canyonwalker | Entries tagged with california

It's been odd reading in the news about heat waves gripping the US as here in California it's been a cool summer. It's more than just a "This week it's cool out" phenomenon, though. It's been cooler than normal the past few months here in coastal California. I already knew that from my own gut sense (I notice the weather every day though I don't record it rigorously) but it was interesting to see it confirmed, and explained, in articles I read today when I looked up why it's such a thing that California is cooler than the rest of the US.

First, here's a picture of what I'm talking about:

California stays cool this summer while much of US bakes (Jul 2025)

California stays cool this summer while much of US bakes (Jul 2025)

This is a chart from a week ago. It shows that over a near-term forecast range (6-10 days) coastal California will have lower than average temperatures while much of the rest of the US is above normal.

As a specific example of what "Below" normal means, high temps the past few days around my home have averaged 76° F. That's 5° below the local average for this time of year. That's where my gut sense of it being cool comes from. A difference of a degree or two, I wouldn't notice. But a 5 degree difference, especially persistently, I do notice. And occasionally grouse about here in my blog because I look forward to enjoying summer-y summer weather!

As far as why there's this temperature discrepancy across the US, worsening summer heat waves are part of what's happening with global climate change. What's happening in California is an older, not-man-made pattern. A strong ocean current brings cold water from the Gulf of Alaska down to the Pacific coast of northern California. High pressure zones have been causing us to get winds from across the ocean. The wind cools over the cold water and acts like a natural air conditioner for coastal California. At some point the high pressure nexus will shift and winds will blow offshore.... Then we'll get heated air from the east blowing over us instead of cool ocean air. But for now the high pressure pattern is sticking in "A/C is ON" position.

A Cool Summer in Parts of California Doesn't "Disprove" Climate Change

It's sad I have to point this out, but I do. Beause there are climate idiots (not just skeptics but fools) out there who sneer when there's a cold week, "So much for ‘‘Global Warming’’!"

The existence of this cooling pattern in California does not contradict the existence or impact of human-caused Global Warming. As a recent blog on Weather West argues, 100 years ago this cool summer weather wouldn't have been unusual in California. The significant global warming of the last 50 years ago puts it at contrast with the new normal. And yes, there always will be "cold snaps" even in a world of global warming. There will always be winter blizzards, too, in Minneapolis and Buffalo. Global Warming is about the averages shifting in significant ways. Summers, in general, are getting more intense, and days of sub-zero winter weather in the snow belt are getting fewer.

Pasadena Trade Show Travelog #1
SJC Airport - Thu, 6 Mar 2025, 2pm

I'm headed down to Southern California today to work a trade show tomorrow through the weekend. Yes, this IT industry trade show runs through the weekend. It's the way this one's always scheduled.

This year the show's back in Pasadena after a few years in LA near LAX airport. I liked the latter location as it was easy in/out for me. I could fly to LAX and walk to the hotel. I did exactly that— walked from the airport to the hotel for this conference a few years ago. It's a bit intense walking a mile with a suitcase in hand. Though I did it again, walking to a slightly closer airport hotel on a business trip a few months ago.

Anyway, it's back in Pasadena now. That means I'll fly to Burbank Airport (BUR), which is a much smaller airport than LAX. And there's definitely no walking from the airport, as even BUR is 16 miles away. So I'll fly and call Lyft/Uber to get around.

One thing you might wonder is, "Wait, since it's all in California, could you drive?" Yes, I could. From my house to downtown Pasadena is a drive of 350 miles. Even with mostly wide-open superhighways between here and there it's at the edge of where I'd consider driving vs. flying. I'll share more thoughts about the fly-vs-drive calculation soon if I have time. For now, though, it's time to fly!

It actually rained a bit today. On that one hand it's odd to say actually because we're in the middle of what's supposed to be our rainy season here in California. On the other hand, it's been a ridiculously dry January. The tenth of an inch, a drizzle really, we got locally may be the first precipitation we've had all month.

We're in a La Niña weather pattern this winter. That means drier than average weather south of us and wetter than average to the north. What about here? We're kind of on the dividing line where it can shift either way. After a decent cumulative rainfall in November and December that had us about at average for the season to date we've now dropped to about half the normal-to-date average here in Central (yes, Central) California.

The northern third of the state is at average-plus, which is great for filling major reservoirs such as Shasta and Oroville, but Southern California is at a quarter or less of normal rainfall so far. You see one of the consequences of that dryness in the terrible fires that have burned in and around Los Angeles. Another consequence we might see in a few months is drought.

Meanwhile we're swinging back to wetter weather here in the SF Bay area. After the bit of rain today we'll have more tomorrow, then there's rain in the forecast on and off through the following weekend. It's kind of a bummer that I missed January's clear weather while staying inside the past few weeks. My mood was dreary even as the weather was not. Now the weather turns to dreary just as I'm hoping to snap out of it. Well, we need the rain. I'll take solace in that.

Today, December 21st, is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. It's the shortest day, the longest night, and the start of winter by modern convention.

Winter means rain in California. Our climate pattern is such that we have beautiful, long, sunny summers. In turn, we get virtually all our rainfall for the year in winter. Of course, that definition of winter is not limited to astronomical dates like December 21. Typically our rainy season starts sometime in November and runs through March.

The way winter weather starts before the official start of winter means that, some years, I'm tired of winter by the time it starts. 😰 That was the case last year; fortunately it's not the case this year. I'm okay with winter right now. It hasn't dragged me down too much already. I think I'll be okay— as in not dispirited— by a couple months of drear. If nothing else, at least now that it's the winter solstice the days will start getting longer again. Soon it won't be dark at 5pm any more!

After Wednesday's bomb cyclone failed to deliver locally the violent weather its name suggests (though it did pack a wallop in Oregon and Washington) today a steady, soaking rain has set in. A look at the forecast shows that it's likely to rain here for the next four days. We could get several inches of rain over that time. The Sierra Nevada mountains on the eastern side of the state will likely get a lot of snow. Both are a good start to our winter rainy season.

The start of winter? Yes, by my observational standard, it is. Autumn around here begins when it gets cool enough to wear long pants and I need to turn on the heat in the house. Winter begins when it starts to rain regularly. The latter works because of the Mediterranean climate pattern we have in California. We have long, dry summers and mild, wet winters. Virtually all of our annual rainfall comes in a 4 month stretch from generally around mid-November to March. Thus why it's good to get the season started with a good soaker of a rainfall. We need to refill our reservoirs, snowpack, and groundwater tables so they can last us through the 8 dry months that follow the rainy season.

I'm going through the ballot propositions on the ballot here in the 2024 general election. In this 4th blog in the series I'll finish with the last two statewide propositions. But then I'll have to write at least a Part 5 to address the local props on the ballot. Whew!

Here are my previous blogs on this year's ballot propositions:

Part 1: Props 2 & 3 and a few links on how props work
Part 2: Props 4, 5, and 6
Part 3: Props 32, 33, and 34

Now onto Props 35 and 36.

Prop 35: Permanent Funding for Medi-Cal: YES.

Medi-Cal is a program that funds health care for millions of poor people and children in California. One of its sources of funding, a tax on health insurance plans, will lapse if nothing changes. And that lapse would be a double whammy as the funding is matched by federal dollars. A YES vote on 35 makes the temporary funding permanent, at least at the state level. The federal matching... well, that depends on who wins the presidency.

Prop 36: Stiffer Criminal Penalties for Minor Crimes: NO.

Ten years ago California voters approved Prop 47, which reduced penalties on certain minor crimes such as small-time theft and drug use, reducing them from felonies to misdemeanors. Curiously the original motivation behind it was to reduce California's prison population— as federal courts had found the terrible conditions in the prisons unconstitutionally harsh and were threatening to release prisoners ad hoc if the state didn't reduce the prison population itself. That notwithstanding, many of us voted in favor of Prop 47 as a matter of rationalizing criminal law and promoting fairer social justice. Now, 10 years later, the lock-'em-up faction of politics is looking to repeal Prop 47.

The lock-'em-up side of politics warns us breathlessly of a crime wave sweeping our cities. Murders, drug use, homelessness (which isn't really a crime), and theft. Our cities, especially our cities where Democrats lead, are cesspools, they cry. But here are the facts: Crime overall is near a 50 year low. Yes, it ticked up a bit from absolute lows during part of the Covid pandemic, but signs are that it's coming back down.

"But what about rampant retail theft?" social critics ask. It turns out it's been overreported. The head of a drugstore chain admitted that they played up "theft" as a reason for their poor financial results and the need to close stores in some locations. Really the primary causes were a) overexpansion coupled with b) failure to adapt an outdated business model to the changing market. And as for stores locking up more and more products behind plexiglass... well, consider that the stores are doing this because they're cheaping out on staff to run the stores. When I go to my local CVS to fill prescriptions I notice that while the pharmacy often has 3 or even 4 people filling bottles, the whole rest of the store generally has one employee.

But let's not get too lost in the details. The big picture here is that we've been down the lock-'em-up road before. It doesn't work. It fills our prisons with low-level offenders who could be better reformed with treatment than incarceration, stresses available prison space to the point that conditions are inhumane, provokes a spending crisis as we confront the costs of having to build more prisons to house everyone we convict, and ultimately doesn't reduce the crime rate. Vote NO on 36.

I'm going through the ballot propositions on the ballot here in the 2024 general election. See part 1 of this series for a few links on how props work and my thoughts about Props 2 & 3; and part 2 of this series for Props 4, 5, and 6. Here are my thoughts on the next few.

Prop 32: Raise the Minimum Wage: Weak No.

Prop 32 is the first measure on this ballot that's a citizen initiative— meaning it was written and qualified for the ballot by private citizens, as opposed to bond measures and constitutional amendments which are approved by the legislature first then must be put to voters for final approval. Citizen led initiatives often have problems. I'll address that in a moment.

Prop 32 would raise the minimum wage state-wide in California. Employers with 26+ employees would have to pay a minimum of $17 starting immediately and $18 on January 1, 2025. For employers with 25 or fewer employees, a minimum of $17 applies starting January 1, 2025, rising to $18 on January 1, 2026.

I've blogged many times about minimum wage and how it's generally too low. From reading my past thoughts you might be surprised that I'm leaning against Prop 32. This has to do with the weaknesses of citizen led initiatives. Often they embody a worthy idea but with a flawed implementation.

This raise to $17-18 is not huge. While you might be thinking about the federal minimum wage, which has been unchanged at $7.25/hr for 15 years, California's minwage is already much higher. Currently the statewide minimum is $16, which took effect January 1, 2024. For fast-food workers a higher rate of $20 took effect April 1. Source: State of California Department of Industrial Relations.

While the statewide minwage is already high compared to the (outdated) federal minimum, cities and counties are free to require higher wages. In my city of Sunnyvale it rose to $18.55 at the start of the year. In neighboring Mountain View it's $18.75 this year, rising to $19.20 on January 1, 2025.

To me the flaw in raising the statewide rate again is that it's not necessarily appropriate everywhere in the state. Sunnyvale and Mountain View are high-cost areas. Many businesses were already having to pay nearly as much due to labor market conditions. But what about areas where costs of living are much less expensive? $17-18 might be too expensive for employers in such areas and unnecessary for employees. I prefer to see statewide laws developed through the legislature's deliberative process, informed by professional input from government agencies such as the Department of Industrial Relations, with cities and counties able to adjust as necessary for local conditions. That's a better way to legislate labor policy that's fair for all stakeholders than asking the broad electorate to make a strict yea-or-nay vote on an overly simple solution to complex policy.

Prop 33: Allow Localities to Expand Rent Control: Yes.

Rent control can be a divisive issue. Some localities in California have rent control. Whether to have rent control, and the specifics of the limits it entails, are decided at the local level. I.e., your city decides if, and how, there's rent control in your city. This measure does not change that fundamental fact. It does not enact rent control anywhere; it only changes the laws that limit what cities are able to do.

A key rent-control law, the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, was passed in 1995. It placed significant restrictions on which properties local governments can even subject to rent control. One key restriction is that no building built after February, 1995 can be rent-controlled. Nor can any single-family home. And no limit can be placed on the rent increase when a new tenant signs. (Allegedly landlords try to drive out older tenants of rent-controlled properties so they can reprice at market rates.) That 1995 date was not set to be indexed... so today, all condos built within the past 29.75 years are exempt from rent control. That's ridiculous. Prop 33 repeals Costa-Hawkins so local governments have more latitude to enact modern policies that serve their residents.

Prop 34: Slap Punitive Restrictions on the AIDS Healthcare Foundation: HELL NO.

The official title of this proposition is "RESTRICTS SPENDING OF PRESCRIPTION DRUG REVENUES BY CERTAIN HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS." It would required these "CERTAIN HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS" to spend 98% of their revenues from a federal discount prescription drug program on direct patient care. Putting governance on healthcare providers to ensure they spend most of their money on caring for patients seems like a worthy cause, doesn't it? Don't be fooled.

This bill defines "CERTAIN HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS" so that it includes exactly one provider. One. It's the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. It's not any insurance company. The ACA required insurance companies only spend 80% of their revenues on patient care. The people who wrote this measure know damn well who they targeted. Prop 34 is a punitive attack from opponents of Prop 33 to punish an organization, AHF, that was a big supporter of Prop 33. Regardless of what you think of Prop 33, this kind of retaliation through the ballot box is an example of the worst kind of use of California's ballot proposition system. Just say NO. Vote NO.

I'm going through the ballot propositions on the ballot here in the 2024 general election. See part 1 of this series for a few links on how props work and my thoughts about Props 2 & 3. Here are my thoughts on the next few.

Prop 4: Bond for Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, and Protecting Land from Climate Risks: Yes.

Like Prop 2 this is a bond issue already passed by the legislature that now needs to go to voters for final approval. Yes, that's the clumsy process for borrowing money in California, forced upon us by anti-tax activists years ago. Those same anti-tax activists also oppose virtually every single bond measure as a matter of course. They say we should fund the projects from the current budget instead of borrowing against the future. Except they also oppose funding major projects as current-year expenses. It's like they don't think we should be able to have nice things— or that we should have them but somehow not pay for them.

Climate change is real and getting worse. This bond is worthwhile because its funding helps California mitigate some of the most dangerous impacts, such as increased wildfire risks. It also directs 40% of its funding to low-income communities, which generally are most vulnerable to climate change as they lack the resources to ward against risks and recover from harm after it occurs. Vote YES on 4.

Prop 5: Allow Bonds for Affordable Housing & Public Infrastructure to Pass with Just 55% Approval: Yes.

Part of the anti-tax crusaders' legacy in California is that not only does borrowing through public bonds require public approval after being passed by the legislature but that it must win a two-thirds supermajority of the public vote. Even in deep blue California it's rare that you can get 2/3 of the electorate to agree on anything. And that's doubly true nowadays when Republican voters live in news echo chambers of conspiracy theories and outright lies.

Anyway, over the years voters have passed constitutional amendments relaxing the vote requirement from 66.67% to just 55% for certain categories of bonds. This new constitutional amendment adds two more categories to the 55% threshold rule: bonds for affordable housing and public infrastructure. The virtually unattainable two-thirds threshold is why we're decades behind where we should be in things like building public transit. Vote YES on this one so the state and our localities are about to get more stuff done.

Prop 6: Eliminate Forced Labor in Prisons: Yes.

This proposition is a legislative constitutional amendment— meaning it's been passed by the State Assembly and Senate and must now go to voters for approval. What's at issue here is that prisons in California are allowed to force inmates to work. It's involuntary servitude. That's what the official title of the measure calls it: involuntary servitude. But some would even call it slavery.

In fact, some do call it slavery. The League of Pissed Off Voters, a progressive group in San Francisco, labels this "Abolish Slavery in CA Prisons". As always, they write vigorously and colorfully. For that reason alone I read and consider all of their opinions even though I don't always agree with them. As far as calling this slavery, though, they're... not wrong. Inmates can be forced to work on pain of punishment. It's allowed in our state constitution as a literal exception to the "NO SLAVERY" rule that been in there since California became a state.

I'm choosing to use the term forced labor here because it makes comparison easier. Type a question like, "Which countries have forced labor in prisons" into your favorite search engine and you'll see interesting answers. According to Walk Free, an Australian human rights group, only 17 countries still practice forced labor in prisons. A glance at which countries those are shows the US keeping poor company. Among the others on the list are Russia, China, North Korea, and Myanmar; all countries with terrible civil rights records.

Look, I get it that "prisoners' rights" is not always a compelling political issue. Prisoners committed crimes against individuals and society, and they should pay. But this is a question about what we want our prisons to be. Is incarceration just a matter of locking people up, or can they also be punished further by being required to work for literal pennies an hour? And understand that this work is not just mild stuff like sweeping floors to keep the cell block clean. Convicts labor built the beuatiful Highway 1 on the Pacific coast years ago, and convicts today serve on crews battling wildfires. And they get paid pennies an hour for risking their lives.

BTW, this measure will not change the fact that when convicts do work, they are paid literal pennies an hour. The measure will only make it so that they can't be coerced, on threat of additional punishment, to work for pennies an hour. Yes, it would be ideal to fix the rate of pay issue, as well. But doing that would make this an expensive measure, one that would attract all kinds of opposition (from anti-tax activists and voters) focused on its dollar cost. Removing the coercion to work is a partial victory for inmates' civil rights that we can achieve right now.

I'm starting a short series of blog posts about the ballot propositions on my ballot this year. "Props", as we call them for short, are often thought of as a California thing, though they're part of the process in a number of other states as well. It's worth taking a close look at props each cycle because they can be complex; more complex, say, than choosing whether to vote for Candidate A or Candidate B.

How are propositions complex? I mean, you just vote yes or no, right? For one, there are 3 types of ballot propositions with different rules and different impacts. Two, propositions may be poorly written or purposefully deceptive, among other problems. By the way, you can't let this complexity cause you to throw your hands up in disgust and vow to vote "No" on all of them. Due to the way the different types of props work, some of them will actually block or even reverse an act of the legislature if a majority of the people vote No,

This year there are a whopping 10 statewide ballot props plus several local props in my area. I'll start with the statewide props in numerical order, outlining a few per blog.This will take several days, so it's good I'm starting now! By the way, this isn't just altruistic. This is me doing my own research and me articulating my argument for or against to be confident my reasoning is sound.

Prop 2: Bond for Public School & Community College Facilities: Yes.

For this prop as with all the others the first source of information I'm checking is the California Secretary of State's Voter Information Guide | Propositions. This measure "Authorizes $10 billion in general obligation bonds for repair, upgrade, and construction of facilities at K-12 public schools (including charter schools), community colleges, and career technical education programs, including for improvement of health and safety conditions and classroom upgrades."

Years ago, when I was younger and less sophisticated in my understand of political economics, I looked at measures like this and scoffed, "Why does the state just pay for needed work? It seems like every year there's more bonds, extending payments out 30+ years. Why not just pay today for the stuff we need, today?"

Alas, that's not the reality of how the state's budget works. It would be nice if it were, but it's not. The only choice we have is pay this way, or let our schools continue to fall apart, worse.

I like to invest in our schools. Schools are an investment in our shared future. Schools educate the next generation, who'll help support us and help govern us in the future. Schools are also an investment in our economy. Good schools equal good local economies because people and companies want to locate here.

Another thing younger-me would've scoffed at is the fact that this measure is Put on the Ballot by the Legislature, as the voter information guide notes in bold and italic. "Why didn't the legislature just... y'know... legislate... this instead of sending it to us?" younger-me sneered. And that's why it's important to understand How California Ballot Propositions Work. This bond measure had to be approved by a super-majority of the legislature first, then it also has to be approved by the voters.

You can thank the anti-tax zealots for that process, BTW. And incidentally, those same anti-tax zealots also construct the deliberately false arguments yammering about, "Why didn't the legislature just... y'know... legislate... this instead of sending it to us?" that younger-me fell for years ago.

Prop 3: Constitutional Right to Marriage: Yes.

This proposition reverses 2008's Proposition 8, which defined marriage as only being between a man and a woman. It replaces that state constitutional amendment with a new amendment permitting marriage between any two adults, regardless of race or gender.

"How is this necessary?" critics of the measure ask. "Federal courts ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional in 2013." Yes, but consider what happened in 2022 with the US Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturning nearly 50 years of jurisprudence under Roe v. Wade. We're just one case away from the far-right supermajority overturning the previous court's ruling and restoring California's ridiculous Prop 8. Our constitutional rights cannot be trusted to the interpretation of reactionary ideologues. We need to protect our liberties by putting them in plain text.

Note that this initiative is also tagged Put on the Ballot by the Legislature. Again, that is not an indication that the legislature is passing the buck. This is a Legislative Constitutional Amendment. It's already gone through the full process of being written and approved by both the Assembly and the state senate, and now it must be approved by a majority of the voters, too.

Edited to add: The list starts at 2 because that's the first prop this year.

Edit 2: Read about Props 4, 5, and 6 in my next blog.

Every election season I try to write about the key races and issues on the ballot. Today I thought to myself, "I should start writing about the ballot props!" because there are so many of them this year. Then I realized before I dig into examining what the props are about I should take stock of all the different ways I can vote.

I live in California, where all registered voters are mailed a ballot in advance. We can then vote it in many different ways:

Mark the mailed ballot and return it by mail.

Mark the mailed ballot and drop it in an official locked drop-box. This is how I've often done it the past few years, using the dropbox at my city library a little over 1 mile away.

Mark the ballot and deliver it to a voting station. Voting stations are open early— 9 days before election day

Vote the ballot in person at a voting station— on election day or as early as October 26.

If you don't have an advance ballot or wish to vote at a different voting station, you can vote a provisional ballot at any voting station.

I might choose Option 2 again this year. Though since Hawk has volunteered as a poll worker I may choose Option 3 so I can give her a hard time, maybe by asking her for help in Spanish, at her polling station. 😂

The Park Fire continues to burn in northern California, north of Chico and east of Red Bluff. As of Sunday evening it has burned 386,000 acres. That's over 600 square miles. It is now the 5th largest fire in modern California history.

Here's a map of the fire as of this evening from CalFire (click on image for link to source page):

Park Fire as of 30-Jul-2024. Image courtesy of CalFire, www.fire.ca.gov.

The CalFire incident page for the Park Fire notes that there are over 5,700 personnel fighting this one fire. Firefighters are being pulled in from all over the state. When we were in Redding on Sunday afternoon, stopping for lunch while driving through, we chatted with a fire crew who'd just driven up from near where we live.

The size of the fire, at 386,000 acres as of this evening, hasn't grown much in the past 48 hours. Authorities say that's because the hot weather in the area that last through Friday broke on Saturday. With cooler temperatures and more humidity in the air, the fire has spread more slowly. This has also enabled crews to start containing it— though as of this evening it's still only 18% contained.

Miraculously there are no deaths reported from this fire. Thousands of people have had to evacuate homes, though. To their credit, and to the credit of authorities managing the situation, people were moved to safety quickly. I'm sure plenty of people in the areas impacted remember the tragedy of the 2018 fire that burned the town of Paradise. There, even a half day of "The fire can't possibly spread over here that fast!" meant that when evacuations orders did come, there was pandemonium and dozens of people died.

A bit over a week ago we made the decision to pull the plug on our July 4 hiking trip in the Shasta-Trinity mountains. The weather forecast was showing extreme heat over the 4 days we'd be there, and we decided it would spoil the enjoyment of hiking. Instead we stayed home— in the milder extreme heat Silicon Valley got— and had a great time lounging around the pool 4 afternoons in a row. But what did we miss? News reports yesterday provided some of the receipts.

From Friday through Sunday numerous heat records were set in California. In Sacramento, on-this-date records were set with 110° on Friday and 113° on Saturday. The Saturday high blew away the previous record of 105° set on July 6, 1989. In Redding a new all-time high temperature of 119° F (48.3° C) was recorded. New records were set in plenty of other cities, too.

Redding's record is directly relevant to what we missed because it's the closest larger city to the mountains where we would've gone hiking. Now, 119 in Redding doesn't mean it was 119 up in the mountains. As a rule of thumb, the air temperature drops 3 degrees Fahrenheit per 1,000 feet of elevation. Redding stands at around 600' elevation at the northern end of the Central Valley just below the Shasta-Trinity mountains. The hiking trails we were looking at had us starting at elevations of 5,500-6,500. So 15 to 18 degrees cooler than 119— yeah, still over 100. 🥵

On Sunday Hawk and I had a sad surprise. One of our favorite local casual restaurants, Rubio's, had closed. We found out as we walked up to the door, intending to enjoy lunch there, and saw a sign in the window that they had closed permanently.

Rubio's in Sunnyvale closed (photo from Yelp)

"When did this happen?!" we both wondered. We'd eaten there just a week earlier, and there was no sign of anything other than business as usual.

We checked online and found a handful of business articles about the closure. It's not just our restaurant in Sunnyvale. Rubio's, officially called Rubio's Coastal Grill, is a chain of around 130— well, now about 86— fast-casual restaurants in California, Nevada, and Arizona. Effective May 31 the chain made the decision to close 48 "underperforming" California restaurants due to "[T]he rising costs of business in the state." Example coverage: ABC10 (Sacramento) article, NBC San Diego article.

At least one of the news articles I linked above, plus several others I browsed but did not link here, cite California's new $20 fast food minimum wage law as a contributing factor. I note that that was not said by a company spokesperson but by uninvolved "experts" invited to comment for the news article. And here I'm being a bit snide by quoting the term experts because as I noted in my own analysis of the $20 min wage, $20 is little if any increase over what fast food restaurants in many California markets— including my own city— are already having to offer employees. Moreover, it's also worth noting that Rubio's troubles did not suddenly appear in the 2 months since the new minimum wage law took effect. The chain went through bankruptcy in late 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Well, this closure has us bummed. Rubio's has been a favorite of ours for many years, a place we've eaten at at least once a week. Things we liked:

It's California-Mexican food. We like that cuisine.
It's way better quality than fast-food restaurants.
Lots of dishes taste great.
The store in Sunnyvale has a nice, airy indoor dining room and a great, sunny patio outdoors. That outdoor patio helped make it one of the places we returned to earliest and most frequently after the depths of the Covid pandemic.

Starting today in California the minimum wage for fast food workers is $20/hour. No, that's not an April Fool's joke. It's a result of AB 1228, which the California legislature passed last year and Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law on September 28, 2023. The law took effect today, April 1, 2024.

$20 may seem an eye-popping wage to some, especially as a minimum wage. Indeed it dwarfs the US federal minimum wage, a paltry $7.25 last raised in 2009 (source: US Dept. of Labor). But the California minimum wage is already $16/hour state-wide— and many high cost-cities have even higher rates. Here in Sunnyvale it's $18.55/hour. In neighboring Mountain View it's $18.75.

I'm a big believer in worker rights, living wages, and raising minimum wages in general... but this law has a number of particulars that set off alarms with my good governance sense.

For one, this $20/hour minimum is too steep for fast-food employers state-wide. It's not out of line here in prosperous Silicon Valley, or in other HCOL areas like San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, etc., but what about the many rural counties and small towns in California? Not every local economy can support this pay.

The degree to which this law targets a small number of employers really offends my sense of good governance. It applies to just one sub-industry, fast food— not even all restaurants or food service work, but fast food in particular. Moreover it contains so many exceptions that it really does seem to be targeting a relatively small set of political disfavored companies. Governor Newsom isn't even coy about that. He touts it as the intent.

The targeted companies are big, "wealthy" fast food chains. Normally when lawmakers want to target chains with rules while favoring small, "mom and pop" businesses they write laws with thresholds on the number of employees. For example, a variety of laws apply only to businesses employing at least, say, 50 employees. But this law applies based on the size of the chain. Only restaurants belonging to a chain with at least 60 locations nationwide are affected.

The law also provides a bakery carve-out that reeks of favoritism. If a chain restaurants sells bread as a stand-alone item, and bakes that bread itself, even if it also sells bread as part of a meal (like a sandwich), it's exempt from the law. Who does that exempt? Basically just one chain, Panera. And billionaire Greg Flynn, who owns 24 Panera franchises in California, is a buddy of Governor Newsom and donated to his campaigns. For the record, Flynn and Newsom both deny there's any favoritism there. But further adding to the sense of backroom dealing is the fact that the legislative deliberations that yielded this compromise are secret under binding NDAs. Though subsequent to a firestorm of media scrutiny Flynn offered to pay $20 at all of his restaurants. (Example news coverage: CNN.com article, 5 Mar 2024; Associated Press article, 11 Mar 2024)

I've been checking on the preliminary results of the election primary. "Preliminary primary"... say that 5 times fast! 😅

Especially now that my vote has been tallied 😅 I'll update the results. Note that these are still preliminary results. According to state and county election data only about 75-80% of all votes cast have been tallied and published as of midday today.

US Senate: As I mentioned several days ago, the top two candidates are Adam Schiff (D) and Steve Garvey (R). Each has a bit over 32% of the primary vote so far. At this point it's a near certainty they'll go the general election. The next closest candidate, Katie Porter, in 3rd place, has 14.8% of the vote so far. For her to overtake one of them would require her to win nearly 100% of the pending ballots.

US Congress District 17: Incumbent Rep. Ro Khanna (D) is leading with 63% of the vote. Republican challenger Anita Chen has 27%. It looks like the two of them will face off in the general election... where it's pretty much a sure bet Khanna will win. Rep. Khanna is a reasonably popular incumbent Democrat in a deep blue district.

US Congress District 16: The 16th isn't my district today though it was for many years, prior to redistricting in 2012. Sixteen term incumbent Anna Eshoo (D) is finally retiring— yes, after 32 years in the House— making it a wide-open race this year. Former San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo is leading the field with over 22% of the vote. Second place currently is a near tie between Joe Simitian and Evan Low, each with a bit over 17% of the vote. Low, as I mentioned last week, used to be the State Assembly member for my district. But my pick in this race, if I were voting in the district, would be Simitian. As a member of local and state government for 20 years he built a reputation as a policy wonk, a person who digs deep into the facts of the issues brought before him and can be counted on to reach a thoughtful and objective opinion. I experienced that first-hand at a town hall several years ago where I rose to speak on the issue of the day and how it impacts my neighborhood and me, personally. Simitian is the one politician, ever, who instead of saying, basically, "Okay, thanks, next!" when I've spoken at a public meeting actually showed that he considered my argument by engaging in a brief, principled debate with me.

State Assembly District 26: my pick, Patrick Ahrens, is leading with 35% of the vote. It looks like his competitor in the general election will be Tara Sreekrishnan, who currently has 26% of the vote. It's possible, though, that Sophie Yan Song, currently with 23%, could overtake her. There are still a lot of ballots to be counted locally. If Ahrens and Sreekrishnan win the primary it'll be a case of California's top-two primary system advancing two members of the same party (Democrats, in this case) to the general election.

Proposition 1: This state-wide measure to rejigger funding and treatment for mental health, addiction, and homeless is headed down to the wire. The "YES" vote is leading by 50.3% to 49.7%. This past week I shared my reasons for voting YES. on 1.

Measure C, bonds to improve schools in my local school district, needs 55% to pass because it's a bond measure. Currently it's winning 69% to 31%. Read my reasons for voting YES on C.

Sources: Statewide election results at California Secretary of State (sos.ca.gov); Santa Clara County results.

Tomorrow, March 5, is the 2024 primary election in California. That means today I filled out my ballot and sealed it up to drop off at the ballot box tomorrow. Yes, California is one of those voting rights states where everyone can get a mail-in ballot, no questions asked. Mail-in ballots are much easier for people whose job and or family situations make it prohibitive to carve out time on election day to go to a polling station, wait in line, and fill out a ballot provided only then and there.

Here's a run down of the main things on the ballot this time.

President: I'll assume if you can read this and are eligible to vote in the US, you know what the choices are here.

US Senator: It's a race to replace Diane Feinstein, who died several months ago. Actually it's two races, making it more confusing. One race is to fill her seat for the remainder of her current term, which ends 3 January 2025. The other race is to be US Senator from California for a full, 6 year term.

Both of these senate races follow California's "top two" primary rule, which is also affectionately known as a "jungle primary". Numerous candidates run in the primary, and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election. This narrowing of the field is done without regard to political party, so it's possible the general election could feature two Democrats running against each other and no Republican.

There are three credible Democrats in this race. All three are sitting members of Congress: Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee, and Katie Porter. The leading Republican is past baseball star Steve Garvey. Schiff leads among all the candidates and has spent a lot of his considerable campaign money telling people Garvey is a conservative. Poll watchers agree this seems to be a play by Schiff to shape the results of the "top two" primary by boosting Garvey to be the #2 finisher. If that happens Schiff would presumably coast to a win in the general election, given the overwhelming registration advantage Democrats have in California, versus having to fight it out against a fellow Democrat.

US Congress: Again, a "top two" primary race, though with only a handful of candidates rather than the dozens in the senate race. Here our incumbent, Rep. Ro Khanna, has been doing a pretty good job, so I gave him my vote again.

State Assembly: My district's incumbent Assembly member, Evan Low, is termed out this year and is seeking higher office. He's running for US Congress (though not in my district). I usually don't pay much attention to State Assembly, but this year I went to a meet-and-greet with one of the candidates, Patrick Ahrens. I went into that backyard rally skeptical and left shaking his hand and telling him he'd earned my vote. This is a race where I politely disagree with my friend

mithriltabby who posted his usual well-researched recommendations a few weeks ago. Edit: I don't think the opponent of Ahrens's he chose is poor but I do consider Ahrens a stronger candidate than he gave him credit for. I found Ahrens to be intelligent, thoughtful, and skilled at bringing together political leaders across different levels of government to solve challenging problems, like housing for the homeless, that are often dismissed with finger-pointing about who else needs to be involved. Ahrens has a record of not just identifying who else needs to participate in the solution but actually getting them to help.

Proposition 1: There's just one statewide proposition this election. That's a good thing, because such significant measures as statewide initiatives shouldn't be passed or rejected in elections with such low turnout as primaries. In fact, the state passed a law (via ballot proposition 😂) to force most props to the general election. Anyway, this prop is clumsily named "AUTHORIZES $6.38 BILLION IN BONDS TO BUILD MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT FACILITIES FOR THOSE WITH MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE USE CHALLENGES; PROVIDES HOUSING FOR THE HOMELESS." Per the information in the state voter guide it changes up how money under an existing law is allocated, shifting more of it to mental health care, housing, and drug addiction treatment. It also includes a new bond to help fund these. The measure isn't perfect, as my friend mithriltabby points out, but unlike him I support it anyway. I side with The League of Pissed Off Voters in San Francisco who also explain that Prop. 1 is imperfect but voting "Yes" is far better than voting "No" for anyone who cares about the dual crisis of drug addiction and homelessness. I drive past growing tent encampments 1/2 mile from my house several days a week. I'd very much like to see them gone— and not by police rousting the homeless and simply forcing them to move elsewhere, but by us providing a compassionate, superior alternative.

Measure C: This one's a local school district bond proposal. It authorizes up to $214 million in bonds to improve local schools, paid for by a surcharge on property taxes. That may sound like a lot of money, but it's only at most $15 per $100,000 of assessed property value. For roughly a hundred bucks a year I'll invest more in local schools. I don't use the schools myself, nor do I have any schoolkids, but if our schools go up even a point on statewide scores it'll add thousands to the value of my house. So even if I didn't think educating the next generation is the right thing to do (it is the right thing to do) there's still a selfish argument to be made for it.

There's a winter storm coming to California today through this weekend. Here in the SF Bay Area that means rain and cooler than normal temperatures. In the Sierra Nevada mountains that means snow. And this storm is expected to bring a lot of snow— up to 10 feet (3 meters). Here's a forecast chart I saw this morning from the National Weather Service (NWS):

NWS Snow Forecast 28 Feb 2024

As an aside, I really like this diagram. One of my areas of study in grad school many years ago was the visual representation of data. This diagram is much more interesting than the typical chart snowing a map with color coding indicating amount of snowfall predicted. This one doesn't cover as large a geographical area but it does kind of tell a story: If you were to drive on Interstate 80 over the Sierra Nevada, how much new snowfall would you encounter?

For anyone who's actually driven I-80 a bunch of times (raises hand) the names of towns on this chart are all recognizable and help with visualization. Auburn, for example, is 30 miles west of downtown Sacramento. It's the first town you hit after leaving the Sac metro area and ascending into the foothills, at about 1,000' elevation. Colfax is a smaller town further up. And Donner Pass is, of course, the highest point on the road. (Always bring food to Donner Pass, you'll feed everyone one way or another.)

As for weather here in the SF Bay Area.... This storm is not one of the "Atmospheric River" or "Pineapple Express" rainstorms we often get in the winter. Instead of coming straight across the Pacific Ocean and hitting the coast (i.e., us) first this one's sweeping down from Alaska following jet stream as it bends south. The Sierras will get the brunt of it, we'll get a lighter version. Forecasts are predicting maybe an inch of rain locally with high temperatures low in the 50s— much cooler than normal for the start of March. So much for lazy yellow journalists trying to tell us winter is over.

The news yesterday and this morning has been full of stories about violent weather around California. California's a big place, though. What happens hundreds of miles away may be totally different here. Heck, with the state's extreme differences in geography and weather patterns, what happens even 10 miles away may be totally different here. That's certainly the case with Sunday's violent weather. It was relatively calm here in my town and in my neighborhood.

Yes, we got a lot of rain. Earlier in the week we had an "atmospheric river" storm, and this weekend we had another one even bigger. From what I can tell Southern California got even more rain than Northern California did. That's kind of typical in this El Niño winter. The niño pattern means wetter weather than normal in the south, drier in the north. Southern California is definitely on the wetter side of that pattern; Northern California is around where the dividing line falls (it depends on the jet stream) so our weather may bring bits of each.

Flooding? Not here. A bit factor in flooding is how well the local runoff systems can handle it. We don't live near a river or creek prone to flooding, so there's been no flooding near our house. We don't live in a canyon or near a hillside, so there's been no mudslide here. Also no floods or washouts of the kind that can form in these areas.

We also don't live in an area prone to high wind, so we've been spared the brunt of winds elsewhere that have knocked trees and other things causing damage. We do have a few small branches down in our neighborhood. The gardeners can clean those up this week. Our biggest damage locally is a 30' long or so section of wood fence that the winds blew down. We'll have to get someone out to clean up the debris then, when things dry out, replace the section of fence. Our property management company will help coordinate that.

Update: followup blog with pictures of downed fence and a downed tree.

We saw an interesting thing when we were driving around in Virginia earlier this week: gas below $3/gallon!

Gas below $3 in Woodbridge, VA (Nov 2023)

The sign in the pic is at a station about 7 miles from my old home that was always the cheap spot in the area. Stations closer to where my youngest sister lives were selling base grade gas for just 10 cents more— and still below $3/gallon, though just barely. Stations in the shopping district near the highway and our hotel ran about $3.25.

I was looking forward to buying some of that sub-$3 gas before we left Virginia on Wednesday. Alas all the stations raised their prices by 10-20 cents in anticipation of the holiday weekend with record travel forecast.

Meanwhile, what are prices back near home in California? They've actually just dipped down below $4, at least at the Sunnyvale Costco which is selling at $3.99. Non-members-only stations elsewhere in town are likely anywhere from $4.19 to $4.59.

Yesterday, November 7, was Election Day for many in the US. Here in California it was almost a non-event. It's an off year for almost everything: presidential elections, Congressional elections, even California's state-wide offices. All we had across the state were a smattering of local elections to fill empty seats in bodies like school boards and municipal water districts. There was literally no election in my district as there was nothing to vote for.

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