SDOT turned away after attempting to remove CHOP barricades

Representatives from the Seattle Department of Transportation, Mayor’s Office, and Fire Department were all down at the CHOP Friday morning, intending to remove concrete and wooden barriers from the area.

Video from Converge Media showed SDOT head Sam Zimbabwe, Fire Chief Harold Scoggins, and Mayor Durkan’s Chief of Staff Stephanie Formas on-site speaking to protesters, alongside several SDOT workers in hard hats and construction vehicles.

Formas assured protesters that there are no plans to remove protesters, or return police to the East Precinct today. She also stated that there is no exact timeline for when that might happen.

Several demonstrators attempted to negotiate with Zimbabwe and the Mayor’s Office representative, asking that they keep some of the barriers in place. Others were seen laying down in front of bulldozers and sitting on top of wood barricades.

Close to 7:30 a.m., SDOT began moving its construction vehicles out of the area without removing barricades.

https://mynorthwest.com/1981142/sdot-chop-barricades/

https://www.facebook.com/WWConverge/videos/303694554367570/

California 17-year-olds may get right to vote in primary elections

A bid to allow 17-year-olds to vote in California primary elections is headed for the November ballot, 16 years after it was first introduced in the Legislature.

A bill that won final approval Friday, ACA4, would allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they would turn 18 before the general election. As a constitutional amendment, it must be passed by a majority of voters in November before it can take effect.

For Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, the San Mateo Democrat who carried the measure in the Legislature, the bill is a matter of simple justice.

Young voters eligible to vote to candidates in a general election “should have the right to shape that field in the primary,” he said. “We should look at elections as a cycle,” with the primary and general considered as parts of the same election.

It was a family effort — Mullin’s measure was first introduced by his father, former South San Francisco Assemblyman Gene Mullin, in 2004.

“This is the sixth attempt and the third time I’ve introduced the bill,” said Kevin Mullin. “But this is the first time it ever got as far as the Senate floor.”

The key vote was in the state Senate on Thursday. The Legislature requires a two-thirds vote to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot, and Mullin was short just a few hours before his measure came up.

“I need 27 and I’ve got 25 for sure and three or four others who are leaning my way,” he said before the vote. “It’s tough to lock in 27.”

He didn’t have to worry. The final vote was 31-7, and while all the opponents were Republican, Mullin even pulled a couple of GOP votes for the measure.

The bill breezed through the Assembly Friday afternoon when it was returned for concurrence with Senate amendments. It now moves directly to the ballot.

In the past, it’s been Republicans who have blocked efforts to allow 17-year-olds to vote.

“The issue has always been framed in a partisan context, with Republicans arguing that we’re trying to build more Democrats earlier,” Mullin said. “But today most young people don’t register Democrat or Republican — they register as no party preference.”

That’s not exactly true. In California, 16- and 17-year-olds are allowed to pre-register to vote, which makes them automatically eligible to cast ballots when they turn 18. Of the 162,921 teenagers pre-registered as of Feb. 18, the most recent state report, 42% declared themselves as Democrats, 15% as Republicans and 36% as no party preference.

Among the state’s 20 million-plus registered voters, 45% are Democrats, 24% Republicans and 25% no party preference.

Republicans aren’t the measure’s only opponents. The Election Integrity Project California argued in a letter to the Legislature that 17-year-olds, most of them still high school students, don’t have the life experience they need to cast an educated vote.

At 17, teenagers “are still legally children and can’t even go to a tanning salon without a parents’ permission,” said Ruth Weiss, vice president of the organization, which recently filed a suit forcing Los Angeles County to purge its rolls of inactive voters. “We have to draw a line somewhere, and the government draws that line at 18.”

Supporters of the measure include Secretary of State Alex Padilla, the California League of Conservation Voters, the state’s League of Women Voters and the California School Boards Association.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-17-year-olds-may-get-right-to-vote-in-15370049.php

One man dead, 40 infected at Sonoma County nursing, senior homes

A man who died Sunday was one of 40 people who have been infected in Sonoma County senior care and nursing homes since the start of the month, officials said.

County health officer Dr. Sundari Mase announced the new cases, which include 21 residents and 19 staff members, as well as the death Tuesday. She did not say which senior and nursing homes have been affected.

Until June, the county had only 13 total infections in senior care and nursing homes, Dr. Mase said. The man who died Sunday was the fifth person killed by the coronavirus in Sonoma County and one of 974 total confirmed cases since the pandemic began, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.

County health officials confirmed Tuesday that the man who died Sunday was a resident at a nursing home, but they did not disclose which facility. The nursing home Broadway Villa Post-Acute recently reported at least one resident death, according to the California Department of Public Health.

State data also shows active coronavirus cases at nursing facilities Petaluma Post-Acute Rehab and Santa Rosa Post-Acute. Heather Hunter, a spokeswoman at the Brookdale Paulin Creek senior living center in Santa Rosa, confirmed the facility has “more than one” coronavirus case.

Rohish Lal, a spokesman for the Sonoma County Department of Health Services, said that a recent outbreak at a single nursing home contributed to the 50 new infections reported countywide this week. He declined to identify the nursing home, citing ongoing litigation.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/One-man-dead-40-infected-at-Sonoma-County-15366801.php

Major COVID-19 outbreak at rural California prison. Officials blame state for inmate transfer

Three prison inmates who were moved from San Quentin to rural Lassen County earlier this month have tested positive for COVID-19 and likely sparked an outbreak that’s left county leaders fuming as case counts soar and reopening plans hang in jeopardy, local officials said.

As of Friday morning, at least 159 inmates at California Correctional Center in Susanville have tested positive for the disease in the past 14 days, according to the state’s online testing dashboard. It’s the first outbreak of its type in Susanville, the county’s largest city where prisons are a major employer.

The outbreak happened after the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation transferred three inmates from San Quentin earlier this month, said Richard Egan, Lassen County’s administrative officer.

By Thursday this week, 76 inmates tested positive. The number doubled by Friday morning.

The transfers initially tested negative for COVID-19 and were housed with other inmates, Egan said. It was unclear whether people from any other facility had also been transferred into Susanville.

But local officials said the source of the recent outbreak must be the San Quentin transfers, rather than a staff member coming into the prison for work, since the county has an extremely low infection rate.

San Quentin this month has rocketed to the top of a list of state prison outbreaks after inmates were transferred from another infected facility. At least 539 people in custody have contracted the disease. The state on Monday issued a two-week freeze on most inmate transfers.

Originally built in 1963, California Correctional Center has four facilities and 18 conservation camps. It houses more than 3,000 minimum and medium-security inmates and serves as a gateway for training and placement into California’s prison wildfire program.

“Frankly, we were disappointed that the institutions made the decision to continue to transfer inmates in and out of CCC,” Egan said in an interview Friday. “It seems like that concern was warranted.”

The outbreak raises the possibility that staff members could get infected and spread the disease to the community. Egan said the county has struggled to get information from the state about the outbreak in their prison. The health officer does not have jurisdiction over the prison and was not consulted about the transfer, Egan said.

CDCR declined to address the county’s concerns about infected San Quentin inmates bringing COVID-19 into the facility. Spokeswoman Dana Simas said in a statement the department was monitoring the situation and that prison-wide testing finished this week, meaning additional positive cases could be expected.

California’s prison medical system was placed under federal receivership in 2006, after a federal court ruled that conditions for inmates violated their constitutional rights. The receiver is still in place.

“Additionally, we are working closely with the court-appointed Federal Receiver on inmate transfers, as well as public health agencies and stakeholders for the safety and security of our inmates, staff and communities,” she said.

Not counting the prison outbreak, Lassen County has just three other COVD-19 positive residents. It has reported only 12 infections since the pandemic began. No deaths have been reported.

David Teeter, chair of the Lassen County Board of Supervisors, on Thursday evening said he was “mad as hell at the State of California” for bringing an outbreak to his county. Now, residents in his county are at increased risk of contracting COVID-19, despite months of work to keep the virus at bay.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article243822702.html

BLM Co-Founder Appears To Violate IRS Laws On CNN

A co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network weighed in on the 2020 election, in an apparent violation of Internal Revenue Service laws prohibiting 501(c)(3) organizations from engaging in campaign activity.

Patrisse Cullors, in her official capacity as a co-founder of the BLM Global Network, told CNN on June 19 that “our goal is to get Trump out.”

“Trump not only needs to not be in office in November but he should resign now,” she insisted. “Trump needs to be out of office. He is not fit for office.”

According to the IRS, a 501(c)(3) organization “may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.”

The prohibition includes “public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.” Organizations that violate this policy may lose their tax-exempt status.

The donation page for BLM is linked with ActBlue Charities, the 501(c)(3) wing of the Democratic political action committee ActBlue.

The BLM Global Network is not individually registered as a 501(c)(3), but instead operates through a fiscal sponsorship agreement with the nonprofit organization Thousand Currents. Fiscal sponsorships allow the sponsoring organization to accept and direct donations on behalf of the sponsored group. But an organization sponsored by a 501(c)(3) is still required to comply with the regulations governing nonprofits, and is still prohibited from making partisan political statements.

Cleta Mitchell, an expert on campaign finance regulation and tax laws governing charitable organizations such as BLM, told The Federalist that partisan political activity by tax-exempt 501(c)(3) groups is “completely prohibited” by federal tax law.

BLM “must comply with all the rules that govern 501(c)(3) organizations,” Mitchell said.

Thousand Currents, the nonprofit that fiscally sponsors Black Lives Matter, was also recently exposed for having a convicted terrorist on its board of directors.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network and the IRS did not return requests for comment.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/26/blm-co-founder-appears-to-violate-irs-laws-on-cnn/

https://twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/1274076999192018945