Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land
By Stephen Golub, originally published in the Benicia Herald on May 5, 2024
In recent weeks, I’ve reached out to a number of persons familiar with the Contra Costa County (CCC) and Richmond Industrial Safety Ordinances (ISOs), which seek to bolster those localities’ protection from fires, explosions and toxic emissions at the four refineries in that county.
Since it is situated in Solano County and not Contra Costa, Valero is the only Bay Area refinery not covered by such an ordinance. Benicia is the only refinery town in the area not protected by one. To their great credit, Vice Mayor Scott, Councilwoman Birdseye, Fire Chief Chadwick and other personnel are spearheading the City’s drive, unanimously endorsed by the City Council, to draft an ISO for Benicia. The Benicia Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance citizens’ group, to which I belong, is seeking to make the resulting law as strong as possible.
My look at other Bay Area ISOs is intended to bolster both of those efforts.
For now, I’ll focus on three key overlapping considerations that, in my opinion, have so far emerged from my ISO conversations:
My first point regards the crucial citizen Oversight Committee (or whatever name is eventually used) that, as part of the ISO, will keep its administration and enforcement on track. The Committee should comprise independent operational, scientific, environmental, safety and health experts, as well as representatives from affected communities within Benicia and beyond.
I suggest this approach in contrast with simply involving all potential “stakeholders” with some sort of interest in the ISO, since persons employed by, affiliated with or aligned with Valero are unlikely to back strong oversight. Who sits at the table will determine what gets done.
More specifically, let’s involve people who have expertise regarding Valero and other refineries’ operations but who are not beholden to them, as demonstrated by their professional or community track records.
Let’s certainly engage Benicians who have been affected by the emissions, odors, vapors and even residues from the refinery’s repeated incidents and accidents.
Let’s also include non-Benicians, such as those representing citizen or government groups in CCC, Richmond, Martinez and other neighboring communities, as well as representatives of Bay Area environmental organizations.
This brings me to my second point, implied by the first:
The Oversight Committee should not include Valero. Nor should it involve the affiliated “Community Advisory Panel” (CAP), which very rarely involves the community in its meetings and which largely supports the refinery’s perspective. While individuals affiliated with these two entities may mean well, it is inappropriate for a company to influence the very body that oversees the safety and health aspects of its operations.
Let’s also bear in mind that when we’re talking about Valero decision-making, we’re talking not about our fine neighbors and friends who may be employees, but instead about a huge Texas-based corporation.
There is nothing wrong and much that is right with consultation with Valero and listening to its valid concerns. But there are plenty of opportunities to do so, outside of it having membership in the Oversight Committee.
Or to put the matter more simply: Benicia can’t have the fox guarding the henhouse.
To my simple mind, it’s self-evident that Valero should not oversee itself. After all, you wouldn’t want a neighbor who regularly violates local and national safety/health-oriented regulations controlling efforts to prevent those violations, would you? And that’s even assuming the neighbor is committed to proper community oversight, something that can’t be said of Valero in view of its apparently intense opposition to an ISO.
CAP has also demonstrated keen opposition to the very idea of an ISO, as indicated by its hostile reception when Scott and Birdseye attempted to engage it in a constructive way at one of its meetings. This has large ramifications for the Oversight Committee.
Again, why put the fox in charge of the henhouse?
Against this backdrop, it’s puzzling that the City’s “Engage Benicia” ISO outreach site and the community survey it includes feature CAP in several questions, even in terms of a potential ISO role. Perhaps this is due to the laudable even-handedness with which the City is approaching this effort, despite opposition from Valero and CAP. But in visiting the site (engagebenicia.com) and participating in its survey, which I heartily encourage, Benicians should be aware that there’s less to CAP than its title implies.
My third point is that the Oversight Committee has a tremendous potential to connect Benicia with likeminded citizens and governments across the Bay Area regarding health and safety concerns. By virtue not just of its membership but also its outreach, it can share information, advocacy and efforts concerning common problems and solutions experienced by CCC, Richmond, Martinez and other areas. That’s yet another reason for the Committee to comprise independent individuals, rather than Valero or its affiliated parties.
In suggesting these paths, I speak only on my own behalf and not as a member of BISHO. If you’re interested in learning more about Valero’s violations and the many reasons the City and your fellow Benicians are working toward a strong ISO, please check out this site: bisho.org.
Join the BISHO movement
There is a group of concerned citizens of Benicia who also support the adoption of a Benicia Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance (BISHO). To learn more about the effort and add your support, visit www.bisho.org.
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[Note from BenIndy Contributor Kathy Kerridge: Don’t we have a right to a safe and healthy environment? It’s time to put it in our Constitution.]
Under a proposal in the California Legislature, voters could weigh in on an amendment to add rights to clean air, clean water and a healthy environment to the state constitution. | Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times.
LA Times, by the Times Editorial Board, April 24, 2024
California may be a leader in the fight against climate change, but the state is years, even decades, behind other states when it comes to granting environmental rights to its citizens.
While a handful of other state constitutions, including those of New York and Pennsylvania, declare the people’s rights to clean air, water and a healthy environment, California’s does not.
That could change as soon as November. Under a proposal moving through the Legislature, voters would decide whether to add one sentence to the state constitution’s Declaration of Rights: “The people shall have a right to clean air and water and a healthy environment.”
The proposed green amendment could be seen as a well-meaning but symbolic change in a state that, despite tough environmental rules, struggles to address deep environmental problems like air pollution, contaminated drinking water and the worsening impacts of climate change.
But there’s a reason that powerful business interests have come out in opposition. Enshrining environmental rights in California’s constitution would give citizens a new tool to hold the government accountable for failing to act in the interest of environmental health, protection and justice. That could, in turn, force the state to crack down on polluters.
It should be obvious that we need more tools to address the climate crisis. And in California, of all places, citizens should have the chance to weigh in on whether a healthy environment is a right on par with life, liberty, safety, happiness and privacy, which are all spelled out in the constitution. Lawmakers should advance this proposal to let the voters decide.
To be put on the ballot the amendment must be approved by two-thirds of lawmakers in both the state Assembly and Senate. It must win the support of a simple majority of voters to be added to the constitution.
States like Montana, which declares “the right to a clean and healthful environment,” added this kind of language to their constitutions more than 50 years ago in response to the burgeoning environmental movement. After the advent of Earth Day, Pennsylvania in 1971 amended its constitution to add the people’s right to “clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.”
In recent years, some of those rarely invoked amendments have seen new life as bases to challenge government decisions over oil and gas permitting and the cleanup of contaminated sites and other environmental hazards. There’s now a nationwide movement to get green amendments onto more state constitutions. In 2021 70% of New York voters passed an amendment adding the right to “clean air and water, and a healthful environment” to its state constitution’s Bill of Rights, language that is nearly identical to the California proposal.
But state Legislatures have also been a chokepoint for these proposals. In some states, such as New Jersey, green amendments with bipartisan support have languished for years because key lawmakers have prevented them from being being considered.
Business interests in California are lining up in opposition to putting the proposed green amendment on the ballot. Brady Van Engelen, a policy advocate for the California Chamber of Commerce, told lawmakers during a legislative hearing earlier this month that it was a “job killer” that could spur lawsuits and be weaponized by “wealthy white NIMBYs” to block development.
Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) who introduced the green amendment legislation, dismissed the Chamber’s opposition as “ridiculous.” He said that lawmakers opted for simple, direct language that is more limited than other states’ to make it clear the amendment is not intended as litigation bait, but rather to establish a clear obligation that the state make decisions in a way that upholds the environmental values it espouses. A green amendment would not establish any new right for individuals to sue businesses for environmental violations.
But just as in New York, Pennsylvania and Montana, a California green amendment could be used to hold state officials accountable for their decisions, from legislation and permitting to the enforcement of existing environmental laws.
Californians should have the chance to not only send a message about how much they value a healthy environment, but to assert that something as fundamental to life as clean air and clean water isn’t just an aspiration or an ideal, but a right.
[Note from BenIndy: For information on how to register your support or opposition to the changes described below, scroll to the end.]
BenIndy Editorial, Thursday, May 2, 2024
This Tuesday, May 7, at 6 pm, Benicia City Council will vote on revisions to the city’s campaign ordinances and public engagement policies that were proposed by council and city staff in late 2023.
While community members have supported some of the proposed changes, especially those that tighten loopholes in fair political practices, other proposed revisions – including some from city staff– have faced criticism for their potential to limit meaningful public engagement in governance.
Now, Benicia residents are calling on the community to write, call and show up to oppose to two revisions proposed by staff but not supported by Benicia’s Open Government Commission (OGC):
Amend the City’s Municipal Code to align with state law pertaining to the time to respond to public records act request; and
Decrease the amount of time public speakers may address a City public body in open session from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
City Council requested Open Government Commission review in late 2023
Benicia’s Open Government Commission was created in 2005 to enhance openness, accountability, and public participation in local government after community complaints and external investigations exposed deficiencies in those areas. At the time, the charges laid against City Council included unreasonable delays or outright refusal to provide public records upon request, failures to appropriately notice the public on meeting content and scheduling, agenda misinformation, and more. By establishing the ordinance, the city sought to foster a stronger connection between government officials and residents, promoting a more informed and engaged community.
Prompted by growing concerns about fairness, false statements and digital image manipulation in local elections, City Council tasked the OGC in late 2023 to review and develop recommendations for providing Benicia’s political landscape with guardrails to defend against such misleading tactics. The OGC was also charged to consider several changes proposed by city staff, including updating public records requests and public comment policies to reduce strain on staff.
Some changes to fair political practices code in Benicia elections
After deliberations were stalled several months by quorum and staffing issues, the OGC opted to introduce a few of its recommendations through suggested updates to Benicia’s Voluntary Code of Fair Campaign Practices.
The OGC’s first recommendation to address false and manipulated media via the Voluntary Code would simply align Benicia with California state law, and not much more, but the impulse was welcomed by some city residents.
However, the OGC did not address important questions about enforcement functionality or meaningful remedy for violations, instead punting the responsibility back to the City Clerk, who could immediately inform any candidate and/or political action committee (PAC) about complaints and post said complaint(s) and any rebuttal(s) on the City’s website.
An example of a 2020 campaign ad that some residents claim includes digitally manipulated images and misleading statements.
Additionally, although the OGC discussed how to make campaign regulations in Benicia more “objective” and enforceable, the commission asserted that the complexity of navigating First Amendment privileges or procuring third-party fact-checking services was beyond its scope.
Finally, the OGC considered whether to maintain or discontinue its mandated Candidate Forum before local elections, ultimately voting to keep the forum but adjusting which day it may fall on during the week.
Concerns about public access to information
Benicia city staff also had an opportunity to suggest changes to Benicia’s open government regulations through the OGC’s review process. These revisions were met with more pushback from the OGC than City Council’s requests.
To boost public participation, city staff proposed refining a rule that allows a presiding officer at public meetings to request groups with similar views to appoint a spokesperson and adjust their speaking times for efficiency. However, the OGC suggested that for items with many speakers, a presiding officer should simply encourage groups to appoint a spokesperson by referencing the relevant section of the ordinance.
Staff also requested Benicia’s deadline for response to public records requests be adjusted to the state-mandated 10-day requirement instead of the current 3-day or 5-day requirement, depending on the type of records sought. The OGC concurred with city staff’s suggestion, recommending that the city’s response time to public records act be changed to 10 days.
However, some Benicia residents disagree with extending the deadline.
“Rapid response to public information request is essential for local democracy, because local government operates faster than county or state,” one Benicia resident pointed out. “If Benicia City Council meets twice a month and a decision is dependent on a public records request, responsive documents should be available to the public as quickly as possible so decision makers can meet important deadlines, if necessary. Ten days doesn’t allow for that.”
Public speaking time under threat, confusion about recommendations
Perhaps most controversially, city staff has pushed for a reduction in public comment speaking time at meetings from 5 minutes to 3, claiming it would make meetings more efficient and likely increase public participation. The OGC declined to recommend city staff’s proposed speaking time reduction, citing public pushback and no compelling evidence that shorter speaking times could improve meeting outcomes.
“Cutting the public’s time to be heard by a whopping 40%, especially without any data backing that decision, is a bad look,” one resident said, commending the OGC for not recommending the cutback. “Benicia should consider itself lucky to have engaged citizens, not be looking for ways to get them to pipe down.”
But despite the OGC explicitly declining to change the speaking time limits, the recommendation from city staff still appears in the City Council meeting packet for May 7 under the headline, “OPEN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL (City Attorney’s Office),” causing confusion about which recommendations are coming from city staff and which are coming from the OGC, causing opponents to the change to cry foul.
Residents complained that the relevant agenda item, titled “OPEN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL,” does not clearly and explicitly indicate which recommendations are from staff and which are not in the final presentation of proposed revisions.
“It needs to be clearer,” a resident said. “The way it is written, it is very unclear who is recommending what, and why, and I find that very troubling in an already very complicated discussion about open government.”
Benicia resident Mike Caplan announced the opening of the Benicia Farmer’s Market at the April 16 City Council meeting, leaving the podium after speaking for 40 seconds. Some Benicia residents say the city would be wrong to limit speaking time, especially when most speakers don’t use the full 5 minutes. | Still from April 16, 2024 Benicia City meeting recording.
Open government norms in review
Although the OGC’s proposed revisions to Benicia’s Voluntary Code of Fair Campaign Practices are fine and welcome, the commission fell short of not just devising, but also envisioning a better system to fend off repeat offenders who use misleading or otherwise unfair campaign tactics to exercise outsized influence in our small town elections. Some cities work with their open government commissions to produce mailers and email blasts warning voters of deceptive campaign practices, for just one example of an effective city commission–led response to unfair campaign practices.
Meanwhile, City Council’s decisions on these recommendations this Tuesday will be another signal of how City Council will balance which burdens on city staff are necessary for open, local governance, and which can be dropped to save resources. What shakes out of this meeting will, in essence, show us how City Council will weigh the necessity of economy (Benicia is, after all, experiencing a budget crisis) against the necessity of providing services, including meaningful public participation opportunities, to its community.
This meeting therefore merits careful watching, and perhaps active participation, on the part of Benicia citizens. More information about how to support or oppose these changes is below.
Call to action
The full list of what appear to be staff recommendations under the OGC banner is below and available here:
This document is titled “OPEN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL,” but several of the recommendations in this list do not reflect OGC direction. | From page 9 of the City of Benicia Full Agenda Packet for May 7 meeting.
Benicia activists are asking the community to call, write or show up on Tuesday to oppose changes to:
(2) Amend the City’s Municipal Code to align with state law pertaining to the time to respond to public records act request; and (3) Decrease the amount of time public speakers may address a City public body in open session form 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
If you care about public participation in Benicia one way or the other, there are several ways to get involved, and most of them are quick and easy. Learn more below.
How to write and email a public comment
If you would like to make your opinion on the topic of the proposed revisions known to City Council, members of the public may provide public comment via email to the City Clerk by email at lwolfe@ci.benicia.ca.us. Any comment submitted to the City Clerk should indicate to which item of the agenda the comment relates. (THE PROPOSED REVISIONS ARE IN AGENDA ITEM 22.C – OPEN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL (City Attorney’s Office).)
– Comments received by 2:00 pm on the day of the meeting will be electronically forwarded to the City Council and posted on the City’s website.
– Comments received after 2:00 pm, but before the start time of the meeting will be electronically forwarded to the City Council but will not be posted on the City’s website.
In your email, put the item number in your subject line (e.g., “Public comment re. Item 22.C”).
In your email body, share why you support or oppose the changes.
How to view the meeting and/or make a live public comment
You can participate in the meeting in one of four ways:
1) Attend in person at Council Chambers
2) Cable T.V. Broadcast – Check with your cable provider for your local government broadcast channel.
3) Livestream online at www.ci.benicia.ca.us/agendas
4) Zoom Meeting (link below)
Use participant option to “raise hand” during the public comment period for the item you wish to speak on. Please note, your electronic device must have microphone capability. Once unmuted, you will have up to 5 minutes to speak.
Dial in with phone:
Before the start of the item you wish to comment on, call any of the numbers below. If one is busy, try the next one.
1 669 900 9128
1 346 248 7799
1 253 215 8782
1 646 558 8656
1 301 715 8592
1 312 626 6799
• Enter the meeting ID number: 885 0804 7557(*please note this is an updated ID number*.)
Say the item you wish to speak on. (AGAIN, THE PROPOSED CHANGES ARE IN ITEM 22.C.)
Once unmuted, you will have up to 5 minutes to speak.
Enter password: 449303
When prompted for a Participant ID, press #.
Press *9 on your phone to “raise your hand” when the Mayor calls for public comment.
Any member of the public who needs accommodations should email City Clerk Lisa Wolfe at lwolfe@ci.benicia.ca.us, who will use her best efforts to provide as much accessibility as possible while also maintaining public safety.
It’s been a long time since a tent was simply a tent. Today, it almost certainly represents an issue, a problem, a population with which society would prefer not to contend.
The tents are unseemly. They need to be. They’re flimsy structures staked on uneven ground surrounded by the stately architecture of the academy, capitalism and power. Their flapping scrims of nylon and plastic clutter up the landscape and serve as a rebuke to the grandiosities of polite society. The tents shame countries, cities and individuals for their failures even when the voices of the activists fall silent, when the chanting stops and the sun sets. The tents are still there.
Most recently, tents have become fundamental to the pro-Palestinian encampments constructed in college yards and on plazas from New York to California. In the nation’s capital, an encampment has taken root on the campus of George Washington University, where a few dozen tents have been pitched on the street and in the courtyard. All of it encompasses a one-block span of downtown Washington over which police officers keep watch with modest interest rather than alarm.
The asphalt has been colorfully chalked with mantras about Palestinian liberation and small placards abound. “Full cease-fire in Gaza now!” “Will you free my Palestine?” “Dismantle the war machine.” A statue of George Washington has been graffitied with accusations of genocide along with the university’s culpability. The life-size sculpture has also been draped in Palestinian flags, its neck wrapped in a kaffiyeh.
But it’s the tents that take up the space. Their presence is a constant, ringing reminder of unrest and anger even when the student activists type quietly on their laptops or softly sing that “Palestine needs our love” or listen in silence as the evening’s schedule is ticked off over a bullhorn. An activist lists their demands for everyone to hear, which mostly means the folks watching and listening and holding microphones and cameras. He doesn’t mention the hostages being held by Hamas. But he wants the university to divest from “all corporate ties to the Zionist state of Israel” and to cancel all trips to “occupied Palestine” for research or study abroad.
Among many things, the use of the word “Zionist” sets off alarms for the many different people who hear it. Is it pure antisemitism? Or is it an attack on the Israeli government, whose senior leaders have expressed concern that the International Criminal Court will issue arrest warrants for them? Is it an assault on the right of Israel to exist? Or is it a demand that it not continue to exist within its current contours and constructs with the Palestinian people?
Tents set up by pro-Palestinian activists at GWU. | Shawn Thew / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock.
For some college presidents, there seems to be a belief that by ripping away the tents and clearing the courtyards, they are also expunging any hate and hurt from their campus — as if antisemitism lives in these makeshift shelters and not in the heart. They demand that the protests be polite, convenient and perfect, or in the words of Princeton University’s president, that the protests adhere to “time, place and manner” regulations. They call police to make arrests. They suspend students and declare them trespassers on their own campus. But the very meaning of a protest is to disrupt the status quo, to bring thoughtless momentum to a halt, to underscore precisely how imperfect the world really is.
On college campuses, the tents represent one of many truths. In addition to the savagery of Hamas on Oct. 7, along with the cruel holding of hostages, alongside the shames of antisemitism and Islamaphobia, Palestinian civilians are being killed by the thousands.
The tents are always telling us something that we don’t want to hear.
The tents of the homeless fill parks, clutter walkways and sprout in the shadow of freeway overpasses. So leaders of western states across the political divide have gone to the Supreme Court to have those tents declared illegal. Under current law, they can’t just summarily clear the tents if those who are living in them have nowhere else to go, if there are no beds at a shelter in their city. Officials in Grants Pass, Ore., don’t want homeless camps on their streets or in their parks. But asking the Supreme Court to allow them to remove the tents doesn’t remove the problem; it doesn’t make a weak social safety net any stronger.
The activists who settled into New York’s Zuccotti Park back in 2011 drew attention to income inequality, joblessness and the outsize political influence of financial firms. Occupy Wall Street spread from Manhattan across the country and around the world. The protesters marched and rallied but mostly what they were remembered for was rolling out their sleeping bags and setting up tented tarps and creating their own little squatters camp in the midst of capitalism’s Emerald City. They werebelittled as jealous of the success of others, as anti-capitalist and as vaguely un-American.
Under a freeway overpass hundreds of people live in a homeless encampment under a freeway overpass in San Diego in 2023. | Melina Mara / The Washington Post.
In the midst of a city where money is considered the great equalizer, the men and women who slept outside under bright blue tarps through rain, wind and even a nor’easter were an insistent reminder of a society turned ugly and heartless for a cash payout.
And for more than 30 years, there was a lone tent in Lafayette Square, across from the White House. To be fair, it was really just a facsimile of a tent — an enormous umbrella and pieces of plastic sheeting — because actual tents are illegal. It was a singular place where a woman sat 24-hour vigil — aided by those who relieved her — in protest of nuclear proliferation. Concepción Picciotto was the woman who grew old sitting in that makeshift tent, handing out leaflets to advance her cause, being ignored, ridiculed and admired. She carried on until her death in 2016 because her cause proved just as stubborn as she was.
The tents house the people we don’t want to see. These humble structures that sit low in the valleys between skyscrapers and monuments, remind us of inequality, of the unpredictability of unfairness, of the ways in which capitalism and the American Dream don’t work. They represent one immoral truth out of many.
And whether leaders criminalize them, bulldoze them or ridicule them doesn’t matter. The problems endure because the problem is never the tent.
Several demonstrators at UCLA’s camp’s destruction defied orders to disperse, armed with only hard hats and umbrellas. | Getty Images.
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