[Note from BenIndy: Did you know that the Benicia Arsenal employed many women during WWII (and the Korean War)? We could still have some WWII Rosies here in town, and it’s a near certainty that we have several Rosie descendants residing in Benicia today. If you know anyone who is a WWII Rosie, related to one, or otherwise connected to one, check out this event. Only four hundred tickets will be issued and it looks like Rosies, their friends and their families will get priority.]

Click the image to be redirected to the event’s webpage on the Rosie the Riveter Trust website.

Rosie the Riveter Trust, February 2, 2024

RICHMOND, CA – A Congressional Gold Medal will be awarded collectively to women referred to as “Rosie the Riveter” (those who joined the workforce during World War II manufacturing the aircraft, vehicles, weaponry, ammunition and other necessary materials and services to win the war) in recognition of their contributions to the United States and the inspiration they have provided to ensuing generations.

Rosie the Riveter Trust, in collaboration with prominent organizations dedicated to honoring the Rosie the Riveter legacy, has a call to action to invite as many Rosies to Washington, DC for the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal on April 10, 2024 at the United States Capitol.

If you know a Rosie the Riveter who is interested in traveling to Washington DC for the presentation, please fill out a registration request at rosietheriveter.org. Here, you can also find more information on Rosie the Riveter Trust and their mission to raise funds to support a contingent of Rosie Ambassadors and Trust staff to take part in this monumental occasion.

These women, since represented by the famous “We Can Do It!” poster that personifies female empowerment, strength, resilience, and contributions to the workforce and the nation, can now rally around this award, knowing their contributions have been honored and that “They Did It!”

California Forever Inc., Fairfield CA, Flannery Associates, Solano County CA, Solano County Orderly Growth Committee, Solano Together, Travis Air Force Base, Vallejo CA

Join the Solano Together Coalition Launch This Sun., Feb. 4, 12pm in Suisun City

February 2, 2024 BenIndy

[Note from BenIndy: Registration appears to be required for this event, and it looks like tickets are going quickly. Sign up now if you’d like to join. After you sign up to join the exciting launch of Solano Together, check out its first response to California Forever’s 83-page initiative HERE (the initiative text itself is HERE). Sign up to support or learn more about Solano Together HERE. Some images shown below are not original to the Solano Together news release and were added by BenIndy.]

Clicking the image will redirect you to the page for this event where you can register. Another link to the registration page is below.

Bringing Solano Together – Coalition Launch

Join us in celebrating the official launch of the Solano Together Coalition, on February 4, at 12:00 pm. The event will be held at the Joseph A. Nelson Community Center located on Village Drive in Suisun City.

Come meet the coalition, break bread with neighbors, and hear from local leaders about why NOW is the time to bring Solano Together to fight for our collective future. We welcome all people from all backgrounds—whether you’re already part of the coalition, or still trying to figure out what’s going on, this is a perfect opportunity to find out more, connect with our member organizations, and at the very least, have a fun-filled afternoon!

Coalition supporters such as the Mayor Pro-Tem of Suisun City, Princess Washington, Congressman John Garamendi, Solano Farm Bureau President Will Brazelton, and more will address the audience and share their concerns about California Forever’s sprawl development plans and their vision for Solano County.

This event event is FREE and open to the public but capacity is limited. Registration is required.

REGISTER HERE

Solano Together members waved signs at the California Forever Benicia Town Hall on December 18, 2023. | Image by BenIndy, free and fine to reuse.

Benicia CA, Price gouging

New gas industry watchdog’s suggested anti-price-gouging reforms generate some hope, but also skepticism and impatience

February 1, 2024 BenIndy

[Note from BenIndy: Remember the article alleging exactly why Valero commanded higher profits in California compared to other regions, and how Senate Bill X1-2 sought to shield Californians from gasoline price spikes? Tai Milder, director of the new Division of Petroleum Market Oversight, issued a letter with a few potential reforms that could decrease the volatility of CA’s gas market. The letter is an important read but if you don’t have the time this SacBee article offers a great, quick analysis of the contents – and notes the immediate frustration voiced by the Consumer Watchdog that the development of a penalty structure for price gouging has been delayed. The images in this post were added by BenIndy and are not original to the SacBee post.]

Consumer watchdogs seek to shield Californians from insane gas-price spikes. | Uncredited image from 2022.

SacBee, by Ari Plachta, February 1, 2024

California’s new gasoline industry watchdog wants to see mysterious price spikes at the pump come to an end. After months of investigation, he shared options for how energy regulators could stop them — penalties not yet included.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointed director of the new Division of Petroleum Market Oversight said the California Energy Commission should impose additional transparency in the daily gasoline market and require oil refineries to store supplies in a Wednesday letter.

“In California we have unexplained price spikes,” said Tai Milder in a news briefing. “Our core goal is to protect consumers. That doesn’t mean the absolute level of prices but making sure prices are set in a fair manner.” Fuel prices have stabilized somewhat. A gallon of gasoline today costs $4.537 on average in California, 2 cents lower than last month and about the same as last year, according to the latest prices from AAA.

Image from the California Energy Commission’s November 28, 2023 “SBX1-2 Workshop on Maximum Gross Gasoline Refining Margin and Penalty” presentation. To learn more about this workshop, click this link. You will be redirected to the workshop page on the CEC’s website.

They are far lower than the summer of 2022 spike that sent lawmakers into a special legislative session to address oil price gouging. At that time, average fuel costs rose to a sky-high $5.52 a gallon.

The governor signed Senate Bill X1-2 last March, establishing the new watchdog division within the California Energy Commission. In September, the division highlighted a suspicious trade on the state’s real-time market for gasoline that quickly caused a 50-cent-per-gallon price spike.

At the time, Milder called the single transaction “unusual” and said it may be a result of the underlying structure of California’s gasoline market. He also criticized refiners for failing to maintain adequate inventories of refined gasoline.

In a new letter to the governor, Milder pointed to two reform options he said would reduce the risk of price spikes.

The first is to publish a daily report on trading information in the real-time spot market for gasoline, which he said would decrease volatility in that unregulated facet of the state’s gasoline economy with an outsized influence on prices.

“It appears that spot market volatility, illiquidity, and lack of transparency may all be contributing to and exacerbating price spikes during periods of under-supply and refinery maintenance,” Milder wrote in the letter.

He also recommended imposing minimum gasoline storage requirements for refiners. Milder said when refineries are undergoing maintenance, they often haven’t maintained adequate levels of inventory. This drives down supply during periods of high demand and contributes to price spikes.

Next up, the watchdog division will issue additional data transparency regulations this spring and determine whether to set a refining margin and penalty by the end of the year.

Advocates with the Consumer Watchdog group were quick to criticize a delay in the division’s timeline. Milder had initially set out to issue a penalty recommendation this summer, in time for peak travel season.

“Californians cannot wait an extra six months for the price gouging penalty promised them last year,” said the group’s president Jamie Court. “Governor Newsom needs to put his foot in the Energy Commission’s a– and get them moving quicker if he is going to deliver.”

But Severin Borenstein, director of the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, considered the delay a wise decision. Setting up the market oversight division is time consuming, and implementing a gasoline storage requirement will be extremely complicated.

“This was never going to be a quick fix,” Borenstein said. “Creating the penalty structure is going to be extremely challenging, too. The downside of getting it wrong is it could really create disruptions in the market.”

California Forever Inc., Fairfield CA, Flannery Associates, Slow Growth, Solano County CA, Travis Air Force Base

‘California Forever? Never’

January 31, 2024 BenIndy

Vallejo Times-Herald, by Vicki Gray, January 28, 2024

The Vallejo Times-Herald, the Vacaville Reporter, and now, in a two-page spread, the New York Times have done a good job reporting on the strong-arm tactics of Jan Sramek and a who’s who of billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalists to buy huge chunks of Solano County and change its character — tactics U.S. Rep. John Garamendi has called “mobster techniques.”

Flannery Associates, the tech brothers holding company for California Forever, has been secretly buying farmland between Rio Vista and Fairfield for six years to build, it claims, a model city of 50 to 200,000 — a sort of Villages North or, as Garamendi put it, Disneyland.

At a Rio Vista press conference last Wednesday, to which only supporters were granted entrance, Sramek announced a proposal full of pie-in-the sky promises — lacking any concrete detail — that it intends to get on the November ballot as an initiative. Having already spent close to a $1 billion on its land purchases, you can count on Flannery spending huge amounts to secure the 18,500 signatures it needs to get the ballot initiative approved. It has already blanketed the county with slick brochures, billboards, and contact offices. Typical of his cocky, in-your-face stance with local residents and officials, Sramek told those at Wednesday’s meeting, “We’re going to spend as much as we need to win” and “I am going to make this happen no matter what.” [Emph. added by BenIndy.]

Despite the reporting to date, major questions remain unanswered. What, for example, are the true plans of this venture capitalist initiative? Have the tech brothers really thrown millions into this project to solve San Francisco’s housing shortage by infill in Solano County? If you believe that, I’ve got a nice bridge to sell.

And, if in fact they are actually so altruistic, why begin this in secret. Why didn’t they begin by asking county residents: “Do you need more affordable housing? If so, where?” Why not begin infilling existing cities like Vallejo and Fairfield as envisaged by the county’s slow growth plan?

What sorts of industries will be brought into Flannery’s new empire — far greater than the new city’s footprint — to provide the “good jobs” for the new residents? Why would it not make more sense to contribute to the clean energy development of Mare Island?

What spade work has been done to ensure adequate public services — police, fire, schools? Or is California Forever to be a private company town like Spreckels in the Salinas Valley?

And how about water? Per reporting in the Times-Herald and Reporter, Mr. Sramek claims that there are parties in Northern California looking to sell water and that California Forever is already in conversation with them. Oh? Who are these “parties”? From what will the water be diverted? Farms? Bottom line, California Forever is but the latest in a long line of big money hustlers swooping into town confident they can convince people they see as job-hungry country bumpkins to buy into another destructive pig-in-a-poke.

Remember State Farm, Bechtel/Shell’s LNG plant, and that concrete plant on Vallejo’s waterfront? [Note from BenIndy: Read more about that concrete plant here.]

Let’s show them that we’re a little more sophisticated and possessed of a lot more dignity and self-respect than they can imagine. Joining the burgeoning opposition at www.solanotogether.org, let’s show Mr. Sramek that we will do whatever it takes to make sure he does not win.

— Vicki Gray/Vallejo

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BenIndy on the proposed Flannery Inc. land grab.