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Kamala Harris DA (Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal)

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Kamala Harris DA (Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal)

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Faizan Kashmiri - Cover her time as District Attorney. Possibly focus on Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal in San Francisco?

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As San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris’s Office Stopped Cooperating With Victims of Catholic Church Child Abuse

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When Kamala Harris took over as San Francisco district attorney in 2004, her office ended cooperation with Catholic Church sex abuse victims.

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Ava Knapp

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Reasons behind it, teachers who could take a role in the program and their motivations, potential impact of the course

Chris

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Look at the new features and layout of the space, talk to wellness coordinators who might have felt constrained by the portable (or who feel like a transition might take some time), can also feature any/all new wellness programs or projects that come up when interviewing

Chris

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Alex (i came up with this idea)

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Max Beach YAF (Young Americans for Freedom Chapter)

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Max Beach YAF (Young Americans for Freedom Chapter)

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Cover the Paly YAF, Young Americans for Freedom. Socially conservative.

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Campaign Kickoff Party!

August 25th, Peers Park, 3pm-5pm

"I believe the highest priorities of the school board should be ensuring physical safety and educational achievement for all."

Meet Alison

I am a mother of two children in PAUSD, an attorney, and dedicated advocate for immigrants' rights and underrepresented minorities. I first moved to the area as a student at Stanford, where I majored in history. I received my law degree from Harvard Law School and am currently the legal program director at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a non-profit whose mission is to build a democratic society that values diversity and the rights of all people.

After six years at Escondido Elementary, my daughter will be entering Greene Middle School in the fall, and my son will be starting the Spanish Immersion program at Escondido. My husband is a developmental psychology professor at Stanford who specializes in children's language learning. I have both deep and broad roots in this community and am passionate about serving our families and uniting us around shared values of safety and educational achievement.

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Vote Alison Kamhi for Palo Alto School Board | Alison Kamhi PAUSD

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Meet Alison Kamhi, the candidate you want for Palo Alto School Board. She's a lawyer and parent who prioritizes safety, excellence, and community. Read more today! | Alison Kamhi PAUSD

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Verbatim/profile on ASB members of year 24-25

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Verbatim/profile on ASB members of year 24-25

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Note: Elections for freshman and appointed positions finish Sept. 10

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Google and Israeli Surveillance (Project Nimbus)

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Google and Israeli Surveillance (Project Nimbus)

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Faizan Kashmiri. Google has continued to fire Google employees for outspoken criticism against Google's connections with the state of Israel.

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On May 14, pro-Palestinian protesters rallied near the entrance to Google's annual developer conference in Mountain View, many chaining themselves together. Thousands of attendees waiting to enter the Google event were delayed and had to be redirected. Protesters objected to Google holding it's celebration of technological achievements the day before Palestinians mark the Nakba, their mass expulsion from what became the state of Israel in 1948.

Organizers No Tech for Genocide wrote: Google has repeatedly claimed that it does not work with the Israeli military, but recent reporting shows Google signed a deal with the Ministry of Defense and has sought to deepen its relationship with the agency since the Gaza invasion began. Through products like Project Nimbus, Google profits directly by enhancing Israeli surveillance and control over Palestinians.

In April, the company fired more than 50 workers for taking part in pro-Palestinian protests in New York City and Sunnyvale, California.

Protesters Block Entrance to Google Conference |

Disrupting Google's Biggest Conference: No Tech for Genocide |

No Tech For Apartheid

Related Features: Occupations Established at Universities Across California | International Workers' Day 2024 Actions Included Urgent Support for the Palestinian People

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Google Conference Blocked in Support of Palestinians : Indybay

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Through products like Project Nimbus, Google profits directly by enhancing Israeli surveillance and control over Palestinians. Recent reporting shows Google signed a deal with the Ministry of Defense. On May 14, pro-Palestinian protesters rallied near the entrance to Google's annual developer conference, many chaining themselves together.

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I Don't Like The Smell of That -- Sanitary District Dissolution

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I Don't Like The Smell of That -- Sanitary District Dissolution

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Sanitary District is about to be dissolved. Look into the crisis around that, the resistance to the change, etc etc.

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In a last-ditch bid to retain control of the city's sewer system, the East Palo Alto Sanitary District contended in an Aug. 16 court hearing that a recent decision calling for its dissolution was based on insufficient evidence and incorrect assumptions.

Attorneys representing the district and the San Mateo Local Agency Formation Commission sparred in a San Mateo County Superior Court hearing over whether the commission acted legally and in an unbiased manner when it voted last month to accept the city of East Palo Alto's proposal to take control of the sewer system. The July 17 vote reaffirmed a prior vote that LAFCo, a commission that deals with issues of borders and jurisdictions, took in November 2023 to support the consolidation proposal, which is being spearheaded by the East Palo Alto City Council and which the district strongly opposes.

After each side made its case, Judge Roger Picquet indicated that he will issue a ruling on the Sanitary District's challenge of LAFCo's decision later this month.

Leah Castella, attorney for the Sanitary District, argued at the hearing that in reaffirming its decision in favor of East Palo Alto's application, LAFCo ignored critical information, namely the district's recently approved capital improvement plan and an adopted budget showing its plans for upgrading the aged sewer system.

"It is extraordinarily difficult to understand how LAFCo could ignore the evidence that effectively addressed every concern that formed the basis of their decision at the original hearing, ignore that and still stand by their decision to grant the subsidiary district proposal," Castella said at the hearing, which was conducted virtually and streamed in a Redwood City courtroom.

She framed East Palo Alto's bid to take over the district, which serves most of East Palo Alto and a small portion of Menlo Park, as a move designed to satisfy developers by significantly lowering hookup fees to the sewer system. The city and developers had argued over the past five years that the district's fees are exorbitant and in some cases arbitrary, with quotes often exceeding $4 million.

Critics of the district have claimed that its conduct has threatened and, at times, stifled needed developments. The latter include The Primary School that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was planning to build on Weeks Street and the center for nonprofits that was proposed by the Sobrato Organization. The recently completed Light Tree apartment complex came close to losing its state funding because of negotiations with the district over hookup fees.

The District, however, has argued that the fees are necessary to expand the system's capacity so that it can accommodate the growth that the city wants to see. If it didn't require the developers to pay for these upgrades, the onus would fall on the ratepayers.

"What this dispute really comes down to is whether and to what extent the ratepayers should bear the burden of increased capacity," Castella said. "Is it fair for developers to put a substantial burden on ratepayers to increase capacity of a system that is not necessary in order to continue to fund service as is currently provided?"

Timothy Fox, attorney for LAFCo, rejected the idea that the agency's decision had anything to do with the district's rate-setting practices. Rather, it's a matter of evaluating which governance structure makes the most sense in effectively providing municipal services, he said. One goal is to ensure that elected bodies that are responsible for things like meeting the state's housing goals aren't "hamstrung" by decisions made by other bodies that aren't bound by the consequences for failing to meet those goals, Fox argued.

"We're not here to do the analysis of how the sewer district should do its job going forward," Fox said. "We're here to evaluate whether the structure by which those decisions are made, namely by one elected board that specializes in providing sewer services, is operating somewhat at odds with a different elected board that manages other municipal functions in largely the same geographic jurisdiction."

Picquet indicated that he will issue his ruling no later than Aug. 30. Until that time, the LAFCo decision will remain on hold. If the court does not overturn the LAFCo decision, the Sanitary District will become a subsidiary of the city of East Palo Alto.

The East Palo Alto City Council has committed to creating a five-member advisory board to help it oversee the sanitary system, with one member appointed by the Menlo Park City Council and another Menlo Park resident appointed by the East Palo Alto City Council. The city also plans to contract with West Bay Sanitary District to provide maintenance services for the sewer service.

The issue of political representation came up during the Aug. 16 hearing, with Castella arguing that Menlo Park residents would lose their ability to elect officials who oversee the sewer system because they don't get a vote in East Palo Alto. Attorney Michael Colantuono, representing the city of East Palo Alto, countered that voters in Menlo Park will have other political remedies. Menlo Park residents can donate to East Palo Alto candidates whom they support and pursue a referendum. And given the relatively low turnout for council elections, if 20% of the ratepayers raise concerns, council members will surely take notice, he argued.

"You don't need to be a majority of the electorate to be a significant influence," Colantuono said.

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Gennady SheynerStaff Writer, Palo Alto Weekly / PaloAltoOnline.com

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Sanitary District makes its case in court as dissolution nears

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In a last-ditch bid to retain control of the city's sewer system, the East Palo Alto Sanitary District contended in an Aug. 16 court hearing that a recent decision calling for its dissolution was based on insufficient evidence and incorrect assumptions.

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Relates to democratic national convention

How to balance opinions with political freedom

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Protesters call to ‘Free Palestine!’ in rally outside Palo Alto City Hall

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A lively rally outside Palo Alto City Hall, calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, attracted hundreds of people on Saturday.

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how to increase voter turnout like convincing your parents, or how paly kids think the election will go

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how to increase voter turnout like convincing your parents, or how paly kids think the election will go

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something similar to this, paly graduates

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something similar to this, paly graduates

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Presented by

Graduating Stanford students commit to service in Bay Area communities

Stanford's Community Impact Fellows program places graduating seniors
in Bay Area nonprofits, allowing them to gain
valuable experience while serving the community.
The tradition continues this summer, as Stanford has helped place 18 members of Stanford's class of 2024 in positions at non-profit organizations serving the public good in East Palo Alto, North Fair Oaks, Redwood City, San José and beyond.

One of those fellows is Caroline Clement, who graduated with a degree in biology this past June and will spend her first year out of college at SIRUM, a non-profit that improves access to medication for people who cannot afford it.

"I wanted to start my career with a foundation and background in local service and commitment," said Clement. SIRUM, short for Supporting Initiatives for Redistributing Unused Medicines, was founded by Stanford graduates nearly two decades ago to provide unused, surplus medication to people in need. They work within each state's laws governing donation of unused, unexpired medication, including California, and facilitate the collection of unused drugs with Santa Clara County's Better Health Pharmacy. The medications are then provided to people in need of those specific drugs, even those who lack insurance, free of charge.

"Given the amount of patients SIRUM aids, I hope to make a positive impact serving communities and individuals that too often go disregarded," said Clement.

The program selects Stanford applicants with a deep commitment to public service, and provides them career guidance and support so they can make even greater contributions to the charitable organizations where they are placed.

"The Community Impact Fellows program embodies Stanford's goal of promoting the public good," said Yi-Ching Ong, executive director of the Haas Center. "Our fellows are not only gaining invaluable perspectives and professional experience, but also making meaningful contributions to communities in need, especially in the Bay Area. We are very grateful to our partner organizations for nurturing our fellows and inspiring them to continue integrating public service in their paths beyond Stanford."

Carly Smith, who graduated in 2023, was placed with Ravenswood Family Health Network, a network of healthcare clinics in the MidPeninsula area that provide care to people in the community regardless of their ability to pay or their immigration status.

"I wanted to give myself more time to explore the surrounding area and immerse myself in the community as an individual, rather than as a Stanford student," Smith said. She is taking her experience working directly with patients with a new role at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute.
Stanford is committed to supporting our community by advancing interdisciplinary teaching and research, providing world-class medical care, and extending knowledge and discovery to our neighbors. Stanford invites its neighbors to enjoy its open lands and participate in learning, athletic, and arts events on campus.

As the new fellows settle into their year-long placements this summer, they know that their roles are more than a job. It's a commitment to addressing some of their adopted communities' biggest challenges. The graduates will work for a diverse group of organizations, including San Jose's Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department, Donors Choose, El Concilio de San Mateo, Ikaso Consulting, Mission Investors Exchange, Partnership for Public Service, Ravenswood Family Health Network, and Redwood City Together.

For Clement, her role puts her in direct contact with local charitable clinics and healthcare providers who understand the consequences when patients cannot afford prescribed medication, improving the quality of existing partnerships and forming new relationships with community partners.

"The Community Impact Fellowship is the perfect base on which to build upon a lifelong undertaking in service work," Clement said. "You learn so much about the needs of the community and gain tools about how best to address those needs."

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Gina Channell WilcoxVice President of Sales; President and Publisher, Embarcadero Media/East Bay Division

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Graduating Stanford students commit to service in Bay Area communities

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From formal tours to serendipitous sightings, there are plenty of ways to engage with the public artworks on Stanford's grounds.

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The first U.S. countywide vote to prohibit factory farms will take place on November 5 in Sonoma County. This historic measure was named Measure J after the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors asked the Registrar of Voters to assign the already intensely debated initiative a measure letter months earlier than normal.

The battle over the ballot measure comes after a decade of investigations into Sonoma County factory farms by Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) and other groups. In 2018, a Perdue-supplying chicken farm in Sonoma County was shut down permanently following a DxE investigation that exposed sick and injured birds who could not walk to food or water. The farm was referred as a suspect for criminal animal cruelty to the Sheriff's office by the county's Animal Services Department after they examined birds DxE investigators removed from the facility.

There are still other Perdue-supplying factory farms in Sonoma County where egregious animal cruelty and public health risks have been documented. The authorities refuse to take any action against Perdue and instead prosecute animal rescuers. Activists say factory farms are not above the law and it's time to hold animal abusers like Perdue accountable. If Sonoma County voters pass Measure J, it will change the course of history in Sonoma County and beyond.

Historic Factory Farm Ban on Ballot November 5th in Sonoma County! |

Launch Party To End Factory Farming in Sonoma County (5/11) |

Yes on Measure J

Related Features: Animal Rights Activists Converge on Petaluma Slaughterhouse | Animal Activists March for Animals in Santa Rosa | Liberation of Sick and Dying Birds Leads to Felony Charges | Petaluma Whole Foods Factory Farm Defended by Riot Police | Hundreds Rally in Effort to Save Chickens from Sunrise Farms

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Historic Factory Farm Ban on Nov 5 Ballot in Sonoma County : Indybay

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The first U.S. countywide vote to prohibit factory farms will take place on November 5 in Sonoma County. This historic measure was named Measure J after the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors asked the Registrar of Voters to assign the already intensely debated initiative a measure letter months earlier than normal.

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Who are the people behind CodePink (Women for Peace)?

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Who are the people behind CodePink (Women for Peace)?

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Accused of being Russian/Chinese backed, meant to create unrest in US. Active at basically every Bay Area protest. Any student activists on campus apart of it?

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Skip navigation

The peace movement needs you now more than ever before! Join us to make a difference.

Meet Kelly Curry

Meet Kelly, an author, publisher, relationship-builder and social justice activist who has been working as CODEPINK's Local Peace Economy Organizer for over two years. Kelly is known for her love of writing, storytelling and sharing healthy, living foods to create powerful, on the ground shifts of consciousness and build community globally. In the...

Read More

Meet Priti Gulati Cox

Priti Gulati Cox, an artist, activist, and native of India, has been living in Salina, Kansas since 2000. From 2006 to 2013 she worked on a project titled Unfinished Portrait that tracked the footsteps of a post-9/11 world and the human cost of the U.S. led invasions and occupation of Iraq...

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Meet Tanya and Jim Klein

Tanya and Jim are screenwriters and story analysts living in Los Angeles. They are passionate about justice and equality and despairing because there is way too little of it in the world. They've been active with CODEPINK for a little over two years. They are very much aware that all of the...

Read More

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Skip navigation The peace movement needs you now more than ever before! Join us to make a difference. Meet Kelly, an author, publisher, relationship-builder and social justice activist who has been working as CODEPINK's Local Peace Economy Organizer for over two years.

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Low-lying communities surrounding the San Francisco Bay have been impacted by flooding for years, however sea-level rise and the resulting groundwater rise will exacerbate the region's flooding challenges.

Last month the nonprofit public policy organization, San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), put out a report in conjunction with Nuestra Casa, a community organization based in East Palo Alto, examining the major impacts that groundwater rise could have in East Palo Alto.

Research around the response of shallow groundwater to sea-level rise is relatively new, but it is clear that the impacts from rising groundwater compounded with sea-level rise and other environmental hazards will negatively impact the region. The report from SPUR, entitled "Look Out Below," outlines how this previously unexamined risk is a dire and imminent threat to the Bay Area's coastal municipalities.

Groundwater is the water that is stored in the soil. As rain water falls, it filters through permeable areas in the ground and moves down to the water table, which is the underground boundary between the saturated area where groundwater sits, and the soil surface. Shallow groundwater sits zero to six feet below the soil surface.

As the sea level rises due to climate change, the salty water from the San Francisco Bay will push the groundwater up through the soil. As sea levels rise, so will the levels of groundwater in the soil. According to data from the California Ocean Protection Council referenced in SPUR's report, sea levels could rise between one foot and six and a half feet between now and 2100.

For low-lying coastal communities, this means that inland areas could experience flooding from below as groundwater emerges from the ground before ever experiencing direct flooding from coastal floodwaters overtopping the shoreline.

Because East Palo Alto is situated directly next to the Bay, and is surrounded by wetlands, it is uniquely vulnerable to impacts from groundwater rise. The city already struggles with flooding during winter storms, as it is vulnerable to storm surge and urban stream flooding in the areas near the San Francisquito Creek.

"It's (East Palo Alto) very low lying, it's already vulnerable to a lot of climate impacts," said Sarah Atkinson, the hazard resilience senior policy manager at SPUR, who authored the report. "East Palo Alto and East Palo Alto residents have been experiencing flooding during major storms over the last few years, so we already knew that that was a hazard that the city was paying attention to."

Impacts of groundwater rise

Groundwater rise, when compounded with sea level rise and extreme storms, such as the ones that the region experienced in early 2023, will worsen flooding. The closer the groundwater sits to the surface of the soil, the less capacity the soil has to absorb rainwater during heavy storm events.

According to the report, "without intervention, rising groundwater levels will make flooding increasingly common in neighborhoods east of Pulgas Avenue. Flooding will make it difficult to move around the neighborhood and access basic needs and services."

Flooding can affect health by leading to increased rates of growth for mold and fungi, which can negatively affect indoor air quality and contribute to respiratory infections.

One of the most concerning impacts of groundwater rise will be the movement of contaminants and hazardous materials at contaminated industrial sites along the Bay. There are more than 50 contaminated sites in East Palo Alto, mostly concentrated in the northern part of the city which is zoned for industrial uses.

These contaminated sites are known to contain hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, arsenic, pesticides, volatile organic compounds and more. When these contaminants interact with shallow groundwater, they can be dissolved into the water or moved to other locations by the water.

These mobilized contaminants can then enter underground sewage and stormwater systems, or move into creeks and impact nearby residents and wildlife. Low-income communities are often disproportionately exposed to contaminants and pollution, and groundwater rise may exacerbate this issue.

Because the science around groundwater rise impacts is relatively new and evolving rapidly, even hazardous waste sites that have technically been closed and remediated may still be at risk for contaminant mobilization from groundwater rise. According to SPUR's report, many of the previously employed site remediation strategies "do not effectively address sea level rise" or groundwater rise.

Other impacts of groundwater rise include increased liquefaction risks, where saturated soil behaves like a liquid during earthquakes. Liquefaction during a seismic event can lead to increased damage to a city's infrastructure, beyond normal earthquake damage. Strategies to mitigate liquefaction are often expensive to implement, and retrofits are often impractical.

Groundwater rise may also damage the city's aging infrastructure, particularly underground infrastructure, on a more incremental basis.

Sewer, stormwater and drinking water systems are likely to be the infrastructure that is most impacted by groundwater rise, as water infrastructure tends to consist of pipes located underground. Shallow groundwater can degrade these underground pipes faster than expected and stress the infrastructure by destabilizing the soil around it, and due to the soil becoming saltier as the sea level rises.

Shallow groundwater can also infiltrate the systems through weak points and threaten human health. When groundwater enters a sewer system, it can cause something called a sanitary sewer overflow, which can lead to untreated or partially treated sewage flowing into the Bay. Leaks in tap water systems can threaten the availability of safe, clean drinking water in people's homes.

Challenges posed by EPA utilities landscape

East Palo Alto in particular has a unique utilities landscape, as it is served by three different water providers. One larger system, Veolia, serves approximately 80% of residents, while the other 20% are served by two much smaller providers: Palo Alto Park Mutual Water Company and the O'Connor Tract Co-op Water Company.

According to the report, both of the smaller water providers have previously been cited for safe drinking water violations, and Palo Alto Park Mutual has been identified by the water board as having poorly maintained water infrastructure. Presently, both water systems meet minimum federal drinking water standards.

"That is a really interesting challenge," said Atkinson. "Those water districts, because they're so small, it's harder for them to be able to fund the necessary maintenance that is going to be needed with sea-level and groundwater rise."

This situation makes East Palo Alto an even more interesting case study for groundwater rise.

"The scientific research that has come out over the last few years has been a little broader and more regionally based," said Atkinson. "But we really wanted to look at one location and understand what the infrastructure impacts were going to be and also how the politics in the space were going to change how a city should be considering groundwater rise."

According to the report, local, regional and state planning documents that address sea-level rise and climate change have only recently begun to recognize the risk posed by groundwater rise. Some documents, such as the California State Hazard Mitigation Plan, still fail to include planning and guidance for this risk.

However, San Mateo County in particular has begun including groundwater rise in its hazard planning.

"San Mateo County has a sea level rise and flood resilience special district called OneShoreline," said Atkinson. "That's a really exciting governance structure that doesn't really exist anywhere else. And they are definitely paying attention to groundwater rise."

Addressing groundwater rise risks

SPUR's report offers several policy suggestions for cities and policymakers that want to manage and reduce the risk of groundwater rise.

A number of cities along the Peninsula, including East Palo Alto, are in the process of updating their safety elements, which is the part of a city's general plan that is focused on addressing potential threats such as climate change, seismic activity, extreme heat, flooding and more.

In its policy recommendations, the report's authors advise that cities require all plans for infrastructure projects to assess the risks of groundwater rise, update guidance for remediation requirements for hazardous waste sites along the shoreline and pursue funding to support groundwater rise research and adaptation planning.

The report also advises cities to consider adopting shallow groundwater rise overlay districts in city plans, which specify design and retrofit requirements in high-hazard areas.

"We wanted to pick policy recommendations that we would be able to take action on as a group, and that we were particularly interested in," said Atkinson. "We had a lot of conversations about, for example, the recommendation on funding opportunities. ... We want to make sure that whatever funding opportunity moves forward doesn't have a negative impact on the community in terms of higher utility fees or increasing insurance rates."

She emphasized that SPUR's policy recommendations were developed with the community in mind, and any future solutions that are implemented need to be developed through conversations with the community.

"Whatever solutions are developed, we really need to be thinking about what are the benefits of those solutions for the community," she said. "What are potential negative impacts that those solutions could bring and how do you mitigate them?"

Atkinson also said that these policy recommendations are not specific to East Palo Alto.

"We would definitely like to see other jurisdictions take more action on groundwater rise," she said. "For example, last year when Oakland updated their safety element, we provided public comment on the safety element and they included some of our groundwater rise recommendations in that update."

Groundwater Rise Coalition

Throughout East Palo Alto, groundwater rise is entering the conversation around environmental justice, and community groups are responding.

Nuestra Casa has launched a community coalition to develop strategies to mitigate the local impacts of groundwater rise and to address concerns related to the contaminated sites throughout the city. The Groundwater Rise Coalition is made up of leaders from Nuestra Casa, Youth United for Community Action, Climate Resilient Communities, Belle Haven Empowered and the Belle Haven Community Development Fund.

Nuestra Casa, in conjunction with SPUR, has also developed groundwater "noticias," a handout in Spanish and English informing the community of how groundwater may impact their city and their homes.

SPUR and Nuestra Casa plan to continue doing groundwater rise advocacy throughout the region.

"This report is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we are working on and hoping to move forward on in the next year or two with groundwater rise," said Atkinson.

Read the full report online at spur.org/publications/spur-report/2024-06-12/look-out-below.

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New report analyzes the devastating impact that rising groundwater could have on East Palo Alto

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Last month the nonprofit public policy organization, San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), put out a report in conjunction with Nuestra Casa examining the major impacts that groundwater rise could have in East Palo Alto.

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repaving parking lots

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Black Lively promotes her hair product line while Justin Baldoni educates audiences on DV

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why repave the main back parking lot but not repave the bike path, which needs the most work

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why repave the main back parking lot but not repave the bike path, which needs the most work

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Crusader for Gender Equity in the California Legislature: One Longtime Activist's Story

As the election approaches and many of us are scrambling to do something, anything, to impact its outcome, I felt compelled to feature someone who has played the political long game. For more than a decade, local activist Janet Cook worked to achieve gender parity-that is 50 percent female representation-in the California Legislature. The results of her efforts and those of her colleagues have been historic. This is Janet's story.
As the election approaches and many of us are scrambling to do something, anything, to impact its outcome, I felt compelled to feature someone who has played the political long game. For more than a decade, local activist Janet Cook worked to achieve gender parity-that is 50 percent female representation-in the California Legislature. The results of her efforts and those of her colleagues have been historic. This is Janet's story.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously said, "Women belong in all places where decisions are being made."

As recently as 2013 RBG's assertion wasn't even close to being the case in California where just 20 members of the 120-member California State Legislature were women. Today, that percentage has skyrocketed to 42 percent and the California Senate is almost assured of being majority female after this November due to recent primary results. Redwood City resident Janet Cook, a no-nonsense pragmatist whose activism dates back some forty years, has been on the forefront of that effort.

Janet was feeling particularly distraught about the intractability of society's ills when, in 2013, Bay Area political consultant Mary Hughes tapped Janet to be in on the ground floor of Close the Gap California, an organization Hughes had just founded to recruit accomplished, progressive women to run for office in targeted state legislative districts, then help position them to undertake competitive campaigns.

"I realized I could continue spreading myself too thinly and running myself ragged working on the issues that I cared about like public education, women's reproductive care, and a path out of poverty, and still not having a significant impact. Or I could solve those problems by helping elect progressive women who supported those issues," Janet says.
The playbook
Janet had been retired for several years from her job as a project manager at a pharmaceutical company when she began volunteering for Close the Gap California. In that role she and her colleagues have spent thousands of hours identifying possible candidates, many women of color, in open districts, asking them to run and then helping to launch those candidates.

Janet's passion is fueled by a deep-seated belief, borne out by research, that gender parity matters because women's legislative priorities are different from men's, adding that the need to elect women legislators in California is particularly pressing because of our size-we're the world's fifth largest economy-and because California is a pipeline for national leaders.

Janet's first step in recruiting winning candidates was to undertake exhaustive research to identify characteristics that a candidate from a particular district needed to win. Was it essential for a candidate to have local roots or was the district a transient community where roots weren't all that important? What major issues was the district facing? What did recent voting trends reveal about the beliefs and positions that were most likely to put a candidate on a path to victory?

"Redding is a lot different from Berkeley, so the progressive recruit I'd go after in Redding is a lot different than the progressive recruit I'd go after in Berkeley," Janet says. (She is speaking from experience, having recruited candidates in both communities.)

After Janet and her colleagues developed a candidate profile and organized "search parties" to find potential candidates with the characteristics they'd identified, the Close the Gap California team reached out to gauge possible candidates' interest in running. "A man rolls out of bed in the morning and thinks, 'OK, I'm going to run for office, and all of my friends will give me money.' A woman rolls out of bed in the morning and thinks, 'Maybe I'd like to run. But do I have enough experience? Can I raise enough money? Is my family on board?'"

It typically required multiple conversations with multiple people to convince a prospective candidate to even consider a run. Once she did, the candidate was led through a comprehensive process to help her determine whether running for state office was right for her and, if it was, ensure she was prepared to launch a successful campaign, both in her district and in Sacramento where candidates typically go to fundraise.
Unlikely roots
Janet's background is anything but progressive. Her parents were born and raised in Alabama and, even though Janet didn't grow up there, her parents adhered to the strict gender roles and conservative religious and political ideology typical of white Southerners in the 1960s.

As a kid, Janet didn't spend a lot of time thinking about society's failings. But in college-she attended Auburn University in rural Alabama in large part because her older brother was a student there-her activism was fueled when an unwanted pregnancy caused her to need an abortion in a state where abortions were illegal. It didn't escape her when a black man moved from the sidewalk into the street so she, a white co-ed, could pass; when the Auburn college president proudly reported to parents that their children would leave Auburn no different from when they came; when she realized that Auburn's female students had a 10 o'clock curfew but male students had none; and when she observed that the Confederate flag was flying higher than the Stars and Stripes on the State Capitol dome.

After college, Janet followed her soon-to-be husband to Menlo Park where she was energized by the area's diversity and openness to new ideas. But it was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that transformed her into an activist. She recalls, "I said to myself, 'You're never going to be able to look yourself in the mirror again if you don't get involved in the ERA fight.'"

When she read that the National Organization for Women (NOW) was looking for volunteers for its " Missionary Project ", Janet signed up. It was 1981 and the ERA was three states short of the 38 needed for ratification. A major obstacle to the ERA's ratification was opposition from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). In response, NOW launched its own Missionary Project, named to mimic the LDS missionary program in which church members go door-to-door spreading the Church's gospel. In the NOW version, "missionaries" went door-to-door in Utah communities to dispel myths about the ERA and stem the flow of money from the LDS Church into the anti-ERA campaign.

Janet wasn't exactly welcomed by the women whose doors she knocked on. Rather, many slammed their doors shut when they learned why she and her fellow missionary were there. When women did talk, it was to recount the perceived dire consequences of the ERA's passage, like women being required to use same sex bathrooms, forced into combat and denied Social Security benefits. After leaving a house, Janet often could hear a phone ringing in the house next door. She soon realized that it was residents calling their neighbors to warn them that "those ERAers are on the way."

Activist for life
We know how the story ended. The ERA never did pass. But Janet's outlook was fundamentally altered by her experience in Utah. "It really changes your life when you see the impact of institutional patriarchy and rampant misinformation," Janet says.

After returning from Salt Lake City, Janet became active in Palo Alto's NOW chapter. She lobbied the Palo Alto Fire Department and the Palo Alto City Council to build separate sleeping quarters and restrooms for female firefighters and worked on a study that confirmed that Palo Alto's librarians-all women-were being paid significantly less than men working in jobs requiring similar skills and education. From there she became vice-president of California NOW. Over the past several years she has campaigned extensively in Nevada in Presidential elections and elections for progressive Congressional candidates, often staying there for six to eight weeks at a stretch.

In addition to her political work, Janet is a certified posture instructor, teaching clients how to align their body weight through their bones by modeling the alignment of people in other cultures who maintain their strength and posture as they age. She also is an avid pickleball enthusiast and an intrepid traveler, having visited far-flung destinations like Afghanistan, North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran.

With women currently occupying 50 out of 120 seats in the California legislature, Close the Gap California is tantalizingly close to meeting, or exceeding, its goal of 50 percent gender parity by 2028. At age 73, Janet says it's time to step back from her work with Close the Gap California.

"I'm drawing back for really good reasons," she says. "The young people who are now Close the Gap California leaders are building on our earlier work and are so much more professional, so much more efficient, so much more sophisticated than I ever was. But I'm extremely proud of what I've helped accomplish, particularly for women of color and families in California."

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Crusader for Gender Equity in the California Legislature: One Longtime Activist's Story

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The California State Legislature is close to being comprised of 50 percent women. Bay Area activist Janet Cook helped make that happen.

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promotes environment? promotes community!

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Get ready for the 2024 Palo Alto Weekly Moonlight Run & Walk presented by the City of Palo Alto.

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Joan Baez -- Once Voted Most Rebellious Student (IIRC)

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Joan Baez -- Once Voted Most Rebellious Student (IIRC)

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Faizan Kashmiri

She still lives around her. Go interview her and where she thinks the youth movements are going. Could be video feature.

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French accent, "Now what ees eet." Joan responded with a mix of teen-age attitude and true bravery, "I'm protesting this stupid air raid drill because it is false and misleading. I'm staying here in my seat." According to Baez his response was to walk out of the classroom, muttering the words, "Comme vous etes un enfant terrible!"

While many of her classmates ran off to house parties to celebrate the half day of school, Baez was eventually escorted to the office where she identified herself as a "conscientious objector" and sat and read until 3 o'clock.

Joan had her first taste of fame the next day when the Palo Alto Times ran a story about her defiance. In the article, Joan was critical of her classmates. "I don't think half of them knew what it was about, even though the teachers explained it. The students just looked at the drill as a chance to get out of school early." She also gave hints of the tone of Baez's future protests, telling the Times that, "I don't see any sense in having an air raid drill. I don't think it's a method of defense. Our only defense is peace."

But perhaps Palo Alto was not really the best place to wage protests of change. Principal Ray Ruppel is quoted in the article as saying, "Miss Baez is a very good student and a very fine person. She was awfully nice about it." He went on to tell the paper he admired her for standing by her convictions. The end of the article quotes Joan as saying "I was expecting more of a reaction." Of course in later years she would certainly get it. []

Baez's defiant stands are well known. In her opposition to the war in Vietnam she was jailed twice, once for blocking the entrance to the Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland. In 1965 she founded the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence while admitting to withholding 60% of her taxes, the amount she believed was being spent on American defense. In 1972, she was highly criticized by conservatives for traveling to Hanoi during the Christmas Bombings to address human rights and deliver Christmas mail to POWs. She has also performed at fund-raisers to support protests against the Iraq War, discrimination against gays and lesbians, military regimes in Cambodia and Latin America, and logging and deforestation policies.

But it turns out that her first protest came in Palo Alto, during an air raid drill at Palo Alto High School in 1958.

The incident came during Joan's junior year when she was 17 years old and had recently moved to Palo Alto from Redlands, California. On February 6th, students were supposed to participate in a "Civil Defense and Disaster Preparedness Drill." This called for students to leave school early, find their way home and sit in their cellars to pretend to be hiding from a foreign attack. Evidently, American schools had moved beyond the even more questionable practice of training students to hide under their desk with the hope that it would somehow shield them against a hydrogen bomb.

But Joan believed the air raid drill was similarly silly. The night before the drill she checked her father's physics books to confirm what she suspected: that students wouldn't have nearly enough time to go home in the event of a real attack. Missiles launched from the USSR would reach Palo Alto in less than half an hour. In fact, on January 14th, her father, a University of Redlands professor had written a letter to the Palo Alto Times forum section calling the drill "unrealistic."

When the drill came, Joan was in French class. As Baez tells the story in her autobiography,

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French accent, "Now what ees eet." Joan responded with a mix of teen-age attitude and true bravery, "I'm protesting this stupid air raid drill because it is false and misleading. I'm staying here in my seat." According to Baez his response was to walk out of the classroom, muttering the words, "Comme vous etes un enfant terrible!"