Feature Archives

On November 4, Bay Area voters raised minimum wages in San Francisco and Oakland. On November 6, workers at the San Francisco Whole Foods Market at 4th and Harrison Streets took the fight for fair wages to another level by presenting management with a demand for a $5-an-hour across-the-board wage increase for all employees. On November 14, organized workers at Whole Foods Market will rally with supporters and call on the Regional President to respond at the Northern California Office in Emeryville.

UPDATE: Dionne Choyce is currently appealing the decision on fees. Written arguments have been filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Parties are awaiting a response.

On November 3, United States District Judge Jon S. Tigar awarded legal fees of over $87,000 to the open-publishing news website Indybay and internet service provider Layer42 after dismissing an "objectively baseless" lawsuit filed by Bay Area attorney Dionne Choyce. Indybay is represented pro bono by Roger R. Myers, Leila C. Knox and Jessica Mar of Bryan Cave LLP, who will be redistributing any and all fee payment made by Dionne Choyce to 501(c)(3) organizations.

Voters in two California counties were able to overcome the oil industry and pass fracking bans by wide margins. Measure J in San Benito County passed with 57% of the vote, and Measure S in Mendocino County passed with 67%.

The annual Watsonville Peace and Unity March took place on November 1. This year, for the first time since the initial event in 1994, the Watsonville Police Department was given a large role in determining the route of the march. The event was originally founded by the Watsonville Brown Berets, and the group remained primary organizers of the march from the beginning through 2011, but in 2014 organization of the event became professionalized.

Salinas Police have reported that Jaime Garcia, age 35, died after one of their officers tased him during an attempted arrest on Halloween. According to an SPD press release, the five officers involved in the incident were put on administrative leave during the "initital stages" of the investigation. The death of Garcia is the fifth death to occur at the hands of Salinas Police in 2014.

The Committee for Responsible and Accurate Posters (CRAP) writes: Chevron, in exercising their completely hard-fought right to defecate unlimited cash into a small-town election (thanks, Citizens United), has flooded Richmond with $3 million in propaganda both to support their own prop candidates and to shamelessly attack Team Richmond.... Richmond residents should know that Nat Bates isn’t running for Richmond’s mayor, he’s running to be Chevron’s puppet. And so are city council candidates Donna Powers, Charles Ramsey, and Al Martinez. Sorry Chevron, but Richmond’s election is not for sale.

Proposition 14 in California effectively excluded third parties from statewide general elections. Only the top two vote getters in statewide primaries now advance to the general election. Prop. 14 also removed the possibility of the write-in option. The Green Party of Alameda County recommends that voters boycott the statewide partisan contests in the November election — specifically the statewide offices of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, Attorney General, and Insurance Commissioner — and also most of the other partisan offices, while still voting locally and for statewide propositions.