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VACAVILLE
Trustees to hear updates on growth, school facilities costs that near $600M Susan Hiland
SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
VACAVILLE — The school board will take a look Thursday at future school site projects that come with an estimated cost of nearly $600 million. The chief facilities, maintenance and operations officer, Daniel Banowetz, will present the final draft of the district’s five-year Master Facilities Plan – a program of work that includes an educated wish list of sorts for future projects. Vacaville-area voters passed Measure A in 2014, a $194 million general obligation bond, to pay for technology upgrades, facility renovations and new construction within the Vacaville School District. The district in 2016 embarked on a process for continued its evaluation of the needs in all of its facilities. This evaluation included both infrastructure needs as well as operational and educational needs. The effort was intended to both inform the Measure A program on continuing and changing needs as well as address other potentially unmet needs, according to a staff report. The district did what it describes as a comprehensive facilities assessment report that covered every school. Several projects were completed and now the district is at the end of the Measure A bond program and is looking at the list of proposed final projects. Vacaville School District operates nine elementary schools, one K-8 school, two middle schools and three comprehensive high school, plus some independent learning sites. District officials, while looking to wind down See School, Page A8
Ben Gray/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS
President Joe Biden speaks about voting rights at Clark Atlanta University, Tuesday.
President Biden urges filibuster changes to protect voting rights Tribune Content Agency WASHINGTON — President Biden, in a fiery speech Tuesday in Atlanta, called for changing Senate rules in order to pass voting rights protections, going further than he has before in an effort to unify Senate Democrats around what he framed as an existential issue for the country. Biden, whose support for the legislative filibuster has softened in recent months, endorsed changing the rule that allows the minority party to block any bill that doesn’t receive 60 votes. Lamenting that the Senate where he served 36 years “has been rendered a shell of its former self,” Biden said that if Republicans continue to block debate on two voting rights bills, “we have no option but to change the Senate rules . . . whichever way they need to be changed.” Decrying a spate of new restrictive voting laws Republicans enacted last year in 19 states, including Georgia, Biden blasted Republicans See Biden, Page A8
Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic file (2021)
Solano County Supervisor Erin Hannigan speaks while debating mandated vaccines and masks for Solano County
Sheriff’s Office closes lobbies to slow Covid-19 spread SEIU calls for more telework
Todd R. Hansen
THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
FAIRFIELD — The Solano County Sheriff’s Office lobbies will be closed starting Wednesday, and the libraries have suspended all indoor programs, the county announced in a statement. “Effective Jan. 12, the Solano County Sheriff’s Office is closing all lobbies and limiting public access until Feb. 15 to help reduce the spread of Covid-19,” the statement released Tuesday by the County Administrator’s Office said. Deputy Rex Hawkins, the public information officer for the Sheriff’s Office, said the step is pre-emp-
INSIDE Number of Solano residents in hospitals with Covid-19 skyrockets. Page A3.
tive and that the department has not experienced an outbreak that has limited staffing or created other issues. The public is encouraged to visit the Sheriff’s Office website at www.SolanoCounty.com/Sheriff and call 707-784-7000 for more information, including a directory of services provided by the sheriff, the statement said. During the Board of Supervisors
meeting Tuesday, Joanne Godreau, representing Service Employees International Union Local 1021, called on the board to allow employees to work from home, saying there have been a number of outbreaks in various county buildings and the county is putting those workers at risk. Dr. Bela Matyas, the public health officer, said there are a number of “clusters” that have popped up in the county offices, and by the state definition, are considered outbreaks. However, in Public Health, he said, since the cases are not linked by transmission, they are See Spread, Page A8
Supes support $30K campaign contribution limit for elections Vasquez to seek 6th term; Spering will not run, again Todd R. Hansen
THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
FAIRFIELD — Solano County supervisors on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution that sets the limit of a campaign contribution from a single source to $30,000. The amount is six times higher than the limit on statewide elections, but it the first time the county has had any contribution ceiling. “If a person wants to donate that much, so be it. It’s a matter of free speech,” said board Chairman John Vasquez, who brought the matter to the board for consideration. He said he came up with the $30,000 limit because he thought it was a fair amount. His largest contribution was twice receiving $20,000 from the same source for the primary and then the
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employees during a Board of Supervisors meeting at the Government Center in Fairfield, Sept. 14, 2021.
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general election in 2010. “If we do nothing, the limit is set by state law,” Vasquez said. Vasquez confirmed in a phone interview that he will be seeking a sixth term this year. Supervisor Jim Spering, whose VASQUEZ term also expires at the SPERING end of 2022, said during a break of the meeting that election contribution law, at this point he does not which had set the state limit from a single source plan to run, again. The board action during a particular elecfollows the vote of the state tion at $4,900. That law did Legislature to change the not impose any limit on the
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counties or the cities, but did allow local jurisdictions to set its own limit. The change in the law would set the local limit at $4,900 if the local jurisdictions did not set their own. There was some debate on whether the $30,000 was too high, but Spering said he believed that lower limits actually give incumbents an even greater advantage over See Limit, Page A8
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