1. Top NFL officials are applying pressure to the City of Oakland, criticizing city leaders for not coming up with a concrete plan to finance a new stadium for the Raiders, the Bay Area News Group$ reports. City officials have said that private developer Floyd Kephart, who plans to build Coliseum City, has until June 21 to present his proposal. The sticking point is money: The Raiders say they can come up with $500 million for the $1 billion stadium, but Mayor Libby Schaaf has vowed not to spend any public dollars on new sports facilities.
2. Caltrans officials revealed that a steel rod on the new Bay Bridge fractured, but the agency said it was too early to tell whether it broke because of corrosion caused by rods being submerged in water for long periods of time, the Chron reports. Engineering experts say the rod shows signs of rust, and that the fracture raises concerns about whether other steel rods on the bridge will also fail. Caltrans plans to test the rod for corrosion.
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3. The large oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, which was caused by a broken pipeline, could easily happen in the Bay Area, too, the Chron$ reports. The region is home to a vast network of underwater pipelines.
4. And farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta who have senior water rights and so have not had to cut back on water use during the drought, say they’re willing to slash water consumption by 25 percent in exchange for guarantees from the state that they won’t have to cut more than that, the Chron$ reports.
