Page 267 – Bohemian | Sonoma & Napa Counties

How Much is Rent Relief Helping Californians?

Manuela Tobias

Apr 27, 2021

How Much is Rent Relief Helping Californians?

[Editor’s Note: This article, originally published by CalMatters, references rental assistance program around the state, but not Sonoma County’s system. Information about Sonoma County’s recently-launched financial aid program for unpaid rent and utility bills is available here.]

When Blanca Esthela Trejo, 46, lies down to sleep, what feels like shards of glass stab her back and cut into her lungs — a lingering effect of COVID-19.

“I’d like to be crouched down, hunched over all the time, because the pain is too much,” she said.

But Trejo is foregoing medical treatment because she has put paying the rent on her Salinas apartment above all else — to keep a roof over her three children’s heads.

A state law passed in January extended eviction protections for tenants through June 30, as long as tenants show they lost their income due to Covid-19 and pay a quarter of what they owe.

The law also allocates a whopping $2.6 billion in federal money for rent relief.

Trejo, however, is one of many desperate Californians who won’t benefit because her debt is not to a landlord.

After losing her packing shed job—where she believes she caught the virus—she also lost her health insurance. Her husband has been out of work for most of the pandemic. Too scared to test the law, she paid rent in full every month with loans from friends. The couple now owes about $3,000, a debt Trejo wouldn’t dare deepen, even to cover medical needs.

“Could you imagine?” she asked in Spanish. “We haven’t paid them and we’re going to ask for more?”

With the eviction moratorium set to expire in two months, the verdict is still out on the biggest rent relief program in the country. But legislators and tenant and landlord groups who complained about the 11th-hour compromise worked out by Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders say their biggest fears are coming true.

“I am very concerned about tenants who sacrificed everything to pay the rent but went into extreme debt,” said Assemblymember David Chiu, a Democrat from San Francisco who helped craft the original eviction moratorium last year as the economy cratered during the pandemic. “How we assist those individuals is something that (the new law) did not contemplate.”

To assess the success and shortcomings of the unprecedented rent relief effort across the state, CalMatters interviewed more than two dozen officials, advocates, landlords, tenants and volunteers, and reviewed several surveys and studies. That analysis found:

Tenants who voluntarily move to less expensive housing or take out loans to pay off rent are not eligible to receive relief.
Some landlords are turning down rent relief and still evicting their tenants.
Many mom-and-pop landlords, either struggling to cover their costs or tired of heavy regulations, are leaving the rental market.
While there are strict regulations to ensure only the neediest tenants get money, there are no restrictions on the landlords who can benefit. That favors larger and corporate landlords.
Strong legal protections for tenants are being undermined by a lack of understanding of the law and lack of access to legal representation.
The total need for rent relief remains largely unknown, but bigger cities say the funds are already insufficient.

Landlords are in charge

The new law allows landlords to collect aid totaling 80% of unpaid rent from April 2020 to March 2021, as long as they forgive the rest. Tenants can also apply for relief to pay utility bills and 25% of future rent, covering April, May and June 2021, if funding allows.

But the back rent relief doesn’t cover people who moved out to stay with family or pay cheaper rent, or those who paid with credit cards or other forms of debt, because the law is only designed to protect people from eviction.

Tenant groups say the law isn’t effectively doing that, either.

Landlords can turn down the 80% deal, in which case tenants can collect 25% of the rent they owe and have the rest of their debt relegated to small claims court.

“It legally allows them to pick and choose the fate of that person’s life and whether or not they’re going to be saddled with thousands of dollars of debt,” said Anya Svanoe, communications director at the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action.

That’s exactly what happened to Patricia Mendoza, a single mother of two in San Diego. Her landlord told her he won’t apply for the funds because he wants to remodel her unit. She has received three eviction notices to date.

“As a single mom, I’m not working right now,” she said, her voice scratching from asthma and stress. “I’m trying my best to get you your rent. And right now you want nothing.”

Svanoe said the law still gives landlords access to the “full breadth of tools they use all the time to try to get a tenant out,” including owner move-ins, renovations or selling the unit.

It’s unclear how many landlords are turning down the aid across the state. But when Los Angeles implemented a similar rental assistance program last year, just 56% of landlords opted in, according to data from the mayor’s office. As a result, the city made the funding—a one-time $2,000 rental subsidy—available directly to nearly half of tenants.

Advocates want tenants to receive more than just 25% of back rent if their landlords reject the state deal because they are already seeing scenarios similar to Mendoza’s play out.

In Los Angeles, tenants say they’re facing harassment from their landlords to pay up or leave, said Katie McKeon, staff attorney at the Public Counsel Law Center. The pressure is particularly high for people in rent-controlled units.

“So if you have a tenant who is paying significantly below market rate, you might be comfortable eating that loss if you can get that tenant out and re-rent that unit at market rate,” she said.

In a survey of more than 25,000 tenants who applied to the Los Angeles rent relief program last year, researchers at the Housing Initiative at Penn found that nearly half of tenants faced landlord harassment. More than half took on debt or delayed other bills, and like Trejo, more than a quarter went without medical treatment to stay afloat during the pandemic.

Small landlords are also hurting

Bryant Phuong bought his eight-unit apartment building in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco in 1987, a decade after emigrating to the United States from Vietnam.

It was a steady source of income, until the pandemic turned it into a liability.

One tenant went five months without paying rent before disappearing, he said. Another hasn’t paid rent in over a year. Owed around $26,000 in arrears, Phuong has had to dip into his savings to cover expenses on the property.

He’s desperate to get help, but says he has been waiting in the dark after submitting his application over a month ago. That wait has him considering selling the building through which he hoped to retire and build generational wealth for his two kids.

“That was my American dream,” he said. “Now it looks like we might as well let it go.”

In another recent survey of nearly 1,300 landlords in Los Angeles, University of Pennsylvania researchers found that more than a third of landlords with one to five properties couldn’t survive for another three months under current conditions.

David Haas, managing broker at Ernst & Haas Management Company in Long Beach, said nearly a fifth of the company’s 1,100 clients have left the rental market over the past year. That’s not so much because of people who fell behind on rent, but because of perceived risk.

“Houses, condos, the stuff we manage, that stuff is coming off and being sold,” Haas said. “With all the statutes and regulations, they’re not seeing the risk as worth the higher rents. So what it’s doing is it’s driving rents through the roof.”

Groups around the state are worried about what it will mean for rent prices, tenant welfare and generational wealth for people of color if mom-and-pop landlords call it quits.

Jimar Wilson, Southern California market leader at Enterprise Community Partners, remembers growing up in the historically Black neighborhoods of South Los Angeles with his two brothers and single mom. The threat of eviction, he said, was always looming.

“It could’ve been a lot worse had it not been for the property owners who were indigineous to the community, who were willing to work with the community,” he said.

Wilson said low-income neighborhoods of color will need a lot more aid to prevent further gentrification and economic devastation.

His organization has partnered with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and others to put $5 million in the hands of struggling landlords in the 90011 ZIP code of Los Angeles in a program that launched April 15. The program illustrates a key point experts make about the new law.

“We can’t view any one thing as a singular solution,” said Vincent Reina, assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania. “There’s a need for us to face the housing affordability crisis that predates the pandemic.”

Unprecedented scale brings big problems

The state has offered jurisdictions three options to roll out the rent relief program: The state can do it for them, the city or county can do it themselves or the jurisdiction can distribute its share of federal dollars using its own rules, and let the state distribute the rest.

Officials admit it’s complicated — and landlords agree.

San Francisco, where Phuong lives, opted for the third option. But officials there have yet to roll out their program. People can submit applications to the state, but the state won’t review them until San Francisco sets its eligibility requirements. In some cases, the state money will only go out once the local money is spent, to prevent duplication.

The application is long and requires applicants to upload several documents, including federal tax withholding forms, lease and mortgage information from landlords and proof of loss of income from tenants.

That’s necessary, according to state officials, to prevent a repeat of California’s unemployment department debacle, where fraud may have totaled more than $31 billion. But it’s also making it more difficult to get the help to those who need it most.

Zaid Tahan, a landlord in Riverside, said his tenants are struggling to prove they lost income because of Covid-19. The rules in the city of Riverside and Riverside County allow landlords to get 100% of the back rent owed. Tahan only hopes to get half of the $40,000 total his tenants owe, at most.

Nanette Fowler, executive director of Shores of Hope, a small nonprofit helping people in West Sacramento sign up for the program, says one tenant had to meet with her staff three times to complete his application. Most people haven’t heard of the program, or don’t know they’re eligible.

“I can’t imagine doing this in a rural community,” she said. “I mean, we’re across the bridge from the Capitol.”

Some landlords keep their lease on a napkin, and many rural tenants don’t have access to reliable broadband or a scanner, so that requires far more time and handholding, according to Katie Wilbur, executive director of RH Community Builders in Fresno.

“That was one of the conversations we had with Fresno County early on,” Wilbur said. “The allocated money (under the new law) was not going to be enough to make the program successful.”

Community-based organizations across the state helping to roll out the program repeated the same message: There’s simply not enough funding to help them reach those most in need.

“It doesn’t bring us confidence to know we’re underfunded yet expected to serve,” said Deutron Kebebew, a program director at Community Bridges in Santa Cruz.

Kebebew said his organization didn’t get enough money to fund two full-time positions. Yet medium to large property management companies often have more staff members to help tenants submit applications.

That could create an uneven playing field for the mom-and-pop landlords who most need aid, according to Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Chan introduced a resolution, passed unanimously by the board, to track which landlords benefit from their local program — which the state isn’t set up to do. She’s also urging corporate landlords to negotiate their own rent relief with tenants, to prioritize funds for small property owners.

“Let’s make sure that, before you award these funds, there is a level of cultural competence and language access so that everyone can benefit, not just those who pay lobbyists in Sacramento or San Francisco,” she said.

Moving forward

No one knows exactly how much tenants across California owe their landlords. But if applications so far are any indication, the need for rent relief is enormous.

In just a few weeks, the city of Los Angeles received more than 124,000 applications, requesting about $330.5 million, compared to the $235.5 million available for this round of assistance, according to the mayor’s office.

As of April 23, state-administered rent relief programs had received more than 51,000 applications requesting nearly $355 million in assistance. The bulk of those applications were submitted by tenants, according to Russ Heimerich, deputy secretary of communications at the state Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, which is rolling out the “Housing is Key” program.

Another nearly 100,000 applications are in progress, with more than $907 million available in total. Some of those funds, however, won’t be available until local programs’ funds dry up.

More money is on the way. California expects to receive about $2 billion more for rental assistance from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, Heimerich said.

The guidelines for those funds have not been laid out yet. That matters, Heimerich explained, because many of the requirements of money allocated through the new state law were set by the federal government. That includes, for example, that the money goes to landlords first, and that the bulk be used for back rent, instead of other forms of debt.

With statewide eviction protections set to expire June 30, advocates worry that landlords will file evictions in droves starting in July. While the law will continue to protect those who paid at least 25% of their back rent, tenants still have to defend themselves in court. Lawyers are hard to come by in most parts of the state, and winning a case in court without representation is very unlikely, advocates say.

“If we had a really well-oiled legal tenant support system, it could be better,” said Svanoe, from the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action. “But that’s not where we are right now. So people are going to fall through the cracks.”

If the courts are unfriendly to tenants, the state Capitol isn’t an easy place to move legislation protecting renters, either.

Assemblymember Chiu said he and other supporters have to wait and see how well the new law is working before negotiating another deal to prevent evictions. That’s difficult to measure when the majority of checks haven’t been cut and evictions the law has prevented aren’t being tracked.

“All that being said, my colleagues understand how catastrophic it would be if we were to end eviction protections and see a tsunami of evictions occur,” Chiu said. “I’m hopeful that if we need to extend eviction protections past June, we’ll be able to do that.”

In the meantime, tenants left out by California’s rent relief rules are still waiting.

Ryan Furtkamp, who works at UC Berkeley in communications, and his wife moved out of their pricey Oakland apartment in February to save on rent. The couple lost more than half their income at the start of the pandemic when most of her dog-walking business dried up.

His landlord, San Francisco-based Mosser Companies, told him over email that his debt totals more than $25,000. But because he moved voluntarily, he isn’t eligible for state rent relief.

“It feels like we’re being punished for making that decision,” Furtkamp said.

When he first heard the state of California was taking action to protect tenants, “it was a huge relief,” Furtkamp added. “Now, it feels that people are powerless in terms of what’s going to happen to them.”

Members of Congress Call for Year-Round Federal Firefighters

Erin Malsbury

Apr 27, 2021

Members of Congress Call for Year-Round Federal Firefighters

“California wildfire seasons, unfortunately, are turning into wildfire years,” said Carmel Valley Rep. Jimmy Panetta in a recent press release.

Panetta, along with two senators and 20 other members of Congress from California, called for the creation of a year-round wildland fire workforce in a recent letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

The legislators who signed on, including North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman, want to reclassify seasonal federal firefighting positions as permanent, and expand training to include off-season prevention techniques.

“Because the federal government owns 57% of the forest land in California, and climate change all but ensures an ever-expanding fire season in the years to come, we must begin to adapt our federal resources to better align with needs on the ground,” the lawmakers wrote.

Creating a larger, year-round fire force could benefit both firefighters and ecosystems, says Stacey Sargent Frederick, coordinator for the California Fire Science Consortium.

“If you’re only seasonal, you have this really intense season, and then you might not have health benefits,” she says. Year-round positions would spread out some of that intensity and provide the benefits of full-time jobs.

This shift might help alleviate some of the burnout and mental health hazards of the profession. It could also create opportunities to advance through a career rather than work season to season.

Focusing on prevention and mitigation could also help restore healthy fire regimes.

“There’s a misconception, I think, that we can have a state without any fire,” Sargent Frederick says. California is full of ecosystems that need healthy burns.

“We think historically there was actually more acres burned in California than we’ve been seeing these last recent years,” she says. But those fires behaved differently from today’s massive blazes.

“It was a fire that would creep along and burn some small trees and burn up a lot of the dead and decaying matter on the forest floor but leave the big trees,” Sargent Frederick says.

Several of the West Coast’s indigenous peoples used this type of fire until colonizers began suppressing fire in the 1800s.

“Now, we’re dealt with this combination of climate change—which is making a lot of our conditions worse for fires—and also this fuel-management issue because we’ve taken fire out of the ecosystems,” Sargent Frederick says.

Management techniques such as controlled burns could help fix that. In comparison to the high-stress, emergency response of fire suppression, prescribed burns sometimes feel quite literally like a walk in the park.

“It’s actually kind of boring,” Sargent Frederick says. “You go, and you get all geared up and you do all this prep work. And then you just sit there and let it do its thing.”

Prevention also includes grazing, thinning, limiting ignitions and a number of other strategies, depending on location.

“It’s a combination of the right tools for the right systems,” Sargent Frederick says.

Last week, Sonoma County announced it will distribute between $2 and $4 million to local nonprofits and other organizations focused on vegetation management in high fire-risk areas. The funding is the fire-stricken county’s latest effort to reduce the threat of wildfires before they start.

With more of those tools available year-round, officials hope to make wildfire seasons safer for everyone.

Charles Krug Winery Preps for Summer of Live Events in Napa Valley

Charlie Swanson

Apr 27, 2021

Charles Krug Winery Preps for Summer of Live Events in Napa Valley

Founded in 1861, Charles Krug Winery is California’s first tasting room and Napa Valley’s oldest winery. It’s also normally one of the region’s busiest venues, hosting live events on its “Great Lawn” and throughout its picturesque property in St. Helena.

After more than a year of social distancing due to Covid-19, Charles Krug Winery is now poised to once again become the centerpiece of Napa Valley’s summer events schedule with several concerts, Drive-In movies and more set to take place over the next six months.

“There is always something new happening at Charles Krug,” says winery co-proprietor Peter Mondavi Jr. in a statement. “Wine tasting in the Napa Valley has continued to evolve and become much more of an experiential activity and we recognize that our great wines can be paired with so many wonderful experiences that add to the cultural richness of our community.”

First up, St. Helena’s Cameo Theater–renowned by locals for fostering an appreciation for the cultural heritage of cinema–is creating a new Drive-In movie experience at the winery happening every Wednesday beginning May 5 and running through September 2021.

“The Cameo Cinema and Charles Krug Winery are elated by the opportunity to bring the community together. We will maintain social-distancing practices as well as masking protocols for our guests,” says Cameo Cinema owner Cathy Buck in a statement.

The series begins with screenings of recent and classic blockbusters such as Casino Royale on May 5, Stardust on May 12, and Dirty Dancing on May 19. Before each screening, the winery will host a special “Happy Hour” experience with its signature wines and charcuterie available for purchase in the picnic area. Additionally, delicious meal options will be made available for pre-order from Tre Posti. Meals will be themed for each film and will only be available for purchase prior to each event. Get more details and tickets a cameocinema.com.

Beginning on May 20, Charles Krug Winery will temporarily host Blue Note Napa for a series of outdoor concerts through October featuring headlining acts like Brian McKnight, Tycho, Los Lobos, Pink Martini, and KT Tunstall.

The outdoor concerts series opens with a performance by North Bay favorites the Billie Holiday Project, led by vocalist Stella Heath. Each concert can welcome 260 guests to enjoy live music, food and wine at socially distanced, bistro-style tables. Tickets are available at bluenotenapa.com.

Live music, gala auctions and more come to the winery this summer as part of the Festival Napa Valley, running July 15–26. The event is presented by the nonprofit Napa Valley Festival Association, which hosts world-class performances and inspiring arts education programs.

For the festival’s return this summer, a massive stage will be erected on the winery’s “Great Lawn” to accommodate major musical acts such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lisette Oropesa, Michael Fabiano, Roberto Bolle and more. In celebration of the Festival’s 15th anniversary and the return to live events, all tickets for evening concerts this year will be $15 and daytime concerts will be admission-free (reservations required).

“While the decision to present all performances outdoors was made primarily for the health and safety of our artists, audience members, and community, it is in harmony with what people have come to love about Festival Napa Valley: one-of-a-kind performances and events surrounded by the incomparable beauty and enchantment of Napa Valley,” says the Festival’s President & CEO Richard Walker in a statement. For more information and full schedule of events, visit festivalnapavalley.org.

Charles Krug is also renewing it’s collaboration with the Napa Valley Film Festival to produce the summer film series, “Sunset Cinema” at Charles Krug’s Great Lawn. Guests will enjoy a variety of screened films at sunset against the backdrop of the adjacent Redwood grove. The Sunset Cinema showings are scheduled to take place on July 9, August 6, and September 3.

Also in September, Nimbash–Napa Valley’s annual celebration of local food, drinks and artists–returns for a gala event at Charles Krug Winery. Presented by St. Helena nonprofit arts organization Nimbus Arts, Nimbash boasts of a wide variety of art activities, local cuisine and wine, musical performances, a fashion show and a silent auction to support the local art community. Save the date at nimbusarts.org.

“Charles Krug has a storied history in the Napa Valley, which includes a history of engaging activities at our iconic estate,” says Judd Wallenbrock, President & CEO of Charles Krug Winery parent company C. Mondavi & Family, in a statement. “We’re happy to continue this legacy with renowned partners like Blue Note Napa, Festival Napa Valley, and everyone else we’re working with for our event series this summer.”

For more information on events taking place at Charles Krug Winery this summer, visit charleskrug.com.

Sonoma Grant Program Targets Areas of High Fire Risk

Bay City News Service

Apr 26, 2021

As fire season draws near, Sonoma County this week announced a vegetation management grant program for high-risk areas and key ecosystems.

The county is preparing to distribute between $2-$4 million to nonprofits, community organizations, local fire districts and other groups.

“There are so many grassroots efforts led by motivated local individuals and groups, and this support will help them deliver important projects with tangible safety benefits,” said Lynda Hopkins, chair of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

The funds come from a PG&E settlement awarded to the county as a result of the 2017 Sonoma Complex Fires lawsuit. In 2020, the Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $25 million of the $149 million settlement toward vegetation management activities.

Some high-risk areas targeted by the grant program include areas to the northeast of developed communities, and defensible space within 100 feet of homes in densely populated neighborhoods that are oriented in a west and/or south direction and are within canyons that border the east and west of the populated area.

Other priorities are areas that burned in recent fires; areas that border large public and private lands and dense developments; and areas surrounding primary evacuation routes and key infrastructure.

Grant applications must be received by 5:00pm May 16.

A virtual workshop for eligible applicants will be held on April 29 from 5:00 – 6:30pm Attendees may join the webinar here with passcode 544139. More information on the grant program is available at the Sonoma County Ag and Open Space website.

Santa Rosa School District Selects Finalist for Superintendent

Bay City News Service

Apr 23, 2021

Santa Rosa School District Selects Finalist for Superintendent

A nationwide search for a new superintendent to lead the Santa Rosa City Schools District led to the selection of Anna Trunnell, the district’s current assistant superintendent of human resources, as the finalist for the post.

Trunnel was selected from more than 20 applicants and the district board is expected to confirm its offer to her when it meets next Wednesday. She would assume the post when current superintendent Dr. Diann Kitamura retires June 30.

“Ms. Trunnell’s wealth of experience in so many educational areas really stood out,” Board President Laurie Fong said in a statement, adding that Trunnell’s leadership goals “are centered around social justice and equity for all students in the district. She is driven to constantly improve relationships and bring people together to improve the lives of students.”

Trunell’s education career includes serving as executive director of technology and curriculum in the Stockton Unified School District; director of curriculum and professional learning in the Elk Grove Unified School District; director of curriculum, instruction and assessment in the Washington Unified School District; a director and principal in the Twin Rivers Unified School District; and a teacher in the Grant Joint Union High School District.

Several North Bay Art Galleries Open Up with Live Receptions

Charlie Swanson

Apr 23, 2021

Several North Bay Art Galleries Open Up with Live Receptions

The North Bay is opening back up after more than a year in isolation, as Covid restrictions slowly, but surely, continue to ease and vaccination numbers increase.

In Sonoma, Napa and Marin counties, art galleries are leading the way in this reopening, and several shows open to distanced crowds this weekend and next.

In Healdsburg, the massive Paul Mahder Gallery is opening a solo exhibition by artist Lisa R. Fredenthal-Lee that features art made from envelopes. “Cut, Snipped, Torn & Pasted” includes many intricate and evocative collage works of art that can easily be viewed in-person while maintaining distance in the gallery, which is the largest of its kind north of Los Angeles.

“Scissors were my first tool. Paper and paste my first materials,” writes Fredenthal-Lee in her artist statement. “In development for 5 years, my current work is a return to a beginning. With a lifelong love, and respect for castoff materials, I am inspired by this common throwaway. The envelope.”

“Cut, Snipped, Torn & Pasted” opens on Saturday, April 24, at 4pm. 222 Healdsburg Avenue, Healdsburg. Free; RSVP available at paulmahdergallery.com.

In St. Helena, the art community pays tribute to a dearly departed friend and artist in the “Gregory Kondos Tribute Exhibition” at Caldwell Snyder Gallery. Kondos, who was born in 1923 and passed away in March of this year shortly before his 98th birthday, was recognized as a virtuosic landscape painter not only in his hometown of Sacramento, but around the world.

Along with his painting career, Kondos taught for many years at California State University, Sacramento, where he was a beloved figure. His work resides in numerous collections, including the SFMoMA, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum, and more. Mrs. Moni Van Kamp Kondos will be in attendance when this retrospective collection of her husband’s paintings opens with a reception on Saturday, April 24, at 2pm. 1328 Main St., St. Helena. caldwellsnyder.com.

Marin County artists Richard Blair and Kathleen Goodwin are known for their coffee table art books like Point Reyes Visions. They rarely exhibit on walls, though Goodwin’s large original paintings and Blair’s sharp photographs are showing in the exhibit “The Astonishing Beauty of Point Reyes” at Toby’s Gallery in Point Reyes Station.

Goodwin and Blair both photograph Point Reyes landscapes during peak light. Goodwin then projects the images on canvas to make her art, and Blair turns his images into black-and-white photographs in the vein of Ansel Adams. Both artists will be on hand for the show’s opening reception on Saturday, May 1, at Toby’s Gallery, 11250 Highway One, Point Reyes Station. 2pm to 4pm. blairgoodwin.com.

Sonoma County artists Lisa Beerntsen and Tony Speirs are acclaimed for their paintings and teachings. Now, the artists work together for the exhibit “Los Dos: Lisa Beerntsen & Tony Speirs Collaborative Works” at Sofie Contemporary Arts in Calistoga.

The art is inspired by the artists’ travels, and reflects those adventures. The pieces on display seem like vintage postcards from other places and times, both real and imagined, and the works feature folk and pop-culture imagery interwoven with political and cultural commentary. “Los Dos” includes these collaborative works and the artists’ individual pieces when it opens on Saturday, May 1, at Sofie Contemporary Arts, 1407 Lincoln Ave., Calistoga. 4pm to 7pm. Sofiegallery.com.

Napa Pop Band Slippery People Releases Debut Record with Online Dance Party

Charlie Swanson

Apr 21, 2021

Napa Pop Band Slippery People Releases Debut Record with Online Dance Party

Napa-based musician Pete Davies is best known in the North Bay for his indie-rock and pop projects The Buttercream Gang and Kowa. Now, Davies is taking his conceptual music in a new direction under the name Slippery People.

On Friday, April 23, Slippery People releases its debut record, Fandango, which boasts both danceable electronic textures and laid-back, contemplative acoustic moments.

“I wanted to write about something good and make it not absolute saccharine cheese,” Davies says in a statement. “This album was inspired by one transformative day spent enjoying nature in Northern California about three years ago.”

Fandango is full of themes of rebirth, redemption, and communing with nature and the people you love, but it’s far from the sunshine and smiles that define bubblegum pop. Amid the dance beats, there’s plenty of introspection and depth in Davies’ songwriting.

Even on the album’s exuberant lead single, “Sweat,” Davies sings about existential crisis with lyrics like, “I’m not giving up / I’m not going to give it up / To the voices in my head / That tell me that I’m better off dead.”

Davies chose the name Slippery People as more than just a nod to one of his favorite Talking Heads songs.

“I feel like that word in particular, ‘slippery,’ gave me license to be more fluid as a musical artist, to not be pigeonholed into one genre or style,” he says.

The result is a genre-bending blend of music that calls to mind influences ranging from LCD Sound System to Fela Kuti.

Though he has been writing the album for the better part of the past three years, Davies–who works as a middle school teacher in San Francisco–really kicked production of Fandango into high gear this past year while isolating due to the pandemic.

Davies also tapped into his multi-instrumental musicianship to record vocals, bass, keys, drums and guitar himself in addition to horn sections and marimba parts that were recorded remotely.

“It’s not about people seeing how great of a musician I am,” Davies says. “It’s about serving the song.”

The album is being released through Davies’ own label, Pitted Records, and Fandango goes live on Friday, April 23, with a virtual album release show via Zoom at 7:30pm.

Viewers will experience the album in its entirety with performances and special guest appearances, as well as visual art made specifically for the event and projected live onto the stage.

The event will also include interactive activities for those in attendance. For those who aren’t able to attend the show, the recording will be uploaded for viewing the following week. Register for the free album release event via Zoom here.

Get more info on Slippery People at linktr.ee/slipperypeople.

Sonoma County Launches Financial Aid Program for Unpaid Rent, Utilities

Will Carruthers

Apr 21, 2021

Sonoma County Launches Financial Aid Program for Unpaid Rent, Utilities

This week, Sonoma County launched a program to help landlords and tenants cover bills that went unpaid due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although the process is more complicated than one might expect, the cash infusion will no doubt be welcomed by many families in need who are able to qualify.

In January, state lawmakers passed legislation to funnel federal stimulus funds to the counties. From there, counties were allowed to decide whether they would like to distribute their millions of dollars in allotments by using the state’s portal or by creating a system to distribute the money directly.

Sonoma County decided to pursue the second option. On April 6, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approved agreements with 10 local nonprofits to distribute $32.2 million. The chosen nonprofits will accept applications from landlords and tenants to backfill unpaid rent and utility payments due to unemployment or costs incurred due to the pandemic.

“The vaccine rollout has allowed us to finally see a light at the end of the tunnel, but we cannot ignore the financial strain it has placed on residents,” Lynda Hopkins, chair of the Board of Supervisors, said in a statement about the program. “This relief is a needed resource that will help alleviate stacks of unpaid rental or utility bills, for our most vulnerable populations.”

Under state legislation, landlords who agree to participate in the program can receive up to 80% reimbursement for rent which went unpaid for a reason tied to Covid-19 between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021. In return for participating in the program, the landlord agrees to forgive the remaining 20% of unpaid rent.

If a landlord does not agree to participate in the program, a tenant can apply to receive up to 25% of their unpaid rent accrued during the same time period. In this case, the tenant would receive the money directly and have to pay off the rest of the bill.

In order to be eligible for the county’s assistance program, a renter household must earn less than 80% of the area median income (AMI), currently $81,850 for a three-person household. Preference will be given to renter households making less than 50% AMI, or $51,150 for a three-person household.

Finally, in order to receive funds, renters must demonstrate that they faced financial hardship, which could include losing income for some reason tied to Covid-19.

With the information available, it’s hard to tell whether the amount of aid money will be enough to make struggling families solvent.

In January, the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) estimated that renters in California owed a total of $400 million in unpaid rent. Other estimates of total rent debt, generally reached by comparing unemployment data with Census figures, have been much higher than the LAO’s figure. That might be in part because some renters have chosen to forgo their water and electricity bills in order to pay their rent.

In February, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) reported that 3.3 million utility customers in California owed an estimated $1.25 billion to the state’s gas and electric utilities. Northern Californian customers owed $605.6 million to PG&E. Meanwhile, the State Water Resources Control Board estimated in January that unpaid water bills totaled $1 billion in California.

Considering those staggering figures, it’s appropriate that Sonoma County families in need can also apply for help to pay their utility bills through the rental assistance program.

That said, if a renter dug into their savings, sold their car or pursued another means to pay their rent and other bills over the past year, they will not be eligible for the rent relief program.

The North Bay Organizing Project, Petaluma People Services Center, Catholic Charities, Community Action Partnership Sonoma County and the California Parenting Institute are offering assistance countywide. Other organizations are providing assistance to specific parts of the county.

Visit SoCoEmergency.org for a full list of the organizations offering assistance, as well as for more information about the county’s current eviction rules. Here’s a quick link: shorturl.at/jsFO6

Representation

At their April 6 meeting, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors took a step toward limiting evictions by signing a contract with Sonoma County Legal Aid to kick off a two-year pilot program allowing the organization to provide tenants with additional legal representation.

To understand why this may be important, let’s take a step back.

In January, KQED reported that the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office had served court-order eviction notices to 64 tenants between March 19 and Dec. 31, 2020.

The rate was significantly lower than in other years. Records obtained by the Bohemian show that the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office served eviction notices to over 400 renter households over the same time period in 2019. And, in an average year, 1,195 eviction cases are filed in the local court. This, in a county with 74,803 renter households.

Since KQED published the figures about the eviction rates, Sonoma County has passed additional restrictions on evictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, an untold number of Sonoma County renters leave their homes each year before they get their day in court. That’s in part because evictions are a civil matter, not a criminal matter, which means that tenants are not guaranteed an attorney if they fight a case in court.

As a response to this imbalance, some cities around the country have begun experimenting with providing tenants a “right to counsel” when they face eviction.

The county’s two-year pilot program with Legal Aid of Sonoma County does not offer that, but it will allow the organization to hire additional attorneys, and to provide some tenants facing eviction in court with free protection.

Legal Aid estimates it would cost between $5.1 and $5.6 million each year to fully fund a program to provide every tenant facing eviction in Sonoma County with legal representation.

The hope for the two-year pilot program is that Legal Aid can help mediate some disagreements between tenants and landlords, avoiding the need to go to court in the first place.

Any investment in eviction prevention policies could potentially lead to big economic savings for the county by avoiding the costs of providing supportive housing and other resources to people who become homeless after being evicted. According to an April 6 county staff report, a study of Philadelphia by Stout, a financial analysis firm, found that a $3.5 million investment in tenant protections led to $45 million in cost savings for the city.

The California Apartment Association has opposed right to counsel proposals in some California cities on the grounds that the policy “would make taxpayers foot the bill for private legal disputes.”