How has life in the Bay Area changed over the last 20 years? These stories straight from our Bay City News archives capture news of the day from 5, 10, and 20 years ago – as originally published at the time. Explore these history snapshots and ponder how today’s news compares to that of years past.
JUNE 17, 2021
Workplace health rules remain a balancing act between public safety, employer operations and employee confidence. The Cal/OSHA change captured the complicated transition from emergency pandemic controls to normal business routines.
Bay City News Reported:
“Cal/OSHA Rules Let Fully Vaccinated Workers Go Mask-Free”
Fully vaccinated workers will no longer be required to wear a mask regardless of whether their co-workers are unvaccinated following new guidance Thursday from the state’s workplace safety agency.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to adopt new workplace masking and safety rules for the second time in two weeks, allowing fully vaccinated workers to forego wearing a mask if they document their vaccination status.
All employees will also not be required to wear a mask when working outdoors regardless of their vaccination status.
After the board’s vote, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to make the new rules effective at 12:01 a.m. Friday rather than after 10 days as normally required for workplace safety changes.
“We’re turning the page,” Newsom said during a briefing Thursday about both Cal/OSHA’s guidelines and the state’s reopening in general. “No more capacity limits, no more modifications, no more issues around physical and social distancing and now we are aligning with (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines.”
The new rules will require unvaccinated workers to continue wearing a mask indoors as they’ve been required to do throughout the pandemic.
Fully vaccinated employees will also not be required by the state to get tested for COVID-19 or quarantine if they are asymptomatic.
Employers must continue documenting their virus prevention standards, provide unvaccinated workers with N95 respirators upon request and evaluate their business’ ventilation system to maximize proper air flow.
Until two weeks ago, workers had been required to wear a mask or other face covering regardless of their vaccination status or whether they worked indoors or outside.
At the Cal/OSHA board’s June 3 meeting, the agency considered an updated set of rules that would have allowed fully vaccinated workers to remove their masks only in rooms in which all workers were also fully vaccinated.
Those rules – which the board unanimously voted to rescind one week ago after backlash from some business groups and consultation with state health officials – would have gone into effect weeks after the state lifted its mask mandate in most situations for fully vaccinated people.
According to state vaccination data, more than 70 percent of adults across the state have received at least one vaccine dose.
JUNE 17, 2016
Housing enforcement remains inseparable from the region’s affordability crisis. The Oakland lawsuit shows how pressure to replace lower-rent tenants can surface as a civil-rights and elder-protection issue.
Bay City News reported:
“Oakland Tenants Allege Elder Abuse And Unsafe Housing Conditions”
A lawsuit filed today in Alameda County Superior Court alleges that the owners, landlords and managers of a single-room occupancy building on the edge of Oakland’s Chinatown are making living conditions unbearable to force out the tenants and rent to better-paying ones.
But a part owner of the property said that is false.
The Oakland City Attorney’s Office, housing rights law firm Sundeen, Salinas and Pyle and Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus filed the lawsuit on behalf of 14 tenants of 524 Eighth St.
The suit claims fair housing violations, habitability defects, wrongful and constructive eviction and elder abuse.
A majority of the 14 speak only Cantonese and six are seniors, Robert Salinas, one of the attorneys for the 14, said.
He said demolition of some of the hotel has left the occupants of 25 units with two and a half bathrooms and one kitchen when there were two.
But owner James Kilpatrick, who could not say how many communal bathrooms were operable, confirmed that one kitchen is being remodeled and the other is usable. Kilpatrick is a five percent owner in the property, which has 38 or 39 units.
Kilpatrick argued that when he and his partners took over there were many problems in the building, such as raw sewage in the basement, no smoke detectors and no carbon monoxide detectors.
“It was a death trap,” Kilpatrick said.
Attorneys for the 14 said that the tenants’ belongings have been destroyed and a celebration of the Lunar New Year prohibited. Those are violations of Oakland’s Tenant Protection Ordinance, according to the tenants’ attorneys.
Kilpatrick said some clothing outside the residents’ doors may have been thrown out, but no belongings from inside a unit were thrown out.
Salinas said shoes that tenants left outside the doors to their rooms were thrown out.
But Kilpatrick said nothing was thrown out until three notices were issued in both English and Chinese.
“We’re scared and mentally drained, and it’s especially difficult for elderly tenants like myself” tenant Mark Wong said in a statement.
Kilpatrick said the owners are not trying to displace the current tenants so they can rent to higher-paying tenants. He said the owners will likely try to raise the rent by $8 to $15 per unit.
“This will never be any kind of luxury housing,” he said.
But Asian Law Caucus staff attorney Katherine Chu said the owners are harassing the tenants in order to force them to move.
“This is a way to evict without using eviction notices and the eviction process,” Chu said.
Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker said many landlords in Oakland are responsible and treat people fairly and follow the laws. However, her office will not tolerate landlords who abuse tenants and violate the law.
“Everyone who is a tenant in Oakland has a right to decent and humane housing, and that includes tenants in SROs,” Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker said.
JUNE 17, 2006
Public-sector labor agreements continue to shape how counties deliver services under budget pressure. The Santa Clara County contract shows the recurring tension between employee compensation, fiscal warnings and continuity of public services.
Bay City News reported:
“Santa Clara County Workers Ratify Contract And Avert Strike“
Members of SEIU Local 715, which represents more than 7,500 Santa Clara County workers, today ratified by a large margin a new contract with the county, averting a strike that had been tentatively scheduled for Monday.
County workers and county officials reached an agreement early this morning after months of meetings and negotiations, according to officials with Local 715.
Later today, the union members — employees at the county hospital as well as at health clinics, libraries, the tax assessor’s office, environmental health services and child support services — approved the contract with an 87 percent margin.
The current contract for county workers represented by Service Employees International Union Local 715 was set to expire on Sunday.
The new contract, which has a term of three years, goes into effect on Monday. The county Board of Supervisors will vote on the contract at their Tuesday meeting.
The new contract provides for health care for county temporary workers, wage increases of 10 percent over the life of the contract, and an increase in retirement benefits, according to union representatives. The county will also continue to pay healthcare benefits for county employees.
The contract also requires performance reviews for the employees covered in the contract, according to county officials.
“This was a tough negotiation,” said County Executive Pete Kutras. “We value county employees and at the same time we are faced with the hard, cold reality of looming budget deficits of more than $160 million for each of the next three fiscal years.”
Santa Clara Chapter Chair Brian O’Neill said, “Our top priority was to ensure that quality services that county workers provide to the community would not be jeopardized. We accomplished this with the new contract.”
Editor’s Note: All the reporting, writing, and editing of this content was done by human journalists at the time of initial publication. AI tools were used to surface these stories from our internal Bay City News archives and provide the introductory context.