Joseph Emerson is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday on 83 charges of recklessly endangering another person — for each person on the plane — and one charge of endangering an aircraft.

He previously pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges filed by state prosecutors and to a federal charge of interfering with a flight crew.

Emerson’s defence lawyers welcomed the grand jury’s decision.

“The attempted murder charges were never appropriate in this case because Captain Emerson never intended to hurt another person or put anyone at risk – he just wanted to return home to his wife and children,” his defence lawyers Ethan Levi, Noah Horst and Norah Van Dusen said in a statement. “Simply put: Captain Emerson thought he was in a dream.”

Prosecutors have accused Emerson of trying to cut the engines on the October 22 flight from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco while riding in the extra seat in the cockpit.

The FBI said in an affidavit that after a brief struggle, Emerson left the cockpit and flight attendants placed him in wrist restraints and seated him in the rear of the aircraft which was diverted to Portland.

According to charging documents, Emerson told Port of Portland police he had been struggling with depression, that a friend had recently died and that he had taken psychedelic mushrooms about 48 hours before he attempted to cut the engines. He also said he had not slept in more than 40 hours.

Emerson remains in custody in Multnomah County, Oregon.

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A UC Berkeley researcher says that automatic gas shutoff devices, like those used in Los Angeles and Japan, could cut the number of post-earthquake fires in half in San Francisco.

But the city of San Francisco has yet to embrace shutoff technology, said Charles Scawthorn, an internationally recognized expert on fires after quakes. He says Japan has long relied on gas shutoffs built into gas meters – in part because of the lessons learned from the Kanto earthquake and fire, which killed an estimated 100,000 people.

“This was truly hell on earth,” Scawthorn said of the 7.9 magnitude quake that hit Tokyo on Sept. 1, 1923.

The disaster killed more than 10,000 people outright. But far more, an estimated 80,000 lives, were lost in the 100 fires that broke out in the hours after the initial quake.

“In peacetime, it is unquestionably the largest fire fatality in history,” Scawthorn said, adding that half the 80,000 fire victims survived the quake but were caught up in what is known as a “fire whirl.”

“The winds were so strong,” he said. “They wound up generating what amounts to what are called fire whirls. They are fire tornadoes and in one location, effectively a large school yard, it killed 40,000 people who were taking shelter.”

While open cooking flames used to make lunch-time meals sparked most of the Kanto fires, gas lines are the danger today.

To counter the modern danger, Japan now requires seismically sensitive gas meters, equipped with devices that sense shaking and automatically cut off gas flow within seconds.

Scawthorn estimates there could be as many as 100 fires following a major quake in San Francisco, but the same technology could prevent half of them. That, he said, would give the city’s 44 engine companies a fighting chance to save the city.

“If you can cut those fires in half, that’s profound,” said San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin. He says the city has already led the way with strict building standards and is spending billions of dollars to assure fire crews have enough water to fight post-quake fires.

“It makes perfect sense that we put our money where our mouth is,” Peskin said. “And make sure that the city doesn’t burn down in a major earthquake.’’

Still, two decades ago, a state advisory panel concluded the benefit of preventing an estimated two dozen gas-sparked fires in a major quake would be outweighed by the costs. The panel worried about the extended delays in restoring service, in part from crews having to go out and relight pilot lights for tens of thousands of undamaged homes.

Since then, San Francisco has failed to act, even after a city task force concluded in 2017 that benefits of gas shutoff devices would be “significantly greater than the cost.”

“It’s better to have a house with no gas than no house,” said Carl Strand, a quake safety consultant who represents a firm that makes gas shut-off devices customers can install themselves.

The comparatively low-cost technology relies on a ball that simply moves into place to block gas flow in response to strong shaking.

“These have to shut within five seconds,” Strand said.

But so far, Los Angeles is the only big city in California to require automatic shutoff devices to be installed on new projects. The mandate came after 50 gas fed fires erupted following the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

In the Bay Area, Berkeley is the city to require shutoff devices on new projects.

Peskin says it’s time San Francisco did something to counter the obvious danger of gas-sparked fires.

“There is no time like the present,” he said. “I’m not going to cry about why it didn’t happen until now.”

Meanwhile, PG&E is getting behind the concept of meter-based seismic shutoffs, with a pilot project in the works to evaluate two prototype meters like those used in Japan, the company says.

Whatever technology is adopted, Scawthorn hopes the Bay Area will finally learn the 100-year-old lesson of the Kanto quake before it’s too late.

“As Mark Twain said, you know, history may not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes,” he said.

What happens with the gas meters during a big earthquake? Other earthquake-prone areas have made important safety upgrades. So why isn’t it happening widespread in the Bay Area? Raj Mathai speaks with investigative reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken on this.

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The Standard’s Joel Umanzor answers a reader question sent to Ask The Standard: Why do San Francisco businesses and residents rely on permit expediters?

San Francisco is famous for red tape.

The city’s construction permit system has a reputation among residents, contractors and engineers as being lengthy and complicated to manage.

Anyone who wants to do any work that goes “beyond painting, flooring, replacement of electrical receptacles, switches or light fixtures and repair or replacement of faucets” must obtain permits, according to the Department of Building Inspection.

The majority of commercial or residential permits are classified as “over the counter” while the remainder would be considered “full” or “site” permits, which require in-house reviews unlike “over the counter” due to the structural nature of the work.

Many people with complex projects opt to hire an “expediter”—“an individual who receives or is promised compensation to provide permit consulting services” on projects that would be classified as either major or minor, according to the city’s Ethics Commission. This can also include any person who is paid for time spent providing permit consulting services.

Currently, 107 permit consultants are registered with the city, with 87 of those registered consultants representing only one client, city data shows.

In recent years, corruption cases against top officials across city government have brought to light a history of favoritism and corruption that festered for years ahead of the indictments, according to a City Controller’s Office report from 2021. At the ongoing scandal’s center is businessman and permit expediter Walter Wong, who pleaded guilty in 2020 to federal fraud and money laundering charges, agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors with his testimony.

READ MORE: These Are the Players in San Francisco’s Corruption Scandal

The Standard spoke to former officials and experts about permit expediters.

Walter Wong leaves federal court in San Francisco on June 30, 2023. | Source: Isaac Ceja/The Standard

Most Famous Permit Expediter

The process of overseeing permit expediters who don’t fall within the “consultant” category, which requires registration, can be difficult, former Ethics Commissioner Larry Bush said. A lack of transparency in the disclosure of clients or projects differentiates the permit consultants from lobbyists, who must also register.

Without the information provided in required quarterly consultant reports, Bush said, all kinds of unregulated expediter activity can occur.

“It’s not like being a lobbyist, where you have to register and disclose specifically who you are doing this with and for how much money,” Bush said. “It is all pretty much under the radar.” 

Bush said he tried to pass a motion within the commission to require that information be publicly disclosed because he often found former city workers wanted to profit from their experience and offer themselves as knowledgeable consultants. The motion did not pass.

Wong was found to have received preferential treatment from Tom Hui, Department of Building Inspection’s former director, who had the opportunity to override the department’s control for Wong’s projects by “expediting permits and inspections and overlooking otherwise problematic issues in permitting and inspections,” the city controller’s report found. 

Hui stepped down from the position in 2020.

In 2021, Wong and his companies, W. Wong Construction Co. Inc., Green Source Trading LLC and Alternate Choice LLC, were barred from doing business with the city for five years, the maximum permitted by law.

Although Wong is barred from doing business with the city, his name remains on the Ethics Commission’s website as a registered permit expediter for Jaidin Consulting Group.

According to his settlement agreement with the city, Wong received an estimated $1,291,095.26 for “goods and services provided through non-competitive contracts, purchase orders, and/or grants that were improperly approved by City officials.”

He received anywhere from $1,000 to $75,000 from different clients, filings show.

Piping sits at a construction site at 198 McAllister St. in San Francisco’s Tenderloin on Sept. 26, 2022. | Source: Justin Katigbak/The Standard

Problematic Process?

Christopher Calton, a research fellow for housing and homelessness at Oakland’s Independent Institute, called permit expediters part of a larger discretionary process of local government that often restricts economic growth.

“These are officials who have some discretionary authority and can push things through some of the bureaucratic red tape ahead of the formal processes that are so drawn out and lengthy,” Calton said. “Permit expediter is an informal term we use because of stories like this corruption scandal, but it’s not an official position. It’s a service, kind of like doing your taxes with TurboTax.”

The bigger problem, Calton said, is not the regulatory code but that anyone can request a discretionary review—a second look at a development project—that often takes up lots of time and opens the door for possible favoritism and abuses of power.

Because of this, permit expediters—although not uncommon around the country—have a unique position within the ecosystem of getting permits in San Francisco.

“It means you have to give that discretion to somebody,” Calton said. “Once you do that, it is not just a matter that a permit expediter isn’t necessarily just somebody who helps someone navigate the intricacies of the law—we have that all over the country in all industries for better or worse—it’s that they then can sell their services in a roundabout way.”

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In the aftermath of extreme weather events, major insurers are increasingly no longer offering coverage that homeowners in areas vulnerable to those disasters need most.

At least five large U.S. property insurers — including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway — have told regulators that extreme weather patterns caused by climate change have led them to stop writing coverages in some regions, exclude protections from various weather events and raise monthly premiums and deductibles.

Major insurers say they will cut out damage caused by hurricanes, wind and hail from policies underwriting property along coastlines and in wildfire country, according to a voluntary survey conducted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a group of state officials that regulates rates and policy forms.

Insurance providers are also more willing to drop existing policies in some locales as they become more vulnerable to natural disasters. Most home insurance coverages are annual terms, so providers are not bound to them for more than one year.

That means individuals and families in places once considered safe from natural catastrophes could lose crucial insurance protections while their natural disaster exposure expands or intensifies as global temperatures rise.

“The same risks that are making insurance more important are making it harder to get,” Carolyn Kousky, associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund and nonresident scholar at the Insurance Information Institute, told The Washington Post.

The companies mentioned those policy changes as part of previously unreported responses to the regulatory group’s survey. The survey was distributed in 2022 by 15 states and received responses — some sent as recently as last month — from companies covering 80 percent of the U.S. insurance market.

Allstate said its climate risk mitigation strategy would include “limiting new [auto and property] business … in areas most exposed to hurricanes” and “implementing tropical cyclone and/or wind/hail deductibles or exclusions where appropriate.”

Nationwide has already pulled back in certain areas. The company said that in 2020, it “reduced exposure levels in some of the highest hazard wildland urban interface areas in California.”

In its response to the regulators’ survey, Nationwide said it no longer underwrites coverage for “properties within a certain distance to the coastline” because of hurricane potential.

Other changes will come. “More targeted hurricane risk mitigation actions are being finalized and will start by year-end 2023,” Nationwide told regulators.

Berkshire Hathaway, which also offers reinsurance — insurance policies for insurance providers — wrote that increased climate disasters mean “it is possible that policy terms and conditions could be updated or revised to reflect changes in such risk.”

U.S. homeowners have faced unprecedented disasters in recent weeks that have underscored the new challenges facing insurance markets.

Hurricane Idalia brought severe flooding to Georgia and the Carolinas, and tore through parts of Florida that had never experienced direct hits from a major storm. Tropical Storm Hilary caused $600 million in damage on the West Coast, according to Karen Clark & Co., a leading catastrophe modeling firm. The fires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, whose cause is still under investigation, led to $3.2 billion in property damage, the firm said.

Those catastrophes, insurance industry insiders said, show just how quickly claims costs are escalating in the face of climate change.

U.S. insurers have disbursed $295.8 billion in natural disaster claims over the past three years, according to international risk management firm Aon. That’s a record for a three-year period, according to the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

Natural catastrophes in the first six months of 2023 year in the United States caused $40 billion in insured losses, the third costliest first-half on record, Aon found.

“There’s no place to hide from these severe natural disasters,” said David Sampson, president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. “They’re happening all over the country and so insurers are having to relook at their risk concentration.”

That trend is too costly, insurers contend, and necessitates rewriting policies or eliminating coverages in growing geographic areas.

Rate increases for homeowners insurance are regulated by state agencies. That can prevent firms from pricing policies that accurately reflect risk, said Daniel Schwarcz, who studies insurance markets at the University of Minnesota Law School. Instead of setting much higher prices for policies in specific areas that might be more vulnerable — such as regions below sea level or on the edge of fire-prone areas — insurance firms must set prices that are relatively comparable across an entire state.

“We’re in the business of pricing to risk,” Matt Mayrl, vice president of strategy, performance and partnerships at American Family Insurance, said in an interview. “Sometimes your price can’t match your risk.”

Many of the policy changes, experts say, may be unfavorable to certain consumers but are important for the survival of the wider insurance market.

Typical home insurance policies cover damage from all manner of perils, including fire and smoke, wind and hail, plumbing issues, snow and ice, and vandalism and theft. Floods are generally covered by a separate federally administered program.

Under the policy changes many large insurers are reporting to regulators, firms will continue to offer baseline policies to clients in disaster-prone areas, but without protections for damage caused by those disasters. For example, a policy in a region afflicted by hurricanes may exclude coverage for wind or hail damage, or in wildfire country, a policy without fire and smoke protection.

Consumers who want those coverages would need to purchase a supplemental policy or shop for insurance from another provider.

“The fact that insurers have the capacity to limit their exposure or change their exposure over time means at the end of the day their concerns are not fully aligned with the concerns of their policyholders,” Schwarcz said.

Representatives from Allstate and Erie declined to comment. Berkshire Hathaway and Nationwide did not respond to requests for comment.

Insurance markets, especially those that serve many regions across the country, rely on relatively stable risk projections when it comes to natural disasters. By balancing wildfire risk during the late spring in the Pacific Northwest with hurricanes in the early fall in the Southeast and winter storms in the Upper Midwest, insurers can spread risk across constituencies. In theory, providers can collect monthly premiums from a broad clientele without paying out claims on too many large-scale disasters at once.

But weather patterns are changing as the planet warms.

“There is no wildfire season anymore — it’s year-round,” said Sampson, who is also a member of President Biden’s Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission.

Major hurricanes are becoming more frequent and hold more intense rains, said Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. Meanwhile, “tornado alley” — an area swarmed by twisters that runs from Texas and Oklahoma through Kansas and Nebraska — is moving east, according to 2018 and 2022 research published in the journals Nature and Environmental Research Communications.

The variability in weather patterns means insurance companies can no longer rely on the previous risk projections that helped them make decisions.

“Potential changes to the frequency and/or severity of weather-related catastrophic losses pose a risk in both the short and long term,” Nationwide wrote in its survey response. “Activity has been observed in recent years that has differed from historical norms or modeled expectations.”

As insurers leave certain markets or cut certain perils out of policies, some homeowners are going without insurance. State governments have erected insurance policies of last resort.

The taxpayer-backed Citizens Property Insurance in Florida was the state’s second-largest insurer in 2021 in terms of policies written, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Fourteen insurance firms have either left Florida as of April or have policy portfolios that are failing. Farmer’s, the fifth-largest homeowners’ insurance provider in the United States, said in July that it would not renew nearly a third of its policies in the Sunshine State. A state-backed policy in California, where State Farm and Allstate have withdrawn or significantly cut back on new policies, covers 3 percent of residents.

But even state-backed policies must face climate risks.

“When you see the insurance companies pulling out en masse because the cost of rebuilding homes in Florida is bankrupting them,” said Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, “it’s either hubris or folly to think the state wouldn’t be bankrupted stepping in to help.”

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The Suspension of ServiceMaintenance work was planned to be carried out on the storage system affecting various parts of these jurisdictions drinking water

He Lima’s water and sewer service (SedapalIt has been reported that there will be water cut in various districts on Friday, August 18 Lima.

A planned interruption of service to carry out improvement work in the drinking water system does not affect all of these jurisdictions, which are limited to specific areas and certain hours.

Sedapal He stressed in the message that these works are “important to improve the quality of life of the citizens of Lima and Callo”. on their social networks.

The water cut will be as follows:

-Punta Hermosa (1:38 am to 10:00 am)

Urbanization- Acre. Extension Santa Cruz, Urb.-Agru. Family Santa Cruz, Ur.-Acre. Families La Planici, Urb.-El Silencio, Urb. Punta Hermosa.

-Luricancho (8:00 am to 4:00 pm)

Urbanization- CP Virgen Del Carmen, Urb.-CP Virgen Del Carmen 1st Stage, Urb.-CP Virgen Del Carmen 2nd Stage.

-Comas (a 12:00 h 20:00 h)

Urb- AH Cerro San Francisco, Urb.-AH God is Love, Urb.- AH New Dawn, Urb.-AH Lord of Wonders; Urb.-AH Virgen de Las Nieves, Urb.-PJ Santa Rosa.

-Brena (10:00 am to 7:00 pm)

Ur.-Akr. Magisterial, Urb. Ascona, Urb. Chakra Colorada.

-San Juan de Luricancho (2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.)

AH UNION AND PROGRESS DIVISION SAN FERNANDO.

-Miraflores (12:00 PM to 11:00 PM)

Urban Miraflores.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Protesters on Tuesday interrupted a rare outdoor meeting of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, at which the chief executive was scheduled to question Mayor London Breed on her administration’s response to the crisis of brazen open-air drug trafficking.

Chief Executive Aaron Peskin relocated the first part of the weekly board meeting to a plaza in the troubled Tenderloin neighborhood near City Hall, where rampant drug trafficking and drug use takes place. He asked the mayor if she would commit to establishing an emergency response center and coordinating departments to shut down “public drug trafficking” in open places like the Plaza within 90 days.

But the heckling and shouts of “No more cops” from the large crowd were so loud that Peskin moved the meeting back to City Hall before the mayor could respond. Breed did not answer Peskin’s question immediately after the indoor meeting reconvened.

The fentanyl crisis has swept across California, including San Francisco. In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom dispatched the California Highway Patrol and California National Guard to help fight drug traffickers in the city as overdose deaths soared.

Breed has clashed with board members who say more police and arrests aren’t the way to solve the city’s drug crisis. She declared a three-month state of emergency in 2021 over the Tenderloin’s drug crisis and announced another crackdown on drugs in the low-income neighborhood nearly a year later, but little has changed.

Breed said that using drugs in public is unacceptable and that repeat offenders must accept the help offered or face consequences.

“We can’t talk with both sides of our mouths all the time. “On the one hand, we want change and we want to hold people accountable,” Breed said before the meeting was rescheduled. “On the other hand, we’re willing to let people get away with murder.”

Peskin said it’s not about resources, it’s about coordination. He agreed with the mayor that the problem isn’t new, “but one that has become so visible that many San Franciscosians don’t feel safe.”

Downtown San Francisco, which includes the UN Plaza, hasn’t recovered from the pandemic, unlike other cities. Tech employees have opted to work remotely, reducing foot traffic that has benefited downtown businesses.

After guards left the UN Plaza, a woman threw a brick at a group of high school students carrying flags for the gathering, hitting a girl. A 26-year-old San Francisco woman has been charged with child endangerment and assault with a deadly weapon, San Francisco official Robert Rueca said. The minor was not seriously injured.

The mayor attends board meetings once a month to answer questions from managers.

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The results are in: As California experienced its three driest years on record, urban water users made significant efforts to conserve water, but fell far short of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call for a 15% reduction in their use.

Between July 2021, when Newsom first called on water users to voluntarily save water, and March this year, when he withdrew that call amid a very wet winter, the nationwide savings were 7%, about half the required amount. That equates to about 9 fewer gallons per person per day, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times.

Results varied significantly by region and water district, with the North Coast and San Francisco Bay areas saving the most water compared to the 2020 base year — 14% and 12%, respectively. The inland regions of Tulare Lake and Colorado River saved at least 4% and 2%, respectively. (The analysis did not include agricultural water use.)

State officials say the numbers belie the long-term conservation efforts Californians have made over the past few decades, including significant savings during the 2012-16 drought that ended just a few years before Newsom’s request.

However, they also recognized that there is significant room for improvement. Residential consumption nationwide averaged about 85 gallons per person per day. For comparison, Californians would have used 79 gallons per day if they reduced their consumption by 15%.

“We can definitely do better,” said Charlotte Ely, conservation officer with the State Water Resources Control Board.

In July 2021, California experienced one of the most devastating droughts in about two years. Fifty counties were on a drought emergency as Newsom stood in front of a receding Lake Lopez in San Luis Obispo County and urged residents to reduce their water use by 15%.

Newsom withdrew the call March 24 this year after multiple atmospheric flows refilled reservoirs and dropped record and near-record snowpack in the Sierra, significantly alleviating drought conditions across the state.

But many experts have criticized Newsom’s voluntary stance during the drought, arguing that he should have made cuts mandatory, like his predecessor Jerry Brown, who ordered a 25% cut during the 2012-16 drought. Residents narrowly met this goal, reducing water use by 24.5%.

The Newsom administration said it was more focused on targeted drought responses based on local conditions than on a “one-size-fits-all approach” that couldn’t account for past investments in conservation or key drivers of water use like climate.

“Seven percent is still an impressive number considering that’s happened in less than two years and it’s on top of the water savings the state has maintained since the last drought,” Ely said. “And so I think what we’ve seen over the past decade is really a success story in conservation.”

However, some experts say the results are evidence that more could have been done.

“The numbers are disappointing as they represent just under half of what was called for,” said Heather Cooley, director of research at the Pacific Institute, a water think tank.

A 2022 report by the institute found that Californians could reduce their water use by 30% to 48% by adopting a variety of existing technologies, efficiency standards, and water-saving landscaping. Indoor use might be as little as 25 to 35 gallons per person per day, Cooley said.

She attributed the state’s overall lackluster response to the governor’s voluntary appeal, saying the messages were inconsistent and often opaque as to the seriousness of the situation.

“I think it was potentially a recipe for disaster,” Cooley said. “If it had been another dry winter, we would have really wished we had gone to the compulsory event [restrictions] last year because it would help us conserve the limited water we had and expand it even further.”

Still, the effort seemed to be working better in some areas than others. The analysis found that the South Coast region, which includes Los Angeles and half of the state’s population, reduced water use by 6%, or about 7 fewer gallons per person per day.

In June 2022, as the drought worsened, the region’s major water wholesaler, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, ordered unprecedented restrictions on areas dependent on the State Water Project, a vast network of canals and pipelines that drain water Northern California transported to farmland and southern cities.

Largely in response to cut allocations from the state, the order included a 35% reduction in water use for nearly 7 million people in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties.

Communities were able to “reduce their water use to the point of running out of available water supplies for nine months until restrictions were lifted in March,” said Brad Coffey, manager of MWD’s Water Resource Management group.

Though the region managed to expand tight supplies, Coffey noted that operating under emergency restrictions was seen as a last resort and “not a sign of success.”

“We’ve been working to prepare for a changing climate for years, but these changes are coming even sooner than predicted and we need to adapt quickly,” he said.

The agency is working towards more sustainable reductions in water use through investments in new infrastructure and local utilities, and promoting more water-efficient landscapes, irrigation systems and indoor sanitation and appliance installations, he said.

In response to the MWD’s order, one of its largest clients, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, chose to place its entire service area of ​​approximately 4 million people two days per week under irrigation restrictions to comply or under a volumetric Allocation during drought.

According to the DWP, the attempt was successful.

“LADWP has been able to stay under the MWD volume allotment, which ran from June 2022 to March 2023, each month through the tireless efforts of our customers and employees,” spokeswoman Mia Rose-Wong said in an email.

However, the DWP fell nowhere near the 15% reduction required by Newsom, with cumulative savings of 5%, or 5 gallons per person per day, the analysis found.

Rose-Wong said customers have made aggressive efforts toward efficiency over the past three decades, making it increasingly difficult for our customers to reduce daily gallons per person.

“Nonetheless, we’re proud of the response from our customers who are diligent in maintaining their water-saving habits as water use has fallen by over 30% over the past 15 years,” said Rose-Wong.

She added that to track its savings, the DWP uses a 12-month rolling average to account for changes in population and weather throughout the year. LA’s 12-month moving average for residential, commercial and industrial occupants rose from 113 gallons per person per day in July 2021 to “below 105” gallons in March. For comparison, the same 12-month moving average nationwide was 126 gallons, she said.

However, not all of the Los Angeles area was so successful.

El Segundo used 25% more water between July 2021 and March, more than any other county in the state. City officials said the high consumption was largely due to a massive wastewater spill at the Hyperion treatment plant in 2021. The spill resulted in lost production of recycled water, which had to be replaced with potable water for several months.

The Humboldt Bay Urban Water District in far northern California was technically the highest-performing district in the state, reducing its water use by 41%. But director-general John Friedenbach said the numbers were somewhat skewed because the biggest water user, an electric utility, went offline in 2022. The rest of the district’s savings are “pretty average,” he said.

The second-largest saver in the state, the city of Healdsburg in Sonoma County, saw a 35% drop. Long touted as an example of efficient water conservation, Healdsburg has achieved significant savings through residential water caps, a recycled water transportation program, a near-total ban on outdoor irrigation, and other conservation efforts.

But while the wet winter gave California some much-needed respite, experts and officials said now is not the time for residents to relax. While extreme precipitation is becoming more common, the region as a whole is becoming hotter and drier due to climate change.

“People might wonder why we should care about conserving when Tulare Lake has re-formed, and I think it’s really just because we’re aware that we face these long-term challenges.” , said Ely of the state water agency. She found that hotter, drier conditions could result in a 10% drop in existing water supplies by 2040.

“And so all the water-saving habits we’ve cultivated over the last decade will continue to serve us well in the face of long-term drought,” she said.

The state is working to roll out its new framework, “Making Conservation a California Way of Life,” Ely said, which will set unique goals for its more than 400 retail urban water suppliers and, among other things, help drive long-term savings efforts across the state.

The state legislature is also considering two bills that could result in further savings, including one that would ban the use of potable water for some ornamental grasses and another that would force non-residential projects to switch to low-water and local native plants.

But California will also face significant cuts in one of its lifelines, the shrinking Colorado River, in the coming years.

The Pacific Institute’s Cooley said these cuts, along with projections for drier conditions, mean maintaining efficiency and a conservation ethos are critical to California and the West.

“We must continue to push for efficiency so that we make the most of the resources we have now,” she said, “and prepare for the next drought that may be imminent.”

The post Did Californians reduce water use 15% through the drought? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Protesters broke up a rare outdoor meeting of San Francisco’s board of directors on Tuesday, where the chief executive had planned to question Mayor London Breed about the city’s drug crisis

From

JANIE HAR Associated Press

May 23, 2023 8:11 PM ET

• 3 minutes read

SAN FRANCISCO — Protesters on Tuesday interrupted a rare outdoor meeting of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors at which the chief executive had planned to question Mayor London Breed on her government’s response to the crisis of the brazen open-air drug trade.

Chief Executive Aaron Peskin relocated the first part of the weekly board meeting to a plaza in the troubled Tenderloin neighborhood near City Hall, where rampant drug trafficking and drug use takes place. He asked the mayor if she would commit to establishing an emergency response center and coordinating departments to shut down “public drug trafficking” in open places like the Plaza within 90 days.

But the heckling and “No more cops” chants from the large crowd were so loud that Peskin moved the gathering back to City Hall before the mayor could respond. Breed did not answer Peskin’s question immediately after the indoor meeting reconvened.

The fentanyl crisis has swept across California, including San Francisco. In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom dispatched the California Highway Patrol and California National Guard to help fight drug traffickers in the city as overdose deaths soared.

Breed has clashed with board members who say more police and arrests aren’t the way to solve the city’s drug crisis. She declared a three-month state of emergency in 2021 over the Tenderloin’s drug crisis and announced another crackdown on drugs in the low-income neighborhood nearly a year later, but little has changed.

Breed said that using drugs in public is unacceptable and that repeat offenders must accept the help offered or face consequences.

“We can’t talk with both sides of our mouths all the time. “On the one hand, we want change and we want to hold people accountable,” Breed said before the meeting was rescheduled. “On the other hand, we’re willing to let people get away with murder.”

Peskin said it’s not about resources, it’s about coordination. He agreed with the mayor that the problem isn’t new, “but one that has become so visible that many San Franciscosians don’t feel safe.”

Downtown San Francisco, which includes the UN Plaza, hasn’t recovered from the pandemic, unlike other cities. Tech employees have opted to work remotely, reducing foot traffic that has benefited downtown businesses.

After guards left the UN Plaza, a woman threw a brick at a group of high school students carrying flags for the gathering, hitting a girl. A 26-year-old San Francisco woman has been charged with child endangerment and assault with a deadly weapon, San Francisco official Robert Rueca said. The minor was not seriously injured.

The mayor attends board meetings once a month to answer questions from managers.

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When it first went on the market two months ago, 3450 Washington St. was the most expensive home on the market in San Francisco at $45 million. Now, fresh from a $5.5 million price cut, this $39.5 million Presidio Heights mansion could be yours — meaning it’s still the most expensive single-family home you’ll buy in town can.

The 9,865-square-foot mansion is historic, built by Albert Farr in the 1930s. Farr was a prolific California architect whose designs are scattered throughout the Bay Area, most notably at the Spanish Colonial Piedmont Church and the Parker Houses on Russian Hill, alongside a variety of impressive homes in San Francisco’s most prestigious neighborhoods.

3450 Washington Street was priced at $45 million but was recently reduced by $5.5 million. It’s still the most expensive offering in San Francisco.

Christopher Sturman

In the case of 3450 Washington St., Farr chose an inspiration from French Normandy. Farr’s vision is very much alive in the house’s grand facade and impressive bones, but the interiors are fresh. According to official marketing for the property, “The property has been completely redesigned…and recently renovated ‘down to the studs’.”

3450 Washington Street was priced at $45 million but was recently reduced by $5.5 million. It’s still the most expensive offering in San Francisco.

Christopher Sturman

In its renovated incarnation, the mansion includes six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and three toilets. Other amenities include two chef’s kitchens, a cigar room, a temperature-controlled wine cellar for up to 3,000 bottles, silk wallpaper, heated floors and a wood-paneled library.

3450 Washington Street was priced at $45 million but was recently reduced by $5.5 million. It’s still the most expensive offering in San Francisco.

Christopher Sturman

The mansion sits on a 9,600 square foot lot in Presidio Heights with stunning views of the bay.

3450 Washington Street was priced at $45 million but was recently reduced by $5.5 million. It’s still the most expensive offering in San Francisco.

Christopher Sturman

Despite the apparent opulence of the offer, the home failed to find a buyer for its original $45 million demand. However, people have shown interest, according to Compass listing agent Antoine Crumeyrolle, who told SFGATE: “We’ve had over 15 showings in the last 60 days, which is excellent for a house at this price point.”

3450 Washington Street was priced at $45 million but was recently reduced by $5.5 million. It’s still the most expensive offering in San Francisco.

Christopher Sturman

The price drop, Crumeyrolle said, “is a sign that buyers know that sellers are serious about selling the house sooner or later.”

The discounted price also leaves San Francisco without a single-family home that’s listed at over $40 million. The Washington Street mansion now tops a list of notable properties costing over $30 million, including the Ken Fulk-enchanted Birch home on Billionaires’ Row, which is asking $35 million; and the $32 million Michael Taylor “California Look” mansion at Sea Cliff.

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