Benicia City Council, Evacuation, Flaring, Industrial Safety Ordinance (ISO), Valero Benicia Refinery

Vice Mayor Steve Young: letter from former City Attorney of Santa Rosa

November 22, 2018 Roger Straw

City Council Meeting on Air Monitors

By Steve Young, Benicia Vice Mayor, November 21, 2018

Steve Young, Vice Mayor, City of Benicia

It’s not often that the Council receives the kind of letter copied below. It is from Brien Farrell, the former City Attorney of Santa Rosa, who has retired here in town. I thank Mr. Farrell on behalf of my colleagues. After 4 hours of testimony and deliberation on Tuesday, the Council unanimously adopted a motion advancing what I hope is the mutual interest of the City and Valero in providing enhanced air monitoring for the public, as well as better communication between the two parties. We also appreciate the donation to the City Fire Department by Valero of three mobile air monitors.

Brien Farrell 4:34 PM (7 hours ago)
To Mayor, Steve, Mark, Alan, Tom

Mayor Patterson and Councilmembers:

I watched portions of last night’s council meeting on line and I watched the entire discussion surrounding the motion that was adopted.

I have attended hundreds of city council meetings. Your preparation, civility and thoughtful crafting of a compromise was a model of good government.

Our family thanks you. Air quality and economic stability are important to all of us. Our middle son is the special education coordinator at Robert Semple Elementary School. He had to be rushed to the hospital the day of the flare-up in May 2017. He did not know whether he was having a cardiac or pulmonary emergency. He had never experienced anything similar.

Evacuation planning and air quality monitoring are both critical. We strongly support local, state and federal oversight. In my past career as a city attorney, I routinely observed that local government is the most responsive and accountable.

Our son has been cleared to donate his kidney to another Benicia teacher on December 17, 2018, at the UC Davis Hospital. Upon his return to work, we worry that he might be exposed to another major air quality event or cumulative harm. Everyone assures us that his health will be normal after the kidney transplant. We would like all foreseeable risks to be minimized.

Your ongoing efforts to promote maximum transparency and protections that are fair and reasonable are much appreciated. We urge the city to impose local regulations, if it is not possible to reach compromises in six months.

Thank you for your service and dedication.

#NEVERAGAIN, #thisismylane, #thisisourlane, Gun control, Gun violence, National Rifle Association

Doctors clash with NRA over gun deaths – #thisisourlane

November 22, 2018 Roger Straw

Repost from the Vallejo Times-Herald
[Editor: For fuller coverage and graphic images, see the Chicago Tribune. – RS]

Doctors clash with NRA over gun deaths

By Lisa Marie Pane, The Associated Press, November 22, 2018

Dr. Deborah Greenhouse of Palmetto Pediatric in Columbia, S.C., works on her laptop. Greenhouse is one of several doctors joining a social media storm over guns and doctors, sparking a fight between the physicians and the National Rifle Association. BRISTOW MARCHANT — THE STATE VIA AP

The photos from doctors came quickly and in succession: blood-stained operating rooms, blood-covered scrubs and shoes, bullets piercing body parts and organs.

The pictures on Twitter were an emotional response to a smack down by the powerful gun industry lobby, which took issue with the American College of Physicians’ call late last month for tighter gun control laws. The recommendations included bans on “assault weapons,” large capacity magazines and 3D printed firearms.

“Someone should tell self important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves,” the National Rifle Association tweeted.

Physicians across the United States seized on the phrasing, taking to Twitter with 22,000 comments and the hashtags #thisismylane and #thisisourlane, posting photos of their encounters with gun violence and offering their own personal stories of treating such
wounds.

The debate gained new urgency this week with the shooting death of an emergency room doctor outside the hospital where she worked, as physicians argue shootings are a public health crisis that they must play a key role in trying to stem. Dr. Tamara O’Neal was killed Monday outside a hospital in Chicago in what police say was a dispute with her ex-fiance. The shooter and two other people — a responding police officer and a resident in the hospital’s pharmacy — also died.

“It just shows that not only is this is in our lane, but this happens to us,” said Dr. Joseph Sakran, a trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore who as a 17-year-old was shot in the throat by a stray bullet fired during a dispute at a high school football game.

Sakran created a Twitter account @ThisIsOurLane which in just two weeks has attracted nearly 15,000 followers. They include Dr. Peter Masiakos, a pediatric trauma surgeon in Boston, who wrote “The Quiet Room” just hours after the mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, about breaking the news that a loved one has died.
“We need to start talking about this as a public health issue. Politics aside, we have a problem that no other country has, and we shouldn’t,” Masiakos said.

About 35,000 people each year are killed by guns in the United States, and about two-thirds are suicides. That’s about 670 people per week and among the largest number of civilian gun deaths in the world.

The world’s highest rate of gun deaths is in El Salvador with a rate of 72.5 per 100,00; the rate in the U.S. is 3.1 per 100,000. Among all European countries, the rate never breaks 1 gun death per 100,000, according to Small Arms Survey, a Switzerland-based research organization that examines firearms and violence.

#NEVERAGAIN, March For Our Lives, Mass shootings

Desmond Tutu awards peace prize to Parkland shooting survivors

November 20, 2018 Roger Straw

Repost from NBC News

“I am in awe of these children,” Tutu said at the ceremony on Tuesday.

Image: March For Our Lives — Emma Gonzalez and other Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students conclude the March For Our Lives in Washington on March 24. Shawn Thew / EPA file

By Associated Press, Nov. 20, 2018 / 9:56 AM PST

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Parkland students who created an international movement to raise awareness for gun violence after a deadly school shooting were awarded the International Children’s Peace Prize on Tuesday.

During a ceremony in Cape Town, South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu presented the award, calling the student organization March For Our Lives one of the most significant youth-led mass movements in living memory and its founders “true change-makers.”

“I am in awe of these children, whose powerful message is amplified by their youthful energy and an unshakable belief that children can — no, must — improve their own futures,” Tutu said.

In the moments after 17 of their classmates and teachers were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez, Delaney Tarr, Ryan Deitsch and Jaclyn Corin and more than a dozen others sprang to action, doing countless media interviews, grilling lawmakers about gun reform during town halls, and sparking massive walkouts and peaceful protests at schools across the country.

Matt Deitsch, a Parkland alumnus whose two younger siblings were students at the time of the shooting, immediately left college to help form March For Our Lives.

Hogg, Gonzalez, Corin and the Deitsch brothers were in South Africa to accept the award. Gonzalez said the award “serves as a major reminder that the universe is on the side of justice and that we will win because our cause is one of peace.”

Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin was killed, also spoke during the ceremony. The group was joined by two students from Chicago Strong, a youth-led initiative to end gun violence in their hometown, who have worked closely with their cause.

Cameron Kasky, center, speaks at a news conference on June 4, 2018, in Parkland, Florida, where a group of school shooting survivors announced a multi-state bus tour to “get young people educated, registered and motivated to vote.” Wilfredo Lee / AP

Since the Valentine’s Day massacre, the students have gained international attention, raised millions of dollars from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney for their grassroots movement and made a slew of television appearances.

Hundreds of thousands attended their Washington, D.C., march this spring to raise awareness about gun violence and advocate for safer schools. Many of the students have called for a ban on assault rifles and universal background checks. The organization says more than 25 states have passed legislation consistent with their cause, including Florida.

Over the summer, the students hit the road, visiting 80 communities in 24 states to help register young voters and spread their message about gun violence. Their tireless efforts even landed them on the cover of Time magazine.

Marc Dullaert, founder of KidsRights and the International Children’s Peace Prize, said the students “transformed a local community protest into a truly global youth-led and peaceful protest-movement.”

In Parkland on Tuesday, a charity group pledged $1 million to create artworks to help the community heal.

Bloomberg Philanthropies said it’s making the grant to Parkland and Coral Springs for their project, “Inspiring Community Healing After Gun Violence: The Power of Art.” Five artists and teams will create temporary projects for public display. Community workshops and talks will discuss using art for emotional healing.

Most of the 17 victims were from the cities.

The charity was founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who started the news agency bearing his surname. He has been an outspoken supporter of groups with the goal of decreasing gun violence.

Keeping Watch on Earth News

Council: Let’s get creative so that we don’t have another dirty election in 2020

November 20, 2018 Roger Straw

An email sent to Benicia City Council and staff by Roger Straw (also published in the Benicia Herald and Vallejo Times-Herald)

Massive intrusion of big money in our local election

By Roger Straw, November 12, 2018

In an online forum, Vice Mayor Steve Young congratulated City Council members-elect Strawbridge and Largaespada, and wrote, “While I was a strong supporter of Kari Birdseye, and joined all the candidates in decrying the over the top PAC spending and the false charges made against her, the voters have spoken….I pledge to work with both of the new Council members on issues of mutual agreement, and to disagree where I must. There are lots of issues to address in the City, and it’s time now to buckle down and get to work.”

Admirable of Steve, and necessary for all Council members going forward. I’d like to write about one of those issues the Council needs to buckle down and get to work on.

There are lessons to be learned from this contentious election. Many of Kari Birdseye’s supporters have, like Steve, expressed deep disappointment over the massive spending in our local election by a political action committee (PAC) organized by Valero Services Inc. and a coalition of labor groups. The PAC spent more than 3 times the combined spending of the four candidates, over $200,000. That’s about 10 times what each of the 3 major candidates spent. Many in Benicia are concerned about this as a possible trend, given the “Citizens United” decision of our U.S. Supreme Court which allows corporations and PACS to spend without limit in our elections.

Online expression of these concerns and post-election analyses has been criticized. One responder wrote, “Losers are right to be disappointed, but me thinks they give too much credit to Valero.”

I’m sure there are multiple factors for the Council race outcome, so I’ll agree that Valero – and labor – doesn’t get ALL of the “credit.” But I’d prefer to term it “discredit.” Valero/Labor money from Benicia, Texas, Sacramento and Los Angeles – paying for smears, misinformation, scare tactics and professional and pervasive print, digital, phone and canvassing support for chosen candidates (and AGAINST a singular candidate) – was surely one of the major factors. And the message they will take away is that they won. We can expect huge PAC influence again in 2020.

What, if anything, can our community do to prepare? I’m not at all sure. Maybe it falls to our newly elected Council – including Strawbridge and Largaespada who were publicly and highly critical of the Valero/Labor PAC’s tactics – to take a new look at our 2008 campaign finance ordinance.

Do Council members ONLY object to the negativity and false charges thrown around by the PAC? Or do they ALSO object to the massive intrusion of big money into our local elections? Given the legality of such outside meddling under current U.S law, how can our Council members get creative to prepare for another election in which big business and big labor outspend a candidate by a factor of 10? How can we get creative on this… before 2020?

Roger Straw
Benicia