After throwing an epic birthday bash at the newly reopened Uptown Nightclub, featuring performances by up-and-coming Bay Area rappers Kamaiyah, Kool John, Jay Ant, and Larry June, Oakland DJ Daghe Digital is back at it with his next event, Turnt. The party’s theme is “06 Hyphy” (2006 was the year E-40’s seminal hyphy joints “Tell Me When to Go,” “Muscle Cars,” and “U & Dat” came out). And now that the kids who were in high school during the hyphy movement’s peak are in their twenties, nostalgia for Bay Area music from the mid-Aughts is at an all-time high. Nic Nac, an Oakland-bred producer who has worked with superstar vocalists such as Chris Brown, and Sake-One, the DJ behind the popular Thursday night party at Somar, Ultrawave, will be joining Daghe behind the decks. Rapper and FreeSpirit ambassador Beejus — who just dropped his conscious slap project BeeSmoove2 — will perform, as well.
Credits: OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY/ FLICKR (CC)
Members of the Alameda Creek Alliance, a group dedicated to protecting and restoring the natural ecosystems of the Alameda Creek watershed, are celebrating the spotting of two adult steelhead trout in the lower Alameda Creek flood control channel last week – the first confirmed sighting since 2008.
“This is significant. Steelhead have been missing from the lower Alameda Creek for half a century now, and we have been working for almost twenty years to restore them,” said Jeff Miller, director of the Alameda Creek Alliance, in an interview.
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Like salmon, steelhead are anadromous fish, meaning they live out their adult lives in the ocean and migrate to freshwater streams and rivers to spawn. After a surge of dam-building, water diversions, and other barriers to migration occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, steelhead trout were virtually eliminated from the Alameda Creek watershed. Yet it wasn’t until 1997 that the fish was officially listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Since then, Miller and others at the Alameda Creek Alliance, which encompasses more than 2,000 community members, have been working to remove dams and build fish ladders that would enable fish like the steelhead trout to successfully migrate to their spawning habitat near Sunol Valley and Sunol Regional Park, where blockages like a BART weir, located ten miles from the creek mouth, have prevented them from for decades.
With the help of state and federal agencies, the Alameda Creek Alliance has witnessed the completion of seventeen fish passage projects in the watershed since 2001. While some projects led by the Alameda County Water District and Alameda County Flood Control District have seen delays, plans to make nearly twenty miles of Alameda Creek accessible to ocean-run fish lie ahead.
For instance, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has been rebuilding the Calaveras Dam since 2011 to enhance stream flow for both the infrastructure and wildlife. The project includes construction of a fish ladder and also fish screens on an associated diversion dam in the upper Alameda Creek watershed. “Once Calaveras Dam is complete, there will be more water released downstream. So in 2018, when they are done rebuilding the dam, there should be more cold water flows for steelhead to spawn,” Miller said.
According to the announcement, the agencies also plan to build two additional fish ladders around two existing rubber dams in the years 2017–2020 that would enable steelhead to bypass the BART weir in the lower creek channel. At least nine other fish passage projects are in the planning phases.
Volunteers and East Bay Parks staffers may soon attempt to capture and radio-tag the spotted steelhead trout, as well as any other fish species blocked by the BART weir, to study their migration. Using this method, 27 steelhead have been tagged in the lower Alameda Creek and have moved past barriers into the upstream Niles Canyon. In addition, six Pacific lamprey, an eel-like fish species that also migrates to freshwater for spawning, were photographed near the BART weir just last month.
The trout were identified by a fisheries biologist from the East Bay Regional Park District. Miller said the confirmed sighting puts the watershed, which covers nearly 680 square miles of the Bay Area, in a crucial moment, and fish ladders and barrier removal are needed now more than ever.
“Migratory fish have been blocked from the Alameda Creek watershed for half a century,” Miller said in a press release. “We’ve made a lot of progress on restoration and the agencies should be commended for projects completed so far, but let’s get these fish ladders built while we still have steelhead to re-inhabit the creek.”
A line forms outside the Hayward Hall of Justice last February.
Credits: Darwin BondGraham
This week, the Oakland City Council will join City Attorney Barbara Parker in a campaign to convince the Alameda County Superior Court to reverse a decision to move all eviction cases from Oakland’s courthouses to Hayward. The council is also being asked to spend $3.8 million for new police and fire radios. The final vote to decide who will take control of the E. 12th Remainder Parcel is also on the agenda for Tuesday night. And the city will release detailed financial numbers that reflect Oakland’s booming economy.
Keeping Eviction Cases in Oakland: Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker wants the Oakland City Council to join her in a campaign to convince the Alameda County Superior Court to keep eviction cases in Oakland. As the Expressreported last month, the court is proposing to move all eviction cases to the Hayward Hall of Justice, even though that courthouse is not easily accessible by public transportation. Tenant advocates say the plan will create additional hardships for renters who live in the northern part of the county, don’t drive, can’t afford to hire their own attorney, and are facing eviction proceedings, also known as “unlawful detainer” cases.
On Tuesday night, the council will vote on a resolution urging the court to keep hearing eviction cases in Oakland, and to also keep open the self help center located in the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland that assists mostly low-income people with navigating the court system.
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$3.8 Million for Emergency Radios: For years, Oakland cops and firefighters have mostly used radios manufactured by Harris Corporation to communicate with dispatchers and with one another while responding to emergencies in the field. But according to a staff report, these radios are incompatible with the regional emergency radio network, which is maintained by Motorola Solutions, a competitor of Harris Corporation. Motorola has therefore advised the city that it should replace its Harris Radios with its own brand. On Tuesday night, the Oakland City Council will consider a no-bid $3.8 million contract to purchase nine hundred Motorola radios.
E. 12th Parcel Vote: UrbanCore and the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) are poised to win control of the E. 12th Street Remainder Parcel at tomorrow night’s council meeting. But activists who derailed UrbanCore’s previous bid last year are mobilizing yet another protest, because they feel that the UrbanCore/EBALDC plan still does not add enough affordable housing to the neighborhood.
Oakland’s Finances: Oakland will release its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2015. The report, a detailed description of Oakland’s revenues, expenditures, assets, and liabilities, shows that the city’s financial situation has dramatically improved over the past several years. Revenues from property taxes, hotel taxes, parking fees, and various licenses and permits are up by double-digit percentages. Real estate transfer taxes were up 6.1 percent over last year, reflecting high home prices and brisk sales.
Oakland’s top expenditures were for police ($242 million); debt ($198 million); fire protection ($130 million); and roads, infrastructure, buildings, and other “capital outlays” ($123 million).
1. Thanks to the wet March storms, water levels at Shasta Lake — California’s biggest reservoir — are now above normal for this first time in three years, the Mercury News$ reports. Shasta, north of Redding, is now at 101 percent of normal for this time of year, and is at 77 percent of capacity. The weekend’s storms dumped 2.53 inches of rain on Oakland, while other parts of the region topped seven inches of precipitation. The big storms brought much of the Bay Area to normal rainfall levels for this time of the year, although the region is expected to dry out the rest of this week.
Janet Napolitano.
2. UC Berkeley has been rocked by the mishandling of another sex harassment case — this time involving Graham Fleming, an assistant to Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, the Chron$ reports. UC President Janet Napolitano ordered Dirks to remove Fleming from his job in the light of the fact that Fleming had sexually harassed a female underling, and Dirks decided not to fire him. This is the third major sexual harassment case to rock the university in the past few months in which Dirks has chosen to mete out mild punishments.
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3. A consumer rights group — Consumer Watchdog — has filed an ethics complaint against Governor Jerry Brown’s administration, concerning Brown’s executive secretary, Nancy McFadden, and her close ties to PG&E, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports (h/t Rough & Tumble). The complaint notes that McFadden, a former top executive for PG&E, held more than a $1 million in PG&E stock when she came to work for Brown. Consumer Watchdog wants the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) to investigate whether McFadden, who is essentially Brown’s chief of staff, helped pack the state Public Utilities Commission with regulators who are friendly to PG&E.
5. And Ben Bagdikian, a longtime leading critic of the corporate media and the former dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, died on Friday at his home in Berkeley. He was 96.
Pedro Figueroa’s story is well-known in Latino communities throughout the Bay Area. In December 2014, the undocumented immigrant from El Salvador went into a San Francisco police station to report that his car was stolen car. Police found a warrant for Figueroa’s arrest, but uncovered no further details. When Figueroa walked out the door, agents from the US Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) were waiting for him.
Assemblymember Rob Bonta introduced his legislation today at a press conference in downtown Oakland.
Credits: Steven Tavares
A bill introduced on Friday and authored by Assemblymember Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, intends to make sure that secret agreements and communications between local police and ICE undergo public vetting and approval by elected officials in the state.
Bonta unveiled details of Assembly Bill 2792, also to be known as the Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds (TRUTH Act), at a press conference at the state building in downtown Oakland, along with labor and civil rights groups and with immigrants who have dealt with ICE in the past.
“California’s immigrants [are] an integral part of our state’s social fabric, but when Immigration and Custom Enforcement coerces local law enforcement into carrying out deportations, families are separated and community trust is destroyed,” said Bonta. Undocumented immigrants are afraid to report crimes for fear of being obtained, he added.
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A previous bill dubbed the TRUST Act and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brow in 2013 gave undocumented immigrants some relief by requiring that holds placed by ICE can only be for those convicted of violent crimes. But ICE found a loophole that Bonta said will be closed by his legislation.
“When the TRUST Act went into effect, ICE undermined the law by requesting local law enforcement notify them of personal information, such as their release time, so they could be waiting with a white van to pick up our immigrant community members.”
The bill hopes to create transparency for local detention and deportation policies and require any agreements with ICE to be vetted by the public and approved by elected officials.
Law enforcement groups across the state are expected to oppose the bill as it winds through the legislature. “We expect it,” said Bonta. Pushback from law enforcement against the TRUST Act in 2013 was also strong, he added, before it was eventually signed into law.
In Alameda County, the sheriff’s department’s coordination with ICE has been controversial in recent years. In 2013, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution asking Sheriff Gregory Ahern to not participate in the federal immigration program known as Secure Communities, which came under criticism for creating mistrust in Latino communities toward law enforcement and often splitting up families due to deportations.
But Ahern ignored the request. In recent months, Ahern has also said that he will continue to work with ICE in light of the controversy involving the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Department and the alleged killing of Kathryn Steinle of Pleasanton by an undocumented immigrant who has a history of drug offenses. San Francisco did not provide ICE with information regarding the alleged suspect and the incident provoked a national debate on immigration that has continued during the current presidential race.
Bonta and other speakers on Friday morning agree that offenders of violent crime deserve punishment, but the current system divides immigrant communities, they said, and, as Bonta said, “revictimizes victims.” Figueroa, through a translator, called his arrest last year unjust. “I was asking for help, and instead I was turned over to immigration.”
With a nod toward answering vitriolic statements toward immigrants by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Bonta said, “Some of these people have made mistakes. Those mistakes should not jeopardize their future in the country they have come to call home. This is California, the most diverse state in the nation and the most progressive in the nation. In California, we don’t build walls, we tear them down… . We are not going to be dragged down by the recent national rhetoric that is unrealistic, unfounded and, frankly, un-American.”
Nicholas Dirks.
1. Top UC Berkeley officials acknowledged that they mishandled the sexual harassment case involving law school Dean Sujit Choudhry, the Bay Area News Group$ reports. In a letter to the law school’s students, staff, and alumni, Cal Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and Claude Steele, executive vice chancellor and provost, acknowledged that the criticism of their handling of the case has been “legitimate” and vowed to “do better” in the future. Although Choudhry has stepped down from his post as dean of the law school, he remains on the faculty. Last summer, an internal campus investigation concluded that Choudhry had violated campus rules when he sexually harassed his assistant, but Dirks and Steele decided to only give him a slap on the wrist: a 10 percent pay cut. They said they didn’t want to “ruin” his career.
2. Botched criminal cases in California have cost taxpayers more than $220 million in the past two decades, the LA Times$ reports, citing a new UC Berkeley study. The study examined convictions that were overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct, errant judicial rulings, and forensic lab screw-ups. “Incarceration costs for individuals who were set free after their convictions were overturned added up to $80 million, the study found. Lawsuit settlements in wrongful conviction cases were $68 million, and an additional $68 million was spent on trials and appeals.”
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3. California’s new aid-in-dying law, which allows physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients, will take effect on June 9, the Chron$ reports.
4. Nearly half of California adults — about 13 million people — suffer from undiagnosed diabetes or pre-diabetes, and most don’t know it, the Mercury News$ reports, citing a new UCLA study. Researchers blame the problem on too much sugar in people’s diets.
Rainy weekends aren’t just ideal for Netflix and chill. They’re also perfect for indulging in cultural activities. Oh hey, there’s a list of those below.
XXYYXX.XXYYXX
While ambient production dominates the new wave of R&B and rap, producer XXYYXX pioneered the current style of atmospheric, trip-hop-oriented beats when he was a teenager making electronic instrumentals in his Orlando, Florida, bedroom. Now based in LA, the nineteen-year-old has risen to considerable acclaim in recent years. He produced rising singer SZA’s “Child’s Play” on her debut album, Z — arguably one of the Rihanna collaborator’s best singles — and his recent remix of Tinashe’s “Let Me Love You” is currently making the rounds on SoundCloud. But narco’d-out instrumentals are where he truly shines. Take “About You” from his self-titled 2012 album: underwater synths, bass notes that fall like droplets, and warbled vocal samples create a fascinating mélange of malleable sounds over rigid trap high hats. Catch XXYYXX at The Independent on Saturday, March 12.— Nastia Voynovskaya
Sat., March 12, 9 p.m. $20. TheIndependentSF.com
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Work by Adia Millett.Hybrid Series #1
On March 12, Pro Arts (150 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland) is inaugurating a new set of programs called Hybrid Series, which aims to dissolve the boundaries between artistic disciplines. The first event will feature SL Morse, a music project led by local percussionist and artist Sarah Lockhart, translating Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus into Morse Code. Artist Adia Millett will join in to discuss Re-Connect, her solo show of quilts, currently on display in the gallery, in terms of feminist aesthetics and abstraction. Plus, Bay Area poet Sara Mumolo will punctuate the program with readings of her work. Mumolo is the author of Mortar (Omnidawn, 2013), a book of poetry that, in part, investigates the intersection of art history and gendered body representation through a lyrical deconstruction of nude paintings.— Sarah Burke
Sat., March 12, 6-9 p.m. ProArtsGallery.org
We Are One Bad-Ass Mutha
In celebration of International Women’s Day, Oakland Terminal (2600 Union St.) will be hosting an art show called We Are One Bad-Ass Mutha on March 12 from 1–6 p.m. The free event will feature interactive art installations, poetry, music, dance, healing, paintings, prints, photography, and film from local women of color. Exhibits will include familial duo Malia and Oni Connor’s work on mothering and being mothered, a piece by Vero d. Orozco which pays homage to mothers who have transitioned, and Carina Gomez and Yadiel Plascencia’s collaboration about immigrant mothers. As a whole, the program is meant to pay tribute to the powerful role of mothers in shaping the lives of their children and everyone around them. “This event is born from the myriad and multifaceted ways in which we are mothers,” reads the show’s description. “To children, to family, to each other, to lovers, to ourselves … We are mother warriors, political mothers, spiritual mothers, community mothers.” The event will also feature a marketplace of local vendors, including Healing Hands Massage Therapy and Olive Hair & Beauty, and the first two hundred attendees will receive a free goodie bag.— S.B.
Sat., March 12, 1-6 p.m. Free. OaklandTerminalArtGallery.BigCartel.com Miso rolls wrapped in shiso.
Credits: PHOTO BY YOKO KUMANOTohoku Springs Back
Five years have passed since a catastrophic tsunami struck Japan’s Tohoku region, killing more than 15,000 and causing a full-blown nuclear disaster in the Fukushima prefecture. To commemorate the anniversary, the Japanese gift store Umami Mart and UC Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies will host a fundraising dinner at the David Brower Center (2150 Allston Way, Berkeley). Chef Tori-chan, a Fukushima native and the owner of a restaurant in Tokyo called Jicca, will put together a spread of traditional Fukushima dishes, such as shiso-wrapped miso rolls, shio koji pickles, and miso-marinated roast pork. To drink, there will be sake from a brewery that was rebuilt after having been wiped out by the 2011 tsunami. Event proceeds will benefit Y-PLAN Japan (an exchange program that has hosted hundreds of Tohoku youths) and Safecast (a foundation dedicated to sharing reliable radiation data online). Tickets are available via Eventbrite.com.— Luke Tsai
Sat., March 12, 7-10 p.m. $50–$75.
Day Wave
Originally from Los Angeles, multi-instrumentalist Day Wave (aka Jackson Phillips) has called Oakland home for the past two years. While in LA, he was known as part of the electronic duo Carousel. Upon moving to Oakland, he developed his solo pop project, Day Wave, which combines soft, dreamy instrumentation with hooky song structures. While Day Wave’s new EP, Hard to Read, contains several certified earworms, he mostly uses his catchy songs as a vehicle for parsing through grief and longing. Sunny, lo-fi synth and guitar riffs and surf rock harmonies contrast with Day Wave’s often poetic, melancholic lyrics. Currently, the singer-songwriter is promoting Hard to Read, which he recently released on vinyl as a double EP that also includes his 2015 project, Headcase. Catch him playing a free show and signing copies of the record at Amoeba in San Francisco on Sunday, March 13.— Nastia Voynovskaya
Sun., March 13, 2 p.m. Free. Amoeba.com
Mark Morris Dance Group performing L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato.L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
On March 13, the internationally famous Mark Morris Dance Group will once again bring one of its namesake choreographer’s most influential pieces, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, to Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall (UC Berkeley). Back by popular demand, this will be the fifth time that Cal Performances presents the production since its Bay Area debut in 1988. The widely acclaimed choreographic ode to darkness and light involves 27 dancers and is set to an oratorio by George Frideric Handel, which will be performed by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorus. Ahead of the performance, the Mark Morris Dance Group will lead an all-ages dance class featuring techniques from the piece on Saturday, March 12, from 11 a.m. to noon in the Bancroft Studio on the UC Berkeley campus. On the same day, from 2–5 p.m., Morris, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra conductor Nicholas McGegan, and Juilliard School provost Ara Guzelimian will discuss Handel’s music at Zellerbach Hall. Both events are free and open to the public.— Sarah Burke
Sun., March 13, 3 p.m. $26–$150. CalPerformances.org
Gwen Stefani (center) in No Doubt.Tragic Queendom
Forget Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. Let’s recall that Gwen Stefani has be serving up iconic looks since her glory days as No Doubt’s front woman. Think back to the late Nineties: a strappy bikini top over a mesh crop top with baggy, low wasted pants and a studded belt. (If that’s not fierce, it’s at least memorable.) Or her extravagant (and arguably problematic) Harajuku girl period circa 2004. That one involved a lot of tiny hats, tutus, and geisha-inspired lipstick. On March 13, The Night Light (311 Broadway, Oakland) will be hosting “Tragic Queendom,” a drag show dedicated to Stefani’s many looks as a lead up to the release of her new album, This is What Truth Feels Like, on March 18. Hosted by Beatrix LaHaine, the night will feature a whopping fifteen performers, including Hollow Eve, Cunty Whorenay, Ariel Androgyny, and Punky Pebbles.— Sarah Burke
Sun., March 13, 8 p.m. $5. TheNightLightOakland.com
If your pockets are feelin’ light and you’re still yearning for more suggestions, we’ve got a ton, and these ones are all FREE! We’re Hungry: Got any East Bay news, events, video, or miscellany we should know about? Feed us at Sa*********@************ss.com.
Legalization supporters who buy a new penny stock are not directly supporting legalization, but rather a shady corner of legal marijuana market — unregulated, often fraudulent world of pink sheet securities, experts warn.
This Tuesday, a new Nevada company going by the name “KUSH” said it was donating “$1 million” to a California marijuana legalization initiative dubbed the MCLR. The purported $1 million campaign donation to the long-shot initiative looks more like a stock scam than a serious effort, though, cannabis experts said.
Lake Tahoe activist Steve Kubby peddled penny stocks in the name of legalization this week.
Credits: Courtesy of Steve Kubby
Longtime California activist Steve Kubby, KUSH’s CEO, has been under attack for the effort, and today replied, “No good deed goes unpunished. … We believe in it. We think it’s going to work out.”
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According to the Tuesday release from KUSH: “The Board of Directors of KUSH, a new player in the medical marijuana field, today authorized the donation of $1 million in KUSH stock to Americans for Policy Reform (AFPR) in support of their 2016 Marijuana Control Legalization and Revenue Act (MCLR) legalization project.”
But KUSH stock has no valuation, let alone sales or business record to support it, experts note. Instead, it has the makings of a pump and dump scheme, experts say.
About 6,500 investors have bought KUSH shares at five cents per share, Kubby said. KUSH is shooting for an IPO on April 20 at ten cents per share or more, he added. The goal is to sell up to 50 million shares.
The KUSH release touts how it “recently discovered a revolutionary cryogenic extraction process” and has “patent pending genetics,” and sells a “non-psychoactive nutraceutical … to provide a better quality of life for people suffering from cancer, gout, arthritis, heart disease, diabetes and other debilitating diseases.”
Cannabis finance experts as well as the US Securities Exchange Commission have repeatedly warned investors over the last two years to stay away from pot penny stocks due to lax oversight.
Kubby acknowledges that the new company has not passed auditing or received full SEC approval, and could be subject to lengthy delays over both issues.
“It’s a very risky investment,” Kubby said. “Never invest in anything that you can’t afford to lose. There is a very real risk in this marketplace. What if the next attorney general is Chris Christie?”
Experts questioned the whole scheme. Cannabis finance expert Alan Brochstein noted in a online comment on March 9 that it was: “a very stupid move to gift stock in a company that intends to be publicly-traded, but hasn’t begun trading and will likely have zero liquidity. Knowing the circumstances fairly well, I expect that the $1mm is actually about $50K in realizable proceeds.”
Kubby responded that the company will have liquidity.
But Washington, DC activist and blogger Tom Angell wrote in a Facebook comment: “To be clear, it looks like that rather than giving $1 million in cash, they’re giving what they’re valuing as $1 million in stock to a company whose actual value seems questionable.”
Kubby acknowledged there is no way to assess KUSH’s value at this juncture.
Another expert, Doug McVay of DrugWarFacts in Washington noted: “That’s a lot of shares of questionable real value that would have to be sold in order to realize any spendable cash.”
Kubby said he predicts about 10 million public KUSH shares must be bought to donate $1 million to MCLR.
By contrast, the leading initiative AUMA’s proponents reported to the state the actual collection of over $2 million dollars in campaign donations. AUMA is backed by a mix of longtime, established, successful legalization groups including the Drug Policy Alliance and Marijuana Policy Project, and private donors including tech billionaire Sean Parker.
AUMA proponents state they have hit the 25-percent milestone in signature-gathering, and announce new endorsements weekly. AUMA has also been at work shoring up support within the state’s Democratic party establishment.
Utah State Senator J. Stuart Adams.
Utah state lawmakers are racing a bill through the final days of their legislative session that would subsidize a proposed coal export terminal in Oakland with $53 million in Utah public funds. The lawmakers promoting the bill argue that it is necessary to support jobs in rural Utah. But public records show that key lawmakers who have helped speed the bill through the Utah Senate and House, along with the governor of Utah, who has said he supports the legislation, all took money from a coal company that stands to profit if the Oakland coal export terminal is built.
Public records show that Bowie Resource Partners, a Kentucky-based coal company with coal mines in Utah, has made $29,000 in campaign contributions to key Utah lawmakers advancing the bill to spend $53 million in Utah public funds on the coal export terminal in Oakland.
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Utah State Senator J. Stuart Adams introduced the legislation on March 1. According to state campaign finance data, Adams received a $750 contribution from Bowie Resource Partners in October 2014. In addition to being the author of the pro-coal legislation, Adams is also the Republican Party majority whip in the Utah Senate.
In total, Bowie has given $5,950 to eleven Utah State Senators, all of whom have voted to approve Adams’ legisaltion. Bowie made a $1,000 contribution to Wayne Niederhauser, president of the Utah Senate, and a $500 contribution to Margaret Dayton, chair of the Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee, the first committee in which the pro-coal bill was heard and voted on. Four of the six total members of the Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee who voted to advance the bill out of that committee took money from Bowie.
Bowie has also made campaign contributions to 21 members of the Utah House of Representatives, including all of the members of the GOP leadership. Jim Dunnigan, the Utah House majority leader, took $400 from Bowie. Greg Hughes, the speaker of the Utah House of Representatives took $750, and Michael Noel, the chair of the House rules committee took $400 from the coal company. The contributions were all made on the same day, October 21, 2014.
Utah Governor Gary Herbert.
Utah Governor Gary Herbert has taken $14,000 from Bowie Resource Partners since 2014, according to state campaign finance data. This included a $5,000 payment from Bowie to sponsor a “Governor’s Gala” party, and a $2,000 campaign contribution in 2014.
Last year, Bowie paid $5,000 to sponsor another Governor’s Gala party, and then contributed $2,000 for the Governor’s Energy Roundtable Breakfast event.
Bowie has been seeking a West Coast coal export terminal since at least 2013. That year, Bowie bought three coal mines in Utah for $435 million from Arch Coal. In company financial documents, Bowie has explained that it plans to export much of this coal to overseas markets through West Coast ports. But there are few existing marine terminals in California and other West Coast states capable of exporting the millions of tons of coal that Bowie’s Utah mines will produce.
In 2014, the Port of Oakland rejected a proposal by Bowie Resource Partners to build and operate a coal export terminal. Private investors have been equally skeptical about financing coal infrastructure as the global price of coal has collapsed over the past few years, and US coal exports have declined.
But in 2015, it was revealed that four Utah counties were securing $53 million from a Utah state agency called the Community Impact Fund Board (CIB) to help pay for construction of a coal export terminal located at the old Army Base redevelopment site in Oakland. It was subsequently revealed that the counties were working closely with Bowie Resource Partners to secure “throughput capacity” at the proposed Oakland marine terminal in order to export millions of tons of Bowie’s Utah-mined coal to foreign markets.
This plan has run into strident opposition in both Oakland and Utah. And one of the biggest obstacles to this plan was a legal challenge made by environmental groups and private attorneys in Utah and California who asserted that the Utah counties could not invest in the Oakland terminal because the source of funds they intend to use, called “community impact funds,” which come from mineral lease revenues given to the state by the federal government, are intended only to be spent in Utah by local governments to pay for services and government infrastructure like schools, fire stations, sewers, and fire protection. The Utah Attorney General has yet to release any public opinion on this matter, however.
In an apparent effort to circumvent this legal prohibition on using community impact funds to subsidize a private fossil fuel industry project out of state, Senator Adams introduced his bill two weeks ago to have the CIB funds transferred into the state’s Department of Transportation, and then spent on the Oakland coal terminal.
Adams’ bill has been criticized by colleagues in the Utah legislature as a money laundering scheme. Senator Gene Davis, a Democrat, called Adams’ bill a “shell game” because of the way it shuffles money. Davis, who did not take any money from Bowie, voted against the bill earlier this week.
But the bill is expected to pass the full house and advance to the governor’s desk by the end of this week.
Correction: the original version of this story misstated the amount of Utah public funds that Senator Adams’ bill would appropriate to subsidize the Oakland coal terminal. The correct amount is $53 million – not $51 million.
Sujit Choudhry.
1. UC Berkeley Law School Dean Sujit Choudhry is on leave for sexually harassing his assistant, and the university is under fire for its handling of the case, the Bay Area News Group$ reports. Choudry’s actions only came to light because his assistant, Tyann Sorrell, sued the university. A campus investigation concluded that Choudhry had violated the university’s policies on sexual harassment, but allowed Choudhry to keep his faculty position, and only cut his pay by 10 percent. Choudhry also stepped down from his job as dean of the law school.
2. Bay Area transportation funds are being slashed by up to $96 million because of plunging gas prices, a development that means several key transit and infrastructure projects in the region will not be completed, the Chron$ reports. Governor Jerry Brown called on the legislature last year to raise taxes to pay for billions of dollars of needed infrastructure upgrades throughout the state, but Republican lawmakers declined to do so.
4. California Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, has introduced legislation that would allow gig workers, like drivers for Uber and Lyft, to unionize in the state, the Chron reports. Last year, the Seattle City Council approved a law allowing gig workers to organize.
6. And the powerful Westlands Water District, which is controlled by wealthy agribusiness interests and would be one of the main beneficiaries of the governor’s giant water tunnels plan, cooked its books in order to hide its financial problems from investors, the LA Times$ reports, citing a US Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.
After throwing an epic birthday bash at the newly reopened Uptown Nightclub, featuring performances by up-and-coming Bay Area rappers Kamaiyah, Kool John, Jay Ant, and Larry June, Oakland DJ Daghe Digital is back at it with his next event, Turnt. The party’s theme is “06 Hyphy” (2006 was the year E-40’s seminal hyphy joints “Tell Me When to Go,”...
Members of the Alameda Creek Alliance, a group dedicated to protecting and restoring the natural ecosystems of the Alameda Creek watershed, are celebrating the spotting of two adult steelhead trout in the lower Alameda Creek flood control channel last week – the first confirmed sighting since 2008.
“This is significant. Steelhead have been missing from the lower...
A line forms outside the Hayward Hall of Justice last February.
Credits: Darwin BondGraham
This week, the Oakland City Council will join City Attorney Barbara Parker in a campaign to convince the Alameda County Superior Court to reverse a decision to move all eviction cases from Oakland's courthouses to Hayward. The council is also being asked to spend $3.8 million for...
Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. Thanks to the wet March storms, water levels at Shasta Lake — California’s biggest reservoir — are now above normal for this first time in three years, the Mercury News$ reports. Shasta, north of Redding, is now at 101 percent of normal for this time of year, and is at 77 percent of capacity. The weekend’s...
Pedro Figueroa’s story is well-known in Latino communities throughout the Bay Area. In December 2014, the undocumented immigrant from El Salvador went into a San Francisco police station to report that his car was stolen car. Police found a warrant for Figueroa’s arrest, but uncovered no further details. When Figueroa walked out the door, agents from the US Immigration...
Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. Top UC Berkeley officials acknowledged that they mishandled the sexual harassment case involving law school Dean Sujit Choudhry, the Bay Area News Group$ reports. In a letter to the law school’s students, staff, and alumni, Cal Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and Claude Steele, executive vice chancellor and provost, acknowledged that the criticism of their handling of the...
Rainy weekends aren't just ideal for Netflix and chill. They're also perfect for indulging in cultural activities. Oh hey, there's a list of those below.
XXYYXX
While ambient production dominates the new wave of R&B and rap, producer XXYYXX pioneered the current style of atmospheric, trip-hop-oriented beats when he was a teenager making electronic instrumentals in his Orlando, Florida,...
Legalization supporters who buy a new penny stock are not directly supporting legalization, but rather a shady corner of legal marijuana market — unregulated, often fraudulent world of pink sheet securities, experts warn.
This Tuesday, a new Nevada company going by the name “KUSH” said it was donating “$1 million” to a...
Utah state lawmakers are racing a bill through the final days of their legislative session that would subsidize a proposed coal export terminal in Oakland with $53 million in Utah public funds. The lawmakers promoting the bill argue that it is necessary to support jobs in rural Utah. But public records show that key lawmakers who have helped speed...
Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. UC Berkeley Law School Dean Sujit Choudhry is on leave for sexually harassing his assistant, and the university is under fire for its handling of the case, the Bay Area News Group$ reports. Choudry’s actions only came to light because his assistant, Tyann Sorrell, sued the university. A campus investigation concluded that Choudhry had violated the...
