First News
Sonoma County First News for August 6, 2024
There's guys above patchy fog below lots of low fifties out the door today will be sunny look for highs in the nineties. I'm Mark Brown. Good morning from the KRCB Sonoma County Newsroom. Here's your first news for Tuesday, August 6th, 2024. Santa Rosa elected officials today will consider presenting voters with a measure in November that would increase that city's hotel tax to 11%. City staff say the measure, if successful, would pump an additional $1.2 million into the city coffers annually. Santa Rosa's current year budget is about $2 million in the red currently set at 9%. The hotel tax, officially the transient occupancy tax, delivers about $6 million to Santa Rosa's general fund every year. That rate was last raised in 1993. Concerns have emerged as both the county and city tourism boards already assess a 2% and 3% room tax respectively. Though not every overnight guest is charged the full amount, some of that money flows into the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber of Commerce. Should the council place a measure on November's ballot and voters approve it, the total for all three taxes would rise to 16% of the room rate. A conflict between local cities and mobile home park owners continues. Petaluma City Council is being asked to set a mobile home park closure fee that would cover all costs to the city, and that's if aggrieved park owners follow through on their threats to close their parks. The owners of Little Woods and Youngstown mobile home parks have notified the city they intend to close both. That's after an arbitration hearing rejected large rent increases, the city imposed rent control and linked rent hikes to increases in the consumer price index. The new fee could prove a considerable sum. Under mobile home park conversion rules, the city requires a number of detailed reports, including hiring a consulting firm to create a relocation impact report. The fee would also cover every minute of work done by any city employee processing an application to close a mobile home park along with materials and other services. Meanwhile, officials in Petaluma are this week showcasing wins in the effort to end homelessness locally. That's as Petaluma officials seek to fulfill their vow of ending homelessness in the city by the end of next year. According to the most recent official county sponsored homeless census called the Point in Time survey, the number of people considered homeless in Petaluma is about 245 people in need of permanent shelter. Preliminary numbers from this year show an 11% increase and that's attributed to the cancellation of COVID relief funds according to a report prepared for the council. The city says over the past year, 60 new units of permanent supportive housing have opened along with 22 tiny home style structures. That's while the city dismantled two major encampments. Petaluma staff and elected officials say they plan to continue outreach to local landlords to secure housing for those in need and redouble efforts to prevent people facing hardships from becoming homeless. According to a presentation prepared for the council this week, 224 new affordable and permanent supporting dwellings are either under construction, awaiting groundbreaking or being planned. A new state supported online apprenticeship Clearinghouse hopes to match young people with appealing on-the-job training courses that offer stipends and a path to a decent career. Petal Burns is with the California Department of Industrial Relations. The overall objective of this grant, the California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship Grant COIA for short to develop and test innovative practices around how do we increase participation of opportunity use in pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs. Burns says there are opportunities across a spectrum of industries. Healthcare, education, advanced manufacturing, fire trades, arts, media and entertainment, tech and more. Several recent grants are going to help businesses, nonprofits and other entities envision and create training programs, but a few are already up and running. One is Love Never Fails. This is an organization that's offering what they're calling an IT Biz Tech Academy. One program will offer 42 people training, a stipend and supportive services in the tech space. So tech project management, help desk technician, IT support specialist, program manager, project manager, those kind of roles in tech. Burns says those entering the program will receive support. It's a five month program that introduces these underserved individuals to technology careers through a victim-centered and culturally sensitive and trauma-informed approach. The California Department of Industrial Relations also announced several grants to organizations to build new apprenticeship programs, and those include the Health Education Council, the training community health workers like Promotories in Santa Rosa, and to dive into science to create programs to train use for positions as marine science research technicians. You're listening to Sonoma County First News. Well, last week, the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs took live public comment on draft environmental documents for a proposed casino and resort, the coordination plans to build near Windsor. Once known as the Lower Lake Rancheria, the coordination survived barbaric interactions following first contact with Europeans. The tribe became landless in 1956, according to the Cointations website, once among 3,000 POMO living near Clear Lake, a 2015 document in the Federal Register lists the tribe as having about 72 enrolled members. Though the tribe lists 17 other native tribes and tribal affiliated groups as supporters, concerns from locals about traffic, noise, water supplies, and development of agricultural land are vocal. Meanwhile, another tribal nation, operators of an existing casino in Ronert Park, is also a post. Greg Seras is chairman of the Federated Indians of Greaton Rancheria. In this second part of his interview with KRCB's Noah Abrams, Seras says local tribes oppose the plans. Every local, they say they have all 59 tribes supporting them. Some may be from around Lake County or something over there, but none of the local tribes, not the Dry Creek tribe, not the Litten tribe, not the Cloverdale tribe, not the Kashaya Pomo tribe, support this. Seras says no local political leaders are supporting it in the North Bay Senator Mike McGuire, Congressman Mike Thompson, and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla are vocally against the project. The involvement of the Chickasaw, is this becoming a common trend with larger, established gaming tribes trying to expand by partnering with other nations and other parts of the country. I hesitate to generalize if this is a common thing that's happening, but I know specifically, or I can speculate with some certainty, if that sounds a little strange, speculating with certainty. The Chickasaw's largest and most successful casino is basically on the Texas border of Oklahoma and Texas. Any day, Texas gaming is going to be made legal. They are scared to death that their big source of income, their economy is going to be greatly impacted. So they're wise to be going out. The Chickasaw saw an opportunity and there's no money like the money that is made from a slot machine. Casino 101, 90% of your business is slot machines, 8 to 9% is table games, and one half to 1% is food and entertainment. The money from the slot business is something out of this world. They know that. They know that this tribe has been shopping around. They know they've now got Republican connections in the Department of Interior, and they said let's make a deal, and that's the way things go. They're not stupid. They're taking advantage of this situation. Discussions between leaders haven't proven productive, Sarah says. Have you spoken at all with the Beltran brothers about this situation, whether that's recently or when this first started to pop up or has that said? I did talk to one of them. They didn't ever talk. They have spokespeople for them. I've talked to him before. He knows that more I stand on this. I have tribal citizens in my tribe who tell me that he has contacted them, wanting them to write letters to the Department of Interior, saying remember when my father or grandmother or whatever had a party at your grandmother's house, and just tell the Department of Interior that we used to do things together and stuff like that. They've fished around, according to citizens who've told me these things. He hasn't told me anything like that. We've talked in the past, and obviously come to an impasse as what constitutes our territories and our languages. Eastern Pomo, which is what they spoke, is mutually unintelligible to southern Pomo. Yes, it's the same language family. The way Spanish is in the same language family as French, whereas southern Pomo and southwestern Pomo, they can be understood. The difference is with accents or something like that. Is there any way that maybe something like a profit sharing agreement could be worked out to prevent the casino from being built? We have created a wonderful model here. All the non-gaming tribes in Sonoma County. The Cloverdale tribe and the Kishaya tribe, we give each of them $3 million a year. In addition to our IHS money or our Indian health monies for Sonoma County Indian Health Project, in addition to our monies that come from the federal government that we turn over to them, we give them an additional $3 million every year. Plus, a lot of our educational programs and tribal aid and needy family programs, we supplement with casino revenue so that we can serve all Indians in Marin and Sonoma counties. There's your model. That was Greg Serris, chairman of the Federated Indians of Great and Rancheria, speaking with KRCB's Noah Abrams. We'll have more reporting in this series on the Coin Nation's plans for the Shiloh Resort in an upcoming broadcast. Now this. New from the Embedded Podcast. Female athletes have always needed grit and talent. But for decades, they've also needed a certificate. There was chit-chat about, is that really a woman? And even now, they're still being checked and questioned. Their story is the newest series from CBC and NPR's Embedded. It's called Tested. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our full forecast partly to mostly sunny today after some morning low clouds, highs near 91. Tonight turns partly cloudy, lows around 55. Then tomorrow sunny and slightly cooler with highs near 88. Low 80s Thursday, upper 80s Friday, highs again near 90 on Saturday. Then back up in the upper 80s for Sunday with overnight lows this week, still in the 50s. At the coast today, a mix of sun and clouds. West, northwest winds will be 10 to 15 miles per hour. The Dega Bay, you're reaching 67 later. Cloverdale climbing to 98, Hillsburg 96. Winds are 95, Forestville 94. Greaton and Sonoma share 93 for a high Petaluma 90, Sabasta Pull 88. Greenville getting to 87 and 91 on the way for Santa Rosa. Well, thanks for starting your day with us. We are your local member-supported public radio newsroom. You can become a member at krcb.org and as we'll find more local reporting plus any updates to the stories you just heard. And join us for Morning Edition and all things considered for more North Bay News coverage weekday mornings and afternoons on KRCB 104.9. From Sonoma County's NPR station, I'm Mark Prell. Stay safe out there and have yourself for good day.