Monday Must Reads: Supreme Court Rejects San Jose’s Bid for Oakland A’s; Corrosion Risk for Bay Bridge’s Main Cable

Stories you shouldn’t miss:

1. The US Supreme Court rejected an appeal today by the City of San Jose, thereby effectively ending the city’s bid to attract the Oakland A’s to the South Bay, the Mercury News$ reports. The high court refused to hear San Jose’s appeal of a lower court ruling that had dismissed the city’s anti-trust claims against Major League Baseball. The high court’s decision effectively means that the owners of the Oakland A’s, who want a new ballpark, cannot move their team to San Jose.

2. The chief designer of the $6.4 billion new Bay Bridge said the span’s main cable is at risk of corrosion and catastrophic failure because rainwater has been leaking into the cable’s anchorages, the Chron reports. The new suspension bridge would collapse if the cable breaks. “In a suspension bridge, the cable is what holds the whole thing up,” said Russell Kane, a corrosion expert in Texas who has advised companies in the oil and aerospace industries. The concerns over the cable are just the latest in a long-running scandal involving construction defects on the bridge.

3. Berkeley City Councilmember Laurie Capitelli personally profited from a taxpayer-funded home loan awarded to Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan, the Bay Area News Group$ reports. Capitelli served as Meehan’s real estate agent on the home deal. The councilmember, however, maintains that he did nothing wrong because he said he voted for awarding the loan to Meehan before he became the chief’s realtor.

4. Governor Jerry Brown signed an anti-racial profiling measure, despite strong criticism from law enforcement groups, the LA Times$ reports. The new law requires police agencies throughout the state to begin collecting race and demographic data on all police stops. Police chiefs decried the legislation, contending that it would be too burdensome.

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5. The governor has not yet indicated whether he will sign a new gun control measure that would ban people from carrying concealed weapons on California college campuses, the SacBee$ reports. The legislation gained attention following the mass shooting of nine people on at an Oregon college last week.

6. The governor signed a bill that tightens the state’s ban on ivory products and is designed to curtail the slaughter of elephants in Africa, the Mercury News$ reports.

7. Brown vetoed a package of legislation that sought to outlaw the use of private aerial drones over wildfires, schools, prisons, and jails — despite strong support for the measure from firefighters who say that civilian drones have hindered their efforts, the LA Times$ reports.

8. California’s wildfire prevention fund is sitting on $43 million in unspent reserves, despite the fact that the state has faced one of the worst-ever fire seasons this year due to the drought, the SacBee$ reports.

9. Alameda County prosecutor Sharmin Bock, who was caught up in the San Francisco public corruption scandal, has been cleared to return to work following an internal DA’s investigation, the Bay Area News Group$ reports.

10. And Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf sent a letter to Uber, which recently bought the old Sears department store building in Uptown, urging the on-demand ride company to hire local employees and to work with the city and nonprofits to prevent displacement of Oakland residents, the Trib$ reports.