Tag Archives: Benicia CA

Benicia CA, Just transition, Valero Benicia Refinery

Dirk Fulton: A Great Day for Benicia, Part Four

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL

BENICIA IS AT A CROSSROAD: WILL YOU TAKE ACTION TO SAFEGUARD OUR HEALTH BY WORKING TO CLOSE VALERO NEXT APRIL OR LET THE STATE DECIDE OUR FATE?

By Dirk Fulton, June 26, 2025

OUR ALARMING CANCER RATES

Valero oil refinery in Benicia CA. | Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle

There are several convincing reasons for the refinery to close as soon as possible. The most compelling is the significant adverse impact of Valero’s emissions on our health.

Benicia residents Dr. Richard Fleming and Stephen Golub have separately published well-researched articles describing that Benicia’s rates of cancer are much higher than Solano County and the State of California based on several data sources available from the County and the State.

I have many friends, neighbors and family members in town who are fighting cancer or have suffered from cancer. I imagine many of you do as well. The data is shocking:

    • Our rate of lung cancer appears to be 44% higher than the California rate.
    • Our prostate cancer rate appears to be 70% higher than the state’s.
    • Our breast cancer rate appears to be 94% higher than the state rate.

Thanks to the Air Board enforcement action against Valero, we now know that the refinery knowingly polluted us with highly toxic carcinogens over a recent 16-year period. The contaminants included known cancer-causing compounds like benzene, toluene, methylbenzene and xylene. The wrongful emissions exceeded Air Board standards by 360% and often constituted 2.7 metric tons of hazardous pollution daily.

Extensive medical studies from the United States (e.g., University of Texas Medical Branch) and internationally (e.g., Taiwan and Jordan) have found a well- documented connection between residents living in refinery communities and higher cancer rates. Benicia residents are unmistakably in harm’s way.

Some offer counter arguments that the above-described cancer data is “cherry-picked”, but they fail to offer any evidence or proof to support their claim. Until data is presented which indicates Benicia’s cancer rates are “normal”, the fact stands that the available data from the County and State shows that our cancer incidence is abnormally high.

THE CITY HAS A DUTY TO PROTECT US

The City of Benicia has an unconditional duty to protect our health and safety from toxic pollution no matter where the threat comes from. This is a basic obligation of local government that arises under its constitutionally guaranteed “police powers” to protect the health, safety and welfare of its community. The Industrial Safety Ordinance enacted by the City that was fought for tirelessly by community activists and opposed vigorously by Valero is a great start, but more action is needed. The recently established private “task forces” which lack formal public input and have no timetable for city action are not going to safeguard us from Valero’s cancer-causing pollution. If the city fails to act more broadly, it is exposing itself to potential liability for mass tort claims should Valero remain operating past its stated closure date of April 2026, as city leadership is now fully aware of Valero’s carcinogenic emissions, extensive record of violations and Benicia’s high cancer rates.

Valero fire 5/5/2025 | Larnie Fox

A summary of Valero’s environ-mental violations and penalties since 2003 clearly demonstrates the need for urgent action:

    • 2003-2005 EPA violations- $97,940.00
    • 2011-2015 Bay Area Air Board violations- $122,500.00
    • 2014-2016 EPA violations-$157,800.00
    • 2016 Bay Area Air Board violations- $249,000.00
    • 2017 Bay Area Air Board violations-$345,000.00 $191,500.00 settlements
    • 2021 Cal OSHA violations- $528,750.00
    • 2023 EPA violations-$1,224,000.00.00
    • 2024 CARB & Bay Area Air Board violations-$82,000,000.00
    • 2025 Bay Area Air Board violations pending (refinery fire)-$?

This astonishing record of chronic violations cries out for our city government to act to safeguard us from further harm, as the almost Eighty-Five Million Dollars ($85,000,000.00) in fines has not altered Valero’s conduct.

ACTIONS THE CITY CAN TAKE IMMEDIATELY

Benicia Mayor Steve Young, Vice Mayor Macenski, Councilmembers Birdseye, Largaespada, Scott.

The Mayor and City Council should act right away as follows:

    • Lobby Governor Newsom, the California Commission Energy and our legislative representatives to close the refinery according to the legal notice by Valero establishing an April 2026 Closure date without exception or further delay.
    •  Inform Valero that if they fail to close as scheduled, the city will exercise its police powers to:
      • Declare Valero a public nuisance and seek injunctions to abate violations and impose local penalties. The City of Torrance took such action and successfully declared Mobil Oil’s refinery a public nuisance in court after an explosion and fire.
      • Use municipal code enforcement including the newly adopted ISO to fine and/or shut down unsafe operations.
      • Rezone the refinery footprint area to phase out heavy industrial uses creating a Non-Conforming Use allowing the city to stop oil refining should the refinery operations cease operations for 120 days or longer. The City of Torrance has adopted this approach and amended its zoning ordinance to create a framework for phasing out non-conforming hazardous uses like oil refineries.
      • Impose a refinery tax such as the $1-per-barrel refinery excise tax proposed by the City of Richmond regarding the Chevron refinery. Chevron settled with Richmond prior to a public vote agreeing to pay $550 million over 10 years.

 TRAVIS AFB FALLACY & MISLEADING FINANCIAL DATA SUPPLIED BY THE CITY DO NOT SUPPORT DELAYING CLOSURE

Open Vjo 4/30/2025, KWright_USAF

The information about Travis AFB’s viability if Valero closes put forth by the city in citizen-paid, direct mail pieces is misleading. A Valero closure in April 2026 will not cause a Travis AFB closure when true facts are examined. This has been confirmed to me by a very high-ranking federal official. Travis AFB has been in operation since 1942 supplying military support during WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War- for over 27 years before Valero began supplying it with jet fuel. Extensive energy pipelines run under the bay from northern California to the air base, which served Travis and can be utilized again.

Additionally, the projected revenue loss from a Valero closure has been overstated by millions of dollars because current income such as property tax remains payable and other losses can be replaced with alternative revenue streams. (I have set forth these items in detail in prior articles.) Such alternatives include income from increased residential real property taxes, excess water revenues, port fees, development fees and Air Board settlement monies ear-marked for Benicia.

A GREAT DAY FOR BENICIA CAN STILL BE ACHIEVED

The risks of cancer and related social costs of having a 1960s-era oil refinery dominate our town can be avoided. I hope that our city leaders and citizens embrace Valero’s offer to close next April and unite to “pull out all the stops” to make sure it does shut down. Only then can we undertake a comprehensive site clean-up and establish a promising post-refinery future.  By seizing this rare opportunity, we can restore our clean air and achieve an image of Benicia as a healthy, historic community with a small-town atmosphere, inviting downtown, safe neighborhoods, and great schools.

Read Dirk Fulton’s series, A Great Day for Benicia

Dirk Fulton, Benicia

Dirk Fulton, Lifelong Resident & former Solano County Planning Commissioner, Vice Mayor, City Councilman & School Board President
For More Information visit: www.greatdayforbenicia.com

Democracy under attack, Donald Trump, Local vigilance, No Kings!

Benicia crowd of 1200+ protests Trump

NO KINGS DAY 2025 – One for the ages when we talk about political activism in Benicia

All photos by Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent

By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent, June 15, 2025

Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent

In the last few days before the NO KINGS! rally in Benicia, as the numbers of respondents came in, planners knew it was going to be big. We thought there might even be, say, 250 or 300, which would be huge by almost all previous Benicia activist crowds. Big indeed – most estimates of the crowd were well over 1,000 and up to 1,500!

Numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they tell a lot. This was a WOW! event in Benicia!

I arrived by car about a half hour early, expecting to help get things going. The sidewalks and park were already packed with people holding signs, chanting loudly and encouraging passing cars to honk their support.

I couldn’t find a parking place any closer than 3 ½ blocks away. Walking from there, we came upon an older couple like us, carrying signs and heading to the rally. After friendly greetings, the gentleman said he’d never protested during the ‘60s and ‘70s, and that this would be his first time attending a protest. Mary Susan got a good laugh when she responded, “Oh, we’re veterans at this and you’ll be fine!” We chatted some more, and learned that we’d all spent time living in Indianapolis, and so bonded as former Hoosiers.

The crowd in the park and all along the sidewalk was incredibly friendly. We hugged and chatted with lots of old friends, some of whom we hadn’t seen in years. We met new people and stood for pictures with our high-school graduate grandson, who arrived with a bunch of other Benicia High students. I’ve been to many protests, rallies and vigils in Benicia. You get used to seeing the same old (literally old) people. Not since March For Our Lives have I seen such a mix of young and old. Not since Black Lives Matter have I seen such a racially diverse crowd of concerned Benicians. And I’ve never seen such a wide spectrum of known and new folks. It was encouraging to know that NO KINGS has such a solid base of support in our small town. Yes!

Organizer Cathy Bennett came in her long red Handmaid’s Tale robe, and kicked off the event with a bullhorn welcome that could hardly be heard over the chants and cars honking.

Organizer Susan Street set up a welcome table and brought a portable bubble machine, which she carried around giving a celebratory light and life to the affair.

Later, Benicia Mayor Steve Young and City Councilmember Terry Scott spoke. And near the end of our time together, our State Senator Chris Cabaldon arrived and offered remarks. After his talk, I approached Chris with thanks, and with a knowing look that acknowledged the political assassination in Minneapolis that morning, I encouraged him to “be brave.”

I almost can’t express fully the sense I have that this gathering was historic for Benicia. And that the 2000+ similar rallies around the U.S. and abroad were also way larger than expected and peaceful, and strong in the growing public opposition to the Trump administration’s shockingly ambitious moves toward an authoritarian takeover that would destroy our democracy. The signs held up by protesters show us to be a thinking city, an aware and deeply concerned nation and world.

This can’t be the last such lifting of our voices in dissent. We continue to be a people of peace and kindness, a nation of liberty and justice for all. (See Benicia’s Juneteenth celebration.) In the “culture war” that is being promoted and executed by oligarchs and white Christian supremacists, we represent the backbone and vision of Dr. King’s long arc of the moral universe. “…the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Along with the rally signs, The Benicia Independent lifts a strong and insistent voice: Stop ICE! No Kings since 1776! Stop the cruelty! Liberty and justice for all! We will PERSIST and PREVAIL! Love always wins!

Roger Straw
The Benicia Independent

Benicia Mayor Steve Young, Democracy under attack, Donald Trump, Local vigilance, No Kings!, Vallejo-Benicia Indivisible

Benicia Mayor Steve Young: NO KINGS DAY Speech

Mayor Young receives kudos for his speech at the Vallejo NO KINGS DAY rally

Benicia Mayor Steve Young, NO KINGS, Vallejo, CA, 6/14/25. Photo: Vallejo-Benicia Indivisible.

[Editor’s comment: Several Benicians who were at the NO KINGS rally in Vallejo said Mayor Young’s speech was excellent. I asked Steve for a copy and here is what he sent. Note more photos and comments on Vallejo-Benicia Indivisible Facebook page. – R.S.]

By Benicia Mayor Steve Young, June 14, 2025

Back on Memorial Day  I gave a speech in which I decried the proposed  cuts of 83,000 jobs in the VA and speculated that cuts of this size would put veterans at risk.  Afterwards, I was criticized for politicizing the event. So I want to make it clear that I am speaking only for myself and not the City of Benicia.

On the opposite coast, a vanity birthday parade is costing $50 million. How many services to veterans could be paid for with that $50 million?

Let’s talk about what is happening in LA. What the feds are doing has multiple purposes.

    1. Spread a false narrative that all of LA is on fire and subject to riots and looting. When some anarchists or provocateurs, or the military itself, may instigate violence, it plays straight into their hands. It creates video clips that will play round the clock on Fox and during the 26 elections.
    2. It is also a blatant attempt to spread fear and to normalize the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
    3. Because nothing says things are normal like tanks in the streets of DC and marines in LA. Their purpose is to bully and intimidate the rest of us.

Trump is a man who prizes loyalty over the law, and control over freedom. In fact, his calls for law and order are empty as he does not respect the rule of law, and has no respect for due process.

And why the focus on LA? It is nearly half Latino, and immigrants are the lifeblood of that, and other communities.

ICE queen Kristi Noem says LA is a “city of criminals”, while Stephen Miller calls undocumented immigrants “invaders” and protestors as “insurrectionists”.

And why are they there? According to ICE Barbie, “To liberate Los Angeles and California from the socialist and bumbling failures of our Governor and the LA Mayor.”

In other words, if they disapprove of who we elect, they reserve the right to bring in the military to “liberate” us from our wrong-headed decisions.

The riots on Jan. 6, however, had real insurrectionists who took over the Capitol in an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power, who threatened to kill the VP, and attacked police resulting in multiple  deaths and injuries.

Meanwhile, not only was the national guard not called, but every single one of the convicted insurrectionists were pardoned. This gives ICE and other agents who may be enforcing illegal orders the belief that, even if they act in a clearly illegal manner, that they will be pardoned.

This is no longer about the mass deportation of violent criminal immigrants. Now, anyone who is undocumented is considered a criminal and an enemy – including children and US citizens.

It is worth noting that there has been no crackdown on employers of undocumented immigrants. No chicken or beef processing plant owners or farmers have been cited, much less arrested. Only their workers.

And somehow it is OK for ICE agents to be masked and operate without judicial warrants, but protestors who are masked are subject to arrest?

But maybe Trump is chickening out. Maybe his corporate billionaire advisers finally got through to him and made him  partly realize the utter insanity of his deportation agenda. That it is immigrants who keep our economy running. Who do the work that most Americans don’t or won’t do. Farm workers, domestic workers, hotel staff, construction workers, restaurant workers. These are the “really bad, violent” criminals we want to deport?

At midnight on June 13, Trump directed ICE to abruptly halt all immigrant raids at farms, restaurants, hotels, and the like. Trump also directed ICE to stop so-called ‘collateral arrests’ where ICE randomly detains and arrests non-criminal immigrants.

Is this real? Who knows? But I do know his policies are massively unpopular, and becoming more so by the day. And he caved before a single protestor hit the streets.

Does that mean we should not continue to protest? No, we need to do it louder and more often. Can we force him from office? Not until after the elections next year.

So what can we do?

As an elected official and a Democrat, I have a message to the Democratic Party.

Stop texting me every 15 minutes asking for money. Get away from the consultant class offering their ineffective advice. Get out into the field like Bernie and AOC  who drew huge crowds all across the country.

Is there a single Democrat in Congress calling for impeachment? Only Elon Musk.

What we need is our own Project 2029. What should it include?

    • Codify a woman’s right to choose
    • Codify equal rights and marriage rights for all
    • Institute universal health care or Medicare for All
    • Eliminate the electoral college
    • Eliminate the Citizens United decision
    • Term Limits across the board, including the Supreme Court
    • Prohibit gerrymandering
    • Make college affordable
    • Adopt common sense gun regulations
    • Tax the rich – no tax cuts for people making over $250k
    • Cap CEO pay at 35x lowest paid employees
    • Tax Megachurches
    • More renewable energy

These are things that polls have consistently shown are very popular with people. Democrats need to start working for what people want, not for what corporations will accept.

As we leave here to continue our right to assemble and exercise free speech, be careful. Don’t take the bait by allowing violence when instigators like anarchists, provocateurs or proud boys try to start something.

Our efforts can only prevail through continued nonviolent protest.

The founders fought a revolution to defeat the same things we are fighting.

    • Unlimited executive power
    • Use of a standing army to suppress dissent
    • Lack of due process
    • Suppression of freedom of assembly and free speech.

We are the defenders of our country and our Constitution.  Reclaim the flag. We are the real patriots. It is up to us. Complacency is not an option.