Daily Republic: Friday, March 17, 2023 by mcnaughtonmedia

Family, friends gather to honor slain man A3

Parity reigns in 2023 MEL baseball race B1

FRIDAY | March 17, 2023 | $1.00

DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.

US says video shows Russia ‘flatout lying’ about drone collision Tribune Content Agency

Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic

Monica Brown answers a questions at a Supervisors candidates forum in Benicia, Jan. 29, 2020.

Complaint shows Brown continued to pay aide who moved to Florida Todd R. Hansen

THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — Supervisor Monica Brown paid a district aide for several months after she had moved to Florida, leading to a tumultuous fallout with another staff member and raising questions about whether Brown violated county protocols. Stephen Haslett, who joined Brown’s staff from the outset and had been part of her two successful election campaigns, has filed a whistleblower complaint with the Auditor-Controller’s Office over the ordeal. “I will confirm that,” Haslett said in a Thursday interview.

However, he would not discuss his own employment status with the county or outside the county; whether he discussed his concerns with Brown; the details of his conversation with Auditor-Controller Phyllis Taynton; or what kind of relationship he had with the aide in question. Haslett said he filed the complaint “because I want to make sure the public and the voters have this information and they can use it as they see fit.” Brown, contacted by phone, said she had to talk to the county counsel before answering any questions, and ultimately refused to even take questions let alone respond to any. Instead, she released this state-

ment in an email: “I don’t want to intrude on any county employee’s privacy by discussing them personally, but I can tell you that the county does have a Mobile Worker, Teleworking and Hoteling Policy and I have allowed my aides to work remotely pursuant to that policy and found them to be productive doing so.” Brown’s email fails to address several questions including whether she allowed an aide to be paid while living out of state, and what duties, if any, the aide was handling for Brown, and how those duties differed from when that aide worked in the county. See Brown, Page A8

The sog slog continues: Forecast calls for even more rain through March Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES — Californians shouldn’t put the rain gear away quite yet. March is expected to continue roaring like a lion beyond mid-month. Models are pointing to another potential atmospheric river in the first half of next week, forecasters say, the 12th of California’s wet season. An upper-level low-pressure system in the Gulf of Alaska is expected to move over the West Coast, and there’s a 60% chance that a plume of atmospheric river moisture could affect the California coast, the National Weather Service said. The six- to 10-day pre-

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/TNS file

Patrick Cerruti walks through the flooded Pajaro Coin Laundry on March 14, 2023, in Pajaro. cipitation outlook issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday shows well above normal

precipitation for most of the state, with a 70% chance that precipitation will be above normal in the central portion of

California. A look at the percentage of normal precipitation since the beginning of the water year on Oct. 1 shows the footprint of the 11 atmospheric rivers that have hit California so far this season. Parts of the state from the Bay Area south to Point Conception and northeastward into the Sierra Nevada have received 150% to 200% or more of normal precipitation. The area of above-normal precipitation continues along the Southern California Bight to the Mexican border. In the southeastern California See Rain, Page A8

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The U.S. militar y has released footage of the Tuesday encounter between a U.S. surveillance drone and a Russian fighter jet. pilot flying aggressively and recklessly and dumping fuel before hitting the drone. Kirby said it remains unclear, however, if the pilot intended to collide with the drone. The U.S. complained of unprofessional, unsafe and reckless actions by Russian pilots leading up to the crash in international airspace. “It’s not clear to us whether the pilot See Russia, Page A8

Debt limit breach would be ‘devastating’ for banks, Yellen says Tribune Content Agency WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told senators on Thursday that the banking system remains sound in the aftermath of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. But she warned that failure to raise the debt limit in time would be devastating for banks after the turmoil. YELLEN The country’s fiscal and economic health took center stage at the Senate Finance Committee’s hearing with Yellen on President Joe Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget request, as senators pressed her over concerns about avoiding a debt ceiling breach, ensuring stability of the banking system, combating inflation and shoring up Social Security’s finances. In a new refrain on the debt limit fight, Democrats and Yellen tied the

WEATHER 65 | 43 Partly sunny. Forecast on A9

— N A PA VA L L E Y —

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military released video footage of the collision between a Russian fighter jet and an unmanned U.S. military drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, but said it remained unclear whether the Russian pilot intended to cause the crash. Russia, meanwhile, said it hopes to find and recover wreckage of the U.S. drone, although Washington officials said the unmanned aerial vehicle would offer little intelligence value to Moscow. Russia has denied that there was a collision, claiming instead that the US MQ-9 drone crashed into the water after attempting an evasive manoeuvre. White House spokesman John Kirby said the video proves that Russia is “flat-out lying” about the incident and clearly shows the Russian

failure of Santa Clara, California-based Silicon Valley Bank, and the subsequent collapse of New York-based Signature Bank, to the need to raise the limit before the government can’t pay its bills in full. Experts’ estimates for when that would happen range from June to mid-August. “One of the most important steps that Congress can take now is to make sure there are no questions about the full faith and credit of the United States,” Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said. “That means paying the bills incurred by presidents of both parties.” Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., pointed out that a lending program implemented to address the SVB collapse is backed up by Treasury securities and the inability of the See Debt, Page A8

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