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County brings park regulations in line with industry standards A3

Fox says he’s definitely playing in Game 5 of first-round series B1

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DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.

Biden announces bid for a second term in 2024 Tribune Content Agency WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Tuesday he will seek the presidency again in 2024, dismissing doubts about whether the 80-year-old is fit to serve a second term and solidifying his grip on the Democratic Party as its standard-bearer. The president announced his campaign in a video posted to his Twitter account. “I said we are in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are,” Biden said in a video featuring images of him and Vice President Kamala Harris – who will be on the ticket again – criss-crossing the country. “The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.” The much-anticipated announcement sets up a potential rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, who has already declared his candidacy and leads the field of Republican 2024 hopefuls. Biden, a self-described “great respecter of fate,” has weighed the decision for months. Though most presidents wait to announce a reelection campaign to avoid triggering federal election reporting restrictions, Biden’s age has played an outsized role in his decision. He is the nation’s oldest president and would be just shy of 82 on election day in 2024. Seventy percent of all Americans, including 51% of Democrats, said they didn’t want Biden to seek a second term, compared with 26% of Americans who think he should, according to an NBC poll released See Biden, Page A8

Yuri Gripas/Abaca Press/TNS

President Joe Biden walks back to the Oval Office after honoring the Teachers of the Year in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., Monday. He announced his reelection campaign on Tuesday.

File courtesy of Caltrans (2017)

This January 2017 photo shows flooding on Highway 37.

Proposed Highway 37 toll plan met with skepticism Daily Republic Staff

DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

VALLEJO — Commuters and residents of this bayfront city believe the decision to convert Highway 37 into a toll road to pay for circulation, flooding and other improvements has already been made – and they are the ones who will pay the price. About 50 people on Monday attended a public hearing by the California Transportation Commission in the Joseph Room of the John F. Kennedy Library in Vallejo. More people followed the meeting on Zoom, but a count was not available. Many of those who attended in-person came to the meeting skeptical at best, and once told each of them would only have 1 minute to speak, that mistrust only grew.

Courtesy of Caltrans

Shouts from the audience only increased as the meeting progressed. Most of the concerns were about the cost – an estimated $7 to $8 per roundtrip – with the electronic toll gates placed in Solano County and none in areas that would impact the higher-income motorists from Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties. Moreover, there is frustration with the state for not enforcing rules about

development of affordable housing in those counties so not as many people would have to commute in the first place. And some believe the employers who benefit from the labor coming in from Vallejo should share the costs, too. The estimated annual cost to a commuter would be about $1,800 – or an extra mortgage payment for some. The frustration level is only exasperated by the fact

this would make the third toll road Vallejo residents would be subject to just to get out and back into town. “You will landlock Vallejo,” was resident said. Another added, “This isn’t a prison; it’s a community.” Few, if any, however, argue that the improvements are not needed. Afterall, Highway 37 has flooded in 2017, 2018 and again this See Highway, Page A8

1927 — 2023

Belafonte, singer, actor and civil rights activist, dies Tribune Content Agency Harry Belafonte, the award-winning entertainer who fueled an international calypso craze in the 1950s with his version of the “Banana Boat Song” and whose long career in show business paralleled his off-stage role as a civil rights activist and globetrotting humanitarian, has

died in New York. Belafonte, who squeezed so much into his decades-long career that it was difficult to fathom it all, died at his Manhattan home Tuesday of congestive heart failure, his longtime spokesman Ken Sunshine said Tuesday. His wife Pamela was by his side. The Harlem-born son

of poor Caribbean immigrants, Belafonte soared to fame in the early ’50s as a folk balladeer whose success as a performer and recording artist grew to encompass the Broadway stage, movies, television, Las Vegas showrooms and concert venues. Described in Look magazine in 1957 as the first Black matinee idol in enter-

tainment history, the tall, trim and smoothly handsome singer amassed an impressive string of early accolades in an era when Black actors were mostly cast as maids, domestic helpers and laborers. In 1954, he became the first Black man to win a Tony Award – for best See Singer, Page A8

REFRESH YOUR HOME! AFP via Getty Images/TNS file (1988)

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