Page 271 | Bohemian | Sonoma & Napa Counties

Letters to the Editor: Hiking Fees and Kind Strangers

Aug 11, 2021

Letters to the Editor: Hiking Fees and Kind Strangers

Fee Hikes Rankle

Recently, the City of San Rafael approved fee hikes for the public library, parks and recreation, and child care services. It’s been 10 years since the citywide fee schedule has been updated. The City hired MGT Consulting to assess the fees, comparing fees with similar communities. Not mentioned in the assessment was the seven-year agreement between the City and Terrapin Crossroads to lease Beach Park, a publicly owned, three-quarter-acre waterfront site adjacent to Terrapin, which is up for renewal in September. The lease could be renewed, or the park could revert back to the public.

Terrapin Crossroads has turned this public property into a successful family-friendly concert venue serving food and beverages. It now appears to be an important and profitable part of the operation. In the initiating lease, Terrapin was to pay the City $15,000 a year in rent which would be offset by any improvements made by Terrapin. Terrapin holds many events at Beach Park, and it seems likely that Terrapin could net $15,000 with a couple of events. During any lease renewal meeting, might it be wise for the City to propose a profit-sharing arrangement with Terrapin? Also, the terms of the lease called for the installation, within 60 days, of an ADA-compliant public access dock. This has not been done.

To date, no dedicated park public restrooms have been built. If the park is ever to revert to public use, the promised dock and additionally some permanent ADA compliant restrooms are necessary. Since Beach Park has become integral to the business of Terrapin, I believe the current or a future city council would be loathe to wrest it back for the public. However, going forward, an equitable—say 50/50—profit-sharing arrangement is worth exploring in any new lease agreement. Any money from such an agreement could be used for the maintenance of other city parks. Since Terrapin is located in the Canal area, maybe profits could benefit the local community.

J.S. Danielson

San Rafael

The Kindness of Strangers

I had to take my dog to her vet on Center Boulevard in Fairfax. I turned into the parking area at the end of her building to turn around so that I could park in front of the vet clinic. I turned right out of the driveway and, rather than going into the traffic, I made a sharp right turn, hoping to slide into a parking space. I couldn’t see the funny, curved structure jutting out into the street, and got stuck on it. A crowd of men quickly appeared, suggestions were made, various things tried but they couldn’t move my car. A man with a truck offered to tow me out. Another man got into the driver’s seat and they skillfully moved my car and parked it for me, then came into the vet clinic to tell me that all was well. I didn’t get any names, nor did I get to say, “Thank you” to most of them. I hope some of them see my letter.

I also hope that the public works department in Fairfax sees this and removes this weird fixture. I was told that people get stuck on it all the time.

Ann Troy

San Anselmo

County Urged to Increase Covid Rent Assistance Outreach

Local News

Will Carruthers

Aug 4, 2021

County Urged to Increase Covid Rent Assistance Outreach

With Covid variant cases on the rise throughout the country, federal lawmakers allowed the Center for Disease Control’s Covid-19 eviction protections to temporarily lapse at the end of July.

Although a more limited federal eviction moratorium is now in place, the temporary gap served drew renewed attention to how many American households are still at risk of eviction due to unpaid rent.

Sonoma County and California would not have been impacted by the end of the CDC’s moratorium immediately because both have passed their own laws regulating evictions during the pandemic. However, Sonoma County is among state and local governments across the country which continue to struggle to distribute federal rent relief funds—potentially leaving renters and landlords with unpaid bills once the protections do end.

All told, the federal government has allocated Sonoma County $49.6 million through two Emergency Rental Assistance Programs, according to a staff report from a July 27 Sonoma County Board of Supervisors meeting. So far, however, the county has been fairly slow to disburse the money through its newly-created rent relief program.

Between April 19 and June 3, county staff reported that the nonprofits had distributed $2.7 million to 1,477 tenants and landlords. Then, at the July 27 meeting, county staff said that they had handed out a total of $5.3 million to 2,468 tenants and landlords by July 15.

While the amount distributed by the county almost doubled between the two reports, the county still has only distributed 10.7% of the total $49.6 million in federal funding available.

Sonoma County is far from alone in this struggle. U.S. Treasury data released in late July shows that the federal government had distributed just 12% of the first $25 billion of rent relief funds by June 30, just a month before the CDC’s eviction moratorium came to an end.

The struggle to distribute the funds seems to be, at least in part, due to a nationwide failure to inform renters and landlords about the existence of the relief funds. A survey of over 2,300 renters and landlords published by the Urban Institute on June 30 found that more than half of renters and 40 percent of landlords were unaware that federal rent relief money existed.

Sonoma County officials and nonprofits have reported a similar problem locally.

Earlier this year, the county signed a contract with Legal Aid of Sonoma County to offer legal advice to local tenants in precarious housing situations. During a public comment portion of the July 27 Board of Supervisors meeting, Suzanne Dershowitz, a housing policy attorney at Legal Aid, said that “Most tenants our Homelessness Prevention Attorney has spoken with in the last 4 months had never heard of the [county rent relief] program.”

As a result of the lack of public information and slow distribution of funds, some are urging the county to increase its outreach efforts to include direct mailers and Nixle emergency alerts in English and Spanish to inform renters and landlords about the available funds.

“Strategies like going door-to-door at the neighborhood level or sending out a brochure in English and Spanish to every renter in the county are best practices the County should prioritize as soon as possible,” Dershowitz said at the July 27 meeting.

County officials should also consider equity while informing the community about the rent relief program. Sonoma County renters make up 40% of all households and are disproportionately people of color. While 37% of white households are renters, 63% of Latinx or Hispanic households and 89% of Black or African American households are renters, according to a staff report.

At the July 27 meeting, Tina Rivera, the interim director of the county’s Department of Health Services, acknowledged that distributing information about the program to all groups has “truly been a barrier.” Rivera said that the county participated in a public forum to inform landlords about the rent relief program and is currently working to improve outreach, including to undocumented residents.

Also complicating the communication process is the fact that local, state and federal rules around evictions and rental assistance have changed numerous times throughout the pandemic.

At the beginning of the program, the state allowed landlords to receive 80% reimbursement for rent that went unpaid due to the pandemic. Now, thanks to a new state law, AB 832, landlords and tenants can receive 100% reimbursement for unpaid rent anytime since April 2020, as long as they fill in the proper paperwork and make less than 80% of area median income—about $93,000 for a family of four in Sonoma County.

That said, at least one glaring hole in the rent relief program still exists. If a tenant turned to family, friends or money lenders to cover their rent payments during the pandemic, those bills are not eligible for reimbursement through the rent relief program, Rivera said during the July 27 meeting.

Based on previous statements by nonprofit and county officials doling out the money, a considerable portion of possible recipients fall into that category, although specific numbers are not available.

Still, under new state rules, those tenants might be qualified for payments to help them pay rent in the coming months.

“We have been telling our clients and the community to apply for rental assistance EVEN IF you borrowed money to stay current on rent, you moved, your landlord/master tenant refuses to apply, or you have already received rental/utility assistance in the past,” Dershowitz, the Legal Aid attorney, told the Bohemian in an email.

Some aspects of the state eviction moratorium are currently scheduled to end on Sept. 30. Meanwhile, Sonoma County’s protections, as currently written, are set to expire 60 days after the county’s Covid-19 declaration of emergency.

Despite the state and local rules, some evictions have continued in Sonoma County. Between March 19, 2020, and March 31, 2021, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office served 145 eviction notices, according to KQED. The number of tenants who left their housing after being threatened with eviction is likely much higher but currently unknown.

To submit a rent relief application, visit SoCoEmergency.org/erap.

BYOB: New Film Finds Heroes Among Flames

Charlie Swanson

Aug 4, 2021

BYOB: New Film Finds Heroes Among Flames

For the past five years, residents in the North Bay and throughout the state of California have lived with the fear and horror of wildfire threats and disasters.

So, it may sound strange to recommend a movie that brings those horrors to the big screen. Yet, the new documentary, Bring Your Own Brigade, is a film that captures more than the flames. Instead, it finds and celebrates the heroes who risk their lives to battle the recent string of fire catastrophes while examining the root causes of the now-seasonal plight facing the state.

Helmed by two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lucy Walker, Bring Your Own Brigade begins its story in early November 2018, when several wildfires—including as the Woolsey fire and Camp fire that together killed 88 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes in the communities of Malibu and Paradise—engulfed the state.

Born in England, Walker now lives in Venice, California. Already, her film work has been compared to documentary masters like Errol Morris, and Bring Your Own Brigade contain a similar cinema verité style and character-driven stories that Morris pioneered in his documentaries of the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Drawing on hundreds of hours of frightfully stunning video footage shot by fleeing residents who found themselves surrounded by walls of flames, the film offers a palpable “you-are-there” intensity that serves to highlight the severity of the crisis.

Accompanying the raw fire footage, Bring Your Own Brigade contains candid interviews with shell-shocked survivors, firefighters and rescue workers directly impacted by the wildfires, as well as with scientists and historians studying the causes of these fires, and indigenous tribal leaders who may hold the keys to solving the wildfire puzzle in their generational knowledge.

Among these compelling characters, audiences learn of Fire Battalion Chief Maeve Juarez, whose courageous efforts saved countless lives; bulldozer operator Joe Kennedy, who risked death to clear an evacuation path for trapped residents; and Paradise-resident Brad Weldon, who opened his house to 20 neighbors left homeless in the aftermath of the Camp fire.

As a result, Bring Your Own Brigade works as both an eyewitness account of the fiery devastation wreaked upon California communities, and as an investigation into the causes of—and potential solutions to—the global wildfire epidemic that’s engulfing the West Coast and, more recently, igniting in countries like Turkey and Spain.

While the film finds that climate change and forest mismanagement made the situation worse in the past several years, there is also hope. In the end, Bring Your Own Brigade offers simple steps that can be taken to not only lessen the death and destruction caused by wildfires, but to help balance and revitalize natural woodlands and wilderness for future generations. If only we as a society can come together to confront the crisis together.

‘Bring Your Own Brigade’ opens on Friday, Aug. 6, at select theaters including Century Regency 6, 280 Smith Ranch Rd., San Rafael (Cinemark.com); and Rialto Cinemas, 6868 McKinley St., Sebastopol (Rialtocinemas.com). The film will be available for streaming on Aug. 20 via Paramount+ and CBS News.

Bay Area Health Officials Issue New Indoor Mask Mandate

Will Carruthers

Aug 2, 2021

Bay Area Health Officials Issue New Indoor Mask Mandate

Health officials in seven Bay Area counties and the city of Berkeley issued a new indoor mask mandate Monday as the region faces a wave of new Covid-19 cases due to the more infectious delta variant and the remaining swath of unvaccinated residents.

The mandate will take effect Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sonoma counties as well as Berkeley and require residents to wear a mask indoors in public settings like retail stores, regardless of whether they’re vaccinated or not.

Health officials in the seven counties also urged residents to get vaccinated as soon as possible if they have yet to do so, noting that the prevalence of the delta variant puts unvaccinated people at even higher risk of infection, serious illness and death.

While so-called breakthrough cases in fully vaccinated people are possible, the health officials noted they remain exceedingly rare and the three available vaccines also significantly reduce the chance of developing serious illness or dying from Covid-19.

“We know that face coverings work to prevent the circulation of the virus, and with contagious variants spreading it has become clear that mask wearing is again necessary,” Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase said in a statement on Monday. “Masking and vaccinations are the most important tools we have to end the pandemic. The vaccine is safe, effective, free and widely available. We encourage all residents to do their part in wearing their masks to keep themselves, their families and their community safe.”