Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. BART’s two major transit unions plan to file a lawsuit today against the transit agency’s board of directors, alleging that the board engaged in illegitimate actions when it rejected a contract agreement that its own negotiating team had signed off on, NBC Bay Area reports. The disputed agreement concerns a six-week paid family leave provision. The BART board contends that its bargaining team “mistakenly” agreed to the provision, but leaders of SEIU and ATU say that BART was well aware of it and readily agreed to it during negotiations.
[jump]
2. Oakland Councilmember Libby Schaaf officially entered the 2014 mayor’s race, the Trib and Chron report. Schaaf, who represents much of the Oakland hills, will attempt to unseat Mayor Jean Quan next November. She was first elected to the council in 2010 and was a former aide for Mayor Jerry Brown and ex-Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente.
3. Oakland police Compliance Director Thomas Frazier has established new benchmarks for OPD that require officers to use their lapel cameras, the Trib reports. A recent report found that Oakland police rarely use the small video camera devices, which are designed to provide an objective recording of how cops interact with the public.
4. About two dozen Treasure Island families are being permanently relocated from their homes to make way for a cleanup of toxic radiation, the Chron reports.
5. Covered California — the state’s version of Obamacare — has begun offering insurance plans to small businesses, the SacBee$ reports. California’s insurance exchange website has been operating well — unlike the troubled federal exchange.
6. And a cold snap is set to hit the Bay Area tomorrow, with temperatures dipping into the mid-thirties in Oakland and Richmond and possibly setting record lows for this time of year, the CoCo Times reports.
