Tag Archives: Benicia City Council

#wearamask, Benicia CA, Benicia City Council, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Face coverings, Omicron variant, Solano County CA, Solano County Health Department, Vaccine, Vaccine mandate

Solano County – No COVID update again…

NOTE: The information below is not the latest.  TAP HERE for today’s latest information.

By Roger Straw, Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Solano County usually updates its COVID-19 Dashboard between 4pm and 6pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but there was no Solano Covid-19 Dashboard update as of 7:30pm today, Wednesday, Feb. 16.  Check back here tomorrow.  See below for the County’s most recent report.  – R.S.

By Roger Straw, Monday, February 14, 2022

Solano County reporting 1,095 new COVID infections, 177 hospitalizations and 4 deaths.  Solano County and Benicia continue to experience an extremely high transmission rate!

Solano Public Health COVID dashboard, Monday, February 14, 2022:

DEATHS:  Solano reported 4 new deaths in today’s report, all over 65 years of age.  Trending: Eleven new deaths reported so far in February, all over 65 years of age.  The County has seen increasing COVID-related deaths each month since last November, rising to 30 in January.  (Compare with last winter: 24 deaths in January 2021, 42 in February and 33 in March.)  A total of 392 Solano residents have now died of COVID or COVID-related causes over the course of the pandemic.

CASES BY AGE GROUP: My color-coded chart (below) shows a record over time.  It shows an alarming steady increase among youth and children in Solano County.  The chart displays quarterly and recent snapshots in time by age group, each as a percentage of total cases since the outbreak began.  Increases are in red and decreases are in green as reported by Solano County.  Note the continuing increase among children & youth of Solano County.  The population of those age 0-17 in Solano County is roughly 22%.COMPARE – U.S. cases among children and youth aged 0-17 as percentage of total cases is 17.5% as of today.  (From the CDC covid-data-tracker.)

COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION RATE: Solano is experiencing an EXTREMELY HIGH transmission rate, with a total of 3,889 new cases over the last 7 days, down from 4,010 at last report, but still way up from around 500 at Christmastime.  CDC FORMULA: Based on Solano County’s population, 450 or more cases in 7 days places Solano in the CDC’s population-based definition of a HIGH transmission rate.  We would need to drop below 225 cases in 7 days to rate as having only MODERATE community transmission.

ACTIVE CASES: Solano’s 1,523 ACTIVE cases today is down from 2,517 at last report, our lowest since January 10, but still way up from the County’s 329 active cases on last December 1.

CASES BY CITY – Monday, February 14, 2022 (5 days since Solano’s last report):

  • BENICIA added 49 new cases today, a total of 2,971 cases since the outbreak began.  TRANSMISSION RATE: Benicia has seen 107 new infections in the last 7 days, far above the CDC’s HIGH rate of community transmission. For a city with Benicia’s population, anything over 27 cases in 7 days is considered HIGH TRANSMISSION. (See chart below.)  MASKS: >> At tomorrow’s Benicia City Council meeting, (Tues., Feb. 15), Council will consider whether and how to continue the citywide face mask mandate, in light of the State of California’s announcement that it will lift the statewide mandate on Feb. 16. >>Note that the Benicia City Council is considering adding multiple metrics rather than the single metric of the CDC’s 7-day case count to determine when it is safe to lift certain COVID restrictions (see Benicia Chooses to Continue Mask Mandate, 1/19/22).  Note above that Solano County is currently also experiencing EXTREMELY HIGH transmission.

  • Dixon added 50 new cases today, total of 4,070 cases.
  • Fairfield added 314 new cases today, total of 20,663 cases.
  • Rio Vista added 9 new cases today, total of 1,049 cases.
  • Suisun City added 77 new cases today, total of 5,456 cases.
  • Vacaville added 303 new cases today, a total of 19,009 cases.
  • Vallejo added 293 new cases today, a total of 24,344 cases.
  • Unincorporated added 0 new cases today, a total of 188 cases.

TEST RATE:  Solano County’s 7-Day Percent Positive Test Rate shot up after Christmas and has continued through today’s very high 15%, (although today’s report shows a drop from 19% at last report and has fallen steadily from a high of 36% on Jan. 19.)  Even so, SOLANO DOES NOT COMPARE FAVORABLY: The California 7-day % positive rate fell from 6.7% to 6.0% today.  [Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracking Center]  AND the U.S. 7-day % positive rate also fell today from 13.63% to 10.59%. [Source: CDC COVID Data Tracker.] 

HOSPITALIZATIONS:

CURRENT hospitalizations fell today from 80 to 72 persons.  Currently hospitalized persons in Solano peaked higher than ever before on Jan 22, at 207 persons in hospital. (The County’s previous high was 176 on Jan 7, 2021.)

TOTAL hospitalizations – Solano Public Health played catch-up today, dramatically updating its age and race hospitalizations charts today, adding 177 persons.  Of the 177, 4 were under age 18, 50 were age 18-49, 34 were age 50-64, and 89 were age 65+.  (Hospitalization by race data is often not reported.) Our total since the beginning of the outbreak is now 3,689 Solano residents hospitalized.

ICU Bed Availability in Solano County dropped slightly today from 21% to 20% available, in the Yellow danger zone.

Ventilator Availability  rose slightly today from 51% to 52% available. 

HOW DOES TODAY’S REPORT COMPARE?  See recent reports and others going back to April 20, 2020 in my ARCHIVE of daily Solano COVID updates (an excel spreadsheet).

>The data on this page is from the Solano County COVID-19 Dashboard.  The Dashboard is full of much more information and updated Monday, Wednesday and Friday around 4 or 5pm.  On the County’s dashboard, you can hover a mouse or click on an item for more information.  Note the tabs at top for “Summary, Demographics” and “Vaccines.”  Click here to go to today’s Solano County Dashboard.

See also my BENINDY ARCHIVE of daily Solano COVID updates (an excel spreadsheet).  I have also archived the hundreds of full CORONAVIRUS REPORTS posted here almost daily on the Benicia Independent since April 2020.

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Benicia CA, Benicia City Council, Benicia Vice Mayor Tom Campbell, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Face coverings, Mandatory face coverings, Mask mandate, Masks

VIDEO: Benicia City Council deliberates, hears public comment, and votes to lift mask mandate

By Roger Straw, February 16, 2022

For those with the stomach for it, here is the Benicia City Council’s Feb. 15 discussion and 4-1 vote to lift the citywide indoor mask mandate.  Fair warning: public comments were full of misinformation and self-centered right-wing talking points about individual freedom.  Vice Mayor Campbell was the only Council member with enough backbone and regard for scientific fact to oppose this action.  Thank you, Tom Campbell!  Republican Councilmember Largaespada led the anti-mask charge, and should pay the price when we go to the polls in November.  (See guide to the video time slots below.)

Benicia City Council video excerpt, Item 21B, Feb. 15, 2022

Guide to the video – The face covering discussion begins with the Staff Report…

    • 3:39:42 – City Manager Erik Upson
    • 3:45:00 – Council Questions – Macenski, Upson answer, Young, Upson and Stock answer
    • 3:49:45 – Largaespada slide presentation
    • 3:58:29 – Campbell slide presentation
    • 4:03:20 – PUBLIC COMMENT
    • 5:14:48 – WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENTS
    • 5:20:13 – Council deliberation
    • 5:40:10 – Motion by Largaespada to lift indoor mask mandate (second by Strawbridge)
    • 5:39:30 – ADJOURN
#wearamask, Benicia CA, Benicia City Council, Benicia Vice Mayor Tom Campbell, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Face coverings, Mandatory face coverings, Masks, Vaccine

Benicia City Council fails to continue science-based COVID protections, lifts mask mandate

February 16, 2022
By Benicia’s Dr. Richard Fleming
(Nextdoor post, reprinted here with permission)

Richard Fleming, M.D., Benicia, CA

On February 15, our city council voted to lift the indoor mask mandate by a vote of 4-1.

While their vote was not surprising, it was disappointing.

With 8 of the 9 Bay Area counties lifting county-wide masking orders, it would have been a stretch for Benicia’s city leaders to continue the local mandate.

In written and public comments, the main point I tried to make is that if one looks objectively at Benicia’s and Solano County’s numbers, we are far behind the rest of the Bay Area. Our cases are much higher. Our hospitalization rate is mid-range, but has increased since the city council last discussed the mandate in mid-January.

And, most concerning, our vaccination rate is significantly lower than the rest of the Bay Area. Excellent data shows that 3 shots are needed (or 2 shots, if the first is J&J) for optimal protection. Currently 43.2% of Benicia residents are optimally vaccinated. The other Bay Area counties have much higher vaccination rates.

The public comment period during the meeting was spirited, and many people called for the mandate to end. While I understand people’s frustration, the reasons people calling in gave for ending the mandate did not address our current situation with the pandemic. The reasons callers brought up included: masks don’t work, they are dangerous to your health, they are divisive, they are political, they have turned Benicia into a hateful angry town, they are a product of irrational fear, few people in the rest of the country wear masks and they are all doing just fine, and masks are hard on children.

Callers said mandates are unconstitutional and people should have the individual right to do what they want.

Since none of these comments addressed where the pandemic currently stands, they would have been equally applicable a year ago.

Leaving aside the question of children, there are rational opposing views to each of these statements, based on both scientific study and U.S. judicial history, but I will not revisit those here.

Specifically on the issue of children, I think a valid case can be made that children should no longer be required to wear masks. At the same time, there is little doubt that mask-wearing by children has helped save many teachers and grandparents from getting sick. But at this point, with numbers improving, it is probably time to for children to take their masks off.

Tom Campbell, Benicia Vice Mayor

Vice Mayor Tom Campbell was the lone vote to continue the mandate. He pointed to the hundreds of medical studies which confirm the effectiveness of masking. He also referred to the fact that our numbers do not yet support lifting this safety measure, though hopefully our numbers will be better soon.

Bottom line, I think the council lifted the mask mandate a bit prematurely. I think our numbers would improve more quickly had it been left in place, but hopefully they will continue to improve anyway. We in Benicia are substantially protected by what the rest of the Bay Area is doing, since we are not a walled-off island. And the fact the rest of the Bay Area has vaccinated such a high proportion of its population and succeeded in quashing the virus more effectively than we have will help things here in Benicia.

Ultimately, the two best things we can each do are get vaccinated and boosted, and to understand that actions we each take can have an impact on others. We live in a community, and we each have freedoms, but freedoms come with responsibilities towards others.

Benicia City Council, Benicia elections, Benicia Mayor Steve Young, Big Oil, Corporate influence, Local elections, Valero PAC, Valero Services Inc.

Benicia’s mayor calls out Valero’s big war chest ahead of election

The Vallejo Sun, By John Glidden, Feb 15, 2022

The Valero Benicia refinery

BENICIA – Mayor Steve Young says he’s displeased that Valero Benicia Refinery is poised once again to spend a large sum of money during the upcoming city council election.

The refinery dumped $200,000 into its Working Families for a Strong Benicia PAC last December, giving the PAC more than $232,000 ahead of the November 2022 election, according to campaign forms submitted to the Benicia City Clerk’s Office.

Benicia Mayor Steve Young.
Benicia Mayor Steve Young

Typically, a Benicia council candidate can expect to receive more than $20,000 in contributions over the span of an election or about 10% of what Valero has available.

The move has revitalized conversation in town between environmentalists seeking more regulations, the company, and local unions that are concerned that city officials want to shut down the plant.

Valero couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

Young — who said he issued his statement over the weekend only as a Benicia resident and not as mayor — admitted that what Valero was doing was legal but argued “it is wrong-and extremely harmful to our community.”

“There is only one purpose in making such a huge expenditure nine months before the election: to scare off any potential City Council candidate who would consider running without first getting Valero’s stamp of approval,” Young’s statement read. “What candidate is willing to go up against that kind of war chest?”

Valero opened its PAC ahead of the 2018 city council elections, ultimately backing Lionel Largaespada and Christina Strawbridge. Both were elected. The PAC publicly opposed Benicia Planning Commissioner Kari Birdseye. Two years later, the PAC once again backed Strawbridge, this time as she made a mayoral bid, while opposing Young. Despite the PAC spending $250,000 during that election, Young was elected.

Young and Birdseye served on the planning commission together when the body rejected the company’s crude-by-rail proposal in early 2016. The Benicia City Council went on to reject the project later that year.

Young wrote that Valero should have a say in the election but “they should also play by the same rules that apply to everyone else under our campaign finance regulations.”

Young said the city’s campaign laws allow a candidate to spend no more than $35,000 on a campaign. He argued Valero should be held to the same rule.

“But Valero’s size and wealth gives them the belief that they can pick and choose who should be our elected representatives,” Young added.

Young said that to stop Valero every council candidate should reject support it receives from the company.

“In addition, voters should demand that any candidate take a public and ongoing stand that Valero should not support their campaign in any way,” Young added. “I call on all prospective candidates in the November election to make this pledge. If no candidate is willing to be supported by this PAC, where will they spend all of their money?”

Young’s statement comes as the Valero refinery has been receiving some negative attention.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District announced in January that it was seeking a legally binding order against the refinery to correct “significant excess emissions violations.” The district alleges that Valero didn’t report that more than 8,000 tons of excess emissions came from the plant over a 16-year period.

Last November, a contractor was found dead hanging from a scaffolding ladder by his safety harness over a piece of refinery equipment.

Valero is the largest employer in Benicia, employing more than 400 people. The plant processed 165,000 barrels of oil each day, according to its website.

Campaign records show that from July 1 through Dec. 31, 2021, the PAC spent more than $5,000 with Sacramento-based Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leonli LLP for campaign services.

Young, who has opened a 2024 re-election campaign, reported raising no contributions and only spending $29 during the second half of 2021. The campaign reported having about $900.

Meanwhile, both Largaespada and Strawbridge, who are up for re-election this November, reported no activity during the same period.