San Joaquin County Resilience Digest

To cover a budget gap in Medi-Cal — which provides health insurance for roughly 15 million disabled and low-income Californians — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is borrowing $3.4 billion from the state’s general fund.

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said today he will grant State Farm’s request to raise home insurance premiums by 22% on average if the company agrees to certain conditions — and wins approval at a public rate hearing next month.

California is spending more than it expected on Medi-Cal and Republican lawmakers are pointing to coverage expansions that benefited immigrant households.

Read on for details about the $1.2 million fire engine being considered for the new fire station to be built in southwest Manteca.

The governor’s planned $20 billion tunnel to divert more water south and bypass the Delta would bring years of construction noise, pollution and traffic. Residents worry their rural farm towns will never be the same.

California Assembly Bill 247 would significantly raise the hourly wage of inmate firefighters. Read on to learn more.

Five years ago, as COVID-19 hit the state, legislators cancelled a hearing to discuss a state audit that found the state’s office of emergency services and at least three California counties weren’t prepared to help vulnerable people during natural disasters.

Read on to learn more about a recent workshop help by the Manteca City Council which considered the top priorities for the city fire department. (Rethinking the automatic aid with the Ripon Consolidated Fire District is one of them...)

The governor has proposed spending climate bond money dedicated to wildfire mitigation in various ways. Some lawmakers think a focused strategy would be more effective.

Ricardo Lara said he will look at information provided by State Farm before revisiting his previous decision to reject the company’s emergency rate hike.

Each year, legislation aimed at better wildfire mitigation fails – often due to cost or conflict with environmental regulations.

Read on for details about a joint meeting of the Manteca City Council and the Measure Q Oversight Committee is considered the use of sales tax revenue to increase fire department staffing.

THE RECENT SPREAD of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles has underscored the importance of Watch Duty, the wildfire mapping app that provides early warning of fires and tracks their spread. And it is also casting a spotlight on the work of two volunteers, Danilla Sands of Mendocino County and Sara Paul of Sonoma County, both of whom play critical roles in ensuring the app has the latest fire information.

Over the last year, the Ripon Consolidated Fire District responded to almost 2,400 calls, but 22% has to be serviced by outside agencies from Manteca and Escalon. Read on to learn more.

California has known for years that it must pay extra attention to people with disabilities and limited mobility during natural disasters. Will it put the lessones of the L.A. fires to use for the next emergency?

In the days and weeks following the January Los Angeles County wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his office moved quickly to manage the response and begin recovery efforts after the blazes were contained. Since then, the governor has been singularly focused on the region, describing his approach as “an extended period of engagement” with L.A. during a press conference in Altadena last week.

In the wake of the Los Angeles fires, State Farm asked for an “emergency” premium increase of 22% on average for California homeowners. Lara today denied the request pending more information.

Sen. Kelly Seyarto is the only former career firefighter currently serving in the Legislature. But as a Republican in a Democratic supermajority, he says it can be challenging to make progress on wildfire policy.

The South San Joaquin Irrigation District is partnering with the Oakdale Irrigation District on a $70 million project to protect water supplies from the Goodwin Dam. Read on to learn more.

State Farm, which already has rate increase requests pending, asked state officials to approve more insurance price increases.

Roughly a month after deadly wildfires erupted in Los Angeles County, killing at least 29 people, lawmakers in the state Senate have introduced a proposal to bolster Cal Fire staffing, and Gov. Gavin Newsom is meeting with President Donald Trump over disaster aid.

Following emergency roof repairs, the Louise Avenue fire station in Manteca is reopened and fully staffed.

For the past three years, more than 200,000 western monarch butterflies spent their winters along the California coast — huddling together in tall tree groves, finding respite from the wind from November to February.

The statewide count of overwintering monarch butterflies shows a sharp drop in number. Read on to learn more.

Insurance companies have paid out $4.2 billion in claims so far to survivors of the Los Angeles County fires, the state Insurance Department said Thursday.

In the wake of the fire earlier this month at Vistra Corporation’s Moss Landing Power Plant and Energy Storage Facility, the California Public Utilities Commission has proposed new standards for battery energy storage facilities.

Energy demands from big tech, including for AI, has elected officials giving an old power source a second look.

Damages in the ongoing Southern California wildfires are topping $250 billion, on track for the costliest disaster in US history. Read on to learn more.

With President Donald Trump bound for Los Angeles today and once again threatening to withhold wildfire aid to California unless the state abides by his water policies, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills Thursday to provide $2.5 billion in state funding for wildfire response and preparedness.

At the Pasadena City College disaster resource center, the long, methodical work of putting lives back together is underway.

Read on to learn more David Rudat, recently named as interim fire chief for the City of Manteca.

A look at how the rebuilding effort is going in the California town of Paradise, wiped out in a 2018 fire, and how it offers insights for the tough road ahead for residents in neighborhoods destroyed in the fires of Southern California.