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Agency: Smoke from Yosemite fire may drift across parts of Solano
Daily Republic Staff
DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
FAIRFIELD — The Bay Area Air Quality Management District on Sunday issued an air quality advisory for Yosemite wildfire smoke for Monday.
Smoke from the Washburn Fire in Yosemite National Park is projected to be transported into the Bay Area and is expected to affect the North and East Bay regions. However, pollutant levels are not expected to exceed the federal health standard, the air district reports. An air pollution warning, called a Spare the Air alert, is not in effect and air quality is expected to be in the moderate range.
If the smell of smoke is present, it is important that Bay Area residents protect their health by avoiding exposure, the agency reports. If possible, stay inside with windows and doors closed until smoke levels subside, if temperatures allow. It is also recommended that those affected by smoke set their air conditioning units and car vent systems to re-circulate to prevent outside air from moving inside.
Smoke can irritate the eyes and airways, causing coughing, a scratchy throat and irritated sinuses. Elevated particulate matter in the air can trigger wheezing in those who have asthma, emphysema or COPD. Elderly people, children and those with respiratory illnesses are particularly susceptible to elevated air pollution levels and should take extra precautions to avoid exposure, according to the air district.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District covers western Solano County to include Fairfield, Travis Air Force Base, Suisun City, Vallejo and Benicia.
Air quality in the Yolo-Solano Air Quality Management District, which covers the remainder of the county and Winters in neighboring Yolo County, is projected to be moderate Monday, the air quality agency reports. $10.08 per ounce for flowers, was making it difficult to keep operating as prices tumbled from a glut of weed and not enough dispensaries to sell it. Wholesale prices have dropped by as much as 50% over the past year, particularly squeezing farmers whose outdoor crops sell for less and forcing many smaller operations to close down.
“Any delays in that happening was something that we were not able to accept,” Jenkins said.
Supporters hope that eliminating the cultivation tax could have a beneficial ripple effect through the legal market, lowering costs that compound for consumers through the wholesale price, the excise tax and sales taxes.
It could also turn plant trimmings, which were taxed at $3 per ounce for leaves, into another viable commodity for farmers, said Genine Coleman, founder of the Origins Council, an advocacy group representing cannabis businesses in the historic Northern California growing region known as the Emerald Triangle. The leaves can be useful for manufactured products such as creams.
“It’s incredible to have the cultivation tax eliminated,” she said. “It had become so untenable.”
Coleman said the tax restructuring package was about as good as she could have hoped for, given the constraints of Proposition 64, the 2016 legalization measure that earmarked cannabis tax revenue for child care slots, environmental cleanup and impaired driving prevention efforts.
Newsom pushed for a revenue-neutral approach to protect funding levels for those programs. The budget includes $150 million to backfill any shortfalls in the next three years, before the state can begin raising the excise tax.
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Yosemite Fire/TNS file Firefighters at work in Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park, Thursday.
Fire
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nearly striking an aircraft that was battling the blaze, according to radio traffic from the firefight.
“A branch went over the top of us,” the pilot reported to dispatchers. “Pretty good size, probably 50 feet above us coming down and fell right between tanker 103 and myself.”
“OK, copy. So like a repeat of yesterday,” a dispatcher said.
“That’s exactly what I’m getting at,” the pilot responded. “So if we keep seeing that, we might have to knock it off. I don’t want to take a chance of busting a window on an airplane or hurting an aircraft for this.”
One bit of good news for firefighters was that relative humidity was reported Sunday morning to be around 26%, officials said. The lower the humidity the drier the conditions, increasing the chance for faster spread of flames. Fire officials said they were expecting the blaze “to keep growing moderately” and that temperatures were expected to reach the low 80s.
A warming trend was expected to begin Sunday and continue through the week.
Officials said Sunday that Yosemite remains open and visitors are advised to enter the park using highways 140 or 120, officials said.
The Washburn fire was the latest to threaten the ancient sequoias, which are found in the wild only on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Although they are adapted to thrive in fire, the sequoias are increasingly no match for intense wildfires driven by climate change, years of drought and decades of aggressive fire suppression, which has resulted in dense vegetation in some forested areas.
Fire officials noted that a history of prescribed burns in the Mariposa Grove, along with scars from recent burns, could slow fire spread and limit potential damage.
“Once the fire reaches some of the recent fire scars, spread may slow,” officials said.
Rights
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in The Washington Post as defending Biden’s response and saying his goal isn’t to “satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party.”
Hundreds of abortion rights supporters rallied near the White House on Saturday in the latest protest against the Supreme Court ruling. Biden, who was spending the weekend at his beach house in Delaware, said his message to them was, “Yes, keep protesting, keep making your point. It’s critically important.”
The president reiterated his “bottom line” goal is to codify abortion rights in U.S. law. That would require Republican support in Congress that isn’t forthcoming.
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Rahul Lal for CalMatters file (2021) Supporters for equity cannabis tax reform gather at a rally at the state Capitol, Jan. 13, 2021.
Taxes
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Debate over excise tax continues
But that looming tax increase is a major disappointment for many in the industry, who say taxes must be cut even further for legal cannabis to ever compete on price with the illicit market.
Coleman pointed to other major regulatory expenses for growers, including licensing fees and environmental compliance requirements. She also wants the state to play a larger role in opening up retail opportunities that remain prohibited in most jurisdictions in California.
“It’s not enough at all. And it’s just simple math,” she said. “Our position has always been: We need tax reform and.”
Jenkins, the industry lobbyist, said the three-year pause on the excise tax rate buys advocates more time to press their case.
Moving collection from distributors to the point of sale, where products can be taxed on the actual purchase price rather than an assumed 80% retail markup, will improve accuracy. Jenkins believes that tax revenues could actually rise as a result, giving the industry an argument against raising the excise tax and potentially even to lower it.
“We have three more years to fight that fight,” she said.
Cannabis retailers, who did not receive a direct tax cut like growers, have expressed far more dissatisfaction with the deal. And advocates for social equity operators — who received their licenses through local programs intended to diversify the industry with more people of color, formerly incarcerated people and residents of neighborhoods with historically disproportionate cannabis arrest rates — have been particularly blistering in their criticism.
“What we’ve gotten are essentially crumbs from this bill,” said Amber Senter, executive director of the advocacy group Supernova Women, who organized several rallies at the state Capitol this year. “The cultivators will see relief, they will see a little bit more money in their pockets, and none of that is going to trickle down.”
The deal will allow equity licensees to get a $10,000 tax credit and keep a fifth of the excise tax revenue they collect for the next few years. But advocates had lobbied for more sweeping aid, such as a suspension of the excise tax altogether, to give their businesses a greater opportunity to establish a foothold.
Senter dismissed the tax credit as token assistance that would not even cover the cost of licensing fees. She also expressed concern about another provision that could have far greater significance in the long run: Starting in 2024, the plan lowers the threshold to 10 employees for businesses that must enter into labor peace agreements, thereby providing unions access to communicate with and attempt to organize their workers.
“Small businesses cannot be unionized,” Senter said. “This is going to crush small businesses.”
Some legislators want more action
As the bill came before the Legislature last week, several lawmakers spoke out on the floor against what they said was insufficient aid for cannabis retailers and equity operators, including state Sen. Steven Bradford, a Gardena Democrat who introduced legislation this session to reduce the excise tax. He called the provisions for equity operators “minimal and insulting” and was one of only a handful of legislators not to vote for the measure.
In an interview, Bradford expressed frustration that the cultivation tax was completely eliminated for growers, who are overwhelmingly white, while equity licensees received far less. He said he worried that plan would only deepen racial disparities in the industry, where Black and brown communities targeted during the war on drugs have struggled to thrive.
“That’s a hard pill to swallow,” he said. “At some point, when are we going to put the real weight and work behind what we all say exists?”
Bradford said he would continue to push to lower the excise tax for equity operators and other steps to move minority-owned businesses to the top of state efforts to bolster the legal cannabis market.
“Without a doubt, there needs to be more work,” he said. “If we fall short of that, we’ll come back next session.”
Elliott, the director of the Department of Cannabis Control, defended the tax restructuring deal as a collaboration between Newsom and legislative leaders to “simplify, simplify, simplify” the law for businesses across the industry.
“That reflects a willingness to be critical of the systems that are in place and trying to modify them,” she said.
No one can get everything they want in a compromise, Elliott said, but everyone is coming away from the deal with financial relief and regulatory improvements.
“They didn’t have any of this yesterday. So today is a better day,” she said.
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She worked with patients who had venereal diseases and physical issues.
She got orders to go to Japan, but while waiting to leave, heard that they needed volunteers to go to Korea. She stepped up and found herself rolling along in the only transportation available, an ambulance.
In 1946, she was finally discharged from the service and made her way back home to West Bend. For the next few years, she nursed polio patients.
Craig was not one to stay in one place long, she found out about a job at March Air Force Base in California. With her good friend Minnie Graff, they hopped a plane and came to the golden state for a new position in the hospital at the maternity ward.
While working the maternity ward, a dashing young man came to visit a friend, Phyllis saw Edward Craig, he saw her and there were sparks but he left without her number.
She took a chance and gave her number to the patient to give to Ed.
A new stage began in Phyllis’ life with the entrance of Ed into her story. He, of course, being smart gave her a call. They dated for about six weeks. After meeting his parents, Ed asked her to go to Alaska with him since he had orders to ship out.
She made sure to clarify that was as his wife not girlfriend and after conferring with her best gal pals, she came back with a firm yes to the trip to Alaska and yes to being his wife.
They tied the knot on May 27, 1948.
After spending a few months apart, their lifelong adventures began together in Alaska. On February 19, 1949, they welcomed a son, Richard Lee, into their lives in Alaska. Over the years they had Linda, who was born in June 19, 1951, ,in Florida, and then Marsha, born in June 10, 1953 in Florida.
After traveling for the military, they came to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield where Ed retired. He took up work at at Concord Naval Station as a safety director.
Phyllis retired from nursing after 21 years.
They could not stop traveling and the couple made many great memories for 47 years.
They went on a cruise to celebrate the anniversary of D-Day meeting Bob Hope, Walter Cronkite and Andy Rooney.
On April 7, 1997 Phyllis lost her husband just three years before their 50th Anniversary.
Tragedy struck again in January 29, 2020, when their son Richard died.
Craig sold her home in Fairfield and moved to Paradise Valley Estates where she has made tons of friends.
She stays active with various groups like the Lions Club and a nurses group. Her life story was included in the book, “Remembering WWII Women,” written by Linda E. Minton.
