SACRAMENTO – As oil companies continue to evade questions about unexplained gas price increases, Governor Gavin Newsom today convened a special session of the California Legislature on December 5 to pass a price gouging penalty on oil companies that will keep money in Californians’ pockets.
The Governor’s action comes on the heels of a state hearingyesterday – which five major oil refiners refused to attend – to investigate this fall’s unprecedented spike in gasoline prices. This spike in gasoline prices resulted in record refiner profits of $63 billion in just 90 days, disproportionately affecting low- and middle-income families.
“Big oil is ripping Californians off, and the deafening silence from the industry yesterday is the latest proof that a price gouging penalty is needed to hold them accountable for profiteering at the expense of California families,” said Governor Newsom. “I’m calling a special session of the Legislature to do just that, and to increase transparency on pricing and protect Californians from outrageous price spikes in the future.”
Governor Newsom signs proclamation convening a special session to pass price gouging penalty on oil companies
This fall’s spike occurred while crude oil prices dropped, state taxes and fees remained unchanged and gas prices did not increase outside the western U.S., so the high prices went straight to the industry’s bottom line.
During the special session, the Legislature will also consider efforts to empower state agencies to more closely review gas costs, profits and pricing as well provide the state with greater regulatory oversight of the refining, distribution and retailing segments of the gasoline market in California.
Taking action to lower prices at the pump, Governor Newsom in September ordered the switch to winter-blend gasoline and demanded accountability from oil companies and refiners that do business in California. Since California’s record-high gas prices of $6.42, the Governor’s actions have reduced those prices to $4.95 most recently – a decrease of $1.47 since the peak.
In the third quarter of 2022, from July to September, oil companies reported record high profits:
The records were destroyed in early 2021 before their destruction was allowed under city policy.
Vallejo police officers shot and killed Mario Romero in his car on Sept. 2, 2012. The city says it ‘inadvertently’ destroyed records from Romero’s case. Photo: Vallejo Police Department.Vallejo Sun, by Scott Morris, December 1, 2022
VALLEJO – The city of Vallejo “inadvertently” destroyed audio and video records in five police shooting investigations from the department’s most violent two-year span before the material would have been publicly released as required by law, according to the Vallejo City Attorney’s Office.
The records were destroyed in early 2021 before their destruction was allowed under city policy. Assistant City Attorney Katelyn Knight revealed that they had been destroyed in a series of emails in response to several public records requests for audio and video materials by the Vallejo Sun.
Evidence destruction logs released by the city indicate that the evidence was destroyed on Jan. 11, Jan. 13 and Jan. 20, 2021, and each item indicates that the city attorney’s office approved their disposal. The Sun requested all police shooting records in the possession of Vallejo police in early 2019.
The records could have provided insight to one of the department’s most violent and scrutinized periods, when Vallejo police killed six people in 2012. Some of the records destroyed were from one of the most controversial shootings in the department’s history: the killing of Mario Romero by Officers Sean Kenney and Dustin Joseph on Sept. 2, 2012.
Romero was sitting with his brother-in-law in a parked car when officers approached them and allegedly told them to put their hands up. Kenney and Joseph fired at the car, reloaded and fired again, only stopping after Romero slumped back into the driver’s seat. Family members who witnessed the shooting say they saw Kenney continue to fire while standing on the car’s hood. Romero was shot 30 times and died at a hospital. In 2015, Vallejo paid a $2 million settlement to Romero’s family.
The records destroyed in the Romero investigation include recordings of interviews with Kenney and Joseph, interviews with witnesses, documents from those interviews and video of officers canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses, among other evidence, according to destruction logs released by the city.
According to the city’s retention schedule, it is required to retain such records for five years following closure of the case, well short of the 25 years recommended by the state Department of Justice. In the Romero shooting, the administrative investigation was not reviewed by then-police Chief Andrew Bidou until September 2016. The city destroyed the records on Jan. 11, 2021, less than five years after Bidou’s review, while several requests for the material were pending.
Knight said that the other shootings affected were the fatal shooting of 44-year-old Marshall Tobin by Officers Joseph McCarthy and Robert Kerr on July 4, 2012; the fatal shooting of 42-year-old William Heinze by Officers Dustin Joseph, Ritzie Tolentino and Josh Coleman on March 20, 2013; the fatal shooting of 57-year-old Mohammad Naas by Officer Steve Darden on June 8, 2013; and the injury shooting of Tony Ridgeway by Officer Josh Coleman on Aug, 24, 2013.
Coleman recently testified in Solano County Superior Court that after the Heinze shooting, then-Sgt. Kent Tribble bent the tip of his badge to mark the shooting in a bar across the street from police headquarters while Joseph was present. Coleman testified that no one would be allowed to watch the badge bending ritual unless they had also participated.
Coleman has since left the department to join the Napa County Sheriff’s Office and Joseph is a police officer in Fairfield, where he has been the target of protests following the revelations that officers participated in the badge-bending tradition.
The destroyed records had previously been secret under state law, but became public records after the state legislature passed SB 1421 in 2018, which made investigations into police shootings public records. The city received numerous public records requests for any such records once the law took effect on Jan. 1, 2019, but it has struggled to comply and has been releasing records at a snail’s pace for nearly four years.
Knight said that the city would not destroy any further records until its public records requests are completed and that the city had taken steps to ensure that no further records are destroyed.
But Knight declined to say what steps were taken. “While we are unable to share privileged communications from our office to City Departments, the City has in place an administrative process for records management,” she wrote.
Press Release, November 21, 2022 Contact: Elizabeth Patterson, elopato29@gmail.com
1,000 Friends Protecting Historic Benicia, a local non-profit, fights to save Officers’ Row, in the nationally recognized Benicia Arsenal Historic District, from city approved development that will destroy the district’s historic significance. The development threatens Civil-War era buildings and grounds surviving from President Lincoln’s commissioning of the Benicia Arsenal Army base.
Present-day aerial view of Benicia’s Officers’ Row
WHAT: 1000 Friends Protecting Historic Benicia is suing the City of Benicia to stop it from issuing permits and is seeking a peremptory writ of mandate ordering the City and its agencies and commissions to set aside and void the City’s recent approvals of two development projects in the Benicia Arsenal Historic District.
“Projects that destroy or impair the significance of a site on the National Register, as these projects do, clearly have the most significant adverse impact on historic resources,” said Gary Widman, former Chief Counsel for the California State Department of Parks and Recreation and the Office of Historic Preservation.
BACKGROUND: In August 2022, the City of Benicia approved two development projects for Officers’ Row in the heart of the Benicia Arsenal Historic District which the U.S. government listed on the National Register of Historic Places, deeming it worthy of preservation due to its historical significance to the country.
The Jefferson Ridge Project would build 121 housing units and 2,000 square feet of commercial/retail space on Jefferson Street, including the former flagpole assembly area between the Commanding Officer’s Quarters and the Lieutenant’s Quarters. A total of 16 three- story structures would flank Jefferson Street, dominating the three historic houses adjacent to this project and blocking character-defining views of the Carquinez Strait.
The 1451 Park Road Project, would build 17 apartments in 2 two-story buildings incompatible with the scale and style of the historic non-commissioned officers’ quarters immediately west on Jefferson Street.
Designated a State Historical Landmark in 1935, the Benicia Arsenal was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and was a key contributor to establishment of the National Park Service’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area in 2019.
The Arsenal’s Officers’ Row offers one of the nation’s most impressive ensembles of mid-19th-century military architecture and open spaces, largely intact as built over 150 years ago. Meticulously planned by the Army, the layout is a prime example of military site design, with careful thought given to building scale, placement, and sight lines.
The two projects needed the City of Benicia to determine that they qualified for fast-track approval under a new state law, California Senate Bill 35 (SB 35), that restricts review of projects to their consistency with “objective standards.”
Members of the community highlighted several conflicts with the Arsenal Historic Conservation Plan (AHCP) and objective planning and zoning standards for both projects. This included several standards for which the City claimed the projects demonstrated consistency.
The City subsequently removed many of the standards it had identified as conflicting with the projects as proposed.
The City also failed to incorporate many standards from the AHCP. In particular, a commenter stated that in reviewing the 1451 Park Road Project, the City only applied 37 of the 64 design standards and guidelines from the AHCP that apply to the design of residential buildings in Officers’ Row.
The City failed to consider public safety standards because City staff stated that Senate Bill 35 applications were not subject to any such standards, since they contain subjective as well as objective elements and therefore had to be considered subjective.
Despite the various inconsistencies, on August 26, 2022, the City issued ministerial approvals for both projects. The City subsequently denied members of the public the right to appeal the two projects.
ACTION: The lawsuit challenges both approvals based on errors in assessing environmental hazards and violations of City of Benicia ordinances concerning the current general plan and zoning.
1000 Friends Protecting Historic Benicia is a non-profit Benicia organization represented by attorney Doug Carstens, Chatten-Brown, Carstens & Minteer, a public interest-oriented law firm specializing in environmental and land use law. Individuals of the non-profit and other members of the public are on record with the City with many protest letters and public hearing appearances over the past two years. The goal of this campaign is to establish a park that will honor and protect the nationally recognized Arsenal Historic District forever.
What’s wrong with the process – ignoring Benicia’s fundamental constitutional vision
Open space along Lake Herman Road, in Benicia CA
By Elizabeth Patterson, Former Benicia Mayor, November 17, 2022
Last night the city of Benicia began the North Study Area “visioning” process for the 524 acres owned by Seeno. The North Gate Church setting was a perfect metaphor for what the challenges are for the near-by project site. Everyone had to drive to the meeting. And driving is the problem for any residential use of the Seeno property. But these notes should start at the beginning. Let me explain.
Benicia’s General Plan
The Benicia General Plan is our “constitution” of land use planning and management. Its goals and policies guide and implement the overarching goal or “vision” for Benicia planning. This plan was created by the General Plan Oversight Committee (GPOC), appointed by the then city council representing all sectors of the community. It adopted consensus decision making procedures and began by identifying shared values. Once those shared values were agreed to, GPOC began an exhaustive assessment of the city’s pattern of land use (residential, commercial, civic, cultural, recreation, manufacturing), its topography of hills, how cars, bicycles, pedestrian traffic moved, water supply, public safety, economics, environmental quality (air and water) and conservation including open space, habitat, and wetlands.
The overarching goal of the General Plan is sustainable development. And there are specific policies addressing future development of the Seeno property and adjacent land uses mindful of sustainability.
The “North Study Area” community meeting on Nov 16, 2022
Nowhere in last night’s presentation on stage or at the “open house” of poster boards was there any mention of the General Plan, our constitution of land use planning and management. Nowhere.
Nor was there mention of the hours of public conversations some of which were recorded, nor mention of the facilitated public gathering to gain community agreement on the highest and best use of the Seeno property. There was nothing said about the citizen study and 51-page report, Green Gateway Business Community. Nothing.
The current North Area Study process is not a stand alone project, but a project that must be consistent with the General Plan or recommend amendments to the General Plan. To do so requires that each mandated and optional element in the General Plan is balanced and consistent. What this means is that there must be measurable criteria for sustainable development, reduced vehicle miles traveled, public safety (meaning air, water, hazardous exposure, fire and police). What is different in 2022 that requires General Plan amendments for these elements?
Significant questions and concerns…
Can the Seeno property be developed consistent with the existing General Plan?
Are there adjustments needed for future development that meet sustainable development?
How is the public to know what the decision making process is if they are not informed about these basics?
Alas, North Area Study is not a “visioning” process that is separate from the General Plan vision. It is a project process. The city and the City’s consultant need to make that clear, and if necessary, highlight what part of the vision of the General Plan should be changed and how those changes will affect sustainability.
Will the city adopt standards and criteria for sustainability? If not, why not?
…and we could go on: there is Seeno and associates to consider.
The North Study Area visioning project aims to solicit public input on potential future land use options for the North Study Area property. Community input, together with an economic analysis and evaluation of the property conditions, will be used to develop several mixed-use concepts for further public review. Once completed, the landowner may determine whether to move forward with initiating land use applications which must include a “Master Plan” (i.e., Specific Plan) as required by the Benicia General Plan and Zoning Ordinance.
The study area is a 527-acre undeveloped property in the northeast corner of the city. The property is within the City’s urban growth boundary and fronts on Lake Herman Road and East Second Street. Although a number of site development proposals have been considered over the years, most recently in 2016, none have come to fruition. The property is currently zoned Limited Industrial (IL) and General Commercial (CG).
Visioning Process
The City wants to partner with the community to envision the future of this area, which is the last remaining large tract of privately-owned undeveloped land within Benicia.
There will be a variety of opportunities to learn more about this effort and to provide feedback over the coming year. The City will solicit public input through a series of community meetings, public events, and on-line engagement opportunities. To receive the latest updates, you can sign up for project email notifications here. The City expects to complete the visioning process by late 2023.
The North Study Area Community-Led Visioning Process is divided into the following primary tasks:
Existing Conditions Review: Review of background materials and existing conditions information relevant to the visioning process.
Economic Analysis: Analysis of real estate market conditions, financial feasibility of land use alternatives, and net annual fiscal impacts of land use alternatives.
Issues and Options: Evaluation of key issues and options associated with development options.
Mixed-use Concepts: Consideration of alternative land use concepts for the property.
Summary Report: Summary of public input received and areas of consensus that emerged from the visioning process.
Advisory Group
The City has formed an advisory group for the North Study Area project to help distribute information about the project, provide feedback on project materials, and to bring together diverse community perspectives. The advisory group consists of one representative selected by each of the following City committee/commissions and community organizations. Meetings are open to the public.
City Committees/Commissions:
City Council Subcommittee for the North Study Area (2 members)
You must be logged in to post a comment.