1. Floyd Kephart, the private developer of the proposed Coliseum City project, is pushing for the City of Oakland and Alameda County to invest $100 million to $200 million in infrastructure improvements related to the development, the SF Business Times$ reports. The infrastructure upgrades would turn Coliseum City into a mass transit hub for BART, AC Transit, Amtrak, and the new Oakland Airport connector. Mayor Libby Schaaf has expressed an interest in spending some public funds on infrastructure related to the project, but it remains to be seen whether she will back Kephart’s proposal.
2. A state Senate committee green-lighted a bill that would end the personal belief exemption for vaccines in California, despite loud protests by members of the anti-vaxx movement, the Bay Area News Group$ reports. State Senator Loni Hancock of Berkeley changed her position on the bill after it was amended to allow anti-vaxxers to home-school their children together. Under the legislation, which was prompted by the recent measles outbreak, kids would be barred from attending public or private schools unless they’ve been vaccinated or have obtained a medical waiver.
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3. A federal investigator told Congress that the Oakland Veterans Affairs Office was not telling the truth when it claimed that it had cleaned up a huge backlog of claims, the Chron reports. The hearing was prompted by revelations from a whistleblower that the Oakland VA had stuffed thousands of veterans’ benefit claims into a file cabinet and had failed to process them.
4. San Francisco County sheriff’s jailers will be required to wear body cameras in the wake of a scandal in which deputies forced inmates to fight one another for sport, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi announced, according to the LA Times$.
5. And the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the felony conviction of former San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds, ruling that his rambling answers to questions from a grand jury about his steroid use were evasive, but not an obstruction of justice, the Mercury News$ reports.
