Tag Archives: Benicia City Council

Valero’s Benicia Refinery, located near homes, schools, and parks, has placed – and will continue to place – residents at risk during dangerous incidents or regulatory violations. Despite years of accidental spills and emissions as well as many documented violations (some egregious), Valero has maintained its historic hostility to both citizen- and City-led proposals for local oversight. | Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub.

By Stephen Golub, January 26, 2025

On Tuesday, February 4, we can help protect Benicia’s kids and grandkids and all the rest of us by attending the 6 pm City Council meeting, in person or via Zoom, to show support for the draft Industrial Safety Ordinance (ISO) that the Council will soon vote on. The measure can reduce the risks of toxic emissions, fires and explosions at the Valero Refinery and other covered businesses. You can supplement your attendance by emailing your support to Mayor Steve Young, Vice Mayor Trevor Macenski and Council Members Kari Birdseye, Lionel Largaespada and Terry Scott, at

SYoung@ci.benicia.ca.us (Mayor Young)
TMacenski@ci.benicia.ca.us (Vice Mayor Macenski)
KBirdseye@ci.benicia.ca.us (Council Member Kari Birdseye)
LLargaespada@ci.benicia.ca.us (Council Member Lionel Largaespda)
TScott@ci.benicia.ca.us (Council Member Terry Scott)

Why is this so vital? Well…

Imagine you had a neighbor who had a backyard business that they repeatedly said was safe. But lo and behold, you found out that for many years the business had emitted toxic fumes dangerous to the health of your kids and grandkids and yourself.

What’s more, this was by no means the only such hazardous action by them. And some such actions also pose the risk of fire and explosions.

After all this, the neighbor sends a letter that could be seen as a threat to sue you if you seek firmer guarantees than a supposed safety-enhancing understanding you two had, which in fact had failed to ensure safety from their fumes. And folks affiliated with them reject initial attempts to discuss such guarantees. (But the neighbor does buy your kids little league uniforms as a gesture of goodwill.)

Would you feel safe? Would you want more assurance to protect the kids from toxic fumes, fires and explosions?

That’s pretty much the choice Benicia faces. On February 4, the City Council will start to consider the ISO. The measure requires that the Valero Refinery and other potentially dangerous businesses provide us with more information about their operations and accidents, information that could protect our kids and all of us from dangerous emissions and potential fires and explosions.

This should be a no-brainer. Drafted with great dedication and diligence by Council Members Birdseye and Scott as well as Fire Chief Chadwick and other personnel, the ISO gives Benicia a seat at the table in knowing what’s going on.

This in turn helps prevent dangerous events. If we’d had such a seat for the past 20 years, we might have avoided 15-plus years of Valero spewing toxic emissions hundreds of times the legal limits into our air, as well as some of the numerous other violations it committed.

The need for the ISO has increased greatly recently. With a new administration in DC backed by fossil fuel industry interests, the federal Environmental Protection Agency will almost certainly reduce its crucial role in protecting our health and safety.

Right now, all we have with Valero is a Memorandum of Understanding that the corporation can walk away from pretty easily.

The ISO would instead be binding on and paid for by Valero and other covered businesses.

All other refinery-hosting communities in the Bay Area have such ISOs; we’re merely seeking the same sort of prevention and protection for our health and safety.

As I’ve said before, I greatly respect our valued neighbors and friends who work or worked hard at the refinery. But Valero’s Texas headquarters calls the shots. We’re the ones who suffer if something goes wrong, not those San Antonio-based executives.

The threat of emissions, fires and explosions may seem far away. Many LA residents had similar thoughts before firestorms raced through their communities. Unlike them, we can take a specific step – the ISO – to reduce risks.

By showing up at the February 4 meeting and emailing our City Council members, we can help preserve this wonderful town that we love.

Speaking of the Council, it’s time for these dedicated public servants to stand up together for Benicians’ health and safety.

It’s time for our City leaders to lead.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Stephen Golub, Trump

We’re Not Alone: MLK’s Dream, Not the Trump Nightmare, Should Define January 20

January 20, 2025 Roger Straw

Dr. King Saw the Civil Rights Movement as Part of a Global Struggle. That Means Even More Today

By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, A Promised Land – America as a Developing Country [sta_anchor id=”top” /]

**Click for info on Benicia celebration of MLK Day, Monday 1/20/25, 7pm**

So, Inauguration Day is here. Our president is a racist, rapist, insurrectionist and narcissist, as well as a corrupt, convicted crook – to put it mildly. But to get through today’s dismay, and to take heart for the next four years, it’s far better to make January 20 about the other event it commemorates: Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This includes learning from Dr. King’s under-appreciated dream about how the fight for freedom in America relates to similar struggles abroad, in stark contrast with Trump’s nightmarish outlook.

Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue

Trump famously proclaims his stand-alone America First worldview, including disdain for democratic allies and praise for autocrats such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Like Trump, Orban won and then lost his post and then regained it. Having hobbled a once-vibrant democracy by partly crippling his country’s courts, free press and opposition, his rule represents a potential model for Trump’s second term.

Then there’s Trump’s imperialistic impulse to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal and even Canada. Whether or not he’s wholly serious, he’s certainly undercutting the case America could make against both Russia’s calamitous attacks on Ukraine and China’s potential plans to seize Taiwan. He strengthens those repressive, aggressive regimes’ international hands in the process.

Immigration similarly reflects his outlook. There are legitimate debates to be had about how to handle this issue. But Trump trashes any notion of nuance and compassion as he seeks to turn our land of immigrants into a place that resents new arrivals, ridiculously accuses them of stealing and eating Americans’ pets, and vows to end constitutionally guaranteed birthright citizenship.

He Had a Dream

Compare what Trump’s inauguration augurs with Dr. King’s role in the world and how he saw America fitting in. One lesser-known aspect of his work was its international dimension. In a 1957 sermon, after returning home from ceremonies celebrating Ghana’s independence from British colonial rule, he placed the U.S. civil rights movement within the larger context of human rights and anti-colonial campaigns across the globe. As he emphasized, “[F]reedom never comes on a silver platter. It’s never easy.”

Traveling to India in 1959, he wrote that “India’s [Mahatma] Gandhi was the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.” He further linked “the Christian doctrine of love” to the Hindu leader’s words and actions.

Dr. King supported and inspired other human rights struggles abroad. He helped mobilize international opposition to the South African government’s 1957 prosecution of Nelson Mandela and 155 other anti-apartheid activists for alleged treason. Mandela in turn echoed King’s resounding “Free at last!” cry on several occasions, including when proclaiming his party’s 1994 election triumph that capped the end of apartheid.

We’re Not Alone

With Trump’s nightmare ascendant and Dr. King’s dreams currently eclipsed, these are dark days. They will grow darker in the months to come. Here and around the world, it may seem that an autocratic tide could become a tsunami.

But Dr. King’s global role reminds us that we are not alone in our communities or country. The struggle for freedom and justice stretches beyond our shores. Such fights ebb and flow. Even today’s body blows can give way to triumphs tomorrow.

Other nations can thus inspire us to persevere despite the storms ahead. In recent years we’ve seen once-resilient autocrats defeated in Bangladesh, Brazil, Poland, South Korea and Syria. And even in Hungary, the authoritarian Orban’s party suffered setbacks in 2024’s European Parliament elections.

The tide can turn. Not necessarily. Certainly not immediately, as we lick our wounds and watch what outrages, weaknesses, self-inflicted injuries, surprises and successes emerge from Trumpworld (including, we can hope, some steps that might even do some good). But with patience and determination, we may well develop effective strategies to help our democracy survive and thrive – not least if we learn from other countries, as Martin Luther King Jr. did.

Or as Dr. King might have put it: We shall overcome.

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land

We’re Not Alone: MLK’s Dream, Not the Trump Nightmare, by Stephen Golub.

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Benicia City Council, Benicia elections, Christina Gilpin-Hayes, Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris for President

Gilpin-Hayes for City Council is Crucial. Harris Will Win. And How You Can Help Both

November 2, 2024 BenIndy

Author Stephen Golub: Christina Gilpin-Hayes and Kamala Harris are remarkable candidates representing real change and progress at both the national and local levels. (Names and images are for identification only and do not imply mutual endorsement or the support of other organizations.) | Images sourced from campaign websites.

By Stephen Golub, November 2, 2024

Many Benicians haven’t yet voted. So some final thoughts on two impressive candidates:

Christina Gilpin-Hayes for City Council

Democrat Gilpin-Hayes is a breath of fresh air and ideas. This includes extensive community engagement, innovative outreach to Benicians, responsibly backing revenue-enhancing ballot measures so our town won’t topple off the fiscal cliff and supporting a strong industrial safety ordinance (ISO). The ISO becomes all the more vital in view of the Valero refinery’s ongoing issues, as reflected by the $82 million fine just imposed for its sixteen years of egregious toxic emissions.

Gilpin-Hayes’s long list of endorsers includes Mayor Young, Vice Mayor Scott, Council Members Birdseye and Campbell, former Mayors Hayes and Patterson, the Solano County Democratic Party and numerous County Democratic officials and candidates.

Her main competition for the slot, Republican Lionel Largaespada, shares his opponent’s community engagement. But he has tight associations with Texas-based Valero, including backing its dangerous plan to bring potentially explosive “bomb trains” through town and its political action committees’ massive backing for him in previous races. He may well oppose an ISO and otherwise accommodate the oil giant.

He was the Council Member most resistant to the potentially life-saving mask mandate back when Covid raged. His opposition to the ballot’s revenue measures and his current dubious budget math, which could cut City services, have been rightly criticized by Council Member Campbell and other fiscally responsible Benicians.

So what can you do? Reach out to the Gilpin-Hayes campaign at its website (https://www.christinaforbenicia.com/) in case it needs last-minute help. Spread the word to neighbors and friends who may be undecided or lacking information.

Kamala Harris for President

You’ve doubtless been bombarded with presidential election information, so I’ll keep this selective. Over 800 Republicans, conservatives, retired generals and admirals and former national security officials and top Trump aides have endorsed Harris and denounced Trump. The nonpartisan CATO Institute just released a report revealing that supposedly “tough on immigration” Trump was far softer than Obama and Biden on thousands of violent criminals who’d illegally entered the country.

Here’s why Harris will win:

Women far outnumber men in early voting, by a 10 percent margin, unnerving even leading Trump supporters. This could prove crucial, given the gender gap in candidate support, with females tending to back Harris and males favoring Trump.

A recent Gallup poll found that more Democrats (77 percent) are enthusiastic about voting than Republicans (67 percent) are.

Harris has a more proven and organized get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operation than Trump does, a phenomenon I witnessed during my recent canvassing in Pennsylvania.

Harris may benefit from an independent political action committee pouring up to $700 million into ads and messages in these closing weeks, based on its unprecedented (but admittedly unproven) rigorous testing process.

A comedian slamming Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s recent New York rally is infuriating Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania (which has almost 300,000) and elsewhere.

On the other hand, Trump’s own tactics could prove effective. His anger-inducing blame game could outweigh Harris’s GOTV ground game. But I’m betting on Kamala.

So what can you do? These final days are vital. Go to the Harris campaign’s volunteer site, https://go.kamalaharris.com/, particularly to sign up to call swing state voters. I just made such calls; it’s far easier than the site makes it look. Even one persuaded or mobilized pro-Harris voter per two-hour shift can prove crucial when multiplied by volunteers’ millions of calls.

Finally: Please also vote for Mayor Young, Council Member Macenski and revenue Measures F, G and H. And let’s hope that Election Day and the following days prove peaceful.

Arts Benicia, Benicia, Benicia City Council, Benicia's Budget Crisis, Vice-Mayor Terry Scott

Vallejo Sun: Benicia City Council saves Arts and Culture Commission in reorganization of advisory bodies

November 1, 2024 BenIndy

Artist Josie Grant’s *Jungle* piano showcases a lush rainforest teeming with colorful animals. After months of uncertainty, the Benicia City Council voted unanimously to keep the Arts and Culture Commission independent, rather than merging it with unrelated boards and commissions. | Will Stockton. (Photo not original to the Vallejo Sun article.)

Vallejo Sun, by Ryan Geller, October 30, 2024

BENICIA – The Benicia City Council voted unanimously to keep the city’s Arts and Culture Commission in its current form at a meeting on Tuesday, leaving it out of a budget-driven reorganization effort that combines commissions and reduces commission duties.

The council also preserved a key oversight power held by the Open Government Commission.

Community comment primarily focused on impacts to the Arts and Culture commission. Gallery owners, musicians and even the tuner of Benicia’s street pianos spoke passionately about the value of the Arts Commission at the council meeting.

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