Daily Republic: Sunday, July 16, 2023

FAIRFIELD — The value of Solano County taxable properties climbed for the 11th straight year, reaching nearly $70.29 billion.

That is $3.5 billion, or 5.3%, higher than the2022-23assessed value, AssessorRecorder Glenn Zook announced Friday.

“For the 11th year in a row, the total assessed roll value increased countywide,” Zook said. “Real estate market values showed steady growth up to the middle of 2022, when higher interest rates began to slow the pace of sales. New construction throughout the county continues to add value to the property tax roll as well.”

This “net roll” is used by local agencies as a starting point to calculate the distribution of property taxes for

the benefit of the cities, schools, special districts and local programs, the Assessor-Recorder’s Office reported.

The assessment roll “consists of all assess able property discovered, valued and enrolled by the county assessor, less those prop erties that are exempt from taxation. It is separated between the ‘secured assessment roll’ – generally land and improvements, such as structures – and the ‘unsecured assessment roll’ – primarily business/personal property, such as machinery and office equipment,” the Assessor-Recorder Office said in a statement.

The county also reported that the number of properties on Proposition 8 status, a temporary reduction in a property value below the established Proposition 13 base

SuSAn HilAnd SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — The six-piece band played familiar tunes for visitors Saturday at the Fairfield Civic Center Library.

This performance was a rare treat for people listening to The New Hope Band, which is made up of players with a variety of learning disabilities.

Not every member was able to make it on Saturday but the members who did entertained the humble crowd for an hour.

Netta Anderson, president of The New Hope Band board, was happy to share the infectious joy and excitement of the young people as they sang.

Anderson joined the band in 2008; it has been

15 seasons that the band has been going strong. They have played at weddings, barbecues, pretty much wherever they are called.

They don’t do it for the money. If someone wants to pay, that is great, but they do it for the expe-

rience of it.

“I raised two grandchildren with autism,” Anderson said. “People need to stop telling other people what they can’t do.”

The focus of the group is finding the sweetspot for the talents that

the youths do have and playing to those strengths.

“Every single member has their strength and we work with that,” Anderson said. “They can really shine when they perform, and people really love that and get into it.”

The library floor was cleared in front of the band so anyone who felt the need to get up and dance could indulge.

Only one band member can read music: drummer Andrew Wilson, who is also a guitar player, bassist and vocalist. The rest have learned by just hearing the music and then practicing.

“The keyboardist is blind and has delayed development,” Anderson said. “The goal is to find

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

The “dangerous” heat affecting large parts of the country is expected to stick around through the weekend and beyond, the National Weather Service said Saturday.

Around 113 million people – or roughly one-third of the U.S. population – were under excessive heat warnings or heat advisories as of Friday evening, NWS officials said. And the situation is expected to linger into early next week.

“This weekend, the sweltering and dangerous heat will remain in the forecast, especially across much of the West,” NWS said in a tweet, urging the population to “practice

heat safety.”

Early on Saturday, the NWS’s Weather Prediction Center said the heat wave currently plaguing several Western states – from Washington to Arizona – “would remain anchored over the West this weekend,” while temperatures in the South would increase by early next week.

“Numerous recordhigh temperatures” are expected, and multiple areas across the U.S. will also deal with air quality issues.

Some residents across Arizona have endured temperatures higher than 110 degrees Fahrenheit for over two weeks

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

NEW YORK — A Long Island pimp’s tip, coupled with chilling web searches and pizza crust DNA, steered authorities to serial killing suspect Rex Heuermann before his arrest in the notorious Gilgo Beach murders ended years of mystery in the long-cold case.

The unidentified pimp for murder victim Amber Lynn Costello didn’t know the suspect’s name, but described his car to authorities as a green Chevrolet Avalanche during a spring 2022 meeting with investigators – adding “you might want to look at him,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told The New York Daily News in a Saturday interview.

“The turning point was the car,” said Harrison, who made the investigation a priority last

year. “Once we got that car, who it connected to, that’s when the investigation got legs.”

The pimp crossed paths with Heuermann in September 2010 during a planned robbery of the now-accused murderer, but quickly backed off because the 6-foot-6, 270-pound suburban dad was “the size of a mountain,” said Harrison.

The pimp also described the serial killer suspect as “being into prostitutes.”

For more than a decade, Heuermann was hiding in plain sight: Walking from his

Long Island home to catch the train and working in his Manhattan office, his gruesome secrets untold as the years passed without suspicion – much less an arrest.

But once police connected the vehicle to Heuermann, the investigation intensified, Harrison said. Court papers detail how investigators used cellphone site data to track the defendant’s whereabouts during the times of the slayings, and discovered burner phones employed by Heuermann to arrange his meetings with the victims.

New Hope Band members Amy Qing, left, and Ashley Cousino sing during a concert in the Fairfield Civic Center Library, Saturday.

AM radio in cars may soon be a thing of the past

Another staple of Americana could soon go away, joining the trash compactor, mustard-yellow appliances, Mary Tyler Moore, cars with stick shifts and a TV universe with just three networks.

Many car manufacturers will no longer offer AM radio, limiting their audio options to FM, satellite radio and streaming apps.

The first blow was struck by electric car manufacturers, partially because electric motors interfere with AM radio signals. Tesla, Mazda, Volkswagen, BMW and other electric car manufacturers removed AM from some models over the past few years and it kind of makes sense: There is a constant buzz while listening to AM radio

when driving an electric car. At least that’s my experience: When we bought our first Prius about 15 years ago, I couldn’t listen to Giants games (available then only on AM radio) or most talk radio. It was FM or CDs or (later) streaming via Bluetooth.

So AM radio doesn’t work well with electric cars (although that seems like it’s fixable, right? They figured out how to make a car run on electricity, but can’t they get it to stop interfering with the AM signal? Come on, man). But the snuffing out of AM radios in cars won’t stop there.

A May article in the Detroit Free Press revealed that Ford would eliminate AM radios from its fleet. Next year. My first thought was it was

Ford’s payback for the old AM radio jingle of, “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.” Revenge is a dish best served cold.

AM radio is a part of our history. Radio and cars emerged around the same time and by the 1940s, about 40% of cars had radios. Within a few decades, virtually every car had an AM radio. Some had FM, some had cassette (or 8-track) players, but all had AM.

Car AM radios were how we heard traffic reports and news and music. “Morning drive time” and “evening drive time” were a crucial part of the radio universe – formats built around the fact that people were driving to or from work while listening to the radio. AM radio stations dominated ratings until at least the turn of the 21st century (KGO radio, an

AM powerhouse, was the Bay Area’s top-rated radio station from 1978-2008. Thirty years!).

With the emergence of FM radio (with much better sound), music moved away and AM stations became the world of talk radio, sports, religious and nonEnglish-speaking radio. The format has increasingly struggled to keep listeners.

But ... auto manufacturers who elect to drop it are finding resistance. There are still 4,000 AM radio stations in the U.S. and they emphasize that AM radio remains the front line of the Emergency Alert system, which seems an old-timey reason, but maybe it’s good enough. Anyway, there were protests. And they worked: In the days following that report that Ford would discontinue AM radios in many models, elected officials protested the

move. Ultimately, Ford relented and said AM radios will be part of its entire fleet in 2024.

But the first shot was fired. AM radio’s decline continues. We’re seeing the beginning of the end.

Someday soon, we’ll look back on AM radio like we do celebrity-hosted TV variety shows and “The Lone Ranger” on radio and pre-Starbucks coffee shops. It already is something that we have warm memories of, but don’t use anymore. AM radios will still be in many cars for a while, but is anyone listening? I hope so, if only for our memories.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Workers save turtles on migration path through dry-cleaning business

The WashingTon PosT

Every summer at Best Cleaners in Middletown, Conn., employees throw open the front and back doors and the slow parade begins. Very slow.

During nesting season from May through September, turtles ramble into the store, ease their way past the front counter and racks of freshly cleaned jackets and skirts, and crawl for the opposite door.

They’re among dozens of female Eastern painted turtles on their annual summer migration from Middletown’s Pameacha Pond to lay their eggs at a grassy marsh behind the dry-cleaning store. In late summer and early fall, the trek changes direction, with tiny hatchlings making their way back to the pond.

To head either direction, the turtles need to cross South Main Street, a busy two-lane road that is part of Route 17.

Some of the turtles are smashed by cars during their precarious annual journey, so current employees at Best Cleaners decided about five years ago to start saving as many turtles as they could, including the ones they saw wandering around the store and in the parking lot.

“I believe that people who were at the shop in the years before us also helped out,” said Matt Dionne, regional manager for Best Cleaners, adding that the Middletown South Main Street location has always opened the doors and windows every summer to help cool things off.

“When we noticed some of the turtles were coming through the shop and getting lost in a corner, we realized that helping them get to where they needed to be was something we could

CORRECTION POLICY

do,” he said.

Looking down and finding turtles in the shop is pretty common this time of year, often several times a week. That’s when the employees know it’s time to help them safely cross the street.

“The turtles are quite small, and drivers have a hard time seeing them,”

Dionne said. “They’re going to make the journey across the road regardless, so why not help them out? It’s a straight line to the pond, 50 feet from the shop.”

The store’s eight employees routinely monitor the parking lot for stray turtles every summer, he said, noting that they’ll gently scoop them up and carry them to where they’re goingeither to the marsh or the 19-acre pond.

“The babies can be as small as a quarter,” Dionne, 36, said. “There’s a good chance they won’t make it across the road by themselves.”

Assistant manager Jennifer Malon is among those who regularly makes a trip across the road with a turtle or two in hand. She also gives a lift to the occasional snapping turtle, but she makes sure to carry those in a dustpan.

“It’s important that we give these turtles a fight-

ing chance to get across the road so they can live longer lives,” she said.

Since the turtle migration through the store and across South Main Street was recently chronicled by the Middletown Press, more customers have been asking about the tiny reptiles, and offering to help them on the precarious journey. Malon welcomes the extra hands.

“Every summer, we’re always looking at our feet because we don’t want to step on them,” said Malon, 37. “They’re important to the environment.”

Although painted turtles are the most common turtles in North America and aren’t endangered in Connecticut like bog turtles and spotted turtles, they’re important indicators of healthy ecosystems, said Brian Hess, a wildlife biologist with Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

They’re also vulnerable to land development that imperils habitat and migration paths, he said.

“An adult turtle might survive a raccoon trying to eat it, but it can’t survive an encounter with a car,” Hess said. “Any time a turtle gets squished by a car, that’s not helping anything.”

“What they’re doing [in Middletown] is a really good thing,” he added.

It is the Daily Republic’s policy to correct errors in reporting. If you notice an error, please call the Daily Republic at 425-4646 during business hours weekdays and ask to speak to the editor in charge of the section where the error occurred. Corrections will be printed here.

“Every year, we put out press releases asking people to watch for turtles and help them out during nesting season. These folks have obviously taken that advice to the next level.”

Dionne hopes that rescuing the turtles will give them a better chance to make it to breeding age –usually about age 10 or so.

“Humans are the ones who built infrastructure around their habit, so we owe it to the turtles to do anything we can to give back,” Dionne said.

He and Malon were among those in Middletown who rallied last year to save Pameacha Pond from being turned into a city park. Students from Wesleyan University made an eight-minute documentary about the community’s

efforts to keep the centuries-old haven for a variety of turtles, birds and frogs.

“They were going to drain the water from the pond, then because of the turtles, they decided not to,” Malon said. “A lot of people love the turtles, and they enjoy seeing them during nesting season every year. Everyone wants to keep the tradition going of helping them.”

Mac Falco, manager of the Best Cleaners shop in Middletown, said many of his customers can’t imagine a summer without seeing a few slow-moving turtles in the shop when they pick up their dry cleaning.

“It’s part of the summer experience – everyone thinks it’s wonderful that we’re helping them

across,” Falco said. “I honestly don’t think many of them would make it on that busy road if someone didn’t help.”

He and other employees carefully place rescued baby turtles at the top of the pond bank across the street, then enjoy watching them climb down to the water.

Painted turtles – named for their colorful markings – are often spotted basking in the sun on rocks and logs by kayakers on the pond, Dionne said.

“They’re fascinating, instinctual little creatures with built-in GPS systems that know where the water is,” he said. “But if for some reason they end up lost in our shop, we’re happy to stop what we’re doing and pick them up.”

Brad Stanhope Like I was sayin’

Jennifer Malon courtesy photo

Jim Horbock, a regular customer at Best Cleaners, with an Eastern painted turtle that he carried across the road last month.

County reports 2 hazardousmaterials incidents

FAIRFIELD — Thirty gallons of liquid chlorine spilled Monday at the Solano Community College campus in Fairfield, and a 55-gallon plastic drum, about 90% full with an unknown mild acidic liquid that contained heavy metals, on Thursday was pulled out of the Vallejo Marina.

Fairfield council to weigh in on peafowl problems in Rolling Hills

FAIRFIELD — Peafowl problems will come before the city council at Tuesday’s meeting. The council will receive a report, open discussion and provide direction to staff.

The city acquired the Dunnell property in May 1998 through a family trust deed that stipulated the property be developed as a park. The property was a refuge for a flock of approximately 50 peafowl, which had free roam of the property and the surrounding Rolling Hills neighborhood.

The peafowl population has increased. Some residents consider them a nuisance, said a staff

report. Some residents feed the peafowl within their neighborhoods and at their homes, which encourages the peafowl to visit and remain, rather than pass through.

A resident’s committee was established in 1998 which conducted a survey. The results favored the birds remaining. and were evenly split on whether the peafowl should roam free or be contained.

The city council approved in March 1999 the Community Services Department to develop a Peafowl Management Plan for the peafowl in and around the Dunnell property. It was intended to guide the integration of the peafowl into the

future park.

The Dunnell Property Conceptual Development Master Plan, which included the Peafowl Management Plan, was approved in April 2004. At that time, a large free-flight aviary for the peafowl was planned for the property to protect the birds.

On Dec. 1, 2009, the council voted to eliminate the peafowl aviary and allow the birds to continue to roam free.

In 2018, a group of residents of the Rolling Hills Neighborhood and city staff formed a new peafowl committee. Residents created informational flyers to help educate the neighborhood about the committee and to provide

information about peafowl, with an emphasis on not feeding them.

A subcommittee also was created to regularly feed the peafowl at the Dunnell property with the hope that feeding the peafowl on a regular schedule at the same location would help lure the peafowl out of the neighborhoods and back onto the Dunnell property.

There were other mitigation efforts, including an adoption program, population control research and trapping and relocating.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at 1000 Webster St. The complete agenda can be found on the city’s website.

The chlorine was spilled while it was being loaded into a bulk tank, the Solano County Environmental Health Division reported.

The incident was considered to be low risk to the public and the environment.

Marina personnel discovered the drum floating in the water. Its contents have been tested and await proper disposal, the county agency reported.

“This notice involves the release of an unknown acidic liquid with heavy metals to the environment and is considered a medium risk to public health and medium risk to the environment,” Environmental Health reported.

Fairfield woman arrested after standoff with American Canyon police

Daily Republic Staff DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

AMERICAN CANYON — A 39-yearold Fairfield woman was arrested by American Canyon police Thursday morning.

Just before 9:30 a.m., officers spotted a stolen 2019 Nissan Sentra driving southbound on Highway 29. During a traffic stop of the vehicle, the driver was noncompliant and refused to come out of the car.

For public safety,

the southbound lanes of Highway 29 near Mid City Nursery were temporarily shut down during a short standoff with the driver. Napa Sheriff’s deputies arrived and assisted by deploying a drone, which allowed the police to see the driver was alert inside the car and kept reaching into a wooden box for a taser gun. After more announcements were made to the driver with

Republic file (2010)

A peafowl walks across the Dunnell property in Rolling Hills near Hilborn Road and Hillridge Drive, June 7, 2010.

See Standoff, Page A4

Festival returns Aug. 19-20 in

FAIRFIELD — The city of Fairfield will host the 31st Annual Tomato & Vine Festival from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 19 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 20 in downtown.

The event celebrates all things tomato. It will include:

n California-grown tomato samples.

n A tomato eating contest.

n Tomato tasting.

n Tomatoes for purchase.

n A salsa competition.

n Gourmet food and artisans.

n Two stages with live entertainment.

n A classic car show (Sunday only).

n A cultural stage.

n Children’s activities and carnival.

n Two beer & wine

downtown

Mrs. Maria Elvira Cain passed away peacefully the early morning of June 29, 2023 with her family by her side Maria was born to Inacio Martins and Maria De Jesus in Terceira, Azores, Portugal. Maria met and married her lifelong love Thornton Cain when he was stationed in the Azores while serving in the US Air Force. They were married 64 years and had six children.

They came to Fairfield in 1967 where she continued to live her whole life as a devoted wife, mother, and later grandmother and great grandmother. Maria enjoyed playing bingo, tending to her backyard roses, and most of all her grandchildren. Whenever you saw Maria driving around she would always have her grandchildren with her, as many that could fit in her Cadillac. Maria was a kind, loving and generous lady. She loved baking her delicious sweetbread and passing the loaves around to those she loved. Maria was dedicated to her family and that came first above all else. The void left by her absence will be impossible to fill. Maria was loved by many and the world has truly lost a unique and beautiful soul who will be deeply missed by all who knew her. Maria is survived by her children Maria Lillie Eddings (Reggie), John (Imelda), Maria Teresa Cain (Tony), Tony (Claudia), Maria Malinda Cain, Christopher (Maria) and numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren.

gardens with award-winning local wine. For more infor -

mation, visit fairfield. ca.gov/tomato.

Bohart Museum event dedicated to ‘MothNut’

DAVIS — The Bohart Museum of Entomology will dedicate its open house, “Night at the Museum” (formerly known as “Moth Night”), to the late Jerry Powell, longtime director of the Essig Museum Entomology of UC Berkeley, and an international authority on moths. He died July 8 in Berkeley at age 90.

Powell was a Bohart Museum associate and a scientific collaborator, identifying scores of insects and attending many of the Lepidopterist Society meetings held there.

The open house, free and family friendly, is 7 to 11 p.m. Saturday in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. Plans call for scientists to set up their traditional blacklighting (ultraviolet or UV) display to attract moths and other nightflying insects. Bohart Research Affiliate John De Benedictus, a retired UC Davis staff research associate, also known as “The Moth Man,” usually heads

the blacklighting project. De Benedictus received his master’s degree in 1988 from UC Berkeley, studying with Powell. “I spent more time in the field with Jerry than any other grad student,” he said in press materials. “I was privileged to be Jerry’s student and lucky to have become his friend.”

Powell was born in

Glendale and received his bachelor’s degree in entomology at UC Berkeley in 1955 and his doctorate there in 1961.

One of his most-read books, co-authored with Charles Hogue, is “California Insects, Volume 44,” published in 1980. The second edition, coauthored by Kip Will,

Juan Segura at 707428-7584 or jsegura@ fairfield.ca.gov.

Ricky Presley

On July 2, 2023, Ricky Wayne Presley, 67 of Fairfield, CA and Bremerton, WA passed away in Vacaville, CA.

Rick was born March 27, 1956, in Burderop Park, Wiltshire, England to Barnie and Doreen (Conlin) Presley.

to assist other Naval Shipyards including Georgia, Florida, and his beloved San Diego, CA where he completed over 20 temporary duty assignments. Rick retired to enjoy life in 2011.

Page A3

noncompliance, less-lethal bean bag rounds were deployed toward the car.

Afterward, the driver chose to come out and was safely taken into custody.

American Canyon Police identified her as Sabrina Annal of Fairfield. Officers learned she had multiple felony warrants from Solano County for vehicle theft, vehicle pursuit and hit-and-run.

She was book into the Napa County Department of Corrections for

by July 21. A

her warrants and charges related to this incident for vehicle theft, felon in possession of a stun gun and resisting arrest.

NAVY VETERAN

After graduating from Armijo High School in 1974, Rick served in the U.S. Navy from 1974-1980, and went on dedicating over 30 years to the U.S. Navy Civil Service first as a Pipe Fitter at Mare Island in Vallejo, CA then relocating to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard as a Ship and Submarine Inspector. Rick voluntarily deployed to Kuwait during the Gulf War (Enduring Freedom) and was proud of the many deployments he took

Myrna KingsburyCrites

Myrna Adele KingsburyCrites passed peacefully as she slept in the early hours of Monday, May 1, 2023, after a long and debilitating illness resulting from Interstitial Lung Disease. Born October 13, 1936, Myrna was 86.

Born in Richmond, CA, Myrna was predeceased by her parents, Frank and Helen Ehlert; her brother, Frank; and daughters Dana Kingsbury and Pat Beardslee. The family moved to Vallejo when she was in the 4th grade. She graduated from Vallejo High School, Vallejo Junior College and attended University of California, Berkeley. She married Henry Washabaugh (1956-1962). Myrna then married Dr. B.C. Kingsbury (1966-2003) living in Napa and later, Green Valley. Myrna was employed by a number of local dental offices; she owned and concurrently managed two restaurants. After being eidowed, Myrna married Willison Crites in 2015.

Myrna was known for her kindness, truthfulness, integrity, generosity, patience, honesty, self-reliance, loyalty and hard work. Her community service included President Napa Solano Dental Auxiliar y, Member of Community

Arthur Rahn Jr.

Rick was an avid coin and antique collector, enjoyed a regular game of golf and loved to watch all sports; most important was his Seattle Seahawks. He also enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren. Fireworks on the 4th of July in the Pacific Northwest with his children and grandchildren was a cherished annual event.

Rick is survived by his mother, Doreen (nee Conlin) Presley; three children and in-laws, Erika (Chris) Reinhard of Tacoma, WA, Lindsey (Loi) Fajardo of Davis, CA and Kevin (Kelly) Presley of Fairfield, CA; five grandchildren, Jacob, Madison, Benjamin, Karter and Liam; two brothers, Gar y (Jane) Presley of Tucson, AZ and Jeff Presley of Huntington Beach, CA; and nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his father Barnie Wayne Presle y.

The family will have a private burial at sea at a later date

Project - Napa, President Green Valley Woman’s Division, President Soroptimist International of Vallejo and Member North Bay Hospital Guild.

Myrna is survived by her husband, Willison; her four daughters, Deborah Kingsbury, Fairfield, Penny Doll (Henry), Green Valley, Andrea Frische (Jim), Green Valley and Lore’ Kingsbury (Jim), Palm Desert; and two sons Rick Washabaugh (Carrie), Brookings, Oregon and Dan Kingsbury (Beronia) Roberts Creek, B.C., Canada. She was blessed with 17 grandchildren & 14 great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Soroptimists of Vallejo, (SIOV, P.O. Box 4262, Vallejo, CA 94590) or your favorite charity. Private memorial services to be held at a later date God saw you getting tired, And a cure was not to be; So he put his arms about you, And whispered, Myrna, come with Me With tearful eyes we watched you We watched you pass away Although we loved you dearly We could not make you stay. A golden heart stopped beating Hard working hands at rest God broke our hearts to prove to us He chose to take the best, Shawna Alsep, Author

ing an AA degree in Real Estate. Then on to Sacramento State where he earned a BS degree in accounting. Finally, he completed the master’s degree program in Real Estate at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

After ending his flying career, he worked as an appraiser for the Yuba County Assessor, then Union Home loans and finally the combined Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads where he ser v ed as Manager of Appraisals.

AIR FORCE VETERAN

Arthur George Rahn Jr. was born on December 7, 1932 in Covington, KY to Arthur George Rosette Rahn and Irma Ruth McPherson. Raised in Cincinnati, with seven sisters, JoAnn, Rosalie, Carol Jean, Betty, Judy, Pamela and Mary Ellen, he graduated from Hughes High School in 1951. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1952 during the Korean War. After two years as an aircraft mechanic, he was selected for flying training and graduated in July 1955 as a 2nd Lieutenant with Navigator wings.

While undergoing flight training, he met and later married Maria Hilda Sauceda Thomas who had two small sons, Edward, 4, and John, 2, whom he raised as his own. This marriage produced three sons and a daughter — Jeffery Frank, Steven Bruce, Bryan Lee and Lisa Elaine.

He ser ved throughout the Korean War, stood on nuclear alert during most of the Cold War and circled the Arctic on Airborne alert, just outside of the Soviet Union radar net. He was among many who were deployed to forward areas during the Cuban missile crisis and flew 100 B-52 missions over Vietnam and Laos during two tours to Southeast Asia.

While deployed in Guam, he met and married his second wife, Lola Mae Hunter and they had one son, Eric Alan. He attended Sacramento City College, earn-

OBITUARIES FAIRFIELD FUNERAL HOME Pre-Arrangements of Funeral & Cremations Veteran’s Discount 1. Locks in costs at today’s prices. 2. Monthly payments to fit your budget w/no interest. 3. 100% of your funds invested toward your funeral. 4. Plans are transferable to other family members. (707) Estate Planning • Probate Trust Administration Special Needs • Elder Law Caring for our clients, Protecting their assetsTM p Two Locations 1652 W. Texas Street Fairfield, CA 21 Court Street Woodland, CA Please Call Us at: (530) 662-2226 Or Email Us at: info@bsoninlaw.com www.bsoninlaw.com standoff

After retiring from the railroad industr y, he operated a general appraisal business in Fairfield, CA until retiring at age 84. He was a member of the adjunct faculty of Solano Community College for ten years. He was a featured speaker at several national conventions, published many magazine articles and two books and was acknowledged as one of foremost experts on valuing railroads, pipeline, power lines and similar properties.

A faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served in many leadership positions such as Branch President of the Asian Branch, 13 years on the High Council and worked in the Family History Center plus served 3 Church Service missions.

Lola and Art were sealed in the Oakland Temple and have been together for 54 years. He is survived by his wife Lola, three sisters, six children, ten grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be Wednesday, July 19 at 9:30 a.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 101 Oakwood Drive, Fairfield. Burial follows at Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon.

K athy K eatley Garvey FOR THE DAILY REPUBLIC

Maria E. Cain 8/5/1936 – 6/29/2023

International moth authority Jerry Powell, former director of the Essig Museum of Entomology, UC Berkeley, identifies insects at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis. Powell died July 8. The Bohart open house on saturday will be dedicated to him.

Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic (2014)

annie Castillo of Vacaville inspects a tomato at the farmers market during the Tomato Festival in Fairfield, aug. 16, 2014.

THE DAILY REPUBLIC DELIVERS. CALL 707-427-6989.

Solano College board considers service contracts

daily Republic Staff DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — A number of service contracts – ranging from expanded laboratory technician services, to parking lot construction projects to project inspection services for the Early Learning Resource Center – come before the Solano Community College governing board when it meets Wednesday.

The meeting is sched-

uled to start at 7 p.m. following a closed session at 6:35, during which the board members will be updated on labor negotiations, an employee discipline matter, anticipated litigation and the performance evaluation for Superintendent-President Celia Esposito-Noy.

The meeting will be in the Denis Honeychurch Board Room, Building 600, Room 626, of the Fairfield campus, 4000 Suisun Valley Road.

Fencing off a part of Railroad Avenue up for Suisun council consideration

tingency of $8,581.57.

Open Farm Days shares bounty of the valley with visitors

SUISUN CITY — A parcel on the southeast corner of Sunset Avenue and Railroad Avenue, near the tracks, could soon be fenced off.

It’s an area frequented by the homeless.

The city recently completed the purchase of this segment. It will be used in the future for realigning the two sections of Railroad Avenue. The old portion runs from East Tabor to Sunset Avenue.

The new portion begins farther south at Sunset Avenue and wraps around to Marina Boulevard.

The fencing will surround the newly acquired right-of-way. It will be funded by the Off-Site Street Improvement Program in the amount of $65,792.05, which is $57,210.48 plus a 15% con-

“With the purchase of Lot 37 it is now necessary to ensure that this newly purchased parcel is protected, kept as clean and free from homeless as possible, and from acting as a public nuisance, said a staff report. “To accomplish these goals, it is now necessary to install protective, permanent fencing that will include a gate at (Old) Railroad Avenue end.

“This location is the victim of illegal dumping and homeless camps, among other issues, and having it secured as best as possible as quickly as possible is of paramount importance,” said the staff report.

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. the council chamber, 701 Civic Center Blvd. The complete agenda can be found at www. suisun.com.

Two-day Benicia Waterfront Festival coming soon

daily Republic Staff

DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

BENICIA — The First Street Green in downtown Benicia will be the place to be July 29-30 for a host of activities for all ages.

“The popular summer event is back with a splash. Benicia celebrates its picturesque waterfront locale with two days of live music, microbrew tastings, arts and crafts marketplace,

Bohart

From Page A4

Daniel Rubinoff and Powell and covering more than 600 species, was published in October 2020.

Powell and Paul Opler (1938-2023) coauthored “Moths of Western America,” published in 2009.

Powell gained international recognition when he detected the agricultural

delectable gourmet foods and kids’ activity area,” organizers said.

The two-day Benicia Waterfront Festival opens June 29, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and continues on June 30, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The First Street Green is located at 90 First St.

For tickets, go to www.eventbrite.com/ e/benicia-waterfrontfestival-2023-tickets638240924787.

pest, the light brown apple moth, Epiphyas postvittana, in a ultralight (UV) trap on July 19, 2006, in his backyard in Berkeley.

He described himself as a “MothNut” on his vehicle license plate, and also displayed a sticker, “Larvae on Board.”

The Bohart Museum, directed by UC Davis professor Lynn Kimsey, is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens, a live insect petting zoo and a gift shop.

SuSan Hiland SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

VACAVILLE — Georgia Javaras, owner of Dolly Farm Vacaville, had a six-figure job in San Francisco in 2014.

A year later she quit and began a new career as a farmer, cook, baker and salesperson.

The shocking change in her life came because she wanted to spend more time with her daughter, but also she was upset with the quality of fresh foods available.

“I wanted to teach her the value of growing your own food and living sustainably,” Javaras said.

On Saturday, she was selling her homemade jams, lemon bars

and loaves of bread, and despite the nasty heat, loving seeing people taste the fruits of her labor from her own farm in the valley.

“Seeing people bite into something I made and

the look on their faces,” she said, “is amazing. It is the best feeling.”

The sixth annual Pleasants Valley Agriculture Association Open Farm

Days event this weekend is allowing visitors to taste the variety of foods in the valley.

“I hope that people coming out here this weekend realize the value of this valley,” she said. “There is so much here and this weekend gives people a chance to share it.”

The food, produce and goods that come from the valley are starting to form a new type of farming called agri-tourism, where farmers create a space on the farm for people to sample foods, see the animals and experience a working farm in a limited way.

“If we don’t start

See Farm, Page A10

Fast-moving fires force evacuations, char thousands of acres in SoCal

tRibune content agency

LOS ANGELES —

Three wildfires continued to burn in western Riverside County early Saturday, scorching thousands of acres and prompting evacuations in some neighborhoods.

The largest so far is the Rabbit fire, which was reported at 3:26 p.m. in the community of Lakeview. The fire had scorched 4,500 acres with only 5% containment as of Saturday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and the Riverside County Fire Department. An evacuation order was issued for about 25 homes north of Gilman Springs Road.

Another blaze, dubbed the Reche fire, was first reported just before 1 p.m.

in the 9400 block of Reche Canyon Road – in an unincorporated area north of Moreno Valley.

The fire had charred 437 acres with 30% containment as of Saturday morning. Video from the scene showed at least one structure engulfed in

flames, but it was unclear whether any others had been damaged.

Roughly 280 firefighters were assigned to the blaze.

Evacuations were ordered Friday afternoon for residents south of Reche Canyon Road, north

of Reche Vista Drive, west of Trust Way and east of Alta Vista Drive, authorities said. That order was downgraded to a warning by Friday night.

The warning remained in place Saturday, along with an evacuation warning for Moreno Valley residents south of Alta Vista Drive, north of Ironwood Avenue, west of Moreno Drive and east of Perris Boulevard. The Reche fire has also forced the closure of a roughly 4-mile section of Reche Canyon Road, according to Riverside County Fire.

Authorities set up an evacuation center at Valley View High School, 13135 Nason St., for anyone displaced by the fire.

See Fires, Page A10

5 wild burros shot, killed in Death Valley

tRibune content agency

LOS ANGELES —

Federal authorities are investigating the killing of five wild burros who were found shot to death near life-giving springs on the western edge of Death Valley National Park, where 20-mule teams once pulled wagons of borax.

The National Park Service said it was one of the largest illegal killings of its kind in Death Valley, which is home to roughly 4,000 burros – descendants of the pack animals that miners and prospectors used more than a century ago.

Details about the investigation were scarce. “The burros were killed with a low-caliber firearm not typically used to hunt big game,” park Ranger

Nichole Andler said Friday. “They were all together in one area of lower Wildrose Canyon.”

Officials did not say when the carcasses were discovered. However, they did say the killings were not part of ongoing

federal efforts to reduce burro populations that have come to dominate the park’s badlands.

“While these animals have a negative impact on the natural and cultural desert environment, these irresponsible actions

are not warranted,” Andler said.

The National Park Service does have the authority to shoot burros, which are not native to Western deserts, provided the killing is necessary for the restoration of Death Valley‘s natural habitat. Burros, officials say, are known to trample and foul sensitive desert springs and damage historic sites. They can also out-compete such native vegetarians as stately bighorn sheep, tiny kangaroo rats and bulky chuckawalla lizards by devouring available greenery. The incident at Wildrose Canyon, however, involved the unauthorized discharge of a firearm that posed a threat to public safety, Andler said.

Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic file (2020) a homeless encampment is set up near Railroad and sunset avenues in suisun City, June 24, 2020.

Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times/TNS file (2022)

Wild burros graze along the hills above san Timoteo Canyon Road, a rural drive connecting Redlands to Moreno Valley, in Redlands, July 5, 2022.

Rose loveall- sale, owner of Morningsun Herb Farm, shares her home-brewed tea, which is made fresh with herbs from her garden, during the 6th annual Pleasant Valley open Farm Days, saturday.

She died fighting ‘forever chemicals’ They still linger in her town

The WashingTon PosT OAKDALE, Minn. — The last time Amara Strande testified in front of Minnesota lawmakers, her voice was shaky, a side effect of the tumor pressing on her throat and the cancer that had spread through her lungs.

It was the fifth time Strande had spoken to state lawmakers in support of legislation to ban a group of toxic chemicals, PFAS, which she blamed for her rare form of liver cancer. She wore a maroon blazer, which covered numerous scars on her body, a legacy of 20 surgeries she underwent after being diagnosed at 15 years old.

While she struggled to speak that March day, the same was not true two months earlier when she first addressed state lawmakers.

“I have spent the last five years fighting cancer with every ounce of my being. And I will for the rest of my life,” Strande said during that testimony. “Through no fault of my own, I was exposed to these toxic chemicals. And as a result, I will die with this cancer.”

On April 14, Strande died at age 20, just weeks before lawmakers would pass the legislation now known as “Amara’s Law,” banning the use of PFAS in Minnesota.

Strande’s death resonated in the eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities, where the 3M corporation has its headquarters and where the company became a major manufacturer of products containing PFAS. The company says it is working to make things right with cities such as Oakdale, where Strande went to high school. At the same time, it is contending with numerous lawsuits over its practices.

For the last several months, Strande’s family and friends have been celebrating her life and grieving her loss. Some 700 people attended her funeral, and another 250 watched online, according to her father, Michael Strande.

“Nothing replaces Amara. Not even Amara’s Law,” her mother, Dana Strande said in an interview. “She had a lot to give the world.”

In honoring Strande, friends and family feel compelled to carry on her crusade. PFAS – short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – have been linked to infertility, thyroid problems and several kinds of cancer.

Used for years in nonstick coating, flameretardant equipment and moisture-repellent clothing, these “forever chemicals” pervade America’s drinking water and food supply. And while the most dangerous forms of PFAS have been phased out, environmental activists nationwide are mobilizing to get the remaining compounds banned nationwide.

Jeff Munter, a friend of Strande’s who testified alongside her at the Minnesota legislature, said it would have been “disrespectful” to drop the fight after she passed away. He said that if Minnesota’s PFAS ban is taken up by Congress, he’s ready to testify.

“I’m going to be right up there talking about my experience with my friend Amara,” he said.

While local allies see Amara’s Law as a breakthrough, they acknowledge it does not

solve their immediate problem in Washington County – a collection of suburbs east of St. Paul that includes Oakdale.

Decades ago, 3M –then known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing – started dumping PFAS waste in pits near Oakdale and other parts of Washington County, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. That dumping has since resulted in a nearly 200-square-mile underground plume of contaminated groundwater, which by 2004 had tainted drinking water supplies for more than 140,000 residents, the agency says.

PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” because of their extreme durability: They don’t break down in the environment or degrade. That endurance remains true under Tartan High School, where the gigantic PFAS plume continues to taint the groundwater awaiting remediation.

Tartan High, founded in 1971, is a campus of roughly 1,600 students. It’s a high school like many others, with proms and sports teams, including a proud history of victorious basketball. It is also known for cancer cases.

Janice Churchill, who worked as a math teacher at Tartan High School for 21 years, said that between 2005 and 2015, five of the school’s students died of various cancers, and others were diagnosed with the disease. You wouldn’t have expected that number “if things were normal,” said Churchill, who suspects that exposure to PFAS contributed.

As a student, Amara Strande played softball and loved to sing and play music, and she continued some of those activities even after being diagnosed with cancer. But she quickly gravitated to an informal social network at the school.

The group became

known as “the cancer kids.”

Strande grew up in a comfortable middle-class home with her parents and sister Nora. Her mother, a pastor, and father, a Catholic liturgical director, moved the family to Maplewood, a mile away from 3M headquarters, when Amara was 3. As a young girl, her parents said, she dreamed of becoming a pop star.

3M was part of the family’s everyday life. The company – which had a net income of $5.7 billion in 2022 – remains the dominant driver of the local economy and the family was surrounded by neighbors who worked at 3M.

In the mid-2000s, the city’s relationship with 3M started to change. Testing by the Minnesota Department of Health revealed the company’s wastehandling practices had polluted the aquifer and at least four water wells serving Oakdale.

While the agency was later accused of delaying its groundwater investigations, subsequent testing found that PFAS had tainted the taps of several communities, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. As a result, 3M agreed to pay Oakdale $10 million for new water treatment systems to filter PFAS and helped at least one other community with water service.

Like some at Tartan High School, Amara would joke about her history of drinking the “3M cancer water,” her mother said.

Then, in 2017, Strande began suffering from severe abdominal pain, shoulder aches and frequent nosebleeds. A routine school physical turned into multiple surgeries to remove a nearly 15-pound tumor in her liver.

Strande was diagnosed with Stage 4 fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma – a cancer so rare it afflicts just 1 in 5 million people nationwide between the age of

15 and 39, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Strande’s cancer set her on a path of agony and repeated surgeries – 20 in all – to remove tumors. Along with the surgeries came radiation and chemotherapy treatments, and toward the end, some experimental therapies.

Throughout it all, Strande continued to attend high school and play music. She joined the Minnesota’s Chamber Choir, purposely omitting mention of her cancer during auditions, her mother said, to avoid being selected because of pity.

In the spring of 2022, the 19-year-old Strande started to record some of her songs, including one, “I Am the Strange.”

“I can scream as loud as I can

But no one seems to hear me

Twisted and burning and rotting I cry inside but my eyes are dry.”

The music helped her cope. “I’m in love with life but life isn’t in love with me and I can’t get over it,” she wrote in her journal. “I’m going to die.”

Five years after Strande was diagnosed, her doctors told her that there was nothing left to try. By then, the tumors on the right side of her body forced her to relearn to write and paint with her left hand. She eventually lost the ability to play the piano and the guitar.

At the urging of Avonna Starck, the state director for Minnesota’s Clean Water Action group, Strande started testifying in favor of state legislation to ban PFAS, often hiding her wheelchair before entering the chambers. Her appearances gained increasing notice,

and her friends joined her in seeking to change Minnesota law.

Strande died two days before her 21st birthday. That motivated her allies even more.

Outside and inside the state Capitol, Munter and others close to Amara held signs that read: “Save lives, stop PFAS” and “My life is more important than pan spray.” They yelled chants such as “Hey hey! Ho ho! PFAS have got to go!”

The bill, which received pushback from divided legislatures in previous sessions, passed with bipartisan support two weeks after Strande died. It bans all uses of PFAS in products by 2032 – except those that are necessary for public health – and requires manufacturers to report their use of PFAS in products to the state by 2026. It also prohibits specific uses in several products starting in 2025.

State Rep. Jeff Brand, lead author on legislation, said he was outraged upon learning that these “forever chemicals” had become nearly ubiquitous in people’s bloodstreams.

“We had no choice about it,” he said in an interview. “We had no choice to say we don’t want that in our bodies.”

Andrea Lovoll, the legislative director of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, said that Strande was key in getting the legislation passed.

“The fact is that she dedicated the end of her life to making sure that nobody else suffered from PFAS,” said Lovoll, who had been working to ban PFAS in Minnesota for three years.

Like others who knew and loved Amara, Dana Strande concedes she cannot prove that PFAS contributed to her daughter’s cancer.

While numerous studies have linked the chemicals to cancers in laboratory animals, the Environmental Protection Agency says that “research is still ongoing to determine how different levels of exposure to different PFAS can lead to a variety of health effects.”

What is known is that 3M operated under the weak environmental laws of the 1950s and ‘60s to dump PFAS at local 3M sites and at least one public landfill, and that subsequent studies have found those communities face a heightened risk of cancer.

The company stated that its disposal of waste at those sites “was a common

and accepted practice at the time” and that it was likely that “some of this waste” contained chemicals known as PFAS, according to evidence filed in a Minnesota lawsuit against 3M.

While DuPont was the company that patented PFAS-coated Teflon, 3M became its major manufacturer, and eventually used PFAS in numerous products, ranging from medical devices to firefighting foam.

According to investigations by Minnesota regulators, the company by 1966 was disposing of 4 million gallons of “chemical wet scrap per year” in mostly unlined pits. It also was aware of the potential for water contamination, according to documents filed as evidence in the lawsuit.

The company dumped the chemicals at sites in Oakdale and three other communities – Cottage Grove (where PFAS was also manufactured), Lake Elmo and Woodbury. Regulators eventually detected PFAS in 100 of 102 closed landfills across the state, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Under the landfill in Washington County, where the Strandes live, PFAS levels in groundwater were more than ten times higher than the health standard.

A 2017 study by David Sunding, a products liability expert and University of California at Berkeley professor, found that a child who died in Washington County between 2003 and 2015 was 171 percent more likely to have had cancer than a child who died in the surrounding area. An Oakdale resident who died between 2003 and 2015 was 19 percent more likely to have a record of cancer than people in the residing area, the study found.

Sunding – an expert witness in the Minnesota lawsuit against 3M – also found that Washington County residents had been diagnosed with more cases of kidney, prostate, bladder cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia than their counterparts in other Minnesota counties.

Other studies are less conclusive. A 2018 paper by the Minnesota Department of Health found “small excesses of total cancers and female breast cancer” in Oakdale, but no overall increase in cancer in eight communities affected by PFAS

We

bearings, suspension, tires etc. We also repair and service all trucks from a pick up truck to a Class 8 Big Rig. Our team of Technician’s have over 150 years combined repair and diagnostic experience. We treat your vehicle like it is ours. There is no job too big or small, we invite them all.

Give us a call to schedule an appointment or just stop by we always have coffee brewed and popcorn popped. We look forward to meeting you and providing you with excellent customer service.

service all makes and models of RV motorhome, 5th Wheel and Trailer Chassis, brakes, lights, engine, HVAC, transmission, steering, axles,

Chemicals

From Page A6

contamination. That paper preceded Minnesota’s 2018 decision to end its lawsuit against 3M in return for a $850 million settlement.

In a statement at the time, a 3M executive said the company “never believed” there was a health issue with its chemicals, but decided “to move past this litigation and work together with the state on activities and projects to benefit the environment and our communities.”

Contacted for this article, 3M spokesman Sean Lynch declined to make a representative available for an interview, or answer questions on how the company currently views the toxicity of PFAS.

“We have and will continue to deliver on our commitments – including remediating PFAS, investing in water treatment, and collaborating with communities,” the company said in an emailed

statement, reiterating a previous announcement that it will end manufacturing of the chemicals “and work to discontinue the use of PFAS in our products by the end of 2025.”

In Minnesota, some ex-students of Tartan High School continue to blame the company for their cancers.

Derek Lowen was a 14-yearold freshman at Tartan in 2004 when he started experiencing migraines that led him to

throw up or pass out. He had a brain tumor the size of a baseball pressing on his skull, he said in an interview.

Following surgery, Lowen went through nearly two years of physical therapy relearning how to walk and regain other motor skills, he said. He was declared cancer-free in 2011, but now has memory loss, he said, and asserts that his exposure to PFAS caused his cancer.

He remains bitterly angry, having lost his high school years to medical treatments that “took away from time that the normal kids got to socialize and discover themselves and stuff,” Lowen said.

For the Twin Cities and their suburbs, the costs continue to mount. Removing and destroying PFAS from water and biosolids from Minnesota’s wastewater treatment facilities could cost between $14 billion and $28 billion over 20 years, according to a new report published by the MPCA.

The study also includes the cost of cleaning up municipal infrastructure, such as water treatment plants, to prevent the

chemical from being released through city pipes, according to Rebecca Higgins, the MPCA’s senior hydrogeologist for the east metro unit.

“Prevention is really the best level of effort . . . because once it’s out in the environment, it is extremely expensive and difficult to get out,” Higgins said.

The 3M company continues to confront that expense. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against the company, alleging it recognized that its PFAS products could cause cancer, low fertility, birth defects and other health problems.

Just last week, a federal study estimated that PFAS now taints nearly half of the nation’s tap water. In a multistate June settlement separate from its Minnesota one, the company agreed to pay $10.3 billion over 13 years to provide funding for public water suppliers that have detected PFAS. As it did in 2018 with Minnesota, the company stated the June settlement “is not an admission of liability.”

In the months since his daughter’s death, Michael

Strande continues to walk into the family’s living room with the expectation that he will see Amara with her sister, creating evocative paintings. Or perhaps she will be cuddling with one of her cats or composing original music in her private studio.

Dana Strande said she still struggles to pass by her daughter’s room.

“It’s just so hard to face how much I miss her,” she said. “I feel if I begin to cry I will never stop.”

At the same time, the family worries about their residual risks, including the safety of their filtered tap water. Amara’s sister, Nora Strande, also fears some of the products she finds on store shelves. “I can’t clean it up. I can’t keep myself safe,” she said.

The family is dedicated to not adding to that contamination – so much so that, in laying Amara to rest, they had her cremated, with her ashes placed in a vault without paint and not lined with plastic.

“We did not want to surround her remains with the chemicals,” her mother said.

Andrea Ellen ReedThe Washington Post Dana Strande found solace in reading faith-based books in her reading chair before and after Amara’s passing. Michael Strande still expects to see Amara when he walks into the living room.

Friends’ divorce creating problems with children’s relationship

Dear Annie: I have a friend who I have known since junior high (we’re now in our mid-60s). We weren’t super close friends but always stayed in touch even though we lived across the country from each other. She married another dear friend I’ve known even longer. They were married for over 30 years and have two children.

Annie Lane Dear Annie

Fast-forward to two years ago. My husband and I moved to retire, and the place we chose happens to be in the same area where they live. They were the only people we knew here

when we arrived. We had lots of fun together as couples, but we could see that their relationship was not good and the tension between them was harsh.

Our daughter moved here shortly after we did and met their son, and they are now in a serious relationship. Our couple friends finally divorced, and we were trying to maintain friendships with both, but it became difficult for many reasons. A year later, the exhusband revealed he is gay. We are fine with that, but she has drawn a line that if we want to

Horoscopes

by Holiday Mathis

Today’s birthday

Welcome to a year when your heart attracts just what it needs. An aim you’ve had since childhood will come to being in a brilliant way that fits with your adult reality.

More highlights: A new job will build up your skills and confidence. A not-so-secret admirer will nominate you. A road trip brings uncanny luck and inspiration. Sagittarius and Pisces adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 14, 3, 27, 6 and 10.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). You’ll act to improve life for the others, and your good karma will swing swiftly back around. Benevolent forces will offer you whatever support you need and will do so in a manner you’ll feel nurtured by.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Every commitment has a cost. Your time is too precious to fill up every available slot with obligation. Unstructured time isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. Leave room to go at your own pace. Slower will be better.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). It takes great intelligence to maintain optimism while being fully aware of the imperfect nature of a situation. You have this, plus flexibility and good company. When you’re around certain people, the sunny thoughts prevail.

CANCER (June 22-July 22). Your plan is ever-evolving, necessitating periodic reviews and boundary adjustments. Perhaps you’re not even entirely sure what you want anymore, but you know what you don’t want, which is as good a place to start as any.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). There is always more to learn; you’re seldom bored. The exception is the case in which circumstances disallow you to follow your curiosity. A restriction will lift and you’ll find out just what you wanted to know.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). There’s an air of mystery working for you. Keep it up by offering very little information. Like an expert poker player, your face reveals only what you want it to, and your cards are held close to the vest.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Intimacy isn’t only for people who are physically close. Intimacy can stretch across ideologies, the globe or the centuries. You’ll resonate realms of human knowledge and experience a bond that transcends boundaries of space and time.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Becoming someone different is often just a matter of seeing things a new way. You will drop your preconceived notions and a new scene will take shape around you – one that is ripe with opportunity.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Everyone needs to feel powerful in their own realm. You’ll handle matters of territory with a mindset of fairness, a sincere drive to understand and a commitment to peaceful resolution.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Love comes with sacrifices, and you don’t mind them because you value partnership. You may not acquiesce to another person’s needs every time, but you will at least consider them, weighing them against your own.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). Problems do not get magically solved by thinking about them a lot. Ignoring problems won’t solve them either. What works is action. And with good organization and record-keeping, you can keep solving problems again and again.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). As effective as you are, some of your expectations will still go unmet. You’ll roll with it. Eventually, you’ll find a way to get what you need and want. It’s your resilience that will define you.

CELEBRITY PROFILES: The upcoming “Barbie” movie has an astrologically astute release date, just a few days from the solar return of Will Ferrell, who plays a Mattel CEO. The Cancer comedian was born when Mercury was also in Cancer, showing extraordinary sensitivity and a stellar intuitive sense that he now uses both in his acting and in his producing role, aligning with major hits like HBO’s “Succession.” Lucky Jupiter in Leo lends an entertaining edge.

Write Holiday Mathis at HolidayMathis.com.

remain her friends, we can’t be his friends. There are numerous reasons, but we have discovered many things in her life that we can’t deal with. This wouldn’t be a problem except for our children’s relationship. The ex-wife has turned her son against his father, and he won’t go anywhere with his father or be involved with anything where his father is involved. We have tried very hard to remain neutral, but it’s causing problems for our children.

We see both sides – all sides, really – but when we try to get together with the ex-wife, she consistently bashes our friend

and says and does terribly toxic things, even to our daughter.

Any advice on how to proceed with this rat’s nest to help our children? — When Friends Divorce

Dear Friends Divorce: Say exactly what you said in this letter to the ex-wife. You are still friends with her exhusband and you do not like the way she talks about him. Just like if he were to speak unkindly about her, you would say the same thing and hold him to the same standard. Tell her that she can talk about anything else except badmouthing her ex.

In many ways, her son is

half her ex-husband, so speaking ill of the boy’s father only hurts her own son. Ask her to follow the rule that if you don’t have something nice to say about your ex, don’t say anything at all.

Your friend is grieving, so be patient with her as she goes through this process. She is understandably angry about her ex-husband’s deceit regarding his sexuality. And she has every right to speak with a professional or a friend, who is not friends with her ex, and try to process what happened.

Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@ creators.com.

skin protection

K eira Dagy FOR THE DAILY REPUBLIC

Summertime in California is best recognized by long, sunny days and time spent outdoors enjoying the warm weather. Now that we’re in the middle of summer, many people have already enjoyed spending time in the sun but have regrettably faced a sunburn after staying out in the sun too long with insufficient sun protection.

July marks the start of UV awareness month to raise awareness that UV rays are the root cause of most skin cancers. UV rays are a form of radiation emitted from the sun and other artificial sources like tanning beds. There are three primary types of UV rays based on their different wavelengths: UVA, UVB and UVC. Nearly all UV rays that reach the Earth from the sun are UVA rays, and that is the type that causes the most damage to skin. While short-term exposure to the sun’s UV rays can lead to some benefits like vitamin D exposure, overexposure leads to adverse health impacts including sunburn, skin rashes, eye damage and skin cancer. Skin cancer is the most common form

of cancer in the United States and approximately 5.4 million individuals are diagnosed with one of the two most common forms of skin cancer in the country every year, with an additional 100,000 being diagnosed with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The two most common types of skin cancer are basal cell and squamous cell cancer.

Although anyone can experience the harmful health impacts from overexposure to UV rays, there are certain groups of people who are at a higher risk of developing skin cancer and should take extra precaution against sun exposure. People who work outside or regularly spend a significant amount of time outdoors, individuals over 50, and people who have lightcolored skin, hair and eyes or have a family history of skin cancer are at higher risk of developing skin cancer.

The American Academy of Dermatology has created a list of precautions individuals can take to reduce their exposure to harmful UV rays that cause skin cancers. These steps should be followed as much as possible year-round, not only during the summer, but the summertime can be a great time to start. While outdoors, it is important to seek shade when-

ever possible, wear sun-protective clothing, and apply a broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher. Sun-protective clothing can still keep you cool: choose long-sleeved linen clothing, hats and closed-toed shoes if you are planning to be in the sun for a long period of time.

An important part of preventing skin cancer also includes doing regular skin checks for irregular spots or moles. While the American Cancer Society does not have their own guidelines for early detection of skin cancer, most providers recommend that individuals conduct checks on themselves every month to look for any moles, blemishes or freckles that are new, changing or have irregular borders or colors. The most common places skin cancer is found are on the head, face, neck, hands and arms as those body parts are typically the most exposed to UV radiation. Additionally, annual screenings of skin cancers with their primary care provider or dermatologist should be done for those at a higher risk of developing skin cancer.

Keira Dagy is a program manager from Aliados Health, a partner of Solano Public Health.

Don Landwehrle/Adobe Stock

Wearing sunglasses and a shading hat on a hot summer day will help protect against UV rays.

Crime logs

FairField

THURSDAY, JULY 13

1:29 a.m. — Vehicle theft, 1400 block of WEST TEXAS STREET

6:19 a.m. — Trespassing, 400 block of EAST TRAVIS

BOULEVARD

8:19 a.m. — Forgery, 2100 block of SANTA ANA DRIVE

9:43 a.m. — Forgery, 2000 block of BLUEBIRD WAY

10:14 a.m. — Grand theft, 3400 block of NORTH TEXAS STREET

10:25 a.m. — Reckless driver, EASTBOUND INTERSTATE 80

11:18 a.m. — Battery, LINEAR PARK PATHWAY

11:42 a.m. — Drunk and disorderly, 1700 block of NORTH TEXAS STREET

1:35 p.m. — Forgery, 1000 block of WEBSTER STREET

3:55

Tate’s sister criticizes release of Van Houten, thinks she’ll kill again

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

The sister of Sharon Tate, a beloved actress killed by members of Charles Manson’s murderous cult in the late 1960s, criticized the prison release of Leslie Van Houten, saying that it’s likely she will kill again.

ROAD

5:18 p.m. — Battery, 1300 block of TRAVIS BOULEVARD

6:07 p.m. — Battery, 1200 block of B GALE WILSON BOULEVARD

6:47 p.m. — Trespassing, 1300 block of TRAVIS BOULEVARD

6:59 p.m. — Vandalism, 1600 block of NORTH TEXAS STREET

7:48 p.m. — Trespassing, 2000 block of NORTH TEXAS STREET

9:01 p.m. — Shots fired, 2100 block of WOOLNER AVENUE

10:18 p.m. — Trespassing, 300 block of PITTMAN ROAD 10:22 p.m. — Vandalism, 2000 block of WALTERS ROAD 11:45 p.m. — Drunk driver, 300 block of EAST TABOR AVENUE

SuiSun City

THURSDAY, JULY 13

10:32 a.m. Indecent exposure, MAIN STREET/ SOLANO STREET

1:50 p.m. Reckless driver, HIGHWAY 12/WALTERS

Van Houten was released on parole earlier this week after serving 53 years for the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

According to Van Houten’s attorney, she exited the California Institution for Women in Corona, near Los Angeles, on Tuesday and has since been transported to a “transitional living facility.” She’s required to serve “a threeyear maximum parole term with a parole discharge review occurring after one year,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.

Sharon’s younger sister Debra Tate expressed concern over Van Houten’s release in an interview for Friday’s episode of ABC’s “Nightline,” marking her first comments on the matter since she was granted parole.

“Is she a nice girl? No. Is she an animal? I think she was then, and I fear

Killer

From Page One

that she still is,” she said.

Van Houten said she first met Manson in the 1960s as she traveled along the California coast. She was just 19 years old when she helped the infamous Manson Family kill Los Angeles grocer LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in August 1969. The slayings came just one day after other Manson followers – without Van Houten – killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others.

In 1971, Van Houten was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the deadly

LaBianca stabbings and conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of Tate, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent and Jay Sebring. She was sentenced to death for her crimes, but the sentence was commuted after a California Supreme Court decision briefly made capital punishment unconstitutional in the state.

“We’re talking about one of the most murderous cults in America. Is it worth giving that a free pass?” asked Debra, who has reportedly attended

the parole hearings of all the Manson Family members. “There are a lot of people that I would give a free pass, but these people are not amongst them.”

In an interview with TMZ, Tate noted the victims’ families are terrified and blasted Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office for not pushing harder to keep Van Houten behind bars. Newsom previously said he was “disappointed” by the Court of Appeal’s decision to release Van Houten.

He was a normal guy. His daughter worked in the office, she was there every day as a receptionist.”

From

what they do best and spotlight that.”

The group is mostly made up of people over 20. The age limit for joining is a bit soft, but members do have to be 18 or older, because sometimes they play at wineries. They must be legal age to get into some places, according to Anderson.

Most of the members are from San Jose and travel around playing together. During Covid everyone missed each other terribly, and the Zoom practices and events just were not the same.

“Once the ban lifted, we went to a picnic at the park and there were tears shed because of the joy at seeing one another again,” she said.

Emily Salazar is the mother of Tony Salazar, 40, who is the lead singer

From

year value, is down.

“There are currently 4,487 parcels on Proposition 8 status: 3,376 of those are residential properties, while 1,111 are non-residential parcels. The total number of parcels on Proposition 8 status peaked in 2012 at 78,000 parcels.

and plays the piano. She helps with the sales of hats and T-shirts for the band but is also a proud mother.

“This showcases the talents of people with special needs,” she said.

Before her son joined the band, he struggled with his weight and selfesteem, but after getting involved things really changed for him.

“His reading improved, along with his communication skills,” Salazar said. “His self-esteem went through the roof.”

Now he wants to keep the weight off for the “ladies,” she added. “He wants to look good.”

One of the things that she enjoys is watching the people get up and dance during a performance. They clap in time with the beat, and it is magical.

“I love for people to see in them what I see,” Salazar said. “It is priceless.”

For more information on the band, go to https:// thenewhopeband.com.

Solano County has 154,247 parcels countywide, spread between the seven cities and unincorporated county,” the statement said. Property details can be found at www.solano county.com/depts/ar. Property owners with questions about their assessment can contact the Assessor’s Division at 707-784-6210, or by email at assessor@ solanocounty.com.

Heuermann’s DNA was also found on a pizza crust pulled from the defendant’s garbage, and authorities linked the suspect to a hair found in a piece of burlapused to move the corpse of victim Megan Waterman, officials said.

A review of Heuermann’s online searches in the last 16 months revealed a terrifying litany of subjects, including the names of the four victims and the words “Long Island Serial Killer.”

“We had to treat him as a maniac,” said Harrison. “There are people who have a family, then go out and do all types of horrible things. That’s what serial killers do. They lead two lives.”

The hulking 59-yearold suspect was finally arrested on a Manhattan street this past Thursday for the killings of three suburban sex workers in 2009 and 2010, with authorities saying charges in a fourth murder were likely.

Their remains were all discovered in Gilgo Beach, Long Island, and Harrison would not rule out Heuermann as a suspect in the murders of another six women whose bodies were found in the remote stretch of the suburbs.

A high-ranking New York Police Department source said city detec-

Heat

From Page One

in a likely record-breaking heat wave.

The temperature in Phoenix was expected to hit 118 degrees on Saturday, making it the 16th consecutive day where residents experienced 110 degrees or more.

California could also set another record this weekend. According to the NWS, Furnace Creek in Death Valley could reach 131 degrees on Sunday – which would likely be the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth, according to some estimates. In Nevada, officials

tives will now investigate whether the accused multiple-murderer was connected with any unsolved homicides in the five boroughs. Police will specifically run his DNA for any potential matches, the source told the Daily News.

Harrison recounted his emotion-packed meeting with relatives of three victims before the arrest was announced on Friday.

“They were very, very grateful,” he said. “Tears in their eyes, very happy to have a sense of closure.”

A Bronx neighbor of victim Melissa Barthelemy recalled recognizing her face on television after the arrest, remembering how the young woman was often seen heading out for cigarettes or coffee in the mornings before her disappearance and death.

“I was so happy when I heard the news,” said Martha Lameda, 64, about the arrest. “I told my sisters, ‘Come on, breaking news, they got the guy

on Friday warned residents of “five days of extreme heat ahead,” with no significant cool down overnight.

“This heat wave is NOT typical desert heat due to its long duration, extreme daytime temperatures, and warm nights,” NWS Las Vegas said on social media. “Everyone needs to take this heat seriously, including those who live in the desert.”

Sin City could see three consecutive days with a high of at least 115 degrees and a low of 90 or more – something officials said has “only happened once before,” in 2005.

While the Southwest is dealing with possibly record-breaking high temperatures, dangerous conditions will continue

who killed the woman down the block.’ And everybody was like ‘Thank goodness, what a creep.’”

Court documents allege the accused killer made taunting calls to Barthelemy’s sister after the murder.

The case of the fourth victim, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, was pending, with criminal charges expected in her death, officials said. In three of the murders, Heuermann’s wife and children were out of state and he was left alone at home, officials said.

Stunned colleagues of Heuermann were still reeling from his arrest near his Midtown architecture office, with the suspect still behind bars for the three murders. The accused killer pleaded innocent Friday to all charges in the high-profile prosecution.

“I was throwing up all morning,” one longtime associate told the Daily News. “I can’t believe it.

The man said police grabbed his computer as they seized evidence from the office.

A former client of the architect recalled his first meeting 12 years ago with Heuermann, remembering the alleged predator as soft-spoken and professional, the kind of guy who might have one beer with his lunch.

“I’m thinking this is something I never had any idea about,” he said. “I’m in shock. I’m flipping out.”

Angie Teater, in a social media post, recalled the weird vibes when her design school class went to the defendant’s RH Architecture office in Manhattan for a discussion on career paths.

“Strange life twist: when a serial killer is arrested and you realize you’ve met him!!!” she wrote. “I remember thinking I’d never want to work for that guy – there was an ick factor – but in my wildest dreams wouldn’t have imagined him to be a serial killer.”

Another former client who hired Heuermann about seven years ago was aghast at his brush with the accused murderer.

“I can’t believe he’s done the crazy things he’s done,” said Jerome Lordet. ”I couldn’t believe it. That this guy was sitting at my dining room table, with my ex-wife and my kid. Who knows what could have happened?”

to persist in the central South region and in South Florida, the NWS warned in a Saturday morning bulletin.

“Daytime highs in the 90s to low 100s with oppressive humidity levels will allow heat indices to range frequently between 105-110 F each after-

noon,” officials said.

And the heat wave isn’t restricted to the U.S. As Southern Europe continues to experience extreme heat, 16 cities across Italy have been issued red alerts, with forecasters saying temperatures could climb as high as a record-breaking 120 degrees F.

Damian Dovargannes/AFP/Getty Images/TNS file (2002) Sheron Lawin, left, a member of the Board of Prison Terms commissioners, listens to Leslie Van Houten, right, after her parole was denied at the California Institution for Women in Corona, June 28, 2022.

Suspect identified, still at large in Georgia shooting that left 4 dead

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

ATLANTA — A suspect accused of fatally shooting four people in Henry County was identified Saturday, officials confirmed.

Authorities said Andre Longmore, 41, is considered armed and dangerous and should not be approached. Four warrants charging him with murder have been obtained, Henry County Sheriff Reginald Scandrett said during a press conference. A $10,000 reward is being offered by the sheriff’s office for any information leading to Longmore’s apprehension and prosecution.

The incident, which was described as an active-

shooting situation, took place at four different locations in the Dogwood Lakes area of Hampton at about 10:45 a.m. Three men and a woman were killed, Hampton police Chief James Turner confirmed. Police have not said what led up to the shootings and a motive remains unknown.

“This is a sad day in Hampton. It’s not normal for us. And as a community, we will grieve together. As a police department, we will do everything in our power to ensure that the person is brought to justice,” Turner added. A resident who was on lockdown at a nearby library told Channel

2 Action News that a woman ran into the building sometime in the morning saying she feared for her life.

“She ran to the back of the building and I’m assuming that someone here from the library called 911 for her,” she said, adding that by about 1:15 p.m., the lockdown was lifted.

Officials described Longmore as a man in his mid-50s, who is about 5-feet-10 and was wearing a dark red shirt. He was last seen in a black 2017 GMC Acadia with a tag number of DHF756.

The Hampton Police Department is leading the investigation with the assis-

Mega Millions jackpot grows to $640 million

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

tance of the county’s police department, sheriff’s office and homeland security, the GBI and several other local agencies.

“This is an all hands on deck movement to make sure that we place Mr. Andre Longmore in custody,” Scandrett said. “Wherever you are, we will hunt you down in any hole that you may be residing in and bring you to custody.”

Anyone who comes into contact with Longmore should call 911. Anyone with details into his whereabouts or the shooting is asked to contact Crime Stoppers Atlanta at 404577-8477, text information to 274637 or visit the Crime Stoppers website.

The Mega Millions top prize has now grown to an estimated $640 million after no player managed to match all six numbers in Friday night’s drawing.

The whopping jackpot, the seventh-largest in Mega Millions history, is the result of yet another winless drawing after nearly three months –or 25 drawings. The last time a ticket matched all six numbers was on April 18 in New York.

The numbers drawn late Friday night were 10, 24, 48, 51, 66, plus the gold Mega Ball 15. Four tickets matched all five white balls to win the second-tier prize. One ticket sold in South Carolina included the optional Megaplier, making it worth $2 million.

The current estimated prize of $640 is for those

who choose to be paid in an annuity over 29 years. However, players also have the option to receive the lump sum cash prize, which is estimated at $328 million.

Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has awarded four jackpots exceeding $1 billion: in 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

In January, a lucky player in Maine managed to beat the odds to win a whopping $1.35 billion.

However, the winner of the largest lottery prize in U.S. history was a Powerball player in California who won $2.04 billion in November 2022.

Mega Millions is played in 45 states, as well as the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets cost $2 and the odds of winning the grand prize are 1 in 302.6 million, according to the lottery.

From Page A5

appreciating what we have here and people don’t come out and visit, we will not have the valley anymore,” she said.

There are several farms people can visit this year, including Morningsun Herb Farm, which hosted Dolly Farm Vacaville; Soul Food Farms; PV Estate Vineyard; Menagerie Hill Ranch; and Brazelton Ranch. Each one of the venues have something unique and fun for the family to enjoy.

Rose Loveall-Sale, owner of Morningsun Herb Farm, is desperate for some tomatoes this year.

“There aren’t any tomatoes,” she exclaimed. “Usually we have over 20 varieties by now but this year we have, like, 12 varieties.”

Because of the late planting season, the plants

Fires

From Page A5

The Highland fire was first reported at 2:57 p.m., south of Beaumont. After mapping efforts, officials say it has burned 105 acres – less than half of what was originally estimated.

That fire, which was 50% contained as of Saturday morning, briefly forced evacuations along Breckenridge Avenue between Highland Springs Avenue and Sunningdale Street on Friday afternoon.

An evacuation warning was also in place for the area east of Highland Springs Avenue, south of Sun Lakes Boulevard and west of South Highland Home Road.

Authorities established a “care and reception center” for those displaced by the Highland fire at Nicolet Middle School, 101 E. Nicolet St. in Banning.

All warnings and orders issued for the Highland Fire were lifted by 9 p.m. Friday.

The cause of the three fires remained under investigation Saturday morning, authorities said. Officials did not yet have information on whether any buildings were damaged.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued a smoke advisory for western Riverside County due to the three wildfires.

The wildfires broke out during a heat wave that has caused triple-digit temperatures across much of inland Southern California, creating periods of critical fire weather, according to the National Weather Service.

Much of the state is under an excessive heat

just aren’t up yet. The rain was nice and the cooler weather welcome but it did pose a few problems for the local farmers.

of year the tomatoes are overflowing and she has a nice sampling for people to taste. The samples Sunday will be less plentiful but just as delicious.

The Yolo National

warning or heat advisory, which will continue in many regions through next week. Temperatures Saturday are expected to reach 106 and 108 degrees in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, respectively, while the Antelope Valley could see a high of 115.

Blistering triple-digit temperatures are forecast across the state. In Death Valley, temperatures are expected to hit nearly 130 degrees Saturday, approaching some of the Badwater Basin’s most extreme records, forecasters said. Palm Springs is expected to reach 120, Redding could rise to 113 and Fresno in California’s Central Valley should peak at 109.

“It’s going to get just

Guard came in the morning – the coolestsentation on succulents. Loveall-Sale also has several other vendors on the property for the event and will be hosting another presentation Sunday morning.

“I hope this weekend people get out and have a chance to experience the

very, very hot,” said Elizabeth Adams, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s San Diego office. She said multiple areas in Southern California, especially in the Coachella Valley, Inland Empire and San Diego County deserts, won’t see much cooling even in the evenings, with some overnight temperatures remaining in the 80s and 90s.

A ridge of high pressure centered over the Western U.S. is causing the hot weather, which began Wednesday in Southern California. The particularly stagnant warm air mass is now centered over California, Adams said, trapping heat near the surface – known as a “heat dome.”

valley,” she said. Kyla Gurreri, a native of North Carolina, and friend Amaya Norman of Indiana are stationed at Travis Air Force Base and were enjoying a day out of the house.

“I love plants,” Gurreri said. “I came by here before and bought, like, 30 plants.”

Her arms were also full of bread, and a couple of desserts.

“This reminds me a lot of home,” she said. “It is so nice.”

“I’m from a small town and this is pretty much just like home,” Norman said. They were headed up the road to see what else was available to try and looking forward to tasting the bread from Dolly Farm Vacaville.

Open Farm Days continues Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information and a map, go to https://pleasantsvalleyag ricultureassociation.com/ open-farm-days-2023.

WE SELL & INSTALL WATER

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic

Fresh honey is on display at the Dolly Farm Vacaville booth at Morningsun Herb Farm during Pleasant Valley Open Farm Days, Saturday.

Medi-Cal’s fragmented system can make moving a nightmare

Bernard J. Wolfson

KFF HEALTH NEWS

When Lloyd Tennison moved from Walnut Creek to Stockton last year, he assumed his coverage under Medi-Cal, California’s safety-net health insurance program, would be transferred seamlessly.

About three weeks before his May move, Tennison called the agency that administers Medi-Cal in Contra Costa County, where Walnut Creek is located, to inform them he’d be moving to San Joaquin County.

Little did he suspect his transfer would get tangled in red tape, disrupt his care, and saddle him with two bills totaling nearly $1,700 after he was removed from his old plan without notice before his new one in Stockton took effect.

Medi-Cal members who move counties are often bumped temporarily from managed care insurance plans into traditional Medi-Cal, also known as “fee for service,” in which the state pays providers directly for each service rendered. But managed care practitioners who don’t participate in traditional Medi-Cal have no way to get paid when they see such patients, and they sometimes bill them directly – even though that’s prohibited.

Medi-Cal is a statewide program, but it is administered by the counties, which have separate government bureaucracies and different approaches to care: Some have just one county-operated Medi-Cal plan. Others have only commercial health plans, which are paid by the state to manage the care of Medi-Cal patients. Many have one of each.

Traveling from Walnut Creek to Stockton takes a little more than an hour by car, but as far as Tennison is concerned, the two cities might as well be on opposite sides of the planet.

Tennison, 63, needed a smooth health care transition. With severe chronic pain in his back, shoulders, and neck, he requires regular physical therapy and monitoring by an orthopedist, as well as multiple pain medications. He also has carpal tunnel syndrome and Type 2 diabetes.

Because of miscom-

munication and confusion surrounding his move, several physical therapy appointments he’d made for June 2022 were can celed, and he had to wait nearly two months for new ones.

“To me the whole issue is the confusion,” Tenni son said. “Right hand and left hand, nobody talks to each other, and nobody talked to me.”

The first hint of trouble came when he called Contra Costa County Employment & Human Services in late April 2022 to report his upcoming move and was told the new county had to initiate the transfer – only to hear from a worker at San Joaquin’s Human Services Agency that it was the other way around.

They were both wrong: Medi-Cal members who move can inform either county.

Tennison persuaded a Medi-Cal worker in San Joaquin County to initiate the transfer. He also filed a notice of his move online, which Medi-Cal workers in Contra Costa processed and flagged for a June 2 transfer date, said Marla Stuart, director of the county’s Employment & Human Services Department.

They set that date, Stuart said, because they believed Tennison might have some medical appointments in May under his Contra Costa Anthem Blue Cross plan.

Medi-Cal workers in San Joaquin County, however, set a move date of May 5, which overrode

Contra Costa’s June 2 date and bumped Tennison from his Anthem plan for most of May, according to Stuart.

“If anybody had called me to verify any of this, I definitely would have told them May 5 was the wrong date,” said Tennison, who moved to Stockton on May 17.

“There were good intentions all around,” said Stuart. “It’s unfortunate what happened.”

Being cut from Anthem left Tennison with feefor-service Medi-Cal, a rapidly shrinking part of the program.

He discovered it only in mid-July, when he called the Office of the Ombudsmanfor managed

care Medi-Cal to complain about two bills he’d received – one for $886.92 from his orthopedic surgeon and another for $795 from his physical therapist. He had seen both providers in May, when he thought he was still covered by Anthem. But he wasn’t, and they billed him directly, despite signed agreements and a state law that prohibit billing patients for services covered by Medi-Cal.

The bills caught Tennison by surprise, because the ombudsman had told him in early June that he had still been on Anthem through May, he said.

“To me, that’s how insurance works: One insurance ends, the other begins,” he said.

When Medi-Cal patients are between health plans and temporarily in fee for service, it theoretically ensures they have ongoing access to health care. But in practice, that’s not always the case.

“Because the state is pushing most Medi-Cal members into managed care, fewer providers are accepting fee for service,” said Hillary Hansen, an attorney with Legal Services of Northern California who is handling Tennison’s case.

The prohibition against

billing Medi-Cal patients is spottily enforced, Hansen said. And although the patients are not legally required to pay, she said, their credit rating can suffer if they don’t. Michael Bowman, a spokesperson for Anthem, said the company regularly communicates with its providers to ensure compliance with the terms of their contracts and Medi-Cal rules.

Hansen is not confident Tennison’s bills will be paid anytime soon. After legal aid lawyers sent a letter to state officials about improper Medi-Cal billing, and later met with them about it, the officials instructed them to have their clients submit reimbursement claims.

But the reimbursement rules require that patients have already paid the bills, and Medi-Cal beneficiaries typically can’t afford that, Hansen said.

Tennison submitted his reimbursement form in May and is waiting to hear back. “Getting medical care should not be this difficult,” he said. “Here it is a year later, and I’m still trying to work this out.”

KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF – the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

Heidi de Marco/KFF Health News/TNS

When Lloyd Tennison moved from Walnut Creek to Stockton last year, he hoped for a seamless transfer of his Medi-Cal coverage from the old county to the new one. What he got was red tape that disrupted his care and bills for nearly $1,700 that he should not have received.

This week

THINGS TO DO

7 p.m. Friday Los Gents True Symmetry, 315 Marina Center. www.facebook.com/ truesymmetrybrewing.

9 a.m. Saturday Farmers Market Waterfront Lawn at Sheldon Plaza. https://business. fairfieldsuisunchamber.com.

6:30 p.m. Saturday Rock Candy Waterfront. www.suisun waterfront.com.

I Vacaville

9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday Open Farm Days 2023 Various locations. www. vacavillefarmers.com.

10 a.m. Wednesday Free movie Journey Downtown Theatre, 308 Main St. https:// events.journeydowntown venue.com.

5 p.m. Thursday Live music 11 Town Square Place. www. backdoorbistro.com/events.

6 p.m. Thursday

Singer-Songwriter competition

Journey Downtown @ The Library, 300 Main St. https://events.journey downtownvenue.com.

6 p.m. Friday Gethen Jenkins Journey Downtown, 308 Main St. https://events. journeydowntown venue.com.

6:30 p.m. Friday 23rd Annual CreekWalk series: Neverland Andrews Park, 614 E. Monte Vista Ave. www.ci.vacaville. ca.us/government/ parks-and-recreation/ special-events/creekwalk.

9 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Dueling Pianos Makse, 555 Main St. http:// duelingpianovacaville.com.

2:30 p.m. Saturday Richard Rico book launch Vacaville Museum, 213 Buck Ave. https://vacaville museum.org.

8 p.m. Saturday Zumba Parties Journey Downtown Theatre, 308 Main St. https:// events.journeydowntown venue.com.

I Benicia

2:30 p.m. Sunday

Jeff Tamlier and Darby

Gould The Rellik, 726 First St.  www.therelliktavern.com.

Preview

“Aladdin”

7:30 p.m. Aug. 2-5, Aug. 9-12

1 p.m. Aug. 3. Aug. 5-6, Aug. 9, Aug. 12-13 Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St, 8th St., San Francisco www.broadwaysf.com

Ifirst fell in love with Missouri Street Theatre’s production of the musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” when they originally staged it back in 2010. The quirky, partly improvisational show literally hit all the right notes for me.

It combines things this Scrabble/pop culture geek loves: unusual words and a story that sweetly echoes the themes present in one of my all-time favorite movies, “The Breakfast Club,” where a small band of young people find connections with others while struggling with their own foibles and fears.

“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” features six idiosyncratic adolescents in a spelling competition run by three rather quirky adults. An unusual feature of the play is

a my m aginniS-Honey AMAGINNIS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

Casey Ellis is one proud vocal coach. Her student, Senzel Ahmady, is starring as Jasmine in Disney’s Theatrical Productions “Aladdin,” arriving Aug. 2 at the Orpheum Theatre for a two-week run.

Ahmady is a 2020 graduate of Rodriguez High School who honed her musical theater skills with Ellis at the Young Artists Academy of Music in Vacaville. She also attended Nelda Munday and Green Valley Middle School.

Ellis said in an email that Ahmady was always eager to learn new things and had quite a stage presence in her youth.

There was a need for a beatboxer for the a cappella group. “She stepped right in and had a total hidden talent for vocal percussion,” Ellis wrote.

Ahmady had a natural talent. She also worked harder than many of her peers. “She was always involved in so many

things, and it felt like nothing ever suffered,” Ellis wrote.

“And she always had the best sense of fashion! If she complimented something I was wearing, I believed her.”

“Casey Ellis is a huge part of my music experience,”

Ahmady said in a phone interview from Canada. “I did not do drama. I did all my music at Young Artists Academy of Music. I went there from

second grade through my senior year. “

“Aladdin” was a childhood favorite for Ahmady, who has stepped away from her musical-theater studies at New York University to play Jasmine. “She was my favorite princess,” Ahmady said. “Jasmine was the only brown princess. I was automatically

See Aladdin, Page B3

THEATER Review

Missouri Street Theatre presents ‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’ 2 p.m. Sunday Downtown Theatre, 1035 Texas St., Fairfield www.downtowntheatre.com

HHH (OUT OF FOUR)

that three other contestants are chosen from the audience each night. It premiered on Broadway in 2005 and won Tony Awards for Best Book (Rachel Sheinkin) and Best Featured Actor (Dan Fogler).

After its 2010 run, MST performed the show as a onenight-only performance in 2013 and then brought it back for another full run in 2017. Over the years some things

have stayed the same like the venue, although it was still the Fairfield Center for Creative Arts in 2010. Another thing that has stayed the same is the person playing the Bee’s director, Rona Lisa Peretti. That would be Dae Spering, who also skillfully sewed the seams of the show together as the director. Spering as Peretti provided chuckilicious bio clips of the contestants whenever they came to the microphone. What made it even better was that when it was the guest spellers, she just made them up.

The only other returning cast member this time was David Aragon, who played Leaf Coneybear in the 2017 iteration. In the current production, he took on the role of Douglas Panch, the contest’s judge, who rings a small bell when

See Bee, Page B3

Deen van Meer © Disney photos

Senzel Ahmady as Jasmine and company in Disney’s “Aladdin.”

Senzel Ahmady as Jasmine and Adi Roy as Aladdin in “Aladdin.”

In brief

Enjoy free stagings of Shakespeare

WINTERS — The Winters Shakespeare Workshop will present “Twelfth Night” at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Winters City Park, Main Street at Railroad Avenue. Admission is free. Those attending are encouraged to bring a blanket or lawn chair.

The play features a shipwreck, separated twins, gender-bending disguises, mistaken identity, practical jokes and, of course, a happy ending –with a live band.

For information, visit wfol.org.

Peddlers Fair marking 60th anniversary

BENICIA — Mark your calendar for the 60th annual Benicia Peddlers Fair, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 12.

The event will feature more than 300 vendors offering a variety of antiques, collectable, art, food and drinks.

This outdoor event began in 1963 with a few collectible and antique stores displaying their items on tables outside St. Paul’s Church.

The fair spans the entire 11 blocks of First Street.

For more information, visit beniciapeddlers fair.org.

Vaca gallery gears up for Juried Art Show

VACAVILLE — Entries for the 42nd annual Vacaville Art Gallery Juried Art Show will be accepted between noon and 4 p.m. July 28-29 and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 30 at 718 E. Monte Vista Ave.

It’s open to everyone ages 16 and over. Ribbons and cash awards will be awarded.

The show opens Aug. 24.

A detailed prospectus can be viewed at www.vacavilleart gallery.org/s/stories/ call-for-artists-42ndjuried-art-show-2 or by emailing gallery@vaca villeartgallery.org.

From Page B1

2:30 p.m. Sunday Chris James and the Showdowns

Lucca Bar and Grill, 439 First St. www.luccabar.com.

7 p.m. Tuesday Open mic The Rellik, 726 First St. www. therelliktavern.com.

7 p.m. Wednesday Karaoke

The Rellik, 726 First St. www. therelliktavern.com.

6:30 p.m. Thursday Soulful Security Lucca Bar and Grill, 439 First St. www.luccabar.com.

7 p.m. Thursday

contestants misspelled a word. A veteran of numerous MST shows, Aragon brought his usual attention to comedic detail he honed in Solano County improvisational troupe the Rats in the Alley. Another Rats member, Derrick Karimian, played the role in 2010.

Jeffrie Givens played ex-convict Mitch Mahoney, who is performing community service with the bee and hands out juice boxes to students who are eliminated. Givens’ soulful voice was a most welcome addition to the role. The Sony Discman that Givens uses in the show is one that I let them borrow for the 2017 version. I didn’t get a credit in the program as a prop maestro, but I’m over it. Sorta.

Casey Ellis’s character Olive Ostrovsky is one of the ones that resonates with me that has “Breakfast Club” connections. Specifically, she was like an amalgam of Ally Sheedy’s character, whose parents ignore her, crossed with Molly Ringwald, who had a rich, hands-off mother. Ellis, also the show’s music director, of course brought the vocal goods

Aladdin

From Page B1

entranced with her.”

Ahmady saw herself in the character. Her father is from Afghanistan; her mother from the Philippines, where they met.

Being able to play Jasmine for young girls is a surreal experience, she said. “It’s so full-circle for me.”

She joined the cast in October. Her contract is up in October. Ahmady is still deciding on whether she will continue with the tour or return to college.

“I went without high hopes,” she said of the

DJ John Rok The Rellik, 726 First St. www. therelliktavern.com.

5 p.m. Friday Simply Wildz The Rellik, 726 First St. www. therelliktavern.com.

6:30 p.m. Friday Salvage Title Lucca Bar and Grill, 439 First St. www.luccabar.com.

8:30 p.m. Friday Unsolicited Advice The Rellik, 726 First St. www. therelliktavern.com.

1 p.m. Saturday Lisa Long Lucca Bar and Grill, 439 First St. www.luccabar.com.

5 p.m. Saturday Tune Riders The Rellik, 726 First St. www. therelliktavern.com.

and conveyed Olive’s inner turmoil beautifully.

By the way, it was great on opening night to run into Courtney McCallister in the lobby, who had played Olive in the previous versions.

I became a fan of Martin Lehman when he played the Elvis-like Pharaoh in MST’s production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” As the nerdy, awkward-yetconfident William Barfée (mispronounced to the character’s consternation as Barf-fee and not Bar-fay), who utilizes his “magic foot” to aid in his spelling, he displayed wonderful comic timing and a flawless sense of his character.

Macey Cook was 7 years old when MST first staged “Spelling Bee,” and she was already performing with their youth theater for a year then. Her role in the current production, politically conscious lisping Logainne Schwartzandgrubeniere, also specifically reminds me of a Breakfast Club character: Andrew Clark, the wrestler with an overbearing father who wants him to win at any cost. Schwartzandgrubeniere has double the trouble with her two gay dads. That is a lot to bring out in a character during a show and Cook was up to the task as she has been

audition. Ahmady had never been in a Broadway audition room. Then the call-back calls started, followed by an offer to play the female lead. “I was in New York, lugging my luggage to the laundromat,” she said. She began to cry and called her mother immediately. Her mom, Hazel Ahmady, was there on opening night in Schenectady, New York.

In few weeks, she’ll pick up her daughter at the airport and bring her home to start the San Francisco run. The next day, Senzel Ahmady will welcome some friends she hasn’t seen since graduation to a party at the family’s Green

6:30 p.m. Saturday Westerly Lucca Bar and Grill, 439 First St. www.luccabar.com.

9 p.m. Saturday Just Jeff The Rellik, 726 First St. www. therelliktavern.com.

I Vallejo

6:30 p.m. Wednesday Baxter Robinson Empress Lounge, 330 Virginia St. https://empresstheatre.org.

8 p.m. Friday and Saturday ‘On Golden Pond’ Bay Area Stage Theatre, 515 Broadway St. www.bayareastage. org.

1 p.m. Saturday Keith Washington Vino Godfather Winery, 1005 Walnut Ave. www.vinogodfather. com.

in numerous other MST productions.

Jayda Sorrell played overachieving Marcy Park who fittingly attends a Catholic school called “Our Lady of Intermittent Sorrows.” Outward confidence and bravado mask inner turmoil and Sorrell brought that out in her performance.

What a range Eduard Arakelyan has as an actor. I mean, the last time I saw him on stage it was as Lee Harvey Oswald in MST’s “Assassins” and in this show he is the comically weird and lovable Leaf Coneybear, who thinks he is not that smart but remarkably can spell words he doesn’t know when he enters into a trancelike state.

Jonathan Kalinen ably played past Bee champion and Boy Scout Chip Tolentino whose downfall occurred when adolescent hormones embarrassingly caused blood to go from his brain to a different part of his anatomy.

The talented and tasty onstage orchestra featured a couple of return players from 2017: Doug Knoll on drums and Renee Deeter on reeds, who were joined by Russell Fry on piano and Christina Hsia on cello.

I love the music and the cast absolutely crushed the tunes in the show. Some of the high-

Valley home. “I will bring friends from the cast to meet everyone,” she said. “They can see where my two worlds collide.”

When she returns home Ahmady sees lifelong friends, those she has known since kindergarten. She also carries fond memories of her teachers. “I felt very close to my teachers,” she said.

Ellis will be in the San Francisco audience to

lights were “My Favorite Moment of the Bee” by Spering, “Pandemonium” by the cast, “Magic Foot” by Lehman, “Prayer of the Comfort Counselor” by Givens, “My Unfortunate Erection (Chip’s Lament)” by Kalinen, “I Speak Six Languages” by Sorrell and others.

But what keeps me coming back each time MST stages this musical is the showstopper “The I Love You Song.” Spering, Ellis and Lehman delivered the soaring, goosefleshinducing interwoven harmonies that when coupled with the bouncy piano lines and the pullon-your heartstrings lyrics always make it a poignant and indelible high point of the show. It is especially so because of how it all relates to Olive’s life (which I won’t reveal here for those who haven’t seen the show).

The mark of a welldone production is one that I have seen several times before, and know the arc of the storyline and even individual jokes, and yet it still hits home every time because of the effort put in to make it all seem effortless.

Several familiar behind-the-scenes theater artisans left their fingerprints on the show, including but not limited to choreographer Kevin Gruwell, sound designer Mike Meszaros, lighting

watch her protege. Friends will also attend performances, Ahmady said.

Ahmady can’t share the Disney magic but invites all to “come watch the flying carpet. It flies about the stage,” she said.

Her father is Dr. Azim Ahmady, who works at Kaiser Permanente in Vacaville. Her younger sisters, Manizha and Jazmine Ahmady, are students at Rodriguez High.

designer Annie Morris, and costume designers Vanessa Kearns and Barbara McFadden. A special shout out to Meszaros for the preshow and intermission playlist that included songs like “Saturday Night” by the Bay City Rollers and “Lola” by The Kinks, which featured the artists spelling out words in the lyrics.

I end with two words of wisdom. The first is for audience members called to be guest spellers. As someone who has been one, just remember you are not the star. Just follow directions. If you attempt to upstage theater veterans, it will not end well.

The second word of wisdom is for Spering: please don’t make us wait six years for the next redo of the show.

Fairfield freelance humor columnist and accidental local historian Tony Wade writes two weekly columns: “The Last Laugh” on Mondays and “Back in the Day” on Fridays. Wade is also the author of The History Press books “Growing Up In Fairfield, California,” “Lost Restaurants of Fairfield, California,” the upcoming book “Armijo High School: Fairfield, California” and hosts the Channel 26 government access TV show “Local Legends.”

She will turn 21 in August. Eliza Hamilton is a dream role. Ahmady saw “Hamilton” at the Orpheum Theatre, where she will perform next month.

“Aladdin” is a show for all ages. “It’s great for kids, a date night or for people who don’t consider themselves theater people, It’s so nostalgic,” Ahmady said.

Our national birthday has come and gone, but freedom burns in the hearts of most Americans year round as their passion. The spirit of 1776 was a spirit of courage to stand for freedom of religion whatever the cost. The American Revolution was birthed out of the First Great Awakening led by an Anglican George Whitefield and Puritan Pastor Jonathan Edwards.

It is no wonder that the University of Houston discovered that 94% of the quotes by our founding fathers were Biblically grounded. Fifty-four of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Christians, and they were educated men that typically had great means.

Most revolutions are begun by those who have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The Founding Fathers on the other hand had everything to lose and nothing to gain … except freedom.

They, firmly relying on Divine Providence, pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. They sacrificed so much for the generations of Americans to come to be able to enjoy the great freedoms we have today.

We worship in freedom, we express our opinions in freedom, we can have the freedom to write the truth in the media, and we have the freedom to become whatever our purpose from God guides us to become.

Davidson

Truly we live in the land of the free and the brave. These Founding Fathers were not wild revolutionaries, dangerous pirates or out-of-control terrorists. These were of vision and mission that loved their God, their land, and the people that lived in that land.

The words of the great Winston Churchill can be applied to these early patriots, “Never in the field of human history have so many owed so much to so few.”

As we speed toward American’s 250th anniversary let us keep the spirit of ’76 alive in our hearts. Let us return to the Biblical values, courage and love for our fellow man that will lead us into the dawn of a new day of peace, love, justice and walking humbly with our God.

The Rev. Greg Davidson is pastor of Trinity Baptist Church and can be reached at gregmdphone@gmail.com.

Greg

Religious view

“The People of The United Methodist Church™”

The White House Historical Association courtesy image

painting of Benjamin Franklin in 1767.

The economic consequences of President Biden

There is an old Wall Street joke about a man who jumped off the Empire State Building. When asked at the 40th floor how things were going, he replied, “So far, so good.”

We have to wonder whether something similar might be said of President Joe Biden. At the start of his reelection campaign, Biden is claiming all sorts of economic benefits from Biden economics. However, he might find that those claims come back to bite him in the heat of next year’s presidential election when the chickens of his past excessive public spending policies come home to roost.

To be sure, through loosening the public purse strings, “Bidenomics” has helped deliver a strong labor market, a welcome recovery from the Covid recession and a much-needed increase in infrastructure spending. However, the big fly in the ointment is that these gains have come at a considerable cost to the country’s longer-run economic outlook. Under Biden’s watch, inflation reached a multi-decade high, the country’s public debt continued to soar, and there was a further erosion in the country’s external finances.

The major flaw in Bidenomics has been what President Bill Clinton’s former Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, has described as “the least responsible” budget policy in the past four decades. Specifically, in March 2021, when the economy was already well on its way to recovery, Biden chose to introduce a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. That came on top of the previous year’s $3 trillion bipartisan budget stimulus measures. This resulted in the U.S. economy receiving by far its largest peacetime budget stimulus on record, amounting to more than a staggering 20% of the country’s gross domestic product.

To say that Biden’s public spending spree has contributed to endangering the country’s long-term finances would be an understatement. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the country’s public debt to GDP ratio is projected to increase from a disturbingly high figure of close to 100% today to almost 120% by 2033.

Unsurprisingly, the excessive degree of budget pump priming, coupled with a Federal Reserve that kept monetary policy too tight for too long, has also led to economic overheating and a surge in headline inflation to 9.1% by June 2022. That, in turn, has forced the Fed to slam on the monetary policy brakes in a big way to regain inflation control.

Over the past year, the Fed has increased interest rates by 5 percentage points, the most rapid rate of interest rate hikes since the early 1980s. In addition, the Fed has shifted from a policy of increasing market liquidity by $120 billion a month through its bond-buying activity to one of withdrawing $95 billion a month in liquidity by not rolling over its maturing bonds. In the process, the Fed has allowed for the unusual occurrence of a contraction in the broad money supply, and it has contributed to a disappointing stock market performance.

If Milton Friedman is right that monetary policy operates with long and variable lags of between 12 and 18 months, the Fed’s recent policy tightening could spell real economic trouble for Biden’s reelection hopes. It could mean the U.S. economy will experience an economic recession just as the election campaign is in full swing. If that occurs, Biden will have to somehow explain how he was not responsible for multi-decade inflation, an economic recession, an unsustainable public debt and a poorly performing stock market under his watch.

If there is a silver lining in all of this for Biden, the economy is not the only issue on the American electorate’s mind, as last year’s midterm elections demonstrated. Next year, Biden will have to hope that he can once again use non-economic issues to divert the electorate’s attention away from the multi-decade high inflation and the high likelihood of a recession that will have occurred under his watch.

Desmond Lachman is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Vote for the safety of communities

In reading many social media sites (NextDoor, Facebook, etc.), it is unsettling to read about many of the shared concerns people have regarding public safety and their quality of life. Transients, drug abuse, mental illness, human trafficking, and the “dirty” look of our communities are some of the common themes that residents write about on social media.

Recently, our country celebrated Independence Day and, some days prior and after, people used illegal explosive devices that shattered the peace in many neighborhoods, panicked people who suffer from PTSD,

and caused animals to be unduly stressed. In one such situation in a California city, a police K-9 escaped a garage kennel and then busted through outside fence boards to flee from the sounds of the explosives. That K-9 was ultimately struck by a vehicle and stumbled into a vineyard and died. People who choose to use illegal explosives (aka fireworks) are not only committing a crime, they are also required to have pyrotechnic license from the state, and part of the licensing process is for Homeland Security to do a background check. I’ll leave this issue for another time.

So, how do we change the downward spiral of our communities?

The valid concerns shared by residents will continue to have a negative impact because voters are not

well informed. If people want healthier and safer communities, they must become informed as to how their vote literally impacts every concern they have. When people choose to vote for party preference instead of policy, that perspective will not result in positive change. When people do not vote, that is a problem as well. In California, we have a super majority, and that party is not passing legislation that will improve our state. The health and safety of our communities is dependent upon voters being well informed, and people are willing to offer voter information gatherings.

Change will not occur by posting concerns on social media sites.

Lisa Murphy Fairfield

China has itself to blame for warming NATO-Asia ties

Beijing has been on the diplomatic warpath against NATO, warning the transatlantic military alliance not to meddle in the Asia-Pacific region. But this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania showed that Asian countries are committed to deepening ties with NATO despite China’s threats of retaliation. If President Xi Jinping is searching for someone to blame, he ought to look in the mirror.

For months, senior Chinese officials have been ramping up their anti-NATO rhetoric. In a June speech at a major conference in Singapore, China’s defense minister Li Shangfu accused the United States of pushing for NATO-like structures in Asia “to hold countries in the region hostage and play up conflict and confrontation.” Former Chinese ambassador to Washington Cui Tiankai told the same audience, “We don’t need an Asian NATO. We don’t want to see expansion of NATO’s role in our region.”

According to Beijing’s logic, the Ukraine war is evidence that the European security architecture, of which NATO is a key part, has failed. The best course Europe can pursue for Asia is to “do nothing,” Cui said. At a different event this month, Cui said, “If NATO tries to expand into the Asia-Pacific, it might well signify its decline.”

The NATO summit offered a loud and clear rebuke of those words from (most) NATO members and several Indo-Pacific powers. China’s threats are in fact pushing Asian countries into NATO’s arms.

“What happens in the Indo-Pacific matters for Europe and what happens for Europe matters for the IndoPacific,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said when greeting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the summit.

Yoon said he wanted to “institutionalize the framework of our

cooperation with NATO.” The two established a new South Korea-NATO partnership to cooperate in 11 areas, including military connectivity, cyberdefense and nonproliferation. Yoon’s moves come as Beijing is amping up its economic coercion campaign against South Korea. This was the second time that Yoon and his counterparts from Japan, Australia and New Zealand attended the NATO summit - a grouping now referred to as the Asia Pacific Partners, or AP4, for short. Nobody is trying to create a copy of NATO in the Indo-Pacific, but Asian democracies are starting to join forces to resist Beijing’s aggression.

Meanwhile, China’s bullying and assertive “wolf warrior diplomacy” in Europe is spurring smaller, mostly Eastern European countries to push back by getting more involved in Asia. Ahead of the NATO summit, Lithuania issued its first “Indo-Pacific strategy.”

For the Lithuanians, China’s attempts this year to sink their economy (as punishment for deepening ties with Taiwan) were a wake-up call.

“Unsuccessful attempts by China to exert economic and diplomatic pressure on Lithuania proves that a country can withstand economic blackmail if it has built up societal resilience and has reliable partners,” the strategy states. “Lithuanian experience in its relations with China allows us to share lessons learned in resisting pressure with the countries in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.”

There are increasing signs that security ties between some Asian and European democracies are deepening. South Korea is not only quietly shipping munitions to Ukraine, it is now openly selling tanks to Poland. Meanwhile, European militaries are increasingly participating in military exercises in the Pacific. Democracies in both regions are also working to jointly reduce their dependence on

China for high technology goods and other key resources.

Of course, not all NATO countries are on the same page regarding China. Although the NATO Joint Communiqué contained strong language criticizing China’s policies and pledging robust cooperation with the assembled Asian-Pacific democracies, one previously expected plank was missing.

The French government blocked a long-discussed plan to open a NATO office in Tokyo. This comes soon after French President Emmanuel Macron was criticized for saying Europe has no interest in becoming “America’s followers” regarding the Taiwan issue. Macron’s argument is that Europe should not confront China over NATO or Taiwan while it’s still embroiled in the Ukraine crisis.

Perhaps the best rebuttal to that view was offered by President Biden, who drew a clear connection between the security of the two regions in his Wednesday speech. He noted that the Asian countries attending the NATO summit have been staunch supporters of Ukraine.

“We’re working to deepen connections between the Atlantic and Pacific democracies so they can better work together toward the shared values we all seek: strong alliances, versatile partnerships, common purpose, collective action to meet our shared challenges,” Biden said. “Will we turn back naked, unchecked aggression today to deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow?”

Beijing’s efforts to prevent Asian countries from getting closer to NATO and stop NATO from getting closer to Asia are backfiring. This is not a U.S.led plot to contain China. Asian and European countries are realizing they can only achieve security in their own region if they help defend each other.

Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of The Washington Post.

Foy McNaughton President / CEO

Publisher

Burt McNaughton Co-Publisher

Fairfield Expos split opening two Area 1 games

Daily

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Expos were off to a 1-1 start through Friday in the Area 1 American Legion Baseball Tournament at Laurel Creek Park.

The Expos were edged out 5-3 Friday night by Vallejo Post 550. Fairfield scored 10 runs late in the game Thursday night for a 13-8 win over the Chico Nuts in the tournament opener.

Summer Jam Classic delivers highly-competitive basketball

MMILLER@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

ROCKVILLE — Mike

McChristian has no desire to hang up his sneakers and quit playing basketball, even if his life has now shifted more to the coaching side of the game.

“If I was to put it in a nutshell, I still love the game,” said McChristian, the former Will C. Wood High School and Idaho star. “I still feel like I’m not that far off where I was at my high point. As a coach, I see the game now from a different perspective, but I’m definitely not that far off my best.”

McChristian and many

others were vying for the $15,000 top prize at the third annual Solano County Summer Jam Classic at Solano Community College Saturday.

The Feeva Family Foundation is hosting 10 teams for this year’s two-day event. It features an array of talent from former high schools standouts and former college players to some with a little pro experience. The tournament began Saturday and continues 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.

A championship game will tip off at 5 p.m. Sunday with other special events planned, along with vendors assembled just

Steph Curry hits jackpot in Tahoe with hole-in-one

a lex Simon

BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

It seemed like it would be hard for Steph Curry to top leading the annual Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament after the first day on Friday.

But on Saturday, he created an even greater highlight: a hole-in-one.

Playing at the American Century Championship, Curry one-bounced a shot in at the seventh hole at Edgewood Golf Course for what he said was his second-ever hole-in-one.

Curry celebrated the shot by throwing his hat off and running with his arms in the air all the way down the 152-yard hole to the pin. In a quick interview with NBC, an out-of-breath Curry made note that the run to the pin is “a lot longer than 90 feet” for a

basketball court. “I am so excited right now, that is crazy,” Curry said. “I’ll be out of breath for the rest of the day, but for good reason though.”

It’s the first-ever holein-one on the seventh hole in the 35-year history of the American Century Championship.

It also pushed Curry further into the lead at the Tahoe tournament. Using the modified Stableford scoring system, the eight-point hole-inone on the seventh hole gave Curry 43 total points through 25 holes, giving him a 10-point gap over the next-closest competitor (former Sharks captain Joe Pavelski).

Curry had a four-point lead after the first day of the three-day celebrity tournament thanks to a hot start – two birdies

outside the gymnasium.

McChristian had a solid career at Idaho that gave him some opportunities to play in Mexico and other locales. It also gave him an opportunity to try out for some NBA teams. But he’s now coaching locally and assembling his Summer Jam team for the tournament each year. He was recently named the new varsity boys basketball coach at Armijo.

“This is my big event of the year,” he said. “I play in the adult leagues but my time is limited. I play with a lot of the guys I grew up with and we’ve added a few along the way. I just want to con-

tinue challenging myself. Some of these teams play together all year. We have to find that chemistry in, like, 24 to 36 hours.”

Warren Verrett organizes the tournament. It came about when he posted a question on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic asking if there was only one high school team in Fairfield, who would be the all-time five. The debate soon began.

“Everyone started commenting that ‘I was this at Vanden’ and ‘I was this at Fairfield,’” Verrett said. “Then the question led to who can play now. That

Fairfield played late Saturday night against Yuba-Sutter. The top four teams compete in pool play Sunday with games at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The winners advance to Monday’s 6:30 p.m. championship game.

Check on the team’s Facebook page @Expos News for updates on the pool play participants.

Teagan Gonzalez pitched a strong first five innings Friday night, allowing only one hit and one earned run. Vallejo was then able to rally for the victory.

Connor Broschard had two hits, including a double and an RBI in the game. Drew Carrington, Cy Dempsay,

Blake Bozzini, Aaron Strong, Bryce Alcantara and Eli Blurton also had hits. Strong and Alcantara drove in runs.

Trailing 6-3 through four innings Thursday night, the Expos scored six times in the fifth, and four in the sixth to pull out the victory.

Carrington and Jace Parkinson had two hits apiece for Fairfield. Carrington drove in two runs and Parkinson knocked in two. Blurton doubled and drove in three runs. Alcantara had a hit and pushed across three runs. Strong had a double and an RBI. Broschard also singled.

Grant Genter, Matty Hague, Landon Dodge, Trevor Morse and Jackson Kolakoski all pitched for the Expos in the win over Chico.

In other games Friday, Yolo held off Humboldt 12-11, Petaluma defeated Napa 6-5 and Yuba-Sutter topped Chico 9-7. Thursday’s games had Napa over Yolo 7-3, Yuba-Sutter shutting out Vallejo 10-0 and Petaluma downing Humboldt 4-3 in extra innings.

The top two teams advance to the state finals next week at UCLA.

Tri-Valley All-Star 10s bounce back with big victory in Section 1 tourney

Daily Republic Staff DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — The Cordelia Tri-Valley AllStar 10s bounced back from an opening loss and fired on all cylinders in a 9-1 win over the Dixon All-Stars on Saturday morning in Lafayette in the Section 1 Little League Tournament.

Thursday against host team and lost 4-0.

Grant Collard pitched 4 1/3 strong innings for Tri-Valley and Kaleb Galvan worked in relief in the Lafayette game. Sebby Hernandez had Cordelia’s only hit and Carranza was the only other batter to reach base with a walk.

and an eagle on the first four holes – and dropping what he told reporters was “probably the best putt I’ve ever made in my life” for a birdie on the 12th hole.

Curry’s approach shot on the par-3 12th left him about 40 feet from the hole and up on a ridge. But the basketball sharpshooter displayed some finesse on the golf course, hitting his putt away from the hole and letting it ride the groove of the ridge straight into the cup.

On the Peacock broadcast, Curry was seen walking away from the

putt and didn’t even look as the ball went into the hole, displaying the same prescient sense that he so often shows on the basketball court.

But even that celebration didn’t come close to what Curry did on Saturday, waving his arms up and down to pump up the gallery.

While Curry didn’t match Friday’s scorching hot start on Saturday, getting a par on the first five holes, he got a birdie on the sixth hole, setting up the seventh hole’s special scene.

Tri-Valley collected 12 hits. Tyson Ramos and Rowan Knight had two hits apiece for Cordelia. The team played errorfree baseball with Lathan Carranza delivering on six chances. Knight also had three stolen bases as the team ran wild on the base paths with 19.

Elijah Kelly, Brenden Anderson, Ramos and Carranza all took turns on the mound. They combined to allow only six hits and one earned run.

Next up is a 11 a.m. rematch Sunday against Lafayette. Cordelia opened the tournament

Manager Caleb Carranza said Lafayette’s stellar defense made it difficult for his team to get anything going. Tri-Valley trailed 1-0 after three innings before Lafayette tacked on three more runs in the fourth.

Tri-Valley won the District 53 championship last weekend in Sonoma. The team features Anderson, Carranza, Collard, Landon Freeman, Galvan, Ryan Gassen, Felipe Hernandez, Gryffin Hokett, Major Keane, Kelly, Knight, Ramos and Cristian Saldivar.

Tyrone Ramos and Cristian Saldivar are Carranza’s coaches.

Giants scratch out two runs in eighth inning to sink Pirates

JeRRy mcDonalD

BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

Flailing away offensively into the eighth inning, the Giants broke up a pitcher’s duel courtesy of Michael Conforto and beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 3-1 Saturday at PNC Park.

The game was a 1-1 tie going into the eighth, with the lone runs coming on solo home runs by the Giants’ Mike Yasztrzemski, his 11th, in the top of the second inning, and the Pirates’ Henry Davis, his second, in the bottom of

the second inning.

It was the second straight win on a crucial 11-game road trip and improved the Giants’ record to 51-41 and 40-25 since May 1, with only the Atlanta Braves having a better record since the close of April.

Pittsburgh, which was as good early on as the Giants were bad, fell to 41-51. The Pirates started the season 20-8 but have since had a record of 21-43 and are 41-51.

The Giants scored twice in the eighth against reliev-

ers Carmon Mlodzinski and All-Star closer David Bednar for a 3-1 lead, with Conforto reaching Bednar for a run-scoring single and Joc Pederson racing home when Conforto got hung up between first and second base.

LaMonte Wade Jr. started the rally with a one-out walk against Mlodzinski, with Pederson pulling a single to right and prompting the Pirates to go to Bednar. Bednar struck out J.D. Davis before Conforto delivered. Conforto’s single to

right scored pinch runner Casey Schmitt, who was running for Wade. When the relay was bobbled as Conforto got hung up, Pederson kept coming and scored the second run.

The Giants struck out 15 times in all against Pittsburgh pitchers.

Taylor Rogers, Scott Alexander and finally Camilo Doval backed up Cobb with three scoreless innings, with Doval getting his 28th save and second in two nights. Rogers picked up the win, improving his record to 5-3. Mlodzinski

was the loser, falling to 1-2.

Cobb looked the part of an All-Star and gave up just the one run in six innings, giving up four hits. After a 17-pitch effort Tuesday night in the National League’s 3-2 win in Seattle, Cobb threw 94 pitches, 58 of them strikes, with two walks and five strikeouts.

The one run came on a no-doubt home run by Henry Davis, the Pirates’ former No. 1 overall pick who hit the first pitch of the inning 422 feet into the left field seats at a speed of

108.1 miles per hour.

It wasn’t always easy, especially when Cobb took a line drive off his shin off the bat of Bryan Reynolds that fortunately went directly to Wade at first for the final out of the inning.

After getting through the sixth, Cobb was getting congratulations from the dugout and gave way to Taylor Rogers in the seventh inning. Rogers pitched around a hit and a walk to pitch a scoreless inning. The series concludes at 9 a.m. Sunday.

Matt Miller/Daily Republic

The Solano County Summer Jam Classic began Saturday with 10 teams vying for the top prize of $15,000.

Isaiah Vazquez/Getty Images/TNS

Stephen Curry hits from the seventh tee on opening day of the American Century Championship at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Stateline, Nevada, Friday.

See Jam, Page B12

CALENDAR

Sunday’s TV sports

Baseball

MLB • San Francisco vs. Pittsburgh, Peacock (Live Streaming), 9 a.m.

• Minnesota vs. Oakland, NBCSCA, 1:07 p.m.

• Houston vs. L.A. Angels, ESPN, 4:10 p.m.

Basketball

NBA Summer League

• Teams TBA, ESPN, 1 p.m.

• Teams TBA, ESPN2, 3 p.m.

• Teams TBA, ESPN2, 5 p.m.

• Teams TBA, ESPN2, 7 p.m.

Golf

• PGA, Scottish Open, GOLF, 7 a.m.

• Champions, Kaulig Championship, GOLF, 9 a.m.

• PGA, Scottish Open, GOLF, 5, 13, 9 a.m.

• American Century Championship, 3, 11:30 a.m.

• LPGA, Dana Open, 5, 13, Noon.

• PGA, Barbasol Championship, GOLF, 1 p.m.

Motorsports

• NHRA, Mile-High Nationals, Qualifying, FS1, 7:30 a.m.

• Motocross, Spring Creek National, USA, 9 a.m.

• NASCAR Cup Series, Crayon 301, USA, 11:30 a.m.

• NHRA, Mile-High Nationals, 2, 40, 1 p.m.

Soccer CONCACAF

• Gold Cup, Final, 2, 40, 5 p.m.

Tennis

• Wimbledon Men’s Final, ESPN, 6 a.m.

• Wimbledon Women’s Doubles Final, ESPN, 9 a.m.

• Wimbledon, 7, 10, Noon.

It’s official: Messi ready to take US by storm with MLS’ Inter Miami

Michelle K aufM an MIAMI HERALD

MIAMI — The worstkept secret in the history of sports is out. Inter Miami on Saturday announced the signing of seven-time Ballon d’Or winner and World Cup Champion, Lionel Messi.

Despite the international hype surrounding his arrival in town last week, gigantic murals of him all over Miami, and a scheduled red-carpet “Unveil” welcome ceremony scheduled for Sunday night at DRV PNK Stadium, the 36-year-old Argentine superstar had not actually signed his contract until Saturday.

He will occupy a Designated Player slot, allowing the team to pay him above the salary cap charge, and his contract will run through the 2025 Major League Soccer season. His total compensation package will total $130 million to $150 million, which includes equity in the club

Unseeded Marketa Vondrousova wins Wimbledon women’s crown

Tribune conTenT agency

LONDON — Czech Marketa Vondrousova became the first unseeded woman in the Open Era to win the Wimbledon title when she stunned Ons Jabeur 6-4, 6-4 in Saturday’s final.

Vondrousova, 24 years old and ranked 42nd, fought from 4-2 down in the first set and 3-1 down in the second to capture her biggest career win in 1 hour, 20 minutes on second match point.

Victory with a volley winner at the net came four years after she lost the French Open final against Ash Barty, and after she had to undergo wrist surgery last year that made her miss many events, including Wimbledon. She had only survived the first round at the All England Club once in her previous four appearances but this time around she beat fourth seed Jessica Pegula from 4-1 down in the third set in the quarterfinals and reached the final by stopping high-flying Elina Svitolina.

“I had a cast this time last year, it’s amazing I can stand here and hold this. Tennis is crazy. The comebacks aren’t easy, you never know what to expect,” Vondrousova said.

Rybakina and the US Open final against Iga Swiatek. The Tunisian got her revenge against Rybakina in the quarterfinals and then stopped Aryna Sabalenka, but she again fell short of becoming the first female Grand Slam singles champion from the Arab world and Africa after piling up 31 unforced errors to Vondrousova’s 13.

“I think this is the most painful loss of my career. It will be tough day for me but I will not give up and come back stronger. We are going to make it one day, I promise you,” a tearful Jabeur said.

happy for you.”

Vondrousova returned the compliments: “Ons, congratulations, you are such an inspiration for all of us, I hope you’re going to win one day, you’re an amazing person.”

At first it didn’t seem that Vondrousova would make it three wins from as many meetings with Jabeur this year as the Tunisian started strongly and broke for a 2-0 lead.

Vondrousova kept up the momentum to break in the opening game of the second set. Jabeur, however, regained her composure and turned the deficit into a 3-1 lead with a double break.

But again it was only a brief lead as she tightened up again.

upon the completion of his playing days, according to a source close to the negotiations.

“I’m very excited to start this next step in my career with Inter Miami and in the United States,” said Messi, who is expected to make his debut Friday, July 21, against Mexican team Cruz Azul at DRV PNK Stadium in the opening match of the Leagues Cup tournament. “This is a fantastic opportunity and together we will continue to build this beautiful project. The idea is to work together to achieve the objectives we set, and I’m very eager to start helping here in my new home.”

Inter Miami managing owner Jorge Mas had made the acquisition of Messi a personal mission for the past few years, and talks got more serious after the 2022 World Cup, as the Argentine star contemplated the next chapter of his storied career.

Janric Classic Sudoku

Dist. by creators.com

World No. 6 Jabeur, meanwhile, found herself on the losing end of a Grand Slam final for the third time in 12 months, having lost the Wimbledon decider against Elena

But she also found kind words for Vondrousova, saying: “You are an amazing player and I know you had a lot of injuries, so I’m very

Vondrousova, however, fought back to tie at 2-2 after saving four break points. Jabeur went a break up a second time for 4-2 but again that didn’t give her confidence as she started to hit errors, which allowed Vondrousova to win the next four games and the set with a service winner.

Vondrousova tied at 3-3 and got the deciding break for 5-4 when Jabeur hit a forehand into the net. The Czech double faulted on first match point but victory was hers on the second. That set off a weekend of celebrations that also include her first wedding anniversary on Sunday. The men’s final will be contested Sunday on Centre Court between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.

By Zachary Schiff & Shannon Rapp

7/16/23

Fill in the blank cells using numbers 1 to 9. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and 3x3 block. Use logic and process of elimination to solve the puzzle. The difficulty level ranges from Bronze (easiest) to Silver to Gold (hardest).

© 2023 Janric Enterprises

Difficulty level: SILVER

Solution to 7/16/23:

Julian Finney/Getty Images/TNS

Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic lifts the Women’s Singles trophy after a 6-4, 6-4 win against Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur in the Wimbeldon finals at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London, Saturday.

See Messi, Page B12

FICTITIOUS

LOCATEDAT307ETaborAveApt3, Fairfield,CA94533Solano.Mailingaddress307ETaborAveApt3,Fairfield, CA94533.IS(ARE)HEREBYREGISTEREDBYTHEFOLLOWINGOWNER(S):FlyrouteLewisLLCCA.THIS BUSINESSISCONDUCTEDBY:

aLimitedLiabilityCompany Theregistrantcommencedtotransact businessunderthefictitiousbusiness nameornameslist edaboveon 07/11/2023. Ideclarethatallinformationinthisstatementistrueandcorrect(Aregistrantwho declaresastrueinformationwhichheor sheknowstobefalseisguiltyofacrime.)

/s/CalvinLewis

INACCORDANCEWITHSUBDIVISION (a)OFSECTION17920AFICTITIOUS NAMESTATEMENTGENERALLYEXPIRESATTHEENDOFFIVEYEARS

FROMTHEDATEONWHICHITWAS FILEDINTHEOFFICEOFTHECOUNTY

CLERK,EXCEPTASPROVIDEDIN SUBDIVISION(b)OFSECTION17920, WHEREITEXPIRES40DAYSAFTER

ANYCHANGEINTHEFACTSSET FORTHINTHESTATEMENTPURSUANTTOSECTION17913OTHERTHAN ACHANGEINTHERESIDENCEADDRESSOFAREGISTEREDOWNER. ANEWFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAME STATEMENTMUSTBEFILEDBEFORE THEEXPIRATIONJuly102028.

THEFILINGOFTHISSTATEMENT

DOESNOTOFITSELFAUTHORIZE THEUSEINTHISSTATEOFAFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAMEINVIOLATION OFTHERIGHTSOFANOTHERUNDER FEDERAL,STATEORCOMMONLAW (SEESECTION14411ETSEQ.,BUSINESSANDPROFESSIONSCODE). FiledintheOfficeoftheCountyClerkof SolanoCounty,StateofCaliforniaon: JUL112023

NewASSIGNEDFILENO.2023001078 CHARLESLOMELI,SolanoCountyClerk DR#00064707 Published:July16,23,30August6,2023

OPEN HOUSE

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT THE FOLLOWING PERSON (PERSONS) IS (ARE) DOING BUSINESS AS VALTER PLUMBING

LOCATEDAT1336JamboreeDrive,FairfieldCA94533Solano.Mailingaddress 1336JamboreeDrive,FairfieldCA94533. IS(ARE)HEREBYREGISTEREDBY THEFOLLOWINGOWNER(S):Williams Valera1336JamboreeDriveFairfield, 94533.THISBUSINESSISCONDUCTEDBY: anIndividual Theregistrantcommencedtotransact businessunderthefictitiousbusine ss nameornameslistedaboveonN/A. Ideclarethatallinformationinthisstatementistrueandcorrect(Aregistrantwho declaresastrueinformationwhichheor sheknowstobefalseisguiltyofacrime.) /s/WilliamsValera INACCORDANCEWITHSUBDIVISION (a)OFSECTION17920AFICTITIOUS NAMESTATEMENTGENERALLYEXPIRESATTHEENDOFFIVEYEARS FROMTHEDATEONWHICHITWAS FILEDINTHEOFFICEOFTHECOUNTY CLERK,EXCEPTASPROVIDEDIN SUBDIVISION(b)OFSECTION17920, WHEREITEXPIRES40DAYSAFTER ANYCHANGEINTHEFACTSSET FORTHINTHESTATEMENTPURSUANTTOSECTION17913OTHERTHAN ACHANGEINTHERESIDENCEADDRESSOFAREGISTEREDOWNER. ANEWFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAME STATEMENTMUSTBEFILEDBEFORE THEEXPIRATIONJuly092028. THEFILINGOFTHISSTATEMENT DOESNOTOFITSELFAUTHORIZE THEUSEINTHISSTATEOFAFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAMEINVIOLATION OFTHERIGHTSOFANOTHERUNDER FEDERAL,STATEORCOMMONLAW (SEESECTION14411ETSEQ.,BUSINESSANDPROFESSIONSCODE). FiledintheOfficeoftheCountyClerkof SolanoCounty,StateofCaliforniaon: JUL102023 NewASSIGNEDFILENO.2023001067 CHARLESLOMELI,SolanoCountyClerk DR#00064708 Published:July16,23,30August6,2023

CapricornCircleFairfield,CA94533.IS (ARE)HEREBYREGISTEREDBYTHE FOLLOWINGOWNER(S)Maija Nacionales711CapricornCirFairfield 94533.THISBUSINESSISCONDUCTEDBY: anIndividual Theregistrantcommencedtotransact businessunderthefictitiousbusiness nameornameslistedaboveonN/A. Ideclarethatallinformationinthisstatementistrueandcorrect(Aregistrantwho declaresastrueinformationwhichheor sheknowstobefalseisguiltyofacrime.) /s/MaijaNacionales INACCORDANCEWITHSUBDIVISION (a)OFSECTION17920AFICTITIOUS NAMESTATEMENTGENERALLYEXPIRESATTHEENDOFFIVEYEARS FROMTHEDATEONWHICHITWAS FILEDINTHEOFFICEOFTHECOUNTY CLERK,EXCEPTASPROVIDEDIN SUBDIVISION(b)OFSECTION17920, WHEREITEXPIRES40DAYSAFTER ANYCHANGEINTHEFACTSSET FORTHINTHESTATEMENTPURSUANTTOSECTION17913OTHERTHAN ACHANGEINTHERESIDENCEADDRESSOFAREGISTEREDOWNER. ANEWFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAME STATEMENTMUSTBEFILEDBEFORE THEEXPIRATIONJune222028. THEFILINGOFTHISSTATEMENT DOESNOTOFITSELFAUTHORIZE THEUSEINTHISSTATEOFAFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAMEINVIOLATION OFTHERIGHTSOFANOTHERUNDER FEDERAL,STATEORCOMMONLAW (SEESECTION14411ETSEQ.,BUSINESSANDPROFESSIONSCODE). FiledintheOfficeoftheCountyClerkof SolanoCounty,StateofCaliforniaon: JUN232023 NewASSIGNEDFILENO.2023001000 CHARLESLOMELI,SolanoCountyClerk DR#00064615 Published:July9,16,23,30,2023

OPEN HOUSE

TOALLINTERESTEDPERSONS: PetitionerHowardCurtisClarkfiledapetitionwiththiscourtforadecreechanging

namesasfollows:

PresentName: a. Howard Curtis Clark

ProposedName: a. Curtis Howard Clark THECOURTORDERSthatallpersonsinterestedinthismattershallappearbefore thiscourtatthehearingindicatedbelowto showcause,ifany,whythepetitionfor changeofnameshouldnotbegranted.

Anypersonobjectingtothename changesdescribedabovemustfileawrittenobjectionthatincludesthereasonsfor theobjectionatleasttwocourtdaysbeforethematterisscheduledtobeheard andmustappearatthehearingtoshow causewhythepetitionshouldnotbegranted.Ifnowrittenobjectionistimelyfiled, thecourtmaygrantthepetitionwithouta hearing.

CU23-01235

TOALLINTERESTEDPERSONS:

Petitioner:ErikShawnRogersfiledapetitionwiththiscourtforadecreechanging namesasfollows:

PresentName: a. Erik Shawn Rogers

ProposedName: a. Erik Sean Ellington THECOURTORDERSthatallpersonsinterestedinthismattershallappearbefore thiscourtatthehearingindicatedbelowto showcause,ifany,whythepetitionfor changeofnameshouldnotbegranted. Anypersonobjectingtothename changesdescribedabovemustfileawrittenobjectionthatincludesthereasonsfor theobjectionatleasttwocourtdaysbeforethematterisscheduledtobeheard andmustappearatthehearingtoshow causewhythepetitionshouldnotbegranted.Ifnowrittenobjectionistimelyfiled, thecourtmaygrantthepetitionwithouta hearing.

AcopyofthisOrdertoShowCausemust bepublishedatleastonceeachweekfor foursuccessiveweeksbeforethedateset forhearingonthepetitioninthefollowing newspaperofgeneralcirculation,printed inthiscounty:FairfieldDailyRepublic PleasefileProofofPublication5businessdaysinadvanceofhearingdate. (newspaperdoesnotfilew/court). /s/StephenGizzi JudgeoftheSuperiorCourt

OPEN HOUSE

Open House Sat 2-4PM & Sun 1-3PM 41 29 The Masters Drive, Fairfield Open House Saturday 12-2PM

3/2 w/newer carpet, new roof, updated furnace & a/c, tankless water heater, updated windows. Byard patio & double awning ready for the hot summer months! $495,000

Jotpal Kaur & Philip Williams

REALTOR® BRE#02149913 & Broker Associate BRE#00994642 (707) 724-4076 or 425-9800

OPEN HOUSE

Rare Paradise Valley 3/2 w/hardwood floors throughout. Large primary suite w/walk in organized closet. Indoor laundry area w/sink & office in the 3 car tandem garage. Private backyard, no rear neighbors, wisteria laced pergola, outdoor BBQ & fire pit. $694,000

Sheilah Tucker & Associate

REALTORS® DRE#01487823 (707) 631-2175

address of the court is: SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF Old Solano Courthouse 580 Texas Street Fairfield, CA 94533 AcopyofthisOrdertoShowCausemust bepublishedatleastonceeachweekfor foursuccessiveweeksbeforethedateset forhearingonthepetitioninthefollowing newspaperofgeneralcirculation,printed inthiscounty:DailyRepublic PleasefileProofofPublication5businessdaysinadvanceofhearingdate (newspaperdoesnotfilew/court).

Date:MAY18,2023 /s/E.BradleyNelson JudgeoftheSuperiorCourt FILED:MAY242023 DR#00064596 Published:July9,16,23,30,2023

Open House Saturday 12-2PM 346 Fruitvale Road, Vacaville

New on the market! Built in 2021. Plantation shutters & backyard hardscape. Over 2000sf w/4BR 3.5BA, upgraded quartz counters, backsplash & kitchen applncs. 1st floor BR w/ full bath+1/2 BA. Open concept design w/ entertaining space in back. $739,000

Robin Stucker & Associate

REALTOR® DRE#01347484 (707) 688-7966

Open House Sunday 11AM-1PM 2260 Dorset Lane, Fairfield

Presenting this beautiful home at The Cottages of Fairfield. This home still has that new home smell and is in immaculate condition with an open-concept floor plan. The kitchen features beautiful cabinets and accompanied with a generous granite island looking into the family room, perfect for entertaining. Upgraded stainless steel Whirlpool appliances with refrigerator included. Upstairs you will find a convenient laundry room and a huge loft to convert to your entertainment area. The spacious master bedroom features a walk-in closet. All of this Located just 15 minutes from the Travis Air Force Base. $605,000

Marc DeContreaus & Associate

REALTOR® DRE#01458110 (707) 486-7493

First Time Ever On The Market 2525 Mankas Corner Rd., Fairfield

A unique opportunity to own property in the highly desirable Ag. Tourism (ATC) centers within Suisun Valley, at Mankas Corner There are only 5 ATC locations and it’s very rare to see one for sale. The zoning allows for a wide variety of uses. Currently 100% leased this one-acre property has 3 successful businesses plus an apartment. Situated in a high traffic pattern area and along with many businesses having five-star ratings, attracts visitors from near and far. The Filling Station: A tasting room offering wine and beer made locally. In side space is approx. 300sf plus a covered patio seating area, an entertainment stage with additional seating, and room for a food truck. Suisun Valley Antiques/John’s Hauling is a family-owned and operated company. They feature an eclectic selection of goodies in their 2435sf space. This business has a fenced storage yard which has one permanent structure 30’x40’. Simply Savvy 1300sf is an interior design studio. The apartment is a 3bed/1bath dwelling approx 800sf + 2 assigned parking spaces. $2,800,000

Andi Bosco & Associate BROKER BRE#01223603 (707) 290-8792

Local scores

2: Liz Dykstra, 23

3: Suellen Johnston, 26

4: Diane Stephens, 28

5: Phyllis McFadden, 29 Fourth Flight: (23-25)

1: Pat Alvestad, 26

2: Barbara Rigdon, 28 3: Doris DeRosier, 30

4: Shirley Helmich, 33 Chip-Ins: Jodene Nolan, No. 13 Birdies: Nancy Schlesinger, No. 15 Barbara Rigdon, No. 15 Stella Gauden, No. 13

Nine Arounders

First Flight (13-15)

1: Genny Lopez, 53/38

2: Mona Begell, 56/43 second Flight (19-21)

1: Kim Wink, 57/37

2: Sandy Austin, 57/38

3: Laurie Milch, 60/40 third Flight (23-25)

1: Kitty Lockwood, 60/36

2: Cheri Lincoln, 69/44

Bocce

Fairfield Bocce Federation

Alex Morgan has grown into an American hero chasing history

K evin Baxter LOS ANGELES TIMES

SAN JOSE — It’s a scene repeated wherever Alex Morgan goes: tiny girls decked out, like her, in ponytails and a No. 13 national team jersey, and gathered in shrieking crowds in hopes of getting close to their favorite player. It’s difficult to say who gets more from the encounters – the player or her fans.

It happened last Sunday after the U.S. women’s soccer team closed preparation for this summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand with a 2-0 win over Wales. Morgan once again was among the last to leave the field, waiting until nearly every autograph had been signed and nearly every selfie had been snapped.

Morgan has long been more the leader of a rock band than a soccer team. Think Taylor Swift (her favorite artist) meets Christian Pulisic. But if she had a somewhat motherly vibe during the scene Sunday, that’s understandable. This World Cup, which kicks off for the Americans on July 22 against Vietnam, will be the fourth and likely last of Morgan’s career. If it ends with the team winning an unprecedented third consecutive title, she will join the debate over who is the most iconic and influential woman in U.S. Soccer history.

Last week she was named cocaptain of the U.S. team for a second consecutive World Cup, a nod to her leadership and maturity and the journey that has taken her from precocious AYSO player – whose first coach was her father – to twotime World Cup champion and one of the most recognized athletes in the world.

She was outspoken in the team’s campaigns for gender equality, suing FIFA over its use of artificial turf fields in the 2015 World Cup and serving as the lead plaintiff in the team’s lawsuit against its federation, one that led to a historic agreement between U.S. Soccer and the men’s and women’s teams to pay players equally.

Green Tree Niners

3: Nancy Schlesinger, 30

4: Berna LaPointe, 30

5: Julie Smith, 33

Third Flight: (19-22)

1: Jodene Nolan, 21

Messi

From Page B12

“I am honored to welcome Leo Messi and his family to their new home,” Mas said. “In 2018, we made a promise to build an ambitious club that would attract the world’s elite players. A club that would transform the global view of fútbol in the United States and ensure that wherever fútbol is discussed, your Inter Miami is part of the conversation.

A heartfelt thank you to our fans that never stopped believing. Together we will continue to turn dreams into reality.”

Co-owner David Beckham added:

“Ten years ago, when I started my journey to build a new team in Miami, I said that I dreamt of bringing the greatest players in the world to this amazing

Jam

From Page B12

first year we had a great turnout, with 12 teams and six of them from Fairfield. Everyone wanted to play. The rest is history.”

Team registration is $1,500, which includes jerseys. Full rosters must be submitted in advance with signed waivers. It’s a traditional five-on-five game and every team is

city. Players who shared the ambition I had when I joined LA Galaxy to help grow football in the USA and to build a legacy for the next generation in this country. Today that dream came true. I couldn’t be prouder that a player of Leo’s caliber is joining our club, but I am also delighted to welcome a good friend, an amazing person and his beautiful family to join our Inter Miami community. The next phase of our adventure starts here, and I can’t wait to see Leo take to the pitch.”

Messi’s list of personal accolades includes a record seven Ballon d’Or titles, three The Best FIFA Men’s Player awards and two FIFA World Cup Golden Balls – making him the only player to win the award twice. He has also claimed three UEFA Men’s Player of the Year Award.

guaranteed at least two games. During the early rounds, the Solano gymnasium is split into two courts with games running simultaneously. The tournament began at Allan Witt Park before finding a new home at Solano. “Guys have played everywhere,” Verrett said. “There should be some names you might recognize. You should see some exciting basketball this weekend.”

Where once she was U.S. Soccer’s “it girl” – a two-time finalist for world player of the year who was as likely to land on the cover of Sports Illustrated in a swimsuit

as in a soccer kit — Morgan, 34, has matured into a two-time selection for Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and a mentor for a team with 14 World Cup rookies.

“With Alex, you’ll get someone that shows up every day, that doesn’t cut corners and sits in the front of the classroom and is typically the last to leave practice. That’s a pro,” said Jill Ellis, who coached Morgan in the World Cup twice and then, as president of the

NWSL’s San Diego Wave, made her the foundation of the franchise by acquiring her. “She’s always looking at ways of ‘How can I improve?’ It’s pretty remarkable at this point in her career.”

Part of the reason for her latecareer renaissance is she no longer is playing for just herself. After the last World Cup, in which she scored a tournament-high six goals, Morgan took a year off to start a family, giving birth in May 2020 to daughter Charlie. When she came back, motherhood, along with the wisdom and experience that come with age, made Morgan a better player.

Last year she tallied the winning goal in the CONCACAF Olympic and World Cup qualifying tournament, in which she was named best player, and scored a careerhigh 15 goals for the Wave, the first expansion team to reach the NWSL playoffs.

She’s also become more appreciative off the pitch, as relatives helped support her and her daughter.

“It takes a village,” said Morgan’s husband, Servando Carrasco, a former Galaxy midfielder who retired after 10 seasons of professional soccer so his wife could continue playing. “Both [of our] parents made a huge sacrifice to help us out.”

After Charlie was born, Morgan’s parents quarantined for five days each, then flew to Florida to care for the baby as their daughter trained. Carrasco’s mother, Gloria, a two-time cancer survivor, moved to England while the coronavirus raged to care for her 5-month-old granddaughter after Morgan signed with Tottenham of the Women’s Super League. “The reason that I’m able to

do what I do and be who I am is because of my family,” Morgan said. “They’ve lifted me up, they’ve allowed me to chase my dreams. That’s allowed me, since having Charlie, to be more than happy and more than confident in what I have to bring, both on and off the soccer field.

“I try my hardest to be a good mom and I try my hardest to be a great soccer player. And if that’s good enough for me, that’s good enough for my family.”

Family always has nurtured Morgan’s goals, even when they seemed impossible. When she was 7, she left a Post-it note for her mom, telling her she would be a professional soccer player when she grew up.

Her parents responded by driving her to tournaments all over Southern California, never telling her there was no women’s professional league in the U.S.

“They supported my dream,” she said, “even though there was no pathway there.”

But thanks to her hard work and some lucky timing, a path did emerge, one that led to four World Cup appearances, two Olympic medals and an annual income Forbes estimated at $5.7 million in salary and endorsements last year, making her the best-paid women’s soccer player in the world.

“We were just thrilled she was possibly going to get a scholarship,” said Morgan’s father, Mike, who put three girls through college. “It was like, ‘Oh, my God, if she could get something like that, that would be such a plus.’ We weren’t even thinking about the national team.”

When a teen Morgan was being recruited to the University of California, she had a chance encounter that did little to change the course of her career but influenced how she and her father viewed it.

As a sweaty and exhausted Joy Fawcett, who also represented the U.S. four times in the World Cup, was coming off the field, Morgan asked for a picture, except the balky camera wouldn’t work and Morgan needed 10 tries to capture a usable photo.

“She was so patient,” Morgan said. “Those two minutes impacted me so much.”

Her father insisted she too had an obligation to give back, even if it didn’t come naturally.

“She’s grown into this role,” said Mike Morgan, 74, who owned a construction business before retiring in his late 60s. “At first, she was kind of annoyed by it and I would go to her and say, ‘You need to stay out on the field. At least you need to be the last one to go back in.’ And she kind of embraced it. I think she could see what it meant to the girls.”

Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images/TNS

Alex Morgan of the U sA Women’s National team looks on against the Wales National team in the first half of the send off Match at paypal park in san Jose, July 9.