North Bay Report: Collective Bargaining Under Fire

The showdown over collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin will have far-reaching effects for other states, including California. So local labor groups are weighing in on the issue from afar.

As the standoff in Wisconsin continues, observes Lisa Maldonado of the North Bay Labor Council, a growing number of people are coming to recognize the role and agenda of the corporate special interests who are backing the efforts to curtail union rights.  

Private sector workers who object to the pensions and other benefits that public employees have negotiated are asking the wrong question, Maldonado says.

It's not coincidental that all the states where the anti-union efforts are most active have Republican governors. That's one big reason that Marty Bennett, co-chair of the Living Wage Coalition of Sonoma County, doesn't think it will gain traction in California.

Interested in following this story? Listen to the full report from KRCB by clicking here.

As a black woman, Belva Davis has forged a broadcast news career laced with awards and newly opened doors. In her new autobiography, she charts the challenges she met along the way, and traces the source of her perseverance to a lonely childhood that was hard to revisit.

Writing her life story wasn't easy. Davis says she labored over early drafts for five years, before partnering with co-author Vickki Haddock to shape the manuscript into its final form. But there were lessons gained from the process, too; among them a renewed appreciation for the many forms of support she received from the community where she came of age.

Davis says she doesn't think of her self as a role model--although many others do--yet she recalls her pleasure in encountering a couple of young black journalist recently who hold key roles with CNN.

For the past 21 years, Davis has hosted the weekly public affairs program, This Week in Northern California, for KQED television in San Francisco, and her enthusiasm for that job remains as strong as ever.

Listen to the full story here.

Green building is now mandatory for all of California. A new, three-tiered set of building codes is now in effect, giving designers, builders and even inspectors something to study and implement.

In recent years, the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) standards have become the most widely used benchmarks for "green" construction practices. While Wally Geer believes LEED is a valuable and beneficial program, he says California's new CalGreen codes provide a less complicated path to the same goal. 

One thing that is pro-actively addressed in the new CalGreen codes, Geer says approvingly, is water conservation.

Wally Geer's "Working With Cal-Green" workshops -- one each for residenta (morning) l and  non-residential projects(afternoon) -- are being held at The Fireman's Fund building in Novato tomorrow. Registration information here.

KRCB has the full story.

The resumption of freight train service between Sonoma and Napa Counties could be as close as six weeks away, but there are still a few obstacles remaining.

Negotiations with SMART, the planned commuter rail service that will share the tracks between Cloverdale and Ignacio, have been underway for some time. It's not legally essential for a new agreement to be in place before the first freight trains resume running, says North Coast Railroad Authority Director Mitch Stogner, but it is certainly desirable.

Whenever freight trains resume running, NWP president John Williams says there is a lot of business waiting to get on board.

Stay tuned for a follow-up, and listen to the full report here.

Are regional housing goals an intrusion into local land use planning or a necessary tool to ensure the creation of affordable housing throughout the area? It depends who we ask.

Among the issues that Novato City Council member Jeanne MacLeamy has with ABAG's administration of their housing projections is a subtle but significant change. Instead of merely identifying parcels where future housing projects might be built, MacLeamy says, the agency is now insisting that actual construction eventually ensure on those same sites.

Novato, a city of 50,000 people, has little available land left for new residential development, something that MacLeamy thinks should be factored into the ABAG housing needs projections.

Novato and other cities have also complained that ABAG will not count "granny units" or other second units toward their municipal housing targets. Affordable housing advocate David Grabill says these might be considered market rate housing, but are virtually never affordable.

In Novato, permits and other administrative costs can easily reach $60,000 before construction even begins, further distancing them from any prospect of affordability.

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) includes all nine bay area counties.

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Editor's note: This story was reported and produced by KRCB, and written for Rohnert Park Patch with the permission of KRCB News Director Bruce Robinson.