The new law is intended to ensure that seniors and other adults — in particular those who rely on cannabis for medicinal reasons — have access marijuana vaping products. Proposed by Supervisor Diane Burgis, the ordinance allows permitted cannabis retailers located in unincorporated areas to sell and deliver the products.

The ordinance passed 3-2 with supervisors Federal Glover and Candace Anderson voting no.

During the first reading of the ordinance on Dec. 6, Burgis said the motivation behind the revised ordinance was that the 2019 law hurt seniors and other adults who rely on cannabis vaping products for both recreational and medical reasons. In particular, it affected homebound seniors in unincorporated areas, she said.

“What we’re trying to do by having policies here in Contra Costa County is to give people a way to access safe products,” Burgis said.

At the December meeting, both Glover and Anderson voted against the ordinance, saying it would send mixed messages to the public and betray an effort led by Contra Costa youth who wanted the ban in the first place.

“We clearly took a leadership position back in 2019 when we had a number of our students throughout this county that came before us and asked for the leadership to put this ban in place,” Glover said. “And I’m not going to turn away from that. I think it’s important that that we listen to our youth when they cry out and ask for this help.”

Glover said there is no evidence “that vaping does not cause problems to individuals” and partially lifting the ban would send “false messages or confusing messages to our public that it’s OK to do this this while at the same time saying that we want to prevent it.”

On Tuesday, groups advocating for cannabis access told the Board of Supervisors that banning pot vape products has created an illicit black market for the product and disproportionately affected vulnerable populations who rely on cannabis primarily for medical reasons.

Renee Lee, a resident of the retirement community of Rossmoor who runs an organization with a mission to help seniors legally access and safety use cannabis, said the majority of medicinal cannabis users in the unincorporated community near Walnut Creek prefer vaping.

“I am so happy,” Lee said after Tuesday’s vote. “It’s like a big weight off my shoulders … (the ordinance) had been very unfair.”

Sarah Armstrong of American for Safe Access, the country’s largest and oldest advocacy organization for medical cannabis patients, said forcing people to travel medicinal marijuana “often stimulates a black market because they simply cannot go to the nearest dispensary if they don’t have one near them.”

Before the vote, Burgis emphasized that the ordinance makes no change to the current ban of tobacco and flavored tobacco vaping products; nor does it allow for new dispensaries in unincorporated areas.

“This does allow the sale of one particular set of cannabis products, which are already sold in many cities of Contra Costa County and are available to purchase in nearly every other part of the state that has approved cannabis retail sales,” she said.

In passing the ordinance, the board also directed Contra Costa Health Services to begin working on an awareness program about the dangers of youth cannabis vaping. Supervisor John Gioia said creation of such a program was a major factor in his decision to support the new legislation.

In a deal with Contra Costa prosecutors, Leonisha Chanae Robinson, 29, and Nephalem Dozier-Muhammad, 22, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and gun enhancements in the killing of 58-year-old Murray Edwards. They were formally sentenced to 27 years in state prison, and prosecutors dropped murder and conspiracy charges against them.

Edwards was shot and killed around 5:30 a.m. Nov. 20, 2019 outside a home in the 2600 block of 19th Street. The criminal complaint alleges that starting Robinson “conducted surveillance” in front of the San Pablo home and acquired a pistol with a laser sight. The morning of the shooting, Dozier-Muhammad picked Robinson up on Maine Street in Richmond, and the two drove to Edwards’ home to shoot Edwards.

Dozier-Muhammad is in North Kern State Prison in Delano, while Robinson is incarcerated in the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, records show.

The discovery of the boy’s body on Dec. 23 ended a daylong search for the child in a case that appears to have stretched across Northern California, from the streets of Oakland and San Pablo to Napa Valley. Police have since identified him as Jamari Madkins.

But nearly a week after the Oakland Police Department’s grisly find, authorities remained tight-lipped about the case — leaving unclear exactly where the boy lived, why his last moments alive were in Oakland or even how long he has been dead.

“This is a tragic case of a 2-year-old child,” said Oakland police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, adding that his officers were in contact with the boy’s family, specifically his grandmother. “This should not have happened. My heart goes out to the family. My heart goes out to the community.”

The investigation began when the San Pablo Police Department notified Oakland authorities just before 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 23 that a toddler had possibly been killed in Oakland.

Later that same day, investigators discovered the child’s body in Napa County, Armstrong said. The boy’s remains were found outside, though Armstrong gave no other details on where he was found.

It is unclear how long the child had been dead, however, “the child was exactly where we were told the child would be,” said Armstrong, without elaborating.

San Pablo police helped detain a person with “a close connection to the child” in relation with the case — though no murder or child abuse charges had been filed Thursday afternoon against that person in the child’s death, Armstrong said. He did not provide further specifics about the potential suspect.

Law enforcement sources, however, confirmed that the person detained was a 21-year-old Antioch man who acted as the pimp of the boy’s 17-year-old mother. He is being held on a felony human trafficking charge of coercing a minor to engage in commercial sex, along with the additional felony charges of pimping, and pandering, according to court documents obtained by this news organization.

The boy’s mother began dating the 21-year-old man in late September and soon began working as a prostitute for him in various cities across the region until just before Christmas, the court documents say. That included at least one stop near 19th Avenue and E. 15th Street, in Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood.

Police said the boy appears to have been killed somewhere along International Boulevard, not far from where his mother was being trafficked. No cause of death had been determined by Thursday afternoon, though an autopsy was planned, Armstrong said.

San Pablo police pulled the 21-year-old man and 17-year-old girl over in the early morning hours of Dec. 23, during which an officer realized that the teen — who lived in Fairfield — was the subject of a missing person’s report, the court documents said. Until that point, the man and the teen girl had been living in the man’s vehicle and at a Stockton motel.

The killing represents the 117th death investigated as a homicide by Oakland police in 2022. Since the boy’s body was discovered, three more people have been killed within the city.

Court records show that Kamaria Isis Davison Strange appeared Dec. 13 for a hearing setting in Department 9, where Judge Carlos R. Gutierrez scheduled it for 10 a.m. April 24 and 25 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.

Strange, who is represented by Deputy Public Defender Sara Johnson, pleaded not guilty during a brief, late-November court appearance last year in Gutierrez’s courtroom.

She was arrested Nov. 5 and booked into Solano County Jail on suspicion of killing a 19-year-old Benicia man in the 1000 block of Tyler Street. The Fairfield Police Department identified the victim as Michael Vincent Lopretta.

Fairfield Police Sgt. John Devine said at the time that dispatchers received a call at 12:19 p.m. Nov. 4 about “a man down on Tyler Street.”

Upon arrival, officers found Lopretta, who was not breathing, had blood coming from his mouth and had suffered a gunshot wound.

Strange remains in Solano County Jail without bail.

Detectives determined that the victim responded to a car-for-sale advertisement on a website, OfferUp, that turned into “a robbery gone wrong and the male was shot.”

Brian Isadore Jones, 38, was sentenced last month by U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar. He has spent the year since his arrest in custody and that time will be subtracted from his sentence.

Jones was formally charged with possessing ammunition, but he was arrested in Rodeo on Oct. 12, 2021 with three pistols, approximately 75 rounds of ammunition, a speed loader, 16 magazines, and numerous gun parts, including a switch designed to render guns fully automatic, according to authorities. The arrest was made amid a drug investigation by the Contra Costa Sheriff’s office.

Prosecutors wanted a 46-month prison sentence. Jones’ attorney, Adam Pennella, argued for 30 months, writing in a sentencing memo that Jones was illiterate and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from a wildly abusive and unstable upbringing.

“He has lived a life replete with abandonment, violence, abuse, addiction, and a wholesale lack of guidance and support,” Pennella wrote. “It is tragic, yet sadly unsurprising, that his first arrest occurred at age 8, and that he has spent much of his life in one custodial facility or another.”

In fact, Jones has survived numerous attempts on his life, including instances where loved ones were killed by bullets intended for him.

In 2004, Jones’ 20-year-old girlfriend was shot and killed on Richmond Parkway, allegedly by a person targeting Jones. Two years later, Jones was with a 17-year-old girlfriend who was shot and killed, again by someone who intended to shoot Jones, authorities said at the time.

In 2006, Jones — who goes by the nickname “Reaper,” according to police — was sentenced to 15 years for attempted murder, stemming from a gang-related shooting. He was paroled in December 2020 and equipped with an ankle monitor, and within weeks was arrested for driving in a vehicle containing four firearms with two other suspected North Richmond gang members. But charges were never filed, court records show.

Four months later, a warrant was issued after he allegedly cut the monitor off, authorities say.

In September 2021, Jones returned home from a haircut covered in blood, after surviving yet another shooting, according to police. Authorities say in that incident a 17-year-old girl was shot and wounded by assailants attempting to kill people inside a barber shop on the 4800 block of Valley View Road.

As if all that wasn’t enough, in the Fall of 2021 the FBI and Contra Costa District Attorney performed a wiretap investigation on gangs based in Central Richmond. During one recorded phone call, Jones’ name as a potential target for a shooting, according to investigators.

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After Schaaf, Oaklandneeds accountability

Bravo to Dan Borenstein’s column on outgoing Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. (“Libby Schaaf’s devastating eight-year fall from grace,” Page A12, Dec. 11)

Schaaf has left Oakland in a huge mess, and I am afraid the incoming mayor has to deal with it.

To date, 112 deaths, with more to come before we ring in the New Year, coupled with homelessness, drugs and a poor educational system. And Schaaf did nothing to speak of.

The city of Oakland should wake up and demand accountability from all elected officials before it’s too late.

Maryann SheridanWalnut Creek

Newsom, CPUC shouldresign over NEM change

Gavin Newsom must resign. The governor’s appointed commissioners destroyed our rooftop solar industry. On Dec. 15, the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) voted to slash grid payments by 75%.

How did this happen? PG&E paid Gov. Newsom hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds. In return, he let PG&E get away with murder, after the Paradise Fire. Now they’ve burned Californians again. Stifling rooftop solar will allow the criminal company to maintain an energy monopoly.

Gavin Newsom is the worst sort of politician, one who talks up his commitments, while selling out his constituents. In terms of corruption, I can’t imagine much worse than wrecking mom-and-pop businesses that were critical for saving us from apocalypse.

Not only should Gavin Newsom resign but also his cronies in the CPUC. If they had any decency, they would have before this vote.

Alan MarlingLivermore

Newsom must reverseCPUC solar decision

Webster’s Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” for 2022 is gaslighting. Gaslighting uses psychological manipulation to sow seeds of doubt in targeted individuals or groups. It makes them question their own memory, perception and reality.

PG&E and the California Public Utilities Commission are trying to gaslight Californians into believing that rooftop solar owners are not paying their fair share of maintaining the power grid.

Using accounting data provided by think tanks that they bankroll, utilities are sowing seeds of doubt in the public media to eliminate their only competition.

The CPUC voted to cut net energy metering, or NEM, utility payments to homeowners by 75% for their surplus energy. The demand for new solar installations will drop and destroy the California solar power industry.

Call Gov. Newsom and demand he take action to reverse this revised NEM charade, keep rooftop solar growing and save our planet from climate change.

Rene WiseFremont

Thiessen pedaling againin right-wing propaganda

Regarding Marc Thiessen’s op-ed “Where’s the outrage over Hunter Biden’s laptop abomination,” (Page A13, Dec. 11), and Thiessen’s statement that 84% of respondents to a poll consider the media a threat to democracy: Mr. Thiessen, you are the media.

And the reason many people do not trust the media is due to right-wing political hacks like you and many others, such as Fox News, Newsmax, right-wing talk radio, etc. The newspaper article he quotes about the FBI influencing Twitter is The New York Post, a far-right propaganda spewing joke of a newspaper.

I’ve read many op-eds written by Thiessen, and the one thing they all have in common is his disdain for the truth. Hunter Biden’s laptop has not proven anything. And Twitter does not have to release anything they do not want to release: a private company’s First Amendment rights.

Rocky FortSan Lorenzo

Celebrating Grinerrelease has risks

Re: “Celebrate deal that brought Griner home” (Page A6, Dec. 15), the writer argues that the trade of American basketball player Brittney Griner for Russian “Merchant of Death” Victor Bout was a deal that should be celebrated.

Getting any American back certainly feels good in the short run. But when any hostile country thinks it can get such a good deal out of the United States, they are encouraged to “arrest” more Brittney Griners.

Daniel MautheLivermore

Marlin Robinson, 28, was sentenced to five years and four months in state prison, after pleading no contest to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, committing a lewd act on a child, and distributing pornography to a minor. Charges of forcible rape and meeting a minor for lewd purposes were dismissed as part of the deal.

The deal was finalized in June, when Robinson was transferred to state prison, but hasn’t been previously reported. The case was last heard in the superior court system on Nov. 28, when a judge confirmed receipt of Robinson’s DNA as part of the plea deal, court records show.

Police say the 15-year-old girl reported that she met Robinson in Oakland, and that he invited her to make beats with her in Richmond. She told investigators that in January 2021 he picked up her and a younger relative, and drove them to a Richmond residence. She ended up in a backyard shed with Robinson, where she told police she agreed to have sex, but that he then ignored her when she told him to stop.

During a police interview, Robinson denied knowing the girl was 15, and said a conversation where he allegedly said, “I’ll take you both naked,” referring to the girl and her 13-year-old relative, had been taken out of context.

The charges were filed in April 2021, so Robinson gets credit for time served in the county jail, before the plea deal was finalized. He is eligible for parole in 2024, according to prison records.

The agreement was part of the consent calendar that the Board of Supervisors approved 5-0 on Nov. 29. The sheriff’s office is believed to be the final agency in Contra Costa County to acquire and use body-worn cameras.

Other agencies that have contracted out with the sheriff’s office already use the technology. Body cams helped lead to the assault conviction of Andrew Hall, a Danville police deputy, for the 2018 on-duty fatal shooting of Fremont resident Laudemer Arboleda.

The contract runs over 10 years and will cost the county $12.5 million overall, with an annual bill of about $1.2 million. The county will be purchasing the cameras from Axon Enterprise, Inc., an Arizona-based company that develops technology and weapons products for military and law enforcement and whose equipment is already used by several Bay Area police agencies.

Sheriff’s office spokesman Jimmy Lee declined to comment.

According to the Board of Supervisors, the sheriff’s office will save $5 million by entering into a decade-long agreement. The annual payment through June 30, 2024, will come through allocations of Measure X, according to the agreement.

How the rest of the annual payments will be made will be determined at a later date. The sheriff’s office will continue to request the funding through Measure X, according to the Board of Supervisors. Measure X is a half-cent sales tax voters approved in November 2020 that among other things can be used for emergency response.

“I am so attached to this house — that’s the reason I’m still here,” Ritchie said. “I don’t want to leave it.”

The house, in the Fremont Terrace neighborhood of San Leandro, has been her home for 75 years. But Ritchie isn’t shy about admitting that her advanced years have added difficulties to still be able to stay there. She stopped driving around 2010 and she hasn’t been able to cook for about five years.

It was then that Service Opportunities for Seniors Meals on Wheels (SOSMOW) stepped in.

“I don’t know what I’d do without Meals on Wheels,” Ritchie said.

Service Opportunities for Seniors Meals on Wheels started in 1966 in Hayward and has expanded north over the years to serve San Lorenzo, Castro Valley, San Leandro and Oakland. Whatever the place, the objective remains the same.

“The overarching mission is to keep people in the homes that they enjoy for as long and as safely as possible,” said Dan Ashbrook, the nonprofit’s development director.

It was in 1947, two years after World War II, that Ritchie found her dream house. It was just a plot of land then, the only three-bedroom in the neighborhood. Wheeling and dealing with both the developer and the homebuilder, she bought the whole works… for $9,500.

Then she went to the lot and stood in what would be her living room for the next 75 years and counting. She has added to the initial structure, but that space remains the same.

“My whole life is this house. It means so much to me,” Ritchie said. “Everything in this house is my creation, and I’m very proud of it.”

Ritchie said she gets around 15 meals a month from Meals on Wheels, all delivered directly to her door. But since the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for meal deliveries to fellow seniors has exploded, and the organization has struggled to keep up.

Ashbrook remembers being warned on Friday, March 13, 2020, about the lockdown that was about to come — and the added reliance so many would have on SOSMOW.

“That next week, our phone lines doubled,” Ashbrook said. “The phone lines just went off the hook.”

The nonprofit organization served more than 550,000 meals last year, up from 350,000 meals two years ago — its client list growing from just under 2,000 to more than 3,000. At the same time, the organization is dealing with the staffing and supply-chain problems so many other businesses are facing.

There have even been days when some orders cannot be filled. Ashbook said those are the worst calls he and his staff have to make,

Ritchie used to take her kids to the Fairmont Terrace Park just down the street from her home and loved it so much that, when the park underwent a significant renovation, she donated enough to have a plaque placed on a bench.

Ritchie knows she’s getting up there in years, so she was grateful for the chance to be a part of this brand-new park and participate in the ribbon-cutting ceremony when the park reopened recently.

“I want to leave a legacy,” Ritchie said. “I don’t want to be gone. I want someone to remember me.”

On the plaque she donated are the words: “Linger awhile with me; through your thoughts, I will be.”

Share the Spirit

The Share the Spirit holiday campaign, sponsored by the Bay Area News Group, provides relief, hope and opportunities for East Bay residents by helping raise money for nonprofit programs in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

How to help

Donations will help SOS Meals on Wheels pay for special meals for Thanksgiving, Christmas and other cultural holiday celebrations, and also help the nonprofit continue to connect with members of their community and help the seniors keep connected. Goal: $15,500

How to give

Go to www.sharethespiriteastbay.org/donate or print and mail in the coupon.

But the Rev. Elwood Geary’s name wasn’t on any list. Neither was the Rev. Robert Gemmet’s.

The pair of now-deceased priests, who ministered in the South Bay a half-century ago, are now accused of horrific acts in separate lawsuits made possible under a state law that opened a three-year window for abuse claims long after the statute of limitations for such crimes expired. Geary and Gemmet are just two of at least 14 clergy in Northern California – 10 in the Bay Area – who this past week were linked for the first time to the church abuse scandal.

Why they weren’t named before, abuse victims and their advocates say, stems from a shell game church leaders have played with disgraced priests. Dioceses in San Jose, Oakland and Santa Rosa — which Friday announced plans to file for bankruptcy over abuse claims — have identified their own abusive clergy. But their lists may omit offenders from back when those parishes were under the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

And San Francisco still hasn’t released its own list of tarnished priests. Instead, the archdiocese there, headed by the controversial Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, lists only clergy in “good standing.”

“The purpose of these lists is in part to be as transparent as possible in outreach to survivors of those priests,” said Dan McNevin, who received a settlement for abuse by a Fremont priest when he was an altar boy and now is a leader of SNAP, the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests. “In all of this, there is a deeply disappointing lack of empathy toward survivors and a horrendous lack of accountability.”

The San Francisco Archdiocese, which currently oversees parishes in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties, had said when other Bay Area bishops released their accused clergy lists that it hadn’t made a decision about doing so. But it ultimately decided to do the opposite, creating a list of current priests and deacons “who have faculties to minister here in the Archdiocese.”

“Those with questions about a priest or deacon can refer to this list,” the Archdiocese said in a statement. “The Archdiocese addresses allegations related to lawsuits through appropriate legal channels.”

It added that “any priest under investigation is prohibited from exercising public ministry in accordance with canon law” as well as policies of the Archdiocese and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

SNAP in September called out Archbishop Cordileone for not releasing a list of credibly accused priests in the Archdiocese, which most U.S. Catholic dioceses and institutions have done, it said. SNAP said its research identified 312 accused priests with ties to the Archdiocese, 229 of whom ministered within its current bounds, and that they believe there are others still unknown.

San Francisco’s and San Jose’s opposite approaches partly explain why Geary and Gemmet had yet to be exposed. The two were linked to South Bay churches that were under the Archdiocese of San Francisco years before the Diocese of San Jose was established in 1981.

Church officials say that timing is why the pair weren’t among San Jose’s updated 2018 list of more than 80 clergy found credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

Cynthia Shaw, spokeswoman for the Diocese of San Jose, said Geary was the founding pastor of Queen of Apostles Parish in San Jose from 1960-1979, and Gemmet ministered at St. Christopher in San Jose and St. Mary in Gilroy in the 1960s and 1970s.

Because both priests “stayed with the Archdiocese when the Diocese of San Jose was formed, the Diocese of San Jose has no personnel files for those men,” Shaw said.

Shaw said that the Diocese of San Jose “stands in solidarity” with abuse victims, offering support to them and their families. It hopes those who have come forward “can begin a process of healing.”

“Every accusation of sexual abuse is significant,” Shaw said, “and one instance of abuse is one too many.”

The Diocese of San Jose said it lists as credible allegations those that are confirmed by the clerics, their religious order or diocese or civil authorities. It also lists those deemed credible by its Independent Review Board and Sensitive Incident Team based on “pertinent and affirming details that would support an allegation against a diocesan clergy within plausible and reasonable means.” The diocese said it “will apply the same methodology to new cases upon their determination.”

The Catholic Church in the U.S. has made significant progress confronting the priest sex abuse scandal that surfaced through lawsuits, police investigations and news reports from the 1980s to early 2000s, adopting a zero-tolerance policy toward abusers known as the Dallas Charter two decades ago.

But it has been dogged for years by criticism from abuse victims that it hasn’t been fully forthcoming. Victim advocates said they were already aware of eleven of the 14 priests named in recent lawsuits, even though the church had not acknowledged them.

McNevin said the San Jose diocese is “hairsplitting when it leaves out names because of an excuse like ‘it was San Francisco then.’”

“This is a classic shuffle,” McNevin said.

A public records database indicates Geary died at age 63 in 1981 in Alameda. In one of the lawsuits, filed in December 2020, a 65-year-old man alleges Geary sexually assaulted him in 1968 when he was 11 years old and a parishioner at Our Lady Queen of Apostles Church in San Jose. The suit accused Geary of “repeatedly touching and fondling” the boy’s “genitals and forcibly performing oral sex on the child.”

According to the San Mateo Times, Gemmet was ordained in 1964 and appointed to St. Timothy Catholic Church in San Mateo. While in the seminary in Menlo Park, he worked with children at day camps in San Francisco and Redwood City and before that taught catechism to kids at St. Simon parish in Los Altos. A public records database indicated he died at age 46 in 1985.

A March 2020 lawsuit brought by another 65-year-old alleges Gemmet began “grooming” him for sexual abuse when he was a 10-year-old altar boy in 1967 at St. Christopher, leading him to believe that the “training process necessarily involved being repeatedly inappropriately sexually touched and violated.” The lawsuit alleged Gemmet threatened that “God would kill” the boy and that he “would have to watch his parents and siblings die, if he told anyone about Gemmet’s inappropriate sexual touching.”

The Diocese of Oakland, established in 1962 and including parishes in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, said it needs time to research allegations against the priests and religious sister newly linked to abuse claims within its bounds. They include John Francis Scanlon in Oakland, Domingos S. Jacques in San Pablo, Benedict Reams in Moraga and Sister M. Rosella McConnell in Berkeley. They were not among the more than 60 clergy the diocese identified as credibly accused in February 2019.

Separately, the California Attorney General has been investigating the handling of priest abuse by the state’s Catholic dioceses, similar to a Pennsylvania attorney general probe that led to devastating 2018 grand jury findings of widespread abuse and coverups. What that may reveal is still unclear.

But Jennifer Stein, a lawyer with Jeff Anderson and Associates, a law firm handling many AB 218 cases, said the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s decision to list only priests in good standing “seems to be an intentional effort to hide knowledge of offenders.”

San Francisco’s Cordileone said in a 2018 letter to parishioners that he had hired outside consultants to review personnel files of some 4,000 clergy dating to 1950, exploring allegations received and how they were handled. He said that would take time but he would report results to the Archdiocese. So far, no report has been forthcoming.

“While I find encouragement in the progress our own church has made,” Cordileone wrote then, “there is still more to be done.”