing is a little too concentrated in one part of the city. So I think there are models in other cities where you kind of mix do mix developments that have multiple types of housing. We need market rate housing, we need homes that people can buy, things like townhomes that are more accessible to first time home buyers rather than just your single family homes. I think we need to look at everything and mix it up and mix it throughout the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:17:16] Any sense in particular of areas of the city that you think need more housing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:17:21] So there’s a lot more housing that can go in East Vallejo. I’d like to see more housing downtown. I would like to see market rate housing downtown. You want the low income housing in the market rate, housing to be mixed. And we’ve got the ferry downtown, the farmer’s market. There’s there’s a great opportunity to have some market rate apartments down there. But yeah, I think honestly, everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:17:39] At the same time, I feel like anecdotally there is some fear from people who live here and who’ve lived here their whole lives that people are starting to notice that there might be something here and that and that, you know, this is the last affordable city to live in in the Bay Area that, you know, there’s an opportunity maybe to come in, move here, buy a home. I mean, how do you balance the needs of new arrivals and building more with the concerns of people who worry about being pushed out, just like what’s happened in cities like Oakland and San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:18:21] Yeah, the affordability crisis is already happening. I mean, it’s already hitting people, but it hasn’t fully hit the way it’s hit the East Bay yet. And so we know the wave is coming and we have a choice. We can either sit back and let the wave crash over us like it crashed over every community in the Bay Area. And our culture and our ethos and part of our community is going to be lost and people are going to get left behind. Or we can plan and we can be proactive and we can ride the wave because economic development, people coming here, that creates economic activity, that creates job opportunities, that creates tax revenue for the government to provide services. If you plan for your development to be inclusive, you can have the rising tide lifts all boats theory. I want to make sure that. When when it continues to hit Vallejo that we are lifting our most vulnerable. Providing opportunities for people to get if people are on the cusp of being able to get into homeownership that are renting, let’s get them into homeownership so they can be part of the the wave and they can build assets for people that are renting. Let’s try to put protections in for them against eviction. Let’s try to make sure that when development comes, it creates living wage jobs so that they can get a job so they can afford it. If their rent is going to increase, they can afford the rising rent because now they can have a higher wage. And let’s make sure we’re building housing of all types so that when people come here, we’re ready to build so that the prices don’t go up too much. But we got to act now. We don’t have we don’t have time to waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:19:57] What do you love about Vallejo – specific things, and how do you explain to people when they ask you, why do you live in Vallejo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:20:05] I it’s the intangible. We have all these assets on paper. Obviously we have the diversity on paper. We have the waterfront. I mean, I live in Glen Cove. We have a view. I mean, we have views, we have gorgeous natural beauty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:20:19] Best weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Andrea Sorce \u003c/strong>[00:20:20] Best weather, arts and culture. Like I said earlier, we’re accessible to all different parts of the Bay. We I mean, we just the history. You’ve got Mare Island. I mean, there’s just so much so many assets on paper and so many things that honestly, you cannot find anywhere else. Find me, find me somewhere that has what Vallejo has. I don’t think you’ll be able to.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "‘Gone Girl’ Kidnapping Victims Helped Police Solve 2009 Silicon Valley Attacks, Prosecutors Say",
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"headTitle": "‘Gone Girl’ Kidnapping Victims Helped Police Solve 2009 Silicon Valley Attacks, Prosecutors Say | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Two victims of a horrific kidnapping and sexual assault plot are being applauded for their activism, which helped authorities solve two unrelated Silicon Valley home invasion sexual assaults that occurred nearly 15 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matthew Muller — a former U.S. Marine turned Harvard-educated immigration lawyer — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020062/convicted-rapist-shown-in-netflix-series-tied-up-2-other-bay-area-women-da-says\">now faces two more felonies\u003c/a> punishable with life in prison and could still be facing even more charges in other jurisdictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new charges solidify authorities’ beliefs that Muller had been breaking into women’s homes and sexually assaulting them long before he kidnapped and assaulted \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/vallejo-kidnapping-defendant-pleads-guilty\">Denise Huskins\u003c/a> in Vallejo and South Lake Tahoe in 2015. That case received national attention after Vallejo police dismissed the case as an orchestrated hoax, comparing it to the movie \u003cem>Gone Girl\u003c/em>, in which a woman fakes her own abduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, Huskins and her now-husband Aaron Quinn have become advocates for crime victims, speaking to law enforcement across the country, \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/617482/victim-f-by-denise-huskins-and-aaron-quinn-with-nicole-weisensee-egan/\">writing a book\u003c/a> and starring in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81620852\">hit Netflix docuseries, \u003cem>American Nightmare\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, released a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, Quinn and Huskins spoke at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/C49S_KevwSV/?hl=en&img_index=1\">training session for police officers\u003c/a> across the state, hosted by Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges, who reached out to the couple after watching the Netflix show. That month, Borges allegedly started corresponding through letters with 47-year-old Muller, who allegedly confessed to unsolved home invasions in Mountain View and Palo Alto in 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller, who is serving a 40-year federal prison sentence for kidnapping Huskins, allegedly wrote to Borges in a signed declaration dated May 6 that he developed the “idea to raid a home and rape a woman” in the fall of 2009 while “in a manic state,” according to police reports prosecutors provided to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian King, Deputy Santa Clara County District Attorney in the sexual assault unit, said Huskins and Quinn’s advocacy for crime victims directly contributed to his office charging Muller with the attacks near Stanford University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was because of that collaboration between those Vallejo victims and Chief Borges that new evidence was developed, which led to us retesting the DNA,” King said. “That’s how I like to think about this case: It took a situation that was awful in Vallejo, which gave impetus to an effort to train law enforcement, which then led to a new break in this case, which has led to us being able to file charges and get justice for these victims.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email to KQED this week, Borges thanked the hard work of law enforcement agencies, including the El Dorado District Attorney’s Office, which has jurisdiction over South Lake Tahoe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We expect developments in the next several days,” he wrote, declining to comment further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020205\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020205\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"731\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029-800x571.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029-1020x728.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029-160x114.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn (right) walk into a news conference with attorney Doug Rappaport in San Francisco on Sept. 29, 2016. \u003ccite>(Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The 2009 attacks\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>This week, prosecutors charged Muller with two new felonies — both sexual assault and burglary-related — that carry mandatory life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to police reports, the newly filed cases share many details similar to Huskins’ kidnapping, including a suspect dressed in all black entering a woman’s residence, drugging them with Nyquil, and tying up the victims before stating he was going to sexually assault them. In one other case besides Huskins, the attacker gathered bank account numbers, PINs, and email passwords. In both Silicon Valley cases, Muller allegedly gave his victims crime prevention advice, like getting a dog, before leaving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller lived in Menlo Park in 2009 and \u003ca href=\"https://magazine.atavist.com/a-crime-beyond-belief-vallejo-kidnapping-gone-girl-hoax/\">liked to hike the Stanford Dish\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During that time, he started to go on prowling expeditions near the Stanford campus,” King said. “As part of that, he formed the idea to break in and rape women in the area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first incident on Sept. 29, 2009, Muller allegedly broke into a Mountain View home, where a woman in her 30s — who appeared in the Netflix documentary — was drugged, bound and blindfolded with a pair of swim goggles. The man in black assaulting her said he “had to” rape her, but she was able to persuade him not to. That investigation stalled out in 2011, reports show.[aside postID=news_12020062 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/AP24366030679039-1020x795.jpg']Police had stopped Muller while he was walking in the area four days prior, telling them he was there past midnight because he was a visiting Stanford professor seeing a friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the second Silicon Valley case, Muller allegedly committed a similar break-in and attack at a home in Palo Alto’s College Terrace neighborhood on Oct. 18, 2009. Bound by Velcro straps, a Stanford student convinced her attacker to stop sexually assaulting her. The victim told police she had attended an event Muller organized at Harvard the year prior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palo Alto police named Muller as a suspect in the College Terrace attack five days later. When contacted by police over the phone, Muller allegedly said that “he knew what it was about as he had read the story about the College Terrace incident,” and he would “cooperate with anything” police needed, according to police reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Muller “abruptly” fled to Utah in November 2009, leaving a note for his then-wife that he was “going completely off the grid” as it was “the least extreme thing” he could do to avoid exposing people “to criminal liability,” according to his 2015 plea agreement with federal prosecutors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller returned to California soon after and, in 2011, was \u003ca href=\"https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/275832\">admitted to the California bar\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King said police collected a DNA sample from Muller in 2009, but analysis at the time was inconclusive. Over the next 15 years, the technology improved and a recent and more sensitive DNA test by the Santa Clara County Crime Laboratory of the Velcro straps used to detain the victim in the Palo Alto case “turned up as a match for Mr. Muller,” King said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The ‘Gone Girl’ kidnapping\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The home invasion, kidnapping and rape of Huskins in 2015 was a strange, detailed plot that involved sending letters to a \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> reporter purporting to be “a group of elite criminals who were perfecting their kidnapping-for-ransom tactics” and conducting surveillance on potential victims, according to the Department of Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While several victims in cases Muller has been charged with say they believe there were multiple people involved, authorities found audio files on Muller’s computer of people talking softly to one another, which they believe were played to make it seem like there were more people there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no evidence before us that would lead us to be able to say that there were other people involved,” King said, adding they can’t “say definitively that there were or were not multiple people involved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March 2015, Muller broke into Quinn’s Mare Island home, where he was asleep with Huskins, and threatened them with a stun gun and a water pistol spray-painted black with a laser pointer attached to it. He bound and drugged them before taking Huskins — blindfolded with blacked-out swim goggles — to South Lake Tahoe, where he raped her twice, claiming he was making a blackmail video his associates wanted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Quinn was interrogated at the Vallejo Police Department for 18 hours, mainly by Det. Mat Mustard, who told Quinn he didn’t believe his “elaborate” story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a puzzle-maker, and I put a lot of puzzles together,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.vallejosun.com/what-happened-to-mat-mustard-the-lead-vallejo-detective-in-american-nightmare/\">Mustard told Quinn\u003c/a>, as shown on \u003cem>American Nightmare\u003c/em>. “So now I get out my puzzle pieces, and I start figuring out, ‘Okay, how do I make it so you look like a monster?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days after the kidnapping, Muller drove Huskins down to her parents’ home in Huntington Beach despite Quinn not paying the $17,000 ransom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huskins didn’t want to speak with Vallejo police. In return, then-Chief Andrew Bidou \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/vallejo-gone-girl-kidnapping-case-denise-huskins-police-misconduct/6339403/\">allegedly told\u003c/a> department spokesperson Lt. Kenny Park to “burn that bitch” at a press conference where Park said Huskins participated in “an orchestrated event and not a kidnapping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller sent anonymous emails to the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em> saying that Huskins’ kidnapping was real and chastised police for not believing her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020204\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020204\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"689\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676-160x108.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attorney Thomas Johnson speaks to the media about his client Matthew Muller, the suspect in the Vallejo kidnapping of Denise Huskins, following an appearance by Muller before a Superior Court judge in Pleasanton on Sept. 2, 2015. \u003ccite>(Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Muller is arrested\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Muller was finally arrested following a June 2015 home invasion in Dublin where a masked suspect broke into a home, but the father of a 22-year-old woman fended him off. The suspect left a cell phone behind, which Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies traced to Muller’s South Lake Tahoe home, where they found evidence from the Vallejo kidnapping, including a single strand of Huskins’ hair on a pair of blacked-out swim goggles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Muller was taken into custody, Dublin Police Detective Sgt. Misty Carausu was investigating the source of the yet-to-be-identified blonde hair on the goggles and soon learned from \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/detective-who-cracked-vallejo-hoax-kidnap-case-is-a-bulldog-police/82047/\">Palo Alto police\u003c/a> that Muller was a suspect in the 2009 attack there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June 2015, the FBI obtained an arrest warrant for Muller related to Huskins’ kidnapping, saying in an announcement that “Muller may have committed similar crimes elsewhere.” Palo Alto and Mountain View police were \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Vallejo-kidnap-suspect-s-journey-from-Harvard-6382969.php\">still looking at Muller for those attacks\u003c/a>, as middle-of-the-night home invasions where victims are restrained and blindfolded are rare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huskins and Quinn sued the city of Vallejo in 2016 for defamation, saying “VPD took its cues from Hollywood” by spreading its \u003cem>Gone Girl\u003c/em> theory instead of investigating the crime. The city settled the lawsuit for $2.5 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/vallejo-kidnapping-defendant-pleads-guilty\">pleaded guilty to a federal kidnapping charge\u003c/a> and was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2017. The Mountain View and Palo Alto attacks were mentioned in his plea agreement with federal prosecutors. So was another home invasion attack in Palo Alto in 2012, but DNA on “bump keys” — or those made to open any door by the same manufacturer — left at the scene “was not related to Muller,” although detectives at the time said “Muller may be responsible for this incident,” according to reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, after being found competent to stand trial, Muller pleaded no-contest in Solano County to charges including rape, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment and was \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/matthew-muller-sentenced-for-raping-woman-he-kidnapped-in-vallejo-case-once-deemed-hoax\">sentenced to 31 years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Muller confessed to being involved in the 2009 attacks, Seaside Police’s Borges contacted Palo Alto police, who had the 2009 DNA samples retested, something King said may not have happened if it weren’t for Borges’ relationship with Quinn and Huskins and their training with law enforcement about how to treat victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Those trainings were aimed with the goal of making sure what happened to those victims in Vallejo never happens again,” King said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller allegedly wrote to Borges that his willingness to cooperate wasn’t from his newfound remorse or being a born-again Christian “but instead of a common goal of [protecting] victims and strengthening laws for future potential victims.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borges told Palo Alto police that he believed that Muller would talk with detectives about his past crimes, as he “was remorseful and wants to confess [to] all his past crimes,” according to police reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller was extradited this week from federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, to make his first court appearance on Monday in Santa Clara County, where he is set to remain while facing the new charges. His next court date is set for Jan. 17, when he will be able to enter a plea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Two victims of a horrific kidnapping and sexual assault plot are being applauded for their activism, which helped authorities solve two unrelated Silicon Valley home invasion sexual assaults that occurred nearly 15 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matthew Muller — a former U.S. Marine turned Harvard-educated immigration lawyer — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020062/convicted-rapist-shown-in-netflix-series-tied-up-2-other-bay-area-women-da-says\">now faces two more felonies\u003c/a> punishable with life in prison and could still be facing even more charges in other jurisdictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new charges solidify authorities’ beliefs that Muller had been breaking into women’s homes and sexually assaulting them long before he kidnapped and assaulted \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/vallejo-kidnapping-defendant-pleads-guilty\">Denise Huskins\u003c/a> in Vallejo and South Lake Tahoe in 2015. That case received national attention after Vallejo police dismissed the case as an orchestrated hoax, comparing it to the movie \u003cem>Gone Girl\u003c/em>, in which a woman fakes her own abduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, Huskins and her now-husband Aaron Quinn have become advocates for crime victims, speaking to law enforcement across the country, \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/617482/victim-f-by-denise-huskins-and-aaron-quinn-with-nicole-weisensee-egan/\">writing a book\u003c/a> and starring in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81620852\">hit Netflix docuseries, \u003cem>American Nightmare\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, released a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, Quinn and Huskins spoke at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/C49S_KevwSV/?hl=en&img_index=1\">training session for police officers\u003c/a> across the state, hosted by Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges, who reached out to the couple after watching the Netflix show. That month, Borges allegedly started corresponding through letters with 47-year-old Muller, who allegedly confessed to unsolved home invasions in Mountain View and Palo Alto in 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller, who is serving a 40-year federal prison sentence for kidnapping Huskins, allegedly wrote to Borges in a signed declaration dated May 6 that he developed the “idea to raid a home and rape a woman” in the fall of 2009 while “in a manic state,” according to police reports prosecutors provided to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian King, Deputy Santa Clara County District Attorney in the sexual assault unit, said Huskins and Quinn’s advocacy for crime victims directly contributed to his office charging Muller with the attacks near Stanford University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was because of that collaboration between those Vallejo victims and Chief Borges that new evidence was developed, which led to us retesting the DNA,” King said. “That’s how I like to think about this case: It took a situation that was awful in Vallejo, which gave impetus to an effort to train law enforcement, which then led to a new break in this case, which has led to us being able to file charges and get justice for these victims.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email to KQED this week, Borges thanked the hard work of law enforcement agencies, including the El Dorado District Attorney’s Office, which has jurisdiction over South Lake Tahoe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We expect developments in the next several days,” he wrote, declining to comment further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020205\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020205\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"731\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029-800x571.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029-1020x728.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1408507029-160x114.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn (right) walk into a news conference with attorney Doug Rappaport in San Francisco on Sept. 29, 2016. \u003ccite>(Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The 2009 attacks\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>This week, prosecutors charged Muller with two new felonies — both sexual assault and burglary-related — that carry mandatory life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to police reports, the newly filed cases share many details similar to Huskins’ kidnapping, including a suspect dressed in all black entering a woman’s residence, drugging them with Nyquil, and tying up the victims before stating he was going to sexually assault them. In one other case besides Huskins, the attacker gathered bank account numbers, PINs, and email passwords. In both Silicon Valley cases, Muller allegedly gave his victims crime prevention advice, like getting a dog, before leaving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller lived in Menlo Park in 2009 and \u003ca href=\"https://magazine.atavist.com/a-crime-beyond-belief-vallejo-kidnapping-gone-girl-hoax/\">liked to hike the Stanford Dish\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During that time, he started to go on prowling expeditions near the Stanford campus,” King said. “As part of that, he formed the idea to break in and rape women in the area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first incident on Sept. 29, 2009, Muller allegedly broke into a Mountain View home, where a woman in her 30s — who appeared in the Netflix documentary — was drugged, bound and blindfolded with a pair of swim goggles. The man in black assaulting her said he “had to” rape her, but she was able to persuade him not to. That investigation stalled out in 2011, reports show.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Police had stopped Muller while he was walking in the area four days prior, telling them he was there past midnight because he was a visiting Stanford professor seeing a friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the second Silicon Valley case, Muller allegedly committed a similar break-in and attack at a home in Palo Alto’s College Terrace neighborhood on Oct. 18, 2009. Bound by Velcro straps, a Stanford student convinced her attacker to stop sexually assaulting her. The victim told police she had attended an event Muller organized at Harvard the year prior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palo Alto police named Muller as a suspect in the College Terrace attack five days later. When contacted by police over the phone, Muller allegedly said that “he knew what it was about as he had read the story about the College Terrace incident,” and he would “cooperate with anything” police needed, according to police reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Muller “abruptly” fled to Utah in November 2009, leaving a note for his then-wife that he was “going completely off the grid” as it was “the least extreme thing” he could do to avoid exposing people “to criminal liability,” according to his 2015 plea agreement with federal prosecutors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller returned to California soon after and, in 2011, was \u003ca href=\"https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/275832\">admitted to the California bar\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King said police collected a DNA sample from Muller in 2009, but analysis at the time was inconclusive. Over the next 15 years, the technology improved and a recent and more sensitive DNA test by the Santa Clara County Crime Laboratory of the Velcro straps used to detain the victim in the Palo Alto case “turned up as a match for Mr. Muller,” King said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The ‘Gone Girl’ kidnapping\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The home invasion, kidnapping and rape of Huskins in 2015 was a strange, detailed plot that involved sending letters to a \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> reporter purporting to be “a group of elite criminals who were perfecting their kidnapping-for-ransom tactics” and conducting surveillance on potential victims, according to the Department of Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While several victims in cases Muller has been charged with say they believe there were multiple people involved, authorities found audio files on Muller’s computer of people talking softly to one another, which they believe were played to make it seem like there were more people there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no evidence before us that would lead us to be able to say that there were other people involved,” King said, adding they can’t “say definitively that there were or were not multiple people involved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March 2015, Muller broke into Quinn’s Mare Island home, where he was asleep with Huskins, and threatened them with a stun gun and a water pistol spray-painted black with a laser pointer attached to it. He bound and drugged them before taking Huskins — blindfolded with blacked-out swim goggles — to South Lake Tahoe, where he raped her twice, claiming he was making a blackmail video his associates wanted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Quinn was interrogated at the Vallejo Police Department for 18 hours, mainly by Det. Mat Mustard, who told Quinn he didn’t believe his “elaborate” story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a puzzle-maker, and I put a lot of puzzles together,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.vallejosun.com/what-happened-to-mat-mustard-the-lead-vallejo-detective-in-american-nightmare/\">Mustard told Quinn\u003c/a>, as shown on \u003cem>American Nightmare\u003c/em>. “So now I get out my puzzle pieces, and I start figuring out, ‘Okay, how do I make it so you look like a monster?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days after the kidnapping, Muller drove Huskins down to her parents’ home in Huntington Beach despite Quinn not paying the $17,000 ransom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huskins didn’t want to speak with Vallejo police. In return, then-Chief Andrew Bidou \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/vallejo-gone-girl-kidnapping-case-denise-huskins-police-misconduct/6339403/\">allegedly told\u003c/a> department spokesperson Lt. Kenny Park to “burn that bitch” at a press conference where Park said Huskins participated in “an orchestrated event and not a kidnapping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller sent anonymous emails to the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em> saying that Huskins’ kidnapping was real and chastised police for not believing her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020204\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020204\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"689\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-1321865676-160x108.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attorney Thomas Johnson speaks to the media about his client Matthew Muller, the suspect in the Vallejo kidnapping of Denise Huskins, following an appearance by Muller before a Superior Court judge in Pleasanton on Sept. 2, 2015. \u003ccite>(Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Muller is arrested\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Muller was finally arrested following a June 2015 home invasion in Dublin where a masked suspect broke into a home, but the father of a 22-year-old woman fended him off. The suspect left a cell phone behind, which Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies traced to Muller’s South Lake Tahoe home, where they found evidence from the Vallejo kidnapping, including a single strand of Huskins’ hair on a pair of blacked-out swim goggles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Muller was taken into custody, Dublin Police Detective Sgt. Misty Carausu was investigating the source of the yet-to-be-identified blonde hair on the goggles and soon learned from \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/detective-who-cracked-vallejo-hoax-kidnap-case-is-a-bulldog-police/82047/\">Palo Alto police\u003c/a> that Muller was a suspect in the 2009 attack there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June 2015, the FBI obtained an arrest warrant for Muller related to Huskins’ kidnapping, saying in an announcement that “Muller may have committed similar crimes elsewhere.” Palo Alto and Mountain View police were \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Vallejo-kidnap-suspect-s-journey-from-Harvard-6382969.php\">still looking at Muller for those attacks\u003c/a>, as middle-of-the-night home invasions where victims are restrained and blindfolded are rare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huskins and Quinn sued the city of Vallejo in 2016 for defamation, saying “VPD took its cues from Hollywood” by spreading its \u003cem>Gone Girl\u003c/em> theory instead of investigating the crime. The city settled the lawsuit for $2.5 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/vallejo-kidnapping-defendant-pleads-guilty\">pleaded guilty to a federal kidnapping charge\u003c/a> and was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2017. The Mountain View and Palo Alto attacks were mentioned in his plea agreement with federal prosecutors. So was another home invasion attack in Palo Alto in 2012, but DNA on “bump keys” — or those made to open any door by the same manufacturer — left at the scene “was not related to Muller,” although detectives at the time said “Muller may be responsible for this incident,” according to reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, after being found competent to stand trial, Muller pleaded no-contest in Solano County to charges including rape, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment and was \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/matthew-muller-sentenced-for-raping-woman-he-kidnapped-in-vallejo-case-once-deemed-hoax\">sentenced to 31 years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Muller confessed to being involved in the 2009 attacks, Seaside Police’s Borges contacted Palo Alto police, who had the 2009 DNA samples retested, something King said may not have happened if it weren’t for Borges’ relationship with Quinn and Huskins and their training with law enforcement about how to treat victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Those trainings were aimed with the goal of making sure what happened to those victims in Vallejo never happens again,” King said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller allegedly wrote to Borges that his willingness to cooperate wasn’t from his newfound remorse or being a born-again Christian “but instead of a common goal of [protecting] victims and strengthening laws for future potential victims.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borges told Palo Alto police that he believed that Muller would talk with detectives about his past crimes, as he “was remorseful and wants to confess [to] all his past crimes,” according to police reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muller was extradited this week from federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, to make his first court appearance on Monday in Santa Clara County, where he is set to remain while facing the new charges. His next court date is set for Jan. 17, when he will be able to enter a plea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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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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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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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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"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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"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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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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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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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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"order": 16
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},
"science-friday": {
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