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Discovery Builders partners with Pittsburg to construct youth center
August 24, 2020 By Publisher 2 Comments
Long sought athletic facility closer to reality
Discovery Builders, Inc. has entered into an agreement with the City of Pittsburg to design and build an approximately 45,000-square-foot youth center that will include basketball and volleyball courts, among other uses. (See presentation slide show, here – DBI Pittsburg Youth & Sports Facility)
The proposed $3 million facility will be located at John Henry Johnson Park, directly north of West Leland Road in Pittsburg, California. City staff determined this site was best suited for a facility of this nature.
Community leaders have long expressed a need that more public amenities be made available to the local youth of Pittsburg. Meeting this need and providing recreational opportunities for young people has been an ongoing challenge in Pittsburg, since previous youth and community centers closed many years ago.
Public testimony from diverse groups of people and organizations has consistently centered around building a robust youth center, specifically, providing quality athletic facilities. The city currently lacks some of the infrastructure needed to provide ongoing recreational services. As a result of this direct need, Discovery Builders, Inc. and the City of Pittsburg have partnered to lay the groundwork for a future youth center.
While still in the design phase, the yet-to-be-named youth center is a culmination of years of listening and research done on the part of the Discovery Builders leadership team.
As noted by Louis Parsons, president of Discovery Builders, Inc., "As a community builder, we have decades of listening and local knowledge under our belts. We hear what the community wants and needs, and we said building this youth center makes sense for Pittsburg. One of the community benefits we bring is we can use our core building strengths to make Pittsburg and nicer place to live. I'm personally excited to see these basketball and volleyball courts get built. Obviously, this is contingent on a longtime project moving forward."
Parsons added, "What's nice about this agreement is we get to support the city and staff by saving them time and resources that are better served running the day-to-day operations of the city. With the pandemic and recent furloughs, a partnership like this is required to create the major public amenities people want."
The agreement states this facility will begin construction within the next 18 months, contingent on a pending application being approved by the Pittsburg City Council on Monday, Aug. 24.
Filed Under: Business, East County, News, Recreation, Youth
New Name. Same Game. Delta Conveyance Project – tunnel moves forward – Part 2: Stakeholders & Opposition
July 20, 2020 By Publisher 1 Comment
From California Water Resilience Portfolio 2019 Final.
County residents opposed to project work to limit impact and secure benefits if it is built
"We want to make sure they don't screw anything up," – David Gloski, Stakeholders Engagement Committee Member
By Allen Payton
What was planned as two tunnels beneath the California Delta to divert fresh water from north of the Delta to areas south, is now a single tunnel plan that is referred to as the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP). The effort is being led by the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority (DCA) which was formed by and makes recommendation to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR).
In the first part of this two-part series, you read about the background and latest efforts to move the project forward. In this part, you will hear from local voices who serve on the Stakeholders Engagement Committee (SEC) and what they are doing to both fight the tunnel, and if it is built to limit its impact and to secure any benefits for our county and the Delta.
Stakeholders Engagement Committee – Local Voices
Because Contra Costa County and the water districts in the county either oppose or are neutral on the Delta tunnel project, no agency from the county is part of the DCA. But there are three people who live and one who works in Contra Costa County and serve on the Stakeholder Engagement Committee. They are Bethel Island resident and retired engineer David Gloski, Discovery Bay resident and real estate appraiser Karen Mann, Antioch resident Jim Cox, a retired fishing boat captain, and Oakland resident Michael Moran, who works for the East Bay Regional Park District as Supervising Naturalist at Big Break Regional Shoreline Visitor Center at the Delta in Oakley.
David Gloski, The Engineer – At Large Member
"I don't want to understate that I'm against it and I appreciate the people fighting it," said Gloski, who volunteered to be part of the SEC at the urging of others who also oppose the tunnel. "But I, having a home on the water and having an engineering background – and this DCA SEC group is more engineering focused – we want to make sure they don't screw anything up."
"The majority of the people on the stakeholder committee are probably against the tunnel," he stated. "It includes the lady (Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla) from Restore the Delta. We've been effective in preventing them from doing things that don't make sense and would negatively affect people in Contra Costa."
"To me, they walk and chew gum at the same time. They're working on designs and plans without having the permits. They have to do some of it or they don't know what they're asking to permit," Gloski explained. "Similarly, we aren't doing ourselves any benefit by just opposing it. Because if it does go through, we can get a lot of things done, like new roads, and parks. But you have to participate."
"I've raised my hand to say, 'if you're going to build it, let's get good things out of it, and make sure they don't screw things up," he reiterated. "I think the county is mistaken for not being more involved. The DCA made changes because of our inputs. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the inputs are the best from the county's perspective. For example, an original plan included road and bridge improvements which were eliminated when we were successful in having a maintenance shaft moved further away from Discover Bay. So, you might have won the battle but lost the war."
"I think we might benefit from more representatives. But right now, the county is just fighting it," Gloski added.
To give your input to David Gloski, you can join his Facebook page, David Gloski DCA Stakeholder.
Mann expressed her concerns for the location and proximity to Discovery Bay of one potential Maintenance Shaft. From DCA 2020-05-27-UpdatedMapBooks.
Karen Mann – South Delta Local Business
Mann, an appraiser in Discovery Bay, is another member of the stakeholders committee who opposes the tunnel, as the issue literally hits close to home for her like Gloski.
"I'm fighting for our Delta," she said. "As I'm talking to you my grandchildren are loading the boat, because that's what we do as a family. We spend time on the Delta."
"I'm an active boater. I skipper my own 37-foot boat. I'm a very able-bodied skipper. My dad had me at the helm since I was 9 or 10 years old in San Pablo Bay," Mann explained. "So, I've described to this group the terror that I had when I encountered a barge in the middle of Old River. That left me about 25' (to get by it). My boat is 12-feet-wide. I could feel the propellers of the tugboat drawing me toward that barge. My boat weighs 22,000 lbs. Imagine if that was a ski boat with inexperienced skiers or a family with a father and his kids on board."
"The number of barges every day that they were talking about loading, I told them 'you better think twice. You will have lives of families and boaters on your hands,'" she continued.
From 2020-04-22-SECMeetingPresentation.
Effort to Postpone Meetings & Work Due to COVID-19 Unsuccessful
"Through this whole pandemic thing, myself and a bunch of others have said 'let's hold off on these meetings' because we can't meet with our people," Mann stated. "The chief engineer said, 'we're going to move forward, and we hate to leave you behind. But that's how it goes. Governor Newsom wants this going.'"
"I piped up and said 'it appears to me Gov. Newsom his been very busy with this pandemic thing and his three-hour-long press conferences each day, and the Delta tunnel is probably not at the forefront of his thinking," she shared. "For us to be told, 'no, that's out of the question, we're on a timeline', this is just not right."
According to a report by the Sacramento News & Review, the effort to postpone the committee meetings and the work got a Sacramento County Supervisor and the Delta Protection Commission involved.
"The dust-up has caused Sacramento County Supervisor Don Nottoli to challenge one state official about transparency, while the Delta Protection Commission has officially asked California planners to halt their work on the tunnel during the virus outbreak. So far, that hasn't happened," reported the SN&R.
Contra Costa County Supervisor Diane Burgis serves on the Delta Protection Commission, which "is supposed to safeguard the environmental and community health of the estuary as part of California's landmark 1992 Delta Protection Act."
But the committee meetings are continuing, just online for now, as most if not all other government meetings are currently throughout the state.
No Project Funding or Route, Yet
"I asked them where are we getting the money from? Apparently, there's no checkbook. There's no limit. There's no talk about expenses. It's like carte blanch. Money is no object," Mann stated. "There isn't an official route, yet. Because they're trying to decide if there is going to be a central corridor which would be within 600 feet of the Discovery Bay water treatment plan and homes on the golf course."
"That's not the best of it," she continued. "The best of it is they're using their maps of that central location they would have taken that tunnel underneath the only waste treatment plant in the area."
"They would also be going through our artesian wells," Mann added.
"If there were any problems, "they would shut off the water and waste treatment for Discovery Bay. How could we live here? We're not a third world country," she said with a laugh.
"I've been very passionate about those two items," Mann stated.
She, Cox and Moran all expressed concerns about trucks on Highway 4 east of Discovery Bay and how the committee's efforts got that stopped.
"There was also going to be a maintenance shaft near Discovery Bay which would require truck traffic on Highway 4. Heavy duty trucks carrying the muck and dirt. Those bridges are old and couldn't handle it," she explained.
"Now they're talking about using the eastern corridor closer to Stockton. But they told us 'don't get too excited. Nothing is decided. We'll take your recommendations, but we will make our own decisions.'" That didn't sit well with Mann.
"Is this how government is supposed to work?" she asked. "I will say they did listen on the barge issue. I think health and safety got them."
Fire Marshal, DB Town Manager Shocked
"We took that information to the fire marshal and Discovery Bay Town Manager and they were shocked," Mann shared. "Neither one of them knew about any of it. They both wrote impassioned letters. We have three fire stations that serve 128 square miles. The engineers thought we had nine stations."
"So, who's going to handle the issues…with a project like this?" she asked. "Someone's going to get hurt and they're going to need EMT's. I guarantee you one of their trucks will have an accident and block traffic for hours, if not kill someone."
"I've been sending the chief engineer photos of truck accidents and concerns that we have for our health and safety," she continued. They had no idea of traffic count. They're using traffic counts from five years ago from San Joaquin County and they don't keep track of traffic on Highway 4 and the bridges in our county. So, their traffic counts are completely inaccurate.
"So, I'm wondering who's really in charge here," Mann said. "We're supposed to trust them with building a tunnel 150 feet under ground? If they don't have this basic information how can they handle the bigger issues?"
"The Delta has been something in my family since I was a child," she shared. "It's a way to keep families together. So, when you say Delta you're talking about families. This life is too short, and you have to enjoy it while it lasts."
Mann is both a residential and commercial appraiser, which is why she represents the business community on the committee.
She's also the president of Save the California Delta Alliance.
"We have an attorney that got them to back out of the other tunnel project," Mann shared.
"It's just a bunch of homeowners. This is our home. The waterway is our backyard. Our playground. Don't mess with it," she concluded before heading out into the Delta for the weekend on the family boat.
"Same Old Song and Dance" on Fish Protections Says a Frustrated Jim Cox – Sports Fishing
Antioch resident Jim Cox ran a six-pack, sport fishing charter boat for 23 years and has been in the Delta since the early 1980's and is now retired.
"I'm there representing fishing interests," he shared. "It's been a very frustrating thing to be involved in. They want us to come back with input from our constituents. The most common thing I hear is 'what's going to happen with Clifton Court?'"
The Clifton Court Forebay is where the water is collected south of the Delta before being pumped further south.
Delta Smelt. Photo from DCA SEC.
"When the current is flowing in there, it's so strong the fish can't get out," Cox explained. "The screens on the pumps are not designed that well. Estimates are anywhere from 15-50,000 striped bass that are trapped in there. They're only 8 or 9 inches but they're fully matured fish."
"They say Clifton Court Forebay is a separate project," he continued. "I've had conversations with Terry Buckman from DWR. The Delta Improvement Act of 2009 has the two goals of habitat restoration and less reliance for water supply. They're definitely focused on the water supply."
"They call it EcoRestore, which is part of DWR and the ironic thing is they say 'we're not working on that for another year or so.' This committee will be disbanded before then," Cox stated.
"This is the same song and dance that fishermen have been told for the past 25 years," he complained. "In 1994 there was the CalFed agreement. The water contractors were supposed to build state of the art screens across Clifton Court so fish couldn't get in. But it's still never been built. "
'Most of these DWR folks are in their 40's so they weren't around…and they're taking the word for it from others at DWR," said Cox.
"The real problem is predation (preying of one animal on another), primarily for striped bass," he continued. "It is a problem because the current flows in there, year-round, 24 hours a day. Larger fish just stick around at the entrance and pick off the smaller fish. They try to make it sound like it's the striped bass. It's not. It's the fact they never built the screens."
"We were told Fish and Game have plans to remove predators. They have no plans for any such thing. They say it's a useless idea. Once you get rid of one predator another species will move in," Cox shared. "Then they said the problem is the outer screens. There aren't any outer screens. It consists of rabbit wire fence to keep boats and floating logs out of Clifton Court. It has nothing to do with fish."
"They won't say anything of how they're going to make it better. This is why it's becoming a frustrating endeavor for me," he stated. "On the one hand they are being responsive to some complaints. But it all revolves around building the tunnel."
"They won't even listen to the fishermen. I've been tempted to resign a couple times over this. But, if I'm not there who's going to bring this up?" Cox asked, rhetorically. "First, they talked about having the committee a year. But now they're talking about extending it."
"It's very frustrating trying to get them to listen," he added.
On finances Cox said "we get told things in bits and pieces. The plan is for all of this to be paid for by the water users, the water contractors. The fine print is they've agreed to this in theory, but not in reality. They're not going to agree to anything until they see the final plan. Over the last year, they've been trying to do what took them three years originally on the twin tunnels, to finalize this plan, to be able to move forward."
"When this COVID thing hit, they said everyone wants to continue to work on this. That's BS," he said echoing Karen Mann's comments. "No one wanted to continue to do this. But they kept pushing on this because they have financing deadlines. So, nope. They're going to keep on going."
"I feel in a lot of ways this committee is just going through the motions. I'm starting to feel like a pawn in a chess game," he said with a chuckle.
Another financial issue Cox shared about was the pay for the DCA's executive director Kathryn Mallon, who is earning $47,000 per month in her role. That's in spite of the $54 billion deficit the state is projecting due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another report by the Sacramento News & Review covers that issue and the opposition from the water agencies that are expected to reimburse the state for her compensation.
Proximity of proposed sites to existing recreation facilities. Arrow points to Big Break in Oakley. From 2020-04-22-SECMeetingPresentation.
Parks District Employee Offers Different Perspective: Mike Moran – Ex-Officio
Mike Moran, although an Oakland resident, represents Contra Costa County interests on the SEC, having worked in Eastern Contra Costa County for 26 years, as of August 1st. He works for the East Bay Regional Park District at the Big Break Regional Shoreline in Oakley.
"Big Break was an asparagus farm that flooded in 1927," he shared. It's a 1,688 acre park that's mostly under water. The East County trail runs through there. Plus, they have a 1,200 square foot model of the Delta on the ground.
"In my position at the park commission and the SEC, we don't take a pro or a con on this issue. We try to interpret this thing and why it's being proposed, why it's being opposed, and not just build it or don't build it," Moran explained. "I'm an ex-officio giving folks' perspective from the East Bay Regional Parks point of view. There's not a direct correlation on the tunnel."
"We have land out here and we have folks paying taxes to get access to that land. So, what does this mean? What is the impact going to be where our constituents live?" he asked.
Proposed new Southern Forebay adjacent to Clifton Court Forebay. From 2019-12-11-DeltaConveyanceSystemOverview.
Moran also studied fisheries in grad school. Asked about the fish and Clifton Court Forebay that Jim Cox is concerned about, he said, "It's part of the state water project, right now. The new forebay would be right next to Clifton Court, built to the west."
However, Cox responded with, "The fact is that they still intend to use Clifton Court fifty-percent of the time. If the tunnel water was the only water heading into the canal then it would be fine, but that is not the case. Clifton Court will still be part of the water system and that is why I feel improvements to it should be part of the project, not a separate project."
"The Harvey Banks Pumping Plant is part of the State Water Project. That water is sent through the California Aqueduct and the South Bay Aqueduct serving Alameda and Santa Clara Counties," Moran explained.
"The feds will require an Environmental Impact Study on the project because it affects federal waters. That's the Jones Pumping Plant, which is part of the federal water project. That water is pumped through the Delta Mendota Canal," he shared.
"At the Clifton Court Forebay, as the water is drawn in, there's a screen that screens out the fish. But it's old school. It's an old screen," Moran explained. "Jim's saying if we're going to put in these high-tech screens north of the Delta, let's do it at Clifton Court."
Proposed intakes near Hood. From 2020-04-22-SECMeetingPresentation.
"The screening for the proposed tunnel will be located in Hood (north of Elk Grove) on the eastern side of the Sacramento River. There will be three intakes and those would have brand new, top of the line fish screens," he continued. "So, no fish will be put in that tunnel beyond those screens."
"That's one of the selling points for this whole project," Moran stated. "What we have now, is the diversion is over the surface across the Delta. So, we're bringing in both water and fish."
He provided some history to the diversion of Delta water.
"The idea of diverting water, moving water from the north and east, through the Delta is from the 1910's," Moran shared. "A lot of the facilities we have now, are not the same thing, but they're based on Robert Marshall's plans. He ran the national parks and was pushing this big project of moving water around California. So, that's part of the rationale of what we have, now."
Proposed South Delta Facilities. From 2020-04-22-SECMeetingPresentation.
He also shared that "Antioch sued upstream water users in 1921 because of too much saltwater. So, this is nothing new."
"Antioch is way ahead of the game putting in a brackish water plant. That's a big, bold move," Moran state. "But what are we going to do with saltwater intrusion up to CCWD?" (See related article)
Asked how the tunnel is a solution to the saltwater intrusion he answered, "It's coming. If we divert or not, saltwater is coming. How do we prepare for that? In Antioch we build a desal plant. For those south of the Delta it's a tunnel."
"The way we're doing things now, is water flows from the Sacramento River to the rest of the Delta. The pumps in Byron then pump it south," Moran continued. "This water used to flow down the river and out into the Bay. Sometimes during the year, we have reverse flow, with the water from both the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. When folks started taking water out in the Central Valley, less water comes out of the San Joaquin River. It was dry for 60 miles as recently as 1994. That was rectified through a court case."
Proposed South Delta Conveyance Facilities Site Plan. From 2020-04-22-SECMeetingPresentation.
Because the San Joaquin River is diverted before it reaches and "punches through the Delta", farmers in the Delta have been relying on Sacramento River water.
"The Sacramento River, high quality, great water, it's pulled down to the pumps. Not all the water, it's less than half," he said. "That goes against the natural flow and messes up the ecology."
"We've gotten a lot of benefit over the past 100 years," with the current system, Moran shared.
"So, if we don't do something, if saltwater comes up, or if a levee breaks or a beaver chews through, that's going to stop the flow of water."
Rendering of proposed Pumping Plant Site Plan at the Southern Forebay. From 2020-04-22-SECMeetingPresentation.
"Much of the land in the Delta is under sea level because of that peat soil, which is great for farming," he explained. "But because of decisions made over 100 years ago, because people in the Delta communities and economies, and their way of life, it's not sustainable."
"We're only taking water out when there's enough to come through," said Moran. "Like we're doing, now when there's Delta Smelt at the pumps, and we have water quality going down the tubes, the feds tell them to stop pumping."
"It's these local folks who are members of the committee saying, 'wait a minute, we have lives that will be affected, too,'" he shared about his fellow SEC members. "The premise is let's pretend this is getting built. If that's the case, all you folks around the Delta who have this local experience and expertise, to advise the experts from the DWR."
"So, that the water can be used all year round. That's the point of it," Moran continued. "Is there enough storage south of the Delta? If you're going to pump water out of the Delta where are you going to store it? There's the San Luis Reservoir, are we going to raise the height?"
Rendering of proposed Pumping Plant at the Southern Forebay. From 2020-04-22-SECMeetingPresentation.
"Every governor has dealt with it, but Newsom is getting more traction," he shared. "They have this portfolio plan which includes storage, moving water and ground water restoration. Not just sticking straws in the Delta and sucking it."
"When it's a common pool and we all have to drink out of the Delta and we all have to be responsible for it including maintaining the levees, and agriculture in the Delta," Moran concluded.
No Committee Member Supports the Tunnel
Asked about the members of the stakeholders committee and how they were chosen, Nazli Parvizi, the Stakeholder Engagement lead for the DCA, said, "There is not a single member on the committee who supports this project. That's based on what they wrote in their applications and others, what they've said over and over during the meetings."
"It was an individual application. Not everybody represents their area of work. The requirement was if you live, work or recreate in the Delta in certain categories," she explained. "If you have an ag person you balance it out with an environmental person. So, I think we have a good broad representation."
"What we're excited about Karen…she's as reliable a source on waterways and boating as Jim Cox would be," Parvizi shared.
"It's not a voting body. We don't make decisions as the DCA," she explained. "We try to come up with the best engineering and design, the concepts and drawings and give them to Department of Water and it's up to them."
"We're doing our best to take into account the Delta as place," Parvizi continued. "So, they don't just make sense from an engineering standpoint, but also as Delta as place. The folks who lead the DCA are representatives from DWR and the agencies that are members of the DCA. Kathryn Mallon, the Executive Director of the DCA is listening and took into consideration the Delta as place. The SEC is the result of that."
About the committee members' involvement, she said, "It's trying to make the best of the worst, while at the same time trying to make sure it doesn't happen. Karen has done a great job for Discovery Bay and boaters."
"So, fight on your own time, protest, sue us, whatever and we're OK with that and several are suing us," said Parvizi. "We do want to make sure we are respectful of what you care about. They give us incredibly valuable feedback."
"They fight their war, but on the battles they're very collaborative," she stated. "We give them all this information, being transparent as possible and half of them send it to their lawyers, which is fine. But they tell us which is better, A, B or C, and we make our recommendations to DWR."
"We haven't seen two groups fight it out," Parvizi said, and explained how the members of the SEC work collaboratively. "If you move it (the tunnel) this way, it's good for fish, but if you move it here, it's good for birds. Or it's good for animals. But if you put it here, it's good for business."
"We can come up with the pros and cons and I think that's very valuable," she added.
Opposition Efforts Continue
Efforts continue to stop the new Delta tunnel by groups such as Restore the Delta that have been fighting since the twin tunnels plan was first proposed. They along with Contra Costa County and the other members of the Delta Counties Coalition, Delta residents, Delta business owners, tribal representatives, fishing and non-governmental organizations and other Delta community-based organizations have all asked the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to pause Delta tunnel planning processes that require public participation due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The Department of Water Resources has refused.
Contra Costa is represented on the DCC by County Supervisor Karen Mitchoff.
In their letter dated April 7, 2020, the DCC wrote California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot, "The Delta Counties Coalition (DCC) respectfully requests that you direct the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to pause all Delta Conveyance Project planning and engineering design processes that require Delta stakeholder engagement during the COVID-19 crisis, until the public can fully participate. We request that you ask the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority (DCA) to pause its processes that require public participation, including Stakeholder Engagement Committee meetings, so that the Delta tunnel engineering design can be informed by meaningful public input. We also ask that you direct DWR and other resource agencies to extend public comment periods by at least 45 days beyond the end of the declared emergency." 2020-04-07-Delta Counties Coalition-Letter-to-Secty-Crowfoot-re-Stay
The Secretary Crowfoot and the Department of Water Resources has refused, but have instead allowed the DCA and SEC to hold their meetings online.
The next meeting of the 20-member DCA Stakeholder Engagement Committee will be held on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 from 3-6 PM. Topics are expected to include: Scoping Update (DWR), Rehabilitation of construction impacted land, Final temporary and permanent boundaries, and Intakes Update (*subject to change). Ring Central Video Conference. Information Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://meetings.ringcentral.com/j/1489140415; iPhone one-tap: US: +1(916)2627278,,1489140415#; or Telephone: US: +1(623)4049000 Meeting ID: 148 914 0415.
To stay informed of plans and progress on the Delta Conveyance Project visit https://water.ca.gov/Programs/State-Water-Project/Delta-Conveyance; Twitter @CA_DWR; email DeltaConveyance@water.ca.gov; or call the Project Hotline at 866.924.9955.
Filed Under: Agriculture, Business, East County, Environment, News, Recreation, The Delta
Contra Costa off state's COVID-19 watch list as of Friday night
July 3, 2020 By Publisher 35 Comments
Check marks indicate a county has fallen below the monitoring level for that criteria.
County health officials evaluating local data to determine any further business reopening
As of Friday night, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) COVID-19 website, Contra Costa County is no longer on the state's Watch List for monitoring cases.
The state monitors three criteria, which includes elevated disease transmission with a case rate of more than 100 or a case rate of greater than 25 and positivity of more than 8%; increasing hospitalization of more than 10%, and limited hospital capacity with less than 20% of ICU beds available or less than 25% of ventilators available.
Contra Costa has fallen below the criteria which flags counties for inclusion on the watch list.
Asked if there had been an announcement about this new information since our county was included in the list as of Governor Newsom's announcement on Wednesday, July 1, Contra Costa Health Services spokesman Karl Fischer responded, "No. Counties go on and off the watch list with some regularity, including ours."
Asked if those businesses that were supposed to reopen on Wednesday would now be allowed to reopen on Monday, Fischer responded, "No determination has been made about changing the reopening timeline. We are evaluating the local data."
A description of the data being monitored can be found in the Understanding the Data Being Monitored section. The data chart is updated and posted daily.
Filed Under: Business, Health, News, State of California
Governor allows local governments to extend renter protections through Sept. 30, marriage licenses via videoconferencing, more
July 1, 2020 By Publisher Leave a Comment
SACRAMENTO — On Tuesday, June 30, 2020 California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order extending authorization for local governments to halt evictions for renters impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, through September 30. Currently Contra Costa County's urgency ordinance preventing evictions and rent increases expires on July 15.
The order also addresses a variety of issues in response to the pandemic, by extending provisions in earlier orders which allow adults to obtain marriage licenses via videoconferencing rather than in-person during the pandemic; waive eligibility re-determinations for Californians who participate in Medi-Cal, to ensure they maintain their health coverage; suspend face-to-face visits for eligibility for foster care; and permit In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program caseworkers to continue caring for older adults and individuals with disabilities through video-conferencing assessments.
The order also extends waivers temporarily broadening the capability of counties to enroll persons into the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program, allowing for self-attestation of pregnancy and conditions of eligibility, and waiving in-person identification requirements.
In addition, the order extends provisions allowing for mail-in renewals of driver's licenses and identification cards, to limit in-person transactions at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and extends timeframes related to the payment of real estate license application and renewal fees and continuing education requirements for licensees.
The text of the Governor's executive order can be found here and a copy can be found here.
Filed Under: Business, Families, Health, News, State of California
Hold that beer: Contra Costa to postpone COVID-19 reopening timeline due to spike in cases, although expected
June 29, 2020 By Publisher Leave a Comment
Decision on bars made Sunday; indoor dining, gyms, nail salons, bowling alleys, arcades, hotels, museums, plus massage, body waxing and tattoo businesses will also remain closed
As Contra Costa Health Services (CCHS) warned the public of the possibility on Friday, they have decided to delay the opening of businesses and activities previously planned for July 1 until the COVID-19 outbreak in Contra Costa is better contained.
The county is closely monitoring recent data showing COVID-19 activity increasing in the community, as it is statewide and throughout the country.
On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom recommended that Contra Costa County, along with several other counties in the state, not reopen bars. Contra Costa is one of 15 counties on the state's County Monitoring List. The county's timeline had previously cleared bars (with or without food), indoor dining, gyms, fitness centers, personal training, massage, nail salons, tattoo, body waxing and other personal services not involving the face, limited indoor leisure (arcades, billiards, bowling alleys, etc.), indoor museums and hotels for tourism & individual travel to reopen July 1.
When asked Sunday about the impact of Newsom's recommendations, Kim McCarl, Communications Assistant for Contra Costa Health Services responded, "As you know, we released a statement on Friday indicating that we would make an announcement about our timeline going forward on Monday. That is still our plan. Bars are not currently open in Contra Costa County. We appreciate the governor's recommendation and will certainly take it into consideration as we determine next steps. We'll have more tomorrow."
However, Board of Supervisors Chair Candace Andersen told KPIX5 CBS News, on Sunday that "We were slated to open them on July 1, but given the governor's announcement, we will definitely not be opening bars on July 1st," citing contact tracing as one of the biggest challenges. "It is very difficult in a bar where you have lots of people interacting," she continued. "Whereas in other settings, a workplace, even a hair salon where you know who's coming, who's going, where you can then alert them when they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19."
Asked if she and the board had the authority to make that decision or if it was still in the hands of County Health Director Dr. Chris Farnitano and why it wasn't shared with all the media, yesterday, Andersen responded, "I spoke with Dr. Farnitano yesterday and he told me that while we were not making a determination about the other July 1 activities until today, he was going to recommend that we follow the Governor's guidelines regarding not opening bars. Based upon that information, I responded to the media inquiries received."
With the sharp rise in community spread and hospitalizations, it does not make sense at this time to open additional business sectors that could further accelerate community transmission. These businesses and activities will remain closed in Contra Costa until county data indicate that the spread of the virus has slowed, as measured by at least a week of stable case numbers, hospitalizations and percent of tests that are positive. Trends will be monitored and evaluated daily.
Decision Based on Statistics
The seven-day average number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals in the county has increased by 75% from June 15 to June 29.
The seven-day average number of newly identified COVID-19 cases has increased from 38 a day to 87 a day. The percentage of COVID-19 tests that came back positive has also increased from 4% to 6%. This suggests the change is not simply due to more testing, but a true increase in community spread.
More Young People Testing Positive
We are also seeing a shift with more young people testing positive. In June, 55 percent of people testing positive in Contra Costa were 40 years and younger, compared to 38 percent for that group in April. It's a sign that younger people are playing a major role in driving the increase in new cases and potentially infecting vulnerable individuals.
Many people who carry and spread the virus have no symptoms themselves. That is why it's important for everyone to avoid social gatherings, observe physical distancing and wear masks or face coverings when around others.
Widespread testing is necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19 so we can safely reopen the economy. Testing is the only way to find out if you are carrying the virus and interrupt its spread. People can spread the virus without knowing they are sick.
While Contra Costa have seen an increase in the numbers of people being tested over the past several weeks, we highly encourage everyone who lives and works in the county to get tested, even if they have no symptoms.
This morning, CCHS opened its eighth community COVID-19 testing site at Kennedy High School in Richmond. To make an appointment for a fast, convenient, no-cost test at any site in Contra Costa, call 1-844-421-0804 or visit cchealth.org/coronavirus – online scheduling is available at most sites.
The following questions were sent to Board Chair Andersen and county health services communications staff immediately prior to publication time:
Can someone please ask Dr. Farnitano, with all the recent reopening and protests, in which many more than 100 people were in attendance and clearly not social distancing was not practiced, during the previous three weeks, wasn't the increase in cases and percentages expected?
If so, then why punish everyone for the actions of a few?
Also, since the new cases aren't overwhelming our hospitals and health care industry with only 38 hospitalized, today – which was the issue we were told from the beginning was the major concern in the need to flatten the curve – and we all know that cases will increase once more businesses are reopened and activities are allowed to resume, why the delay?
Please check back later for any updates to this report.
Allen Payton contributed to this report.
Filed Under: Business, Government, Health, News, Recreation
Contra Costa Health Services evaluating COVID-19 reopening timeline
June 26, 2020 By Publisher 2 Comments
Timeline for July and August now contains qualifier
Friday, June 26, 2020 – Contra Costa Health Services (CCHS) is evaluating whether the county should continue its current reopening timeline, due to recent data showing COVID-19 activity is increasing in the community. The timeline for the reopening of businesses and activities scheduled for July 1st and 15th, as well as the school reopening scheduled for July and August include an asterisk and the following qualifier: "In light of rapidly increasing case numbers and hospitilizations, anticipated re-opening dates may need to be postponed. Our community's actions are more important than ever to stop the spread."
CCHS is closely monitoring key data indicators that show how the virus is spreading in the county and will announce a decision about the timeline Monday.
During the past seven days, the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals in the county has increased 42%.
The seven-day average number of newly identified COVID-19 cases has increased from 39 a day to 68 a day. The positivity rate of test results – the percentage of COVID-19 tests that came back positive – has also increased. This suggests the change is not simply due to more testing, but indicates a true increase in community spread.
We are also seeing a shift with more young people testing positive. In June, 55% of cases were 40 years and under compared to 38% for that group in April. It's a sign that younger people are playing a major role in driving the increase in new cases and potentially infecting vulnerable individuals. This highlights why it's important for everyone to avoid social gatherings, observe physical distancing and wear masks or face coverings when around others.
CCHS encourages all residents to get tested. Increased testing for COVID-19 is a critical part of the community effort to slow local spread of the virus, and necessary to continue reopening in the future.
Contra Costa's data are consistent with increases in COVID-19 activity now being experienced in communities across the state and the nation. To view the Contra Costa Health Services Coronavirus Dashboard for more statistics, click here.
There is concern that these increases may lead to a surge in very ill people that could overwhelm the local healthcare system. We realize many people are eager to resume normal activities. However, if we adjust the reopening timeline, it will be because we have a chance to prevent the pandemic from getting out of control in the county.
Any change to the timeline would immediately affect businesses and activities that are currently scheduled to resume July 1, including indoor dining, bars, gyms, hotels and some personal care services, including nail salons and tattoo parlors.
CCHS is releasing this information today to provide businesses and residents as much time as possible to prepare for a potential change to the timeline.
With the Fourth of July weekend approaching, CCHS also reminds everyone that it's a healthy choice to observe physical distancing when outside the home – maintain six feet of space whenever possible – and to wear face coverings. Anyone who feels sick should stay home. People should also wash their hands frequently.
Filed Under: Arts & Entertainment, Business, Government, Health, News, Recreation
Travis Credit Union awards scholarships to 20 college-bound seniors
TCU scholarship recipients from Contra Costa County (l to r) Serena Connel, Kassandra Ruiz and Yesenia Roman. Screenshots from TCU video.
Including three recipients from Contra Costa County
Travis Credit Union (TCU) recently awarded 20 local high school students the Mary Keith Duff Memorial Scholarship. TCU offers the annual scholarships to assist its young members with the increasing cost of higher education and to reinforce its commitment to the financial success of our country's future leaders.
All of the winning students received a 'Gala in a Box,' which included the scholarship award announcement of $2,000 to help with college expenses, as well as a $200 gift card that could be used towards a family dinner celebration. TCU board members as well as executive leadership members coordinated live Zoom calls with the families to join with them virtually in opening the 'special delivery' box and celebrating their achievement.
Scholarship recipients in Contra Costa County include Serena Connel of Clayton Valley Charter, Kassandra Ruiz of Pinole Valley High School, and Yesenia Roman of Pittsburg High School.
"We're so appreciative of the recognition of all the hard work these kids put in," says Rikki Rivera, mother of scholarship winner, Kennedy Rivera. "My husband and I were both recently furloughed due to the pandemic – so financially this scholarship has helped us out more than we anticipated when she first applied. This is very helpful to our family."
The TCU Board of Directors established the scholarship program in 2004 and named it the Mary Keith Duff Memorial Scholarship Fund in honor of a long-time board member. To date, TCU has contributed $437,000 to the program and will continue to award $40,000 annually.
"As a credit union, we are founded on the philosophy of 'people helping people,' and we stand behind the principles that promote human development and social responsibility," says Patricia Moreno, chairman of the board for TCU. "Offering these scholarships is just one way we are assisting young members."
To apply for the scholarship, college-bound high school seniors, who are TCU members in good standing, needed a GPA of at least 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) as well as a 500 word personal statement essay, expressing their plans for the future.
"These student's achievements in school and community signify that they have the dreams and determination to make a difference in the lives of others," added Barry Nelson, president and CEO of Travis Credit Union. "We are proud to honor them and be part of their plans for the future."
A video featuring the honored students can be found here.
Headquartered in Vacaville, California, Travis Credit Union is a not-for-profit cooperative financial institution serving those who live, work, worship, or attend school in in Alameda, Colusa, Contra Costa, Merced Napa, Placer, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, and Yolo Counties. Currently, Travis Credit Union is the 13th largest credit union in California with more than 214,000 members and more than $3.3 billion in assets. As one of the leading financial institutions in Contra Costa, Solano, Napa, Yolo and Merced Counties, Travis Credit Union's strength lies in its faithful commitment to its members and the community; its solid, secure history; and its long-standing track record of dedicated service.
Filed Under: Business, Education, News, Youth
Contra Costa Road Ahead update: more projected reopenings – indoor dining & gyms July 1st, movie theaters July 15th
June 17, 2020 By Publisher 1 Comment
Following are the businesses that will be allowed to reopen and the activities that will be allowed to resume based on Contra Costa County's updated Road Ahead issued Wednesday, June 17, 2020.
July 1st – Personal services not involving the face (massage, nail salons, tattoo, body waxing, etc.) • Indoor dining • Bars (with or without food) • Indoor religious services • Gyms, fitness centers & personal training • Limited indoor leisure (arcades, billiards, bowling alleys, etc.) • Indoor museums • Hotels (for tourism & individual travel).
July 15th – Personal services involving the face (skin care, permanent makeup, facial waxing, etc.) • Movie theaters.
However, although "These openings are a direct response to your patience and observation of the health order" as is written on the new Road Ahead, and they "hope to continue opening up the county" the county health officer "may need to reconsider openings based on the course of the pandemic."
Download a copy of the latest Road Ahead, here.
Filed Under: Arts & Entertainment, Business, Faith, Government, Health, News, Recreation
Contra Costa reopens more businesses, activities beginning Wednesday
Includes hair salons, barber shops, and 100 people at indoor church services and funerals
Contra Costa Health Services is taking another step toward alignment with the State of California's guidance on opening businesses and activities at a pace that protects public health and safety. At the same time, CCHS continues to recommend that residents stay home as much as possible and take steps to protect themselves and each other when leaving the house.
The Contra Costa Health Officer has amended the county's health order to allow hair salons and barbers to reopen for business beginning Wednesday morning. They must follow state health guidance to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.
The new order also increases the number of swimmers who may share a pool to 1 person per 75 square feet, as allowed by the state.
The social distancing order also allows as many as 100 people to attend a funeral or other religious service at an indoor place of worship, in line with the state's health guidance.
Some of Contra Costa's key indicators for measuring how well the community is slowing the spread of COVID-19 did increase in the first half of June, an expected outcome as more people come into more contact with each other as the county gradually reopens businesses and activities.
CCHS is carefully monitoring that data and could adjust the reopening timeline to protect the public health.
CCHS encourages everyone to take simple steps to protect themselves from COVID-19: Follow the shelter-in-place order, and wear a face covering when you go out or are near other people. Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently, and always stay home from work or school if you are not feeling well.
Visit www.coronavirus.cchealth.org/health-orders to read the new health order and its appendices, and for local information about Contra Costa's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Filed Under: Business, Faith, News, Recreation
Contra Costa's updated Road Ahead includes indoor religious services, bars to reopen July 1st
June 8, 2020 By Publisher Leave a Comment
According to Kim McCarl, the county health services communications assistant, the "guidelines will be the same as the state's". No word on if the requirement to create lists of the names and contact information of all attendees to be given to the county upon demand will still be included. (See related article)
Filed Under: Business, Dining, Faith, Health, News
Copyright © 2021 · Contra Costa Herald · Site by Clifton Creative Web


text:
Why I Quit Facebook
The Social Network, Columbia Pictures, 2010
by Justin E. H. Smith
I joined Facebook in September, 2007. My 'timeline', when I studied it for the last time yesterday evening, indicated very little activity until around April, 2008, at which point I, apparently, began posting frivolous status updates about my personal life, my tribulations and thoughts, roughly once a week. A style began to emerge over the coming months, one that was hardly original, but, I believe, still above average in the craft and care put into it.
I alternated between displays of grand, bullshitting erudition –one early update was a variation on a Latin motto from Leibniz, transformed for the social-networking age: Qui me non nisi renovationibus status mei in Libro Vultuum novit, non novit ('Whoever knows me only through my Facebook status updates, does not know me')– and the confessional mode, which I had the presumption to call 'Montaignean'.
I received my first 'like' in February, 2009. I did not understand what it was, or how it got there. I was in Australia, and it was from someone I had known in high school in California.
I'll skip over some history. By 2010 I had an iPhone, and I had taken to checking for likes every minute or so while walking down the street; I learned even to check for them, surreptitiously, while teaching.
The New York Times put up a firewall, and rather than pay the 99 cents per month required to get around it, I preferred to rely on links posted by my friends: I had 640 of them after all, and collectively they surely made up a reliable team of journalists (I'd estimate 30 to 40 of them were in fact professional journalists; another 200 or so were amateur journalists).
A few weeks ago I decided to get back to the four volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu that remained after I miraculously got through the first three a decade or so ago. But when one attempts to divide one's attention between (i) page 801 of the Gallimard edition of Proust's chef d'oeuvre, and (ii) one's ever-refreshing newsfeed: which do you imagine wins? It is cognitively impossible, I believe, not to prefer the newsfeed. It is glowing and changing, and it doses out what it has to give in easily swallowed, sweet little bits.
That was rock-bottom. I had to cut it off, and set about rewiring my brain, to get it back to the way I know it used to be.
I hasten to add that Facebook is among the most remarkable innovations in human history. In the sweep of centuries it, and the variations that emerge from it, will prove to be more important than books. Books were never themselves fundamental to human learning; in fact their massive proliferation in the Renaissance and early modern periods was at the same time an usurpation and a destruction of established and wonderful technologies of learning– in particular, practices of memorization that would put Julien Sorel to shame.
So it is not that I am sticking with what is true and right, against what is vulgar and corrupted, but only that there are certain projects that I came to value given the precise historical moment of my birth and earliest education, and these projects had come under serious threat as a result of this mighty usurper.
There are other reasons, too, which I would like to list here, from the more personal ones, unique to my own case, to the more general. Some of these have to do with what Facebook had done to me as a user; others with what I see as the troubling failure of Facebook to live up to its real potential.
I am by nature a melancholic person, and for a long time I asked myself whether Facebook alleviated or exacerbated this condition. I finally determined it was the latter. I like to write and to share what I write, and I like it when what I write receives acclaim. But when this cycle of expression-and-gratification is reduced to a few hundred characters followed by a dozen or so 'likes', it becomes a parody of the creative process, and impedes any real engagement in that process. It calls to mind this painful indictment from Pascal's Pensées, written just as if he could foresee the invention of the 'like' button:
We are so presumptuous as to wish to be known by all the world and even by those who will arrive when we are no more. And we are so vain that the esteem of five or six people who surround us amuses us and renders us content.
Typically what I have to say takes about 1500-3000 words; anything short of that is a compromise. I would never have dreamt of sinking into the swamp of Twitter-speak, where one is required by some arbitrary rule to substitute 'u r' for 'you are', and to indulge in other such adolescent vulgarities. But Facebook only partially enables its user to steer clear of texting code. Again, it is not that I do not want to receive gratification from what I have to say, but only that the formal constraints of the status update do not permit me to say it.
Not only for my ability to read, but for my ability to write as well, I began to fear that Facebook was draining away much of the thinking that could have gone into real essays, articles, books. I work in two distinct modes, both academic/scholarly and essayistic/belle-lettristic, and I came to fear that both of them were more stagnant than they might be if I could just pull myself away from the endless exchange of sweet little bits in my social network. But I emphasize that I am really not certain about my final determination that Facebook was an impediment, any more than I am certain that it exacerbated my melancholy: for quite often I had the experience of writing a status update that would then get some thoughts percolating, that would then transform into a blog post, that would ultimately issue in a book review or even, on at least one occasion, a successful book proposal. It's really hard to say whether on balance it was harmful or helpful. I suppose I just need, now, to test the alternative mode of working, and to see what happens when that all-too familiar, all-too inviting salon is no longer open to me.
Another source of frustration, about which I am much more ambivalent, has to do with the nature of the community one forges on Facebook. A few deep and genuine friendships have emerged out of my years there; some genuinely inspiring intellectual encounters have happened there; some rather mundane but necessary networking has taken place there. It would be dishonest for me to deny the good that has come of it, yet recently it dawned on me that I have a number of important connections with people who are not on Facebook, both intellectual and emotional connections, and in no sense do I feel like they are missing something of me, or I of them. Often, when someone I knew on Facebook wanted to discuss something important with me, they would send me an e-mail instead of a Facebook chat message, as if to signify the importance of the communication by moving into this other forum. I expect this sort of communication will continue.
I've said before that I don't think there's anything more 'real' about so-called real-world friendships. Those, too, come and go, and the truth is I have little interest in finding drinking buddies, or coevals to pursue hobbies with. That's not my concern, not my existential mode. All I really want to do is exchange ideas with people; Facebook was often fairly useful for this, but as I've said I began to fear that the ideas were reduced by the medium, and the nature of their exchange, based as it was in the perpetual ejaculation of short witty insights, often made a mockery of the sort of exchange that was held out as an ideal.
(Am I just getting too serious? In my updates I aspired to be funny. But what is funny in this here eulogy?)
I was comfortable all along with the equivocity of the concept of friend: I had 640 of them, call them what you will, and some of them were in truth my friends. Some others fulfilled other functions, and some did nothing at all but contribute to my tally. Fine. But again, it strikes me now that it was all somewhat like attending a very long summer camp: people come and go, and if anything worth preserving and cultivating should come about, then this will continue once the summer has drawn to a close.
I have mentioned that some of my reasons for leaving Facebook have to do with my own personal concerns, my projects and the way Facebook perhaps fails to facilitate them. I also mentioned that in my view Facebook is failing to live up to its potential. Recently, when I looked at my wall, it was as if 'Family Circus', 'Marmaduke', Penny Saver and Reader's Digest were spilling right off of Gutenberg's own press: such a wonderful and promising technology, descended into pure idiocy just after its first appearance in the world.
I have in mind in particular this new innovation, whereby whatever trashy meme some friend (in a highly equivocal sense) deems worthy of liking, ends up in my own newsfeed with the purported explanation that such-and-such friend has just deemed it like-worthy. Thus, after having fought so hard to banish Farmville and Cityville and shit like that from my wall, I was now being bombarded with misspelled slogans insisting that Marilyn Monroe's curves are in fact more beautiful than Lindsay Lohan's skin-and-bones, or that Obama is alright because he fist-bumps janitors, while Romney by contrast likes to get shoeshines on airport tarmacs (something I truly doubt, by the way). And most recently George Takei, likeable enough in himself, has entirely drowned out, with his good-spirited and sassy mash-ups, any possibility of using that social network for that higher aim for which it briefly held some promise: the exchange of well-thought-out ideas.
All the way back in 2007 there was something about this endeavor that rubbed me the wrong way: it was born of the dormitories, and to some extent it draws us all back into them. Or perhaps I should not say 'back': I was a commuter, to a state school, and I lived with my mother. I never lived in a dorm, and I never showed up in a yearbook, to be judged for my hotness or my plainness. The culture that produced Facebook is one that I never knew, and do not like. An image of that culture invaded, and invades, my mind every single time I hear the name of Mark Zuckerberg's venture, and every time I hear the name of Mark Zuckerberg.
I still believe Internet-mediated social networks will prove to be more important in human history than printing presses. But my social network will not be Facebook.
Piece crossposted with Justin E. H. Smith's website
Facebook, Justin E. H. Smith, Social Networks, The Internet
Facebook Search to Launch in 2013
'From the opening scene it's clear that this is a movie about 2.0 people made by 1.0 people'
A-Culture

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio Name New President & CEO
Scott named first president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio
Jeff Scott, a Parma native who went from working various jobs in his family's construction business to holding
key leadership roles in the banking, technology and manufacturing industries, is the first president and chief
executive officer of Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio.
Scott, a former vice president of strategy at KeyBank in Cleveland and most recently the general manager for
Austin, Texas-based Q2 Marketplace, was chosen to lead BGCNEO... (read full story on BGCNEO website)


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Failure Factory
Buffalo's school district tells students that "all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism"—while presiding over miserable student outcomes.
The story of Buffalo Public Schools is a sad and familiar one: a dying industrial town, underperforming inner-city schools, and high rates of failure among racial minorities. Instead of focusing on improving academic achievement, however, Buffalo school administrators have adopted fashionable new pedagogies: "culturally responsive teaching," "pedagogy of liberation," "equity-based instructional strategies," and an "emancipatory curriculum."
Buffalo Public Schools diversity czar Fatima Morrell, architect of the district's pedagogical revolution, summarizes these dense phrases in a single word: "woke." Last year, in her role as director of the Office of Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Initiatives, Morrell created a new curriculum promoting Black Lives Matter in the classroom and an "antiracist" training program for teachers. According to one veteran teacher, who requested anonymity, Morrell's training programs have pushed "radical politics" and, in practice, become a series of "scoldings, guilt-trips, and demands to demean oneself simply to make another feel 'empowered.'" Teachers must submit to these "manipulative mind games" and express support for Morrell's left-wing politics, or risk professional retaliation.
During one all-hands training session, the details of which I have obtained through a whistleblower, Morrell claimed that America "is built on racism" and that all Americans are guilty of "implicit racial bias." She argued that "America's sickness" leads some whites to believe that blacks are "not human," which makes it "easier to shoot someone in the back seven times if you feel like it." Morrell, who earned her Ed.D. from the University of Buffalo, said that the solution is to "be woke, which is basically critically conscious," citing a pedagogical concept developed by Marxist theoretician Paolo Freire holding that students must be trained to identify and eventually overthrow their oppressors. After Morrell's presentation, one teacher reaffirmed this political imperative, declaring that students must become "activists for antiracism" and public school teachers should begin "preparing them at four years old."
Last year, as Fox News has reported, Morrell designed a curriculum requiring schools to teach the "Black Lives Matter principles," including "dismantling cisgender privilege," creating "queer-affirming network[s] where heteronormative thinking no longer exists," and accelerating "the disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics." The lesson plans, which I have obtained from the district, are even more divisive. In kindergarten, teachers ask students to compare their skin color with an arrangement of crayons and watch a video that dramatizes dead black children speaking to them from beyond the grave about the dangers of being killed by "racist police and state-sanctioned violence." By fifth grade, students are taught that America has created a "school-to-grave pipeline" for black children and that, as adults, "one million Black people are locked in cages."
In middle and high school, schools must teach about "systemic racism," instructing students that American society was designed for the "impoverishment of people of color and enrichment of white people," that the United States "created a social system that had racist economic inequality built into its foundation," and that "the [current] wealth gap is the result of black slavery, which created unjust wealth for white people," who are "unfairly rich." Students then learn that "all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism" and that "often unconsciously, white elites work to perpetuate racism through politics, law, education, and the media."
In later grades, the curriculum proposes a solution to these problems. In a lesson on "confronting whiteness in our classrooms," teachers ask white students to atone for their "white privilege" and to "use their voices" for the cause of antiracism. In another lesson, students learn the putative difference between white European and traditional African systems of justice. According to the lesson plans, whites have created a "retributive," "merit-based" justice system, which relies on harsh punishment and creates inequalities; traditional Africans, on the other hand, relied on a "restorative," "needs-based" justice system focused on healing, giving to each according to his need, and prioritizing "collective value" over individual rights.
The new training sessions and curriculum are unlikely to lead to better student academic outcomes. Buffalo Public Schools have been an abject failure: by fifth grade, only 18 percent of students are proficient in math and 20 percent of students are proficient in English; one-third of all students fail to graduate from high school. The numbers are even worse for African-Americans, who constitute 45 percent of the student population. And according to the veteran teacher, despite the new "antiracism" programming, the district's poor response to the pandemic has accelerated racial inequalities, with virtual attendance rates as low as 30 percent in some classrooms.
Antiracist ideologues claim to have the solution to America's deepest problems, but in institutions such as Buffalo Public Schools, they have failed to ensure that students reach minimum levels of literacy. If they cannot teach the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, how can we trust them to reshape society?
Christopher F. Rufo is a contributing editor of City Journal and director of the Discovery Institute's Center on Wealth & Poverty. Sign up for his weekly newsletter and watch his new documentary, America Lost, which tells the story of three "forgotten American cities." This article is part of an ongoing series on critical race theory in American schools.
Photo: asbe/iStock
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Environmental champions from across London and the South East attended the inaugural Archant London Environmental Awards on Friday 10th November.
The World Land Trust (WLT) is delighted that two of its corporate supporters received awards on the evening: The Environmentalist Business of the Year winner was Chest of Drawers, a company which has carbon balanced through WLT since April 2007, and Chris Jenkin, Managing Director of WLT's longest serving corporate Sponsor, Enterprise Plants, received the Environmentalist of the Year Highly Commended. Congratulations to both.


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Q: Loop, passing a function as a parameter, argument of that function is always the last one. How to use bind()? I am trying to add an event handler to buttons which are generated in a browser extension. There are many buttons so it is done inside a loop, and the event handler of the button needs an argument (otherwise, all buttons will do the same thing).
for (....)
{
    ....
    var arg = createArgument(...);
    ....
    var myButton = document.createElement('button');
    myButton.addEventListner('click', function(){myButtonClick(arg)});
    ....
}

function myButtonClick(arg)
{

I used a method in this answer to pass an argument to the function, but the problem is that the arg for all buttons is set to the last value of arg at the last iteration of the for loop. A comment in that answer says that I have to use bind(), but I could understand how. In my case, how should I use bind() so that each button's event listener would have a different arg?

A: The way to use bind is simply to call myButtonClick.bind(thisArg[, arg1[, arg2[, ...argN]]]): the first parameter is the value you want the function to refer to when you use the this keyword within the function and any other parameter after would be passed to the function as a normal argument.
In your case if you don't need to use this within your function you could simply do myButton.addEventListener('click', myButtonClick.bind(null, arg);
If you don't need to use your arg(s) outside of the loop and the functions I'd probably declare them as let arg rather than var that way they only appear within the loop.

A: You have two options here:

*

*Using a function to create a new scope and bind that scope to the current arg value

*Using bind to bind the current arg value as this inside the function

Here's how that works:
for (....) {
  ....
  var arg = createArgument(...);
  ....
  createButtonWithListener(arg);
  ....
}

function createButtonWitListener(arg) {
  var myButton = document.createElement('button');
  myButton.addEventListener('click', function(){ myButtonClick(arg) });
}

This works, because createListener gets called with the current value of arg and the value is copied into the scope of createListener.
The variation with using bind would bind this and the arguments inside the bound function to the values you pass, so it could work like this:
for (....) {
  ....
  var arg = createArgument(...);
  ....
  var myButton = document.createElement('button');
  myButton.addEventListener('click', function(boundArg){ myButtonClick(boundArg) }.bind(myButton, arg));
  ....
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Raising children on TV disrupts their ability to pay attention and learn
Friday, August 01, 2014 by: PF Louis
Tags: television, childhood learning, attention span
https://www.naturalnews.com/046261_television_childhood_learning_attention_span.html
(NaturalNews) It's almost intuitively obvious to most that too much TV viewing is conducive to physical deterioration and not conducive to mental development. But what types of viewing at what ages affects children's ability to pay attention over amounts of time and assimilate actual learning from experience or studying has been a topic of several studies.
One of those studies even considered background TV as a major distraction. That is leaving the TV on most of the time even when not watching it for a specific purpose while a child is doing homework, or if parents watch a specific TV show while the kids are around doing whatever.
This study has determined that a TV show's momentary distractions from whatever a child is doing helps promote a poor attention span or a tendency to be easily bored. It's a sort of "there's something more important or interesting on the tube" tendency.
The study's paper was titled "Background television in the homes of American children."
Background TV is like secondhand cigarette smoke; it pollutes others
The University of Iowa (UI) publication Iowa Now interviewed one of the lead authors of that study, Deborah Linebarger, associate professor in the UI College Education's Department of Teaching and Learning. Locally, she worked with two UI graduate students in her department and networked with others in different universities.
The other university study contributors were Mathew Lapierre at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and Jessica Piotrowski of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Linebarger and her UI grad student associates conducted lengthy telephone surveys, often close to an hour long, among 1,454 households with children just under one year old to eight years old. Here are some of her comments from the Iowa Now interview:
"We discovered that the average American child was exposed to 232.2 minutes of background television on a given day. Using multiple regression analyses, we determined that younger children, children living in single-parent homes, and African-American children were exposed to significantly more background television than their older, multi-parent, and non-African-American peers."
Linebarger added, "What was really distressing was the fact that the youngest kids, the ones under 2, were exposed to 5.5 hours of background TV per day."
By calculating expected active TV watching and adding to the background TV, the researchers found that children two years and younger are exposed to six or seven hours of TV media daily.
And if we examine content of what's going on with TVs that are simply kept on most of the time, there's a lot of advertising of bad foods and bad medicine or a lot of bad or silly news, all in short visual clips and in sound bites.
This is how kids and are being programmed, and perhaps you were, or are, too. Moderate active viewing can be interesting, exciting or even occasionally uplifting or informative. Even then, too much is simply debilitating at any age. The younger the child, the more impressionable. This includes video gaming as well, which are often violent and addictive into later years.
It disrupts physical playing and social intercourse even within families. The tube has too much influence, which is why researchers recommend less active TV time and no background TV. It's an enticing consciousness pollutant, and it can be the model of behavior to greater or lesser extent among children.
Regarding parents' attitudes about background TV, Linebarger, who has four children of her own, explained: "[P]arents tend to leave the TV on all day even when no one is actively watching it. When I come into my house and no one is there, I like to turn on the TV to keep me company. And it's easy to forget to turn it off... you get up and leave the room with it still there and on in the background."
http://now.uiowa.edu
http://psychcentral.com
Television at FETCH.news


Drivers who have managed to secure cheap car insurance could be jeopardising their inexpensive cover by failing to take care of their vehicle's engine properly.
According to auto care firm Comma, too many motorists are neglecting basic maintenance.
Research by the group revealed five million motorists never check engine oil levels.
Seat owners were found to be the worst culprits - with 71.4 per cent admitting they do not carry out a dipstick test as often as they should.
Meanwhile, 68 per cent of Jaguar drivers and 67 per cent of Volkswagen motorists also acknowledged they were not checking their oil regularly enough.
Comma claimed this could be a costly mistake as fixing a damaged engine costs an average of £1,413.
In addition to this, motorists whose vehicles develop a serious fault through a lack of basic maintenance could be increasing their chances of being involved in a collision, which means drivers may be putting their cheap car insurance premiums at risk.