Oakland's homeless cruise ship & the 'condom' Xmas tree
Arlene Martinez
Emergency housing is proposed for the Port of Oakland. An Ojai school board member is indicted on federal charges of conspiring to conceal millions during and after the 2016 presidential election campaign. And a tree in downtown Tulare is getting compared to a prophylactic.
It's Arlene Martínez with your news for Wednesday.
In California is a daily roundup of stories from newsrooms across the USA TODAY Network and beyond. Sign up here and tell a friend!
The idea: House Oakland's homeless on a ship
Desperate problems require out-of-the-box thinking, and that's what gave Oakland's Rebecca Kaplan the idea to use a cruise ship as emergency housing for the homeless population. “It is a human catastrophe,” said Kaplan, who's president of the Oakland City Council. “It has to be all hands on deck.”
By the latest count, more than 4,000 people are experiencing homelessness in Oakland, up 47% in just two years. City and state officials have made addressing the issue a priority, but shelter beds remain in short supply. With limited access to running water and toilets, it’s become a humanitarian and public health emergency.
After Kaplan floated the idea, it didn’t take long for word to spread. She says she’s already been contacted by cruise ship companies and is planning to present a fully fledged proposal (which could add up to 1,000 on-board beds) to the council early next year.
Bloomberg in Calif., adulting and the border wall
Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs formally endorses Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg, who has named Tubbs his national co-chair.
An adulting class at UC Berkeley focuses on things like personal finance, interviewing skills, relationships and time management. Can I go back in time and take this? Woulda saved me so much trouble.
President Trump can't use military construction money to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall, despite his illegal workaround, a federal judge in Oakland rules.
Is it a condom, whale net or Christmas tree?
Residents in Tulare can't decide if they like the way the downtown redwood tree is decorated for the holidays. A distinguishing characteristic is its use of cobweb lighting, which it appears decorators ran out of before the job was complete. Community members have described it as "tacky," "an embarrassment," and compared it to a whale net or a condom. The tree cost $1,200 to decorate, $1,000 of which came from a Krispy Kreme fundraiser, leaving some to wonder whether that was the best use of those donut funds.
City Council member Greg Nunley praised it via text to a person involved in the downtown festivity planning: "Thanks for taking the heat off me." Nunley, you see, is suing Tulare for all kinds of things and last week pleaded not guilty for allegedly driving an unregistered Ferrari 90-100 miles per hour down a Visalia city street.
Anyway, back to the tree: What does it look like to you? I'm reminded of that lamp leg from "A Christmas Story."
No dogs on trails, and holes in the ocean
Dogs not only pose a threat to endangered bighorn sheep, they're no longer allowed on your hike. Meet some of the volunteer trail rangers helping spread those messages around Palm Springs.
Off the coast of Big Sur, researchers are trying to figure out what to make of the discovery of thousands of holes in the seafloor before construction of a wind farm starts.
Touted as a cryptocurrency mining network, it was actually just a Ponzi scheme, and investors are out $700 million. A Ventura County man was one of three men arrested in connection with the operation, which started in 2014.
Rats, mold, leaks, lack of heat, no hot water, dangerous stairways: Those are what renters with few alternatives in Ventura County's pricey market regularly encounter.
Ojai school board president indicted
An Ojai elected official was among eight people indicted for conspiring to conceal more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions from March 2016 through 2018, according to the Justice Department. Thayne Whipple is president of the Ojai Unified School District board of directors, and worked as an outside contractor for Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, the owner of an online payments company called Allied Wallet, according to a federal indictment unsealed last week.
Prosecutors say George Nader, a businessman and witness in Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, also conspired with Khawaja to conceal more than $3.5 million that went to groups supporting presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Politico reported. According to the Justice Department, Nader was trying to get access to Clinton.
Whipple said he was surprised by the allegations and did nothing beyond donate to political candidates. “…My perception is that the courts are being used for political reasons, and unfortunately I have become a victim of that,” he said.
Let me know what you think of this newsletter. I'm all ears and ready to make this as useful for you as possible. Reach me at avmartinez@gannett.com or Tweet me.
In California is a roundup of news compiled from across USA TODAY Network newsrooms. Also contributing: Ojai Valley News, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, Politico, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.