1. Richmond Councilmember Jovanka Beckles has a four-point lead over ex-White House aide Buffy Wicks in the campaign for the East Bay’s 15th Assembly District, reports Frances Dinkelspiel of Berkeleyside, citing a new poll commissioned by Beckles supporters, SEIU Local 1021 union. Beckles leads Wicks 43 percent to 39 percent with 17 percent of voters still undecided.
2. California is under supplied by about 3.4 million homes — which represents nearly half of the national shortfall of 7.3 million homes, reports Blanca Torres of the San Francisco Business Times$, citing a new report from Up for Growth California. The report blamed California’s dire housing shortage on the high costs of construction, overburdensome regulations, and strict zoning codes that make dense housing unlawful in large swaths of the state.
3. Bay Area housing prices increased 9.3 percent in September compared to a year ago, although they were down slightly by 1.8 percent from August of this year, reports Kathleen Bender of the San Francisco Chronicle$, citing a new report from CoreLogic. The number of homes sold in September dropped sharply — down 18.9 percent compared to 2017 and 22.1 percent from August — even though the number of homes on the market rose.
4. State water officials say repairs to Oroville Dam’s main spillway are nearly complete — two years after it almost collapsed during heavy rains and forced the evacuation of 188,000 people, the Sacramento Bee$ reports. The massive repair project cost $1.1 billion.
5. Google workers around the globe walked off the job today to protest the company’s handling of sexual harassment allegations against executives and payouts, The New York Times$ reports.
6. And former San Francisco Giants star Willie McCovey died on Wednesday at the age of 80.
