Page 1 - Sonoma County Gazette September 2019
P. 1

                    SEPT 2019
               Under Water World Upside Down ~ 16 & 17
Watershed CLEANUP 2019
Creeks ~ Rivers ~ Beaches ~ 18 & 19
Join your community to get ready for winter
Groceries on a Mission - Embrace Imperfection ~ 25
      Labor Day
Raise the
Minimum Wage!
By Vesta Copestakes
It’s on our minds and we won’t stop
           By Martin J. Bennett
Across the USA, 45 cities and
talking about it until the rains return. The sooner the better! We learned
a lot after October 2017 but some of those lessons haven’t sunk in deep enough to get people truly prepared.
   counties have approved local minimum wage laws to address soaring inequality. Twenty-six are in high-cost California coastal counties and the Bay Area: San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
There are still tall, dry grasses, dead limbs on trees, wooden privacy fences right up against houses, landscape mulch that all the fire services tell us is highly flammable and spreads fire in high winds. If we don’t take care of our home and land...who will?
     North Bay cities are joining the ‘Fight for $15’ movement. Sonoma approved the first citywide minimum wage law in June 2019 and Petaluma passed the second in July.
At a recent presentation by
CAL FIRE and State Senator Mike McGuire, we learned that the state of California is taking this all very seriously. They no longer consider us to have a fire SEASON. It’s ALL year.
The current state minimum wage is $12/hr. for large employers with more than 25 workers and $11/hr. for small employers. The overall state minimum wage will incrementally rise to $15/hr. by 2023.
CAL FIRE is replacing Vietnam
era helicopters with Black Hawk helicopter. They keep airplanes loaded with fire-retardant rather than loading them when fires begin. They have more people-power than ever before, trained and ready. They send out crews for practice burns and evacuation drills in high-fire areas.
The Petaluma law raises the minimum wage to $15/hr. by January 1, 2020, for large employers, and
by 2021 for small ones. In 2021, the minimum wage for all Petaluma employers will increase annually, based upon the cost of living.
 A 2018 UCB Labor Center report, on the economic impacts of $15/hr. citywide minimum wage laws in
the North Bay, shows that average incomes of approximately 9,000 Petaluma workers (working more than 2 hours a week inside city limits)
WashedAshore.org ART to SAVE the Sea
The government is doing their part. How are they paying for it? McGuire says our state is fat on tax money from corporate and personal incomes, higher property taxes, etc. and we’re spending it on firefighting.
                WAGE cont’d on page 8
FIRE cont’d on page 10
 Your Home Town: 34-46 Everything To Do CALENDAR: pgs 52 - 71
  


































































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