Category Archives: Stephen Golub

I was born in Oakland, CA, delivered into this world by the same doctor who delivered both my mom and dad…

By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, “Benicia and Beyond” column in the Benicia Herald, May 31, 2026

Benicia City Council Member Kari Birdseye.

This past week, City Council Member Kari Birdseye kindly took the time for an interview regarding her background and Benicia’s challenges/opportunities. Here it is:

Where did you grow up?
I was born in Oakland, CA, delivered into this world by the same doctor who delivered both my mom and dad. I’ve always had family in the Bay Area but my most formative years were spent in the Sierra foothills. I graduated from San Francisco State University after transferring from Sierra Community College. I was a country mouse relocating to the Big City and I’ve been in love with San Francisco and the Bay Area ever since.
How did you end up in Benicia?
After eleven years in Atlanta, working for CNN, it was time to return to my home state. I landed my dream job as Director of Communications for the Wine Institute with an office in San Francisco and our young family was looking for a new hometown that was family friendly with good schools, affordable and someplace easy to commute into the city. Benicia fit that bill perfectly.
Except for a few minor benefits, being a member of the Benicia City Council is essentially a volunteer position. What is your regular job?
I have worked for Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC.org) for almost nine years now, where I am Director of Regional Media and Public Affairs. I love my “paycheck” job because I work on environmental issues with super smart attorneys, scientists, and policy experts every day.
What made you first get interested in running for the Benicia City Council?
I have been a serial volunteer since my kids were young, pitching in for Matthew Turner PTA, Benicia Stingrays Swim Team and more than a decade as a traveling soccer mom. When the kids grew older, I started volunteering for the City, first as a member of the Human Services Board, and then the Planning Commission for eight years. Once you understand how the City runs on volunteers, it gives you such pride in your community. I didn’t see myself as an elected official until friends and acquaintances started asking me if I would be interested in running. There’s an adage that says women require so much more encouragement to run for office than men do. That encouragement kept coming and I finally put together a team of friends and encouragers who helped me run in 2018 and then again in 2022.
What accomplishments are you proudest of regarding your time on the City Council?
I am proud of the work we have accomplished during the last four years. We have made so many tough decisions, especially the tax initiatives. No one wants new taxes, including me, but our City was spending more money than we were taking in for decades. Many elected officials fear the tough stuff because they are afraid of ruining their chances of re-election. Terry Scott and I have governed based on what’s best for our community, not what’s popular and will get us re-elected. We are just now starting to reap the benefits of Measure F, the citizens’ initiative to raise revenue earmarked exclusively for repairing city streets, potholes, and sidewalks. The five-year road improvement plan starts this summer and that’s something to smile about. Right now, I’m proud of the work we are doing to ensure that city services remain the same during our transition away from the refinery revenue. I am hopeful that we’ll see some of the Air District grant funding, as well as so many other options we are exploring now.
Perhaps the greatest challenges and opportunities for Benicia at this time flow from the idling of the Valero Refinery and the property’s eventual conversion to what will likely be mixed-use development (e.g., residential, commercial and light industrial).What directions would you like to see such development take?
I look forward to a transparent, community-inclusive process of figuring out what’s going to take place on those 900 acres. This is an opportunity to redefine Benicia and diversify our local economy. We can build more houses, to accommodate new families of various income levels. There will be many ways for our community to contribute to the redevelopment process. Valero did us a solid when they partnered with the Signature Development Group, a local developer with a strong track record of quality projects throughout the Bay Area and elsewhere. Council members, including myself, are regularly meeting with one of the principals at Signature and so far, we like what we are hearing. They recently submitted a pre-application and community member feedback is encouraged. For more information visit www.MoveBeniciaForward.com and let them know what you think.
What role is the state playing regarding the conversion? What role would you like to see it play?
For decades, bills have been introduced to help communities transition away from fossil fuels, especially refinery towns. Very few of these bills have been passed into law and we are experiencing the lack of planning for the impacts of California transitioning to a greener economy. The state of New York has a regulation that pays refinery towns, when their industrial partners close, to bridge the economic gap left by the closure. We are hoping that our state leadership will assist Benicia in bridging that gap, especially as the refinery remains offline but intact, during the global oil supply crisis.
One long-term problem facing Benicia, particularly as a partly waterfront community, is climate change. What can we do to try to adapt to rising waters and other effects of climate change?
Luckily, our state leaders HAVE passed a law, SB 272, that helps communities plan for sea level rise. Benicia is engaged in a county-wide effort called the Solano Bayshore Resiliency Project (www.bayshoreresiliency.org). They hold community meetings quarterly to provide updates on their plans and receive community feedback along the way. I was honored to give opening remarks at their last meeting in May and I’m proud of the work our Benicia planning staff is doing on that project.
Are there any other thoughts you’d like to share?
I’d like to thank the many Benicians who have reached out to me as an elected official. Solving problems, improving how the City serves our community, and meeting new people is my favorite part of being a City Council member. While the online community isn’t always as generous, the people I meet around town, on the Bocce Ball courts, and at our meetings at City Hall are kind, curious and care about Benicia just as much as I do. Together, we’ll get through this transition and be even stronger because of it. I’m so hopeful for what Benicia will become in the coming decades. Stay tuned for re-election news soon. Benicia deserves experienced leaders for the next four years. 😉

[Note from Steve Golub: After reading lots of comments from within and beyond Benicia, and given that Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer are tied in the polls, I’m supporting Steyer. He’s had some troubling investments in his fairly distant past and his lack of governmental experience is a negative. But on balance I like his environmental and other positions, as well as the energy he’s bringing to the campaign and hopefully the job.

In contrast, I’m extremely disappointed with Becerra’s ties to Chevron – nearly $40,000 in donations to him from the company this year, and a whopping $500,000 to a pro-Becerra PAC, also this year. I value his experience, but I find those ties to Chevron and other vested interests disqualifying. Steyer would be far better for the state as a whole and Benicia in particular.]

[Note from Steve Golub: If you haven’t done so yet, please explore the new Benicia-focused online newsletter, The Benicia Bridge (the-benicia-bridge.ghost.io). Launched this past January by two award-winning Benicians, the site is providing thoughtful, thorough coverage of a growing array of Benicia issues, ranging from Valero’s closure to street repair to our deep water port to a community playground.]

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land

Stephen Golub writes about democracy and politics, both in America and abroad, at A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country.

…and… here’s more Golub on the Benicia Independent

Authoritarian Rule, Choose Democracy, Democracy under attack, Donald Trump, Stephen Golub

Stephen Golub: Even in Dictatorships, Dictators Are Not the Only Game in Town

May 28, 2026 Roger Straw

The Benicia Herald, May 24, 2026, by Stephen Golub

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub

Back in 1983, I scored a summer fellowship from my law school to research the plight of Cambodian refugees in Thailand. On the way back home, I stopped off in the Manila for a few days to see an old friend who was on his first overseas posting for the State Department. I mainly recall reconnecting with my pal and dealing with the aftermath of some bad oysters. But one discussion stands out…

It was in my friend’s living room, with a few of his fellow junior embassy staffers, debating the Philippines’ future. One professed no love for then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who’d dominated the nation since declaring martial law in 1972. But he viewed the autocrat as securely in place and thus claimed that he was “the only game in town.”

Marcos was gone less than three years later, deposed by the country’s People Power revolution.

It was not just Marcos who in 1986 proved to not be “the only game in town.” It was East Germany’s communist regime in 1989. It was the Soviet Union in 1991. It was South Africa’s apartheid rulers in the early 1990s. It was Indonesian’s Suharto in 1998. It was Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. It was Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. It was Brazil’s (and Trump ally) Jair Bolsonaro in 2022. It was Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina in 2024. It was Hungary’s (and Trump hero) Viktor Orban last month.

All of these ruthless rulers and regimes seemed securely in power…until just a few weeks, months or years before they weren’t. They fell due to a plethora of factors: popular pressure, external developments, self-inflicted wounds and/or good old-fashioned democratic voting.

Regardless, they fell.

The point merits mention in view of Donald Trump’s ongoing attempts to rig our elections, gut the rule of law, entrench mind-boggling corruption and otherwise despoil our democracy. Every day brings a new assault on not just our system but on values that many of us still share.

We can’t ignore such outrages. In fact, we should feel outraged. It’s a normal response to a thoroughly abnormal, abysmal state of affairs.

But, as demonstrated time after time and in place after place, the triumph of such efforts is never inevitable – as long as we don’t cave to them.

That’s something to bear in mind for our November midterm elections and beyond. I can’t downplay the threats our democracy faces. Things may often appear bleak in the months and years to come. But the future is never written in stone. We have the power to shape it.

As in many other nations, even in America’s darkest times there is never just one game in town.

Stephen Golub writes about democracy and politics, both in America and abroad, at A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country.

…and… here’s more Golub on the Benicia Independent

Erasing history, Slavery, Stephen Golub

Stephen Golub: Slavery, Philly and 1984 in 2026

May 20, 2026 Roger Straw

Park Service and Justice Department – Erasing select portions of our American history

The Benicia Herald, [Updated May 19, 2026], by Stephen Golub

Illuminating History

The Trump administration is engaged in a multipronged attempt to rewrite history. During a recent trip to Philadelphia, I visited one example of that effort’s egregious excesses.

Inaugurated in 2010, the central Philly “President’s House” is an open-air exhibition that documents George and Martha Washington’s roles as slaveholders. It’s situated where our first First Couple lived, from 1790 to 1797. Though the abode itself is long gone, the site is anchored by an excavation of their home’s slave quarters.

In other words, America’s first “White House” housed slaves.

The exhibition’s informational panels, displays and videos movingly portray the context and cruelty of the Washingtons’ actions, including the lives of the nine persons considered their “property.” A loophole-ridden Pennsylvania law ostensibly allowed slaves belonging to other states’ residents (such as the Washingtons, who were Virginians) to free themselves after six months in Pennsylvania. But this was easily evaded by “rotating” the enslaved out of the state, however briefly.

The site is not entirely negative. It describes Ben Franklin’s advocacy for abolition. In a bit more depth, it also tells the story of Oney Judge, Martha’s personal slave. As described elsewhere, she escaped during a two-day “rotation” to Trenton, New Jersey. Judge made her way to live freely (and eventually pass away) in New Hampshire. George repeatedly but unsuccessfully sought to compel her return, including via a foiled kidnapping attempt in 1798.

All in all, then, the modest several-hundred-foot exhibition has educated visitors about an element of Washington’s identity and our history that typically is not taught in schools. Situated right next door to the Liberty Bell Center and surrounded by numerous other historical monuments, the President’s House serves as an illuminating counterpoint to those other sites’ legitimately positive themes. As I heard one father explain to his ten(?)-year-old son, “Our country has done some bad things.”

More Bad Things…

Out of the blue, however, on January 22 the U.S. Park Service dismantled the site. Quickly challenged by a City of Philadelphia lawsuit, the Department of Justice contended that the exhibition “inappropriately disparage[d] Americans” as part of an effort to promote “corrosive ideology.”

In deciding the case, Federal Judge Cynthia M. Rufe strenuously disagreed. The George W. Bush appointee prefaced her decision to restore the exhibition by quoting George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984:

“All history was…scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.”

As she further explained in her ruling, “It is not disputed that President Washington owned slaves…And yet, in its argument, the government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control.”

Likening the Trump administration’s argument to 1984, she continued, “The government here likewise asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten… And why? Solely because, as Defendants [the government] state, it has the power.”

Judge Rufe accordingly ordered the reinstatement of the exhibition. But an April appeals court interim ruling froze that reinstatement about half-way through the process.

That’s where the matter stands, pending full consideration by that court. Supplemented by hand-made signs, the displays again enable some basic education about slavery and Washington’s roles in it. Those roles included signing the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which permitted slaveholders or their agents to cross state lines to capture escaped slaves, and his own attempts to use the law to seize Ona Judge.

Erasing History

The Trump administration’s planned, whitewashed (so to speak) replacement for the anti-slavery exhibition erases such facts or buries them in supposed context. It lavishes Washington with praise, while relegating his conduct to a few lines explaining that he considered freeing his slaves, let them “explore the city” and otherwise treated them better than some other slaveholders. It also notes that Washington’s will provided for freeing his own slaves (though Martha’s remained in bondage); with the exception of one man’s wife and children, however, the text is very vague about who was freed.

I’m by no means saying that we should deny Washington’s great contributions to our country by removing his name from schools and institutions or otherwise dishonoring him. He was a product of his time – though let’s bear in mind that, like Ben Franklin, many in his time in America and abroad opposed slavery. Regardless, in a sense we dishonor him by denying the truth about him; we certainly dishonor those enslaved by him and so many other people pummeled for their entire lives by slavery’s savagery.

The administration’s official efforts to cancel history involve far more than attempts to cover up aspects of such bondage. They certainly embrace recent history: We’re witnessing endless attempts by Trump and his sycophants to deny the 2020 presidential election results, with many such attempts geared toward manipulating the 2026 and 2028 contests. He’s pardoned the January 6 insurrectionists, painted them as heroes and even established a $1.776 billion federal fund that could feature compensation for them and other Trump allies who were supposedly “unjustly” targeted for prosecution by the Biden administration.

We’ve also seen Trump almost literally echo 1984’s “War is Peace” declaration with his claims that the Iran ceasefire is in effect even as missiles fly and people die

Nor am I asserting that America in 2026 is anywhere near Orwell’s 1984. But we do have a president for whom the novel’s totalitarian catchphrases provide more of a model than an admonition:

War is Peace.

Ignorance is Strength.

Freedom is Slavery.

[Hat tip to Pat Loeb, a superb journalist (and old friend) who is currently City Hall Bureau Chief for KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia and who acquainted me with the President’s House exhibition and this evolving story.]

Stephen Golub writes about democracy and politics, both in America and abroad, at A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country.

…and… here’s more Golub on the Benicia Independent

Benicia CA, Stephen Golub

Stephen Golub: Starting Over

May 17, 2026 Roger Straw

Starting Over in Beautiful Benicia…

The Benicia Herald, May 10, 2026, by Stephen Golub

My Wife and I Starting Over in Benicia…

I keep a playlist of positive songs that lift me up when my state of mind or the state of the world has me down. The artists range from Jimmy Cliff to the Beatles to Pink to LeAnn Rimes to will.i.am to Sting. Many playlist items are Springsteen songs (“Land of Hope and Dreams,” “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day,” “The Rising”) or Tim McGraw tunes (“Hold On to It,” “Humble and Kind,” “Live Like You Were Dying”).

Lately, partly with Benicia in mind, I’ve played country star Chris Stapleton’s “Starting Over” a lot. More on that that song a minute.

When my wife and I moved to Benicia in 2019, our impetus to start over was the potential fires threatening our Oakland hills home. Decimated by the hills’ deadly 1991 firestorm, the area had rebuilt and regenerated since our moving there in 2001. We were reluctant to leave our sweet life in Oakland, but the danger and disruptions remained: our almost evacuating twice in the middle of the night; frequent PG&E power cuts; many neighbors’ insurance policies canceled; highly flammable eucalyptus and pine groves; narrow streets making evacuation problematic; our worrying about what each fire season might bring.

So, after almost twenty terrific years there, on a lark we began looking for a new home in beautiful Benicia. We never looked back.

Did we get it right in assessing the Oakland fire threat so seriously? For the sake of everyone still in those hills – and in view of rising real estate values and fire mitigation efforts there – I actually hope we were wrong. But even if the move to Benicia was in that sense a mistake, it was the best mistake we ever made.

Our Fellow Benicians Starting Over…

Other folks have moved here in recent years for a range of reasons: job changes; launching a new business; post-Covid opportunities to work from home: living near family members; changed financial circumstances. Some native Benicians have moved back after years away. Many newcomers have come from other spots in the Bay Area. I’ve also met residents originally from New York, Kentucky, Canada and other distant locales.

We all know examples of great additions to the community; on our little block alone, we have three newish, youngish households, including a couple of kids. Two other folks who come to mind are Kenneth and Kevin, who a few years ago started Baxters on First Street. My wife and I ate there recently. We loved every aspect of the experience: a small but roomy dining room, appealing ambiance, a great Old Fashioned drink, delicious Brussels sprouts, a smashing smash burger, succulent scallops and one of the best and cheesiest French onion soups I’ve ever had.*

In addition to replacing a troubled previous establishment with a charming one, what the two have done is add new dimensions to Benicia’s business and community scenes. They’re but one valuable example of new arrivals contributing to our ever-evolving town.

Even if you were born and bred in Benicia, you’ve quite possibly also started over here in some ways. To start with, congratulations to the young families welcoming new arrivals. In a more somber vein, loved ones moving out or passing on can be a seismic shift. Or, if you’ve taken in a rescue dog, a stray cat or any new pet – and bless you for doing so! – that new family member adds new dimensions to your life.

Benicia Starting Over…

Much more broadly, even as life goes on in Benicia, in a sense our town is starting over in the wake of the Valero refinery closing. I won’t relitigate that contentious issue here today; I’ll instead focus on moving forward.

That involves considering the hard work that the city’s elected and appointed officials are doing to close our budget gap, including accessing the tens of millions of dollars of Bay Area Air District funds flowing from Valero fines. It also features various proposals to build a stable, brighter, cleaner future. You can access those ideas in several ways, including by signing up at the city’s website for City Manager Mario Giuliani’s weekly newsletter, reading it here in the Herald and attending or zooming in on City Council meetings.

Also, as lifelong Benician Giuliani has often said, let’s “Believe in Benicia.”

Which brings me back to Chris Stapleton. “Starting Over” is about a couple moving to a new life (as the lyrics go, “out on the coast”…maybe even Benicia?) But it applies to lots of us in our own ways and to Benicia as a whole…

This might not be an easy time
There’s rivers to cross and hills to climb
Some days we might fall apart
And some nights might feel cold and dark

But nobody wins, afraid of losing
And the hard roads are the ones worth choosing
Someday we’ll look back and smile
And know it was worth every mile…

I can be your lucky penny
You can be my four-leaf clover
Starting over

The song’s call to overcome obstacles amply applies to our wonderful town, this place where we’re so lucky to live. Benicia has a lot going for it, not least Benicians believing in ourselves. We’re in good shape to seize the opportunities that come with starting over.

[*Note: Starting later this month, Baxters’ hours expand to include lunch on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It will thus be open Wednesday through Sunday from late morning to mid-evening, except for a 3-4 pm break. Please check the restaurant’s website and OpenTable for reservations and precise hours.]

Stephen Golub writes about democracy and politics, both in America and abroad, at A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country.

…and… here’s more Golub on the Benicia Independent