Michael Tubbs losing his Stockton mayoral reelection bid didn’t make anyone’s 2020 top 10 tragedies list. The year was far too brutal for a political wunderkind’s early career hiccup to register as anything more than a pause. Tubbs, 30, became the youngest mayor in the country of a city with more than 100,000 residents (Stockton has around 313,000) when he was elected in 2016, the same night Donald Trump won the presidency. Tubbs remembers it well, “I was thinking, ‘Wow, Stockton got it right.’” Tubbs instituted some of the most progressive and innovative civic initiatives in the country, recasting Stockton as a community that took pride in a new problem-solving sensibility.
Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians receives grants for climate and clean energy projects
Lake County News reports
19 January 2021
LAKEPORT, Calif. – As part of a statewide effort to address climate change, the Scotts Valley Energy Co. – a business enterprise of the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians – was awarded a Tribal Government Challenge Planning Grant to create a bioenergy feasibility toolkit to assist other tribes and businesses in determining energy resiliency needs and provide another tool for wildfire mitigation efforts.
The Scotts Valley Energy Co., or SVEC, is bringing the first bioenergy/biochar production facility to its tribal lands in Lake County, said Tribal Chairman Shawn Davis.
FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
A worker tills soil at Larry s Produce in Suisun Valley, Friday, June 21, 2019. (Robinson Kuntz/Daily Republic)
Regional agriculture plan may include Solano County
FAIRFIELD A $225,000 planning grant awarded to Santa Clara County for the development of a Bay Area regional agricultural plan lists Solano County.
The effort also links to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Plan Bay Area 2050 as related to “protection of work lands.”
The California Strategic Growth Council awarded the grant as part of $52 million in grants for planning projects, acquisition projects, easement acquisition projects, as well as the planning grants.
“The proposed project builds on the SALC-funded Santa Clara Valley Agricultural Plan and aims to develop a framework for a regional Bay Area Agricultural Plan,” the council announcement states.
The Vibe Of It All: Turning Stockton Into An Oasis Of Joy Listen Update RequiredTo play audio, update browser or Flash plugin.
Sammy Nunez, Founder and Executive Director of Fathers & Families of San Joaquin, poses for a portrait in the Brandon Harrison Memorial Garden in Stockton, Calif. on September 23, 2020.
Salgu Wissmath for palabra/CapRadio
Editor’s Note: The effects of a warming planet are often easy to see. But in the heart of California, bold activists are demonstrating the impact climate change can have on problems that mark life in Stockton’s troubled neighborhoods. They’re working to turn the city into a model for what others can do as the climate crisis worsens. The key: investing millions of dollars in the most vulnerable communities. This article is another in a collection of stories chronicling the lives of people least able to adapt safely to climate change.
Research co-authored by University of California scientists has found that by 2050, as many as 24,500 affordable housing units in the United States are projected to be exposed to coastal flooding. The estimate is triple the number of housing units at risk only 20 years ago. By 2050, more than 10,000 affordable units nationwide were projected to face repeated flooding four times per year or more. “Flooding can damage buildings and be very disruptive to the residents who live in them; even low levels of flooding can damage belongings, disrupt electrical equipment, and potentially expose residents to contaminated water and mold,” said
Lara Cushing , assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. “Many cities are already struggling with an affordable housing crisis. Our study highlights that climate change will only make this worse unless significant investments are made.”