Latest Refinery Dust Release Doesn't Rain on Annual Homecoming Parade; Issues Concerning Unhoused and Downtown Businesses Raised at Council Meeting; County Supervisors Clash over Leadership Roles

Technical problems plague council meeting; Federal Glover to chair BOS in 2024, but supervisors engage in heated debate over choice of vice chair, leadership rotation; traffic safety survey available

There was another coke dust release at the Martinez Refining Co. on Friday, which prompted Contra Costa County Health Services (CCH) to issue a news release assuring the community that it was OK to proceed with the annual Alhambra High School homecoming parade and festivities.

This was at least the third coke dust incident at the refinery since July, all of them registering as Level 1 alerts through the Contra Costa County Community Warning System, meaning that no off-site health impacts are anticipated.

Here is the message MRC put out through its Facebook page on Friday morning:

At approximately 10:30 am, on Friday, October 6, 2023, a brief release of Coke dust occurred at the refinery when equipment was opened for maintenance. We issued a Community Warning System Level 1 notification, and our refinery personnel are conducting community monitoring. We have also notified appropriate agencies and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our neighbors. As always, we have a community inquiry phone number you can call at 925-313-3777 or 925-313-3601 during off work hours. Thank you.

Contra Costa County hazardous materials staff responded to the release to determine whether there were any ongoing public health concerns. CCH said the following in a news release Friday afternoon:

The release ended soon after it was reported by MRC to Contra Costa County’s Community Warning System. CCH has not found evidence of any immediate risk to public health in surrounding communities. 

Following an assessment by our health officer, CCH believes the homecoming parade and other community events can proceed as planned.  

CCH asked the refinery to post a report within 72 hours addressing the cause of the release, but as we’ve learned with refinery incidents dating to the spent catalyst release last Nov. 24-25 that spewed at least 20 tons of toxic dust, the community shouldn’t hold its breath for answers in the immediate future. Various agencies continue to investigate the cause of the spent catalyst incident, and the refinery’s failure to activate the Community Warning System, nearly a year later. We’re also still waiting for MRC to finish its own investigation into a coke dust release on July 11 that caused widespread community alarm, despite apparently posing little, if any, health concerns (coke dust is similar to charcoal in its composition and generally is not considered a significant health concern unless people are exposed to it in large quantities).

A 30-day follow-up report on the July 11 incident by MRC dated Aug. 29 stated that there was no further information to report on that accident and that the investigation remained incomplete. MRC said in the report that it anticipated completing its investigation by Sept. 30.

Meanwhile, the string of incidents at the refinery over the past year has prompted the county to order an independent safety culture assessment of the facility.

In a piece of good news, there was no indication of a delay in notifying health authorities or the public about Friday’s coke dust release through the CWS, as was the case with the July incident. The city of Martinez, which established its own community alert system in the wake of frustration over communication delays surrounding previous refinery incidents, notified subscribers of Martinez Alerts of the release at 11:36 a.m., and sent out an update based on the information from Contra Costa Health Services at 6:50 p.m. Residents who do not already subscribe to Martinez Alerts can do so at MartinezAlerts.com

One question that has repeatedly surfaced on social media in the wake of these incidents is why the emergency sirens at the refinery aren’t activated for these releases. The sirens are designed to alert the public to major accidents only, where health risks are anticipated for the general population and some protective actions (such as sheltering in place) are recommended. Such incidents typically would register as the most serious level, 3, on the Community Warning System scale. As stated previously, the coke dust releases registered as Level 1 alerts, meaning they are not anticipated to cause any off-site health impacts. Level 1 notifications are issued from MRC and other county refineries on a regular basis for flaring operations that last at least 20 minutes and/or include odors, and are posted on the Contra Costa Health Services hazardous materials webpage: https://cchealth.org/hazmat/

Homeless concerns raised at City Council meeting

For better or worse, this writeup from last week’s City Council meeting will be on the short side because technical problems prevented the city from providing audio over Zoom or posting a video of the session (there have been a series of technical issues over the past several weeks involving audio recordings of city meetings). As a result, I was only able to catch a portion of it in person.

Of note, City Manager Michael Chandler and council members addressed concerns raised by downtown business owners concerning the impact of the unhoused on their operations, including human waste left on their properties.

In his update to the council, Chandler said he was planning to conduct a walkthrough of the affected areas on Friday. Police Chief Andrew White also addressed his department’s efforts to help with the situation but noted that it continues to face a staffing crisis, with a 35% vacancy rate for authorized sworn officer positions. The crisis has been exacerbated by the fact that four officers involved in the fatal Aug. 18 officer-involved shooting at Velvet Cannabis are on administrative leave as the incident is investigated.

If and when a video of Wednesday’s council meeting becomes available, I will try to follow up with more details and context on the homelessness issue as it relates to downtown businesses.

Also during the meeting, Chief White updated council members on new technology the department is deploying with its body worn cameras that will activate the cameras anytime an officer removes a firearm from a holster. In the officer-involved shooting at Velvet, the camera of one of the four officers involved was not activated until approximately five minutes after the shooting occurred, and therefore was not publicly released along with the other officers’ body cam footage on Sept. 28.

Brouhaha at Board of Supervisors meeting

The usually staid process of rotating leadership positions on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors turned into a heated affair Tuesday in the board chamber in Martinez, with claims of gender bias by the two female supervisors, Candace Andersen and Diane Burgis, as the three male board members (John Gioia, Ken Carlson and Federal Glover) pushed through a rotation schedule that would force each woman to wait an additional year to assume vice chair and chair positions.

The board voted to make Glover, who represents Martinez, chair for 2024, in what many speculate will be his final year on the board. But fireworks erupted over the choice of vice chair, with board members at times interrupting and talking over one another. Under the typical rotation schedule, Andersen, who last chaired the board in 2020, would have become vice chair next year and chair again in 2025, assuming that she is re-elected in 2024. Burgis, whose only stint as board chair came in 2021, would have been one year behind her in assuming those roles.

But Gioia, pointing out a practice over the years of giving newly elected supervisors a chance to serve as chair during their first term on the board, pushed to make Carlson, who was elected in 2022, vice chair next year, positioning him to become chair in 2025, which would be his third year on the board. Gioia also trumpeted the symbolic significance of Carlson, the first openly gay board member, becoming the first LGBTQ+ representative to hold a leadership position on the Board of Supervisors.

Andersen and Burgis pushed back hard, with Burgis pointing out that she was not given the opportunity to serve as board chair during her first term of the board, being forced to wait until her fifth year. Giving Carlson the opportunity to serve as chair in his third year on the board means that Andersen and Burgis both will have to wait six years between stints as board chair, assuming the normal rotation schedule is followed in coming years. This rotation schedule also would mark the first time this century that men have served as chair of the BOS three consecutive years (Gioia is this year’s chair, to be followed by Glover and presumably Carlson in 2025). From 2000 to 2002, three women served consecutively as board chair (Andersen, Burgis and Mitchoff).

Andersen and Burgis did not shy away during the meeting, and in social media posts afterward, in characterizing this move by the three male members of the board as an affront to women and their ability to hold leadership roles.

Andersen, whose district encompasses the Tri-Valley region of Contra Costa County as well as Lafayette, Orinda, Moraga and a portion of Walnut Creek, pointed out during the discussion that the chair’s role carries with it the power to make appointments to county and regional boards and commissions.

“…By bypassing my turn on the rotation, then I will be losing that opportunity to make some very important appointments, and I don’t know if that is behind this because when Supervisor Glover doesn’t run again, I would have been chair again in two years where we would be making some very important appointments,” Andersen said, speaking directly to Gioia. “So, yes, I feel like it’s a little bit contrived, John, and I don’t appreciate the process that you’ve orchestrated.”

Gioia responded that he believed the board was making history by appointing for the first time an LGBTQ+ member as an officer.

“I would hope you would recognize that as well. I appreciate there are different points of views here. There are not hard feelings, but I think some of the characterization, which I think is inaccurate, is that we’re breaking some practice ...” Gioia said, noting that he voted to elect former female supervisors Mary Piepho and Susan Bonilla to break into the leadership rotation cycle in their third year in office.

There clearly were hard feelings, however, and after Gioia, Glover and Carlson voted to make Carlson vice chair next year (with Andersen voting no and Burgis abstaining), Andersen walked off the dais as Gioia introduced the next agenda item. She returned later in the discussion but abruptly left the dais again as Gioia was adjourning the meeting for a closed session of the board.

A video recording of the board meeting debate and vote can be viewed here: https://contra-costa.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=3101&meta_id=196499

The frustration then boiled over onto social media.

Here is what Andersen wrote on Facebook:

Yesterday, as we moved forward to reorganize our Board of Supervisors for next year, John Gioia chose to advocate for skipping over not just me for a leadership position, but my fellow supervisor Contra Costa County Supervisor Diane Burgis. If it had been just me being skipped over I might have passed it off to politics, but when it was both women, it smacked of misogony (sic). We are the only two women on the Board. It was even more disappointing that our colleagues Ken Carlson and Supervisor Federal Glover went along with it.

And here’s what Burgis, who represents far East Contra Costa County, had to say:

Chair Gioia claimed Tuesday that promoting our first openly gay supervisor ahead of others was a step toward equity. I do not consider it a step toward equity to favor one district over others and to sideline women leaders. The two women were told to wait our turn, and a man was ushered to the front of the line. It seems that because Supervisor Anderson and I are women, our voices were considered less than.

For his part, Gioia, a longtime champion of progressive causes, portrayed the situation as an honest disagreement among board members over the best practice for reorganizing the board, emphasizing the importance of giving new board members a chance to serve in a leadership role during their first elected term, and the significance of breaking a glass ceiling for LGBTQ+ representation among the board’s leadership. He responded to Andersen’s Facebook post with the following:

it has been customary for the last 20 years for existing Supervisors (including me in the past) to be pushed back one year in the chair rotation to allow newly elected Supervisors like Ken Carlson to enter the rotation.

By allowing our first openly gay Supervisor (Carlson) to enter the rotation to be Board Chair in 2025, Supervisor Andersen will become Chair in 2026 instead of 2025.

As seen in the historical chart below, Gioia, who represents most of West Contra Costa, has typically served as board chair every four years since at least 2002, with the exception of one period where he went five years between stints in order to give Karen Mitchoff, Carlson’s predecessor as the District IV representative, a chance to serve as chair during her first term. Burgis, however, who was first elected to represent District III in 2016, had to wait until her second term to serve as chair, a point she emphasized during Tuesday’s debate on the dais. Under the current rotation schedule with Carlson leapfrogging the two women board members, Burgis would not get her second turn as chair until 2027, if she runs and is re-elected next year.

This also means that the District IV representative would get to chair the board twice in a four-year span; Mitchoff served as chair during her final year on the board in 2022. This district encompasses much of central Contra Costa County, including Concord, Pleasant Hill and most of Walnut Creek. Glover, meanwhile, served as vice chair the past three years, but next year will be his first turn as chair since 2017. In addition to Martinez, he represents most of the waterfront communities in the county, including Pittsburg, Antioch and Hercules.

Local roadway safety survey

The city is inviting residents to take part in an online survey of traffic-related safety concerns. This is part of the city’s Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP), “a framework for identifying, analyzing and prioritizing roadway safety improvements (and) roadway safety projects in Martinez.” The survey is open to the public until Oct. 31. More information about the plan and survey can be found at this link: https://www.cityofmartinez.org/Home/Components/News/News/222/15

Briones Pilot Project

The East Bay Regional Park District has launched a two-year pilot program at Briones Regional Park “to test strategies in addressing trail congestion, trail safety, and illegal bootleg trails, which have negative impacts on wildlife, including sensitive and endangered species.” The project zone, which is located in the northeast corner of park accessible from the Reliez Valley Staging Area, Alhambra Creek Staging Area and Briones Road Staging Area, limits specific trail uses, including biking and horseback riding, to certain days of the week, and temporarily opens some narrow trails to bikes only. “Other illegal bootleg trails will be closed and restored to protect natural habitats for wildlife.”

More information is available at the Briones Pilot Project website: https://www.ebparks.org/parks/briones/briones-pilot-project

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