Here's what's happening in the Bay Area, as curated by KALW news:
S.F. woman with leukemia sues for right to die at home // SF Gate
“When Brittany Maynard’s brain was racked with terminal cancer, the 29-year-old East Bay woman went to Oregon, where she could legally receive a doctor’s aid in dying a peaceful death. Christie White, a leukemia-stricken 53-year-old San Francisco woman, is going to court.
“In a lawsuit to be filed Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court, lawyers for White and three other patients argue that California’s law making it a felony to encourage or aid in a suicide, enacted in 1874, doesn’t apply to doctors of terminally ill patients whose deaths are an inevitable result of their illness.”
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Codex Book Fair, the largest of its type in the world, visits Richmond // Richmond Confidential
“An estimated 4,000 people are expected to converge upon the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond on Monday for the Codex Book Fair, a biannual convention of hundreds of the world’s leading fine press publishers and artists. Over 22 countries will be represented at nearly 200 booths, some from as far as Chile, Russia and Japan.
“Started in 2005 by Codex Foundation founder Peter Koch, a four-decade veteran of the fine print community, the fair is now the largest of its kind in the world, surpassing similar events hosted in Paris and London. Unlike traditional book fairs, the works exhibited and sold at Codex are literally one-of-a-kind, made using a number of different techniques, such as wood carving and leather tanning.”
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Dealing with sea level rise becomes real in Marin // Marin Independent Journal
"By next year work should be underway on National Park Service property at Stinson Beach to gird against rising seas that are predicted to swallow part of Marin’s coast sometime this century. The threat of sea-level rise is the primary reason why the park service is planning a $2.3 million revamp of a wastewater treatment system that serves more than 1 million people annually at various facilities along the beach and adjacent areas.
"Sometime over the next century, huge shoreline swaths of Marin, including Hamilton Field, Highway 37, Highway 1 in West Marin and the Tamalpais Valley could be under water if global warming causes the bay and ocean to rise by a meter — more than 3 feet, according to the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which monitors shoreline development."
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Mar hopes to protect Ocean Beach bonfires // SF Examiner
"…Supervisor Eric Mar sent a clear message to the National Park Service, which oversees the 3.5-mile-long sandy shore, to go easy when it comes to new guidelines being developed for fire pit use. The agency had signaled opposition to an idea of creating permits for bonfire use with possible fees ranging from $25 to $75. While Mar frowns on those fees, fearing it would limit access for the low-income, he also wants to ensure the federal agency listens to the public.
"'In a city faced with a growing affordability crisis, the bonfires have provided free recreational activities enjoyed by generations of families, including my own, students, surfers, beach enthusiasts and so many others,' Mar said, noting that the tradition is documented back to 1890."
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East Bay Cities Are Standing Tall in Dispensary Battles With Feds // East Bay Express
“Oakland’s effort to block the federal government from seizing Harborside Health Center appears to have helped Berkeley’s efforts to do the same for Berkeley Patients Group.
“On Friday, Judge Jon S. Tigar denied government efforts to immediately seize BPG, citing the City of Berkeley’s potential for legal standing in the forfeiture trial of the major dispensary. Judge Tigar granted Berkeley’s motion to stay the forfeiture until the question of Berkeley’s legal standing can be worked out in a federal appeals court.”
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City Officials Call for Help to House Recent Fire Victims // SF Appeal
“Following three recent major fires in San Francisco that claimed the life of one man, injured others and left roughly 100 people homeless, residents and city officials gathered today to request the public’s help in housing those displaced and to introduce legislation aimed at helping victims and preventing future fires....
“‘Anyone who has properties that can be made available to these families so that they can have permanent housing, we need your help,’ Campos said today. He said the city is looking for six studios, two one-bedroom apartments, seven two-bedroom apartments and four three-bedroom apartments to house displaced people, mostly victims of the Mission District fire who are now living out of a shelter at 1156 Valencia St.
“Charley Goss, government and community affairs manager at the San Francisco Apartment Association, said that thanks to the Good Samaritan Ordinance in San Francisco that went into effect in 2011, a Good Samaritan landlord has the opportunity to come forward and help these families.”
