I’m very proud that Shea spoke at the Vallejo Surveillance Board last night. I was unable to attend due to a conflict, but I’ve been following this through the ACLU chapter that I’ve been working with on numerous issues. The entire meeting is, of course, available on the City of Vallejo’s home page.
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Participatory Budget Committee Meeting for Human Society of the North Bay Voucher Program
Katie Kogut and I presented on the program’s success and hoped to continue programs like these for the region.
Fence Repairs May 2026
It’s been scary how many times I’ve seen the wind push over part of the fence, mostly because the dogs could wander out. The entire fence could use some tender loving care, but right now it’s about band-aids. This was one such band-aid I found. Originally, Shea put up a garish board to secure it, which functioned well. However, right next to the board was this big piece of metal that I had painted green with Rust-Oleum a few years ago, so it made sense to just move it over about a foot to cover up the fence band-aid. I love how it turned out.
This was another fence repair that Shea quickly had to pull together. During a heavy wind day, I really thought that this one was going to end up in the street. What made it more complicated was that the metal post to the gate is steel. Shea had to get creative with A.I. to put in a fix and then did some measuring to figure out how to permanently fix it.
May 2026 Benicia Boat Move
Solano Rowing Club rowed the boat to Benicia from Glen Cove Marina for an upcoming race, getting some practice along the way. It was a very warm evening, and the conditions were pretty favorable. People were swimming in the strait, and I saw them on the little beaches with umbrellas, which is pretty rare in this area. I love the cute little beaches down the hill from me, but I usually just stick my toes in. Today would have been a lovely day for a full dip, though.
Smokefree Bar Patios in San Francisco
I had the privilege of speaking to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Land Use and Transportation Committee with a great group of people. I wish the misperception of loss of income wasn’t the broken record we heard from retailers that they will get less money if they are “forced” to make their dense urban spaces have no poison in the air from untold number of customers. Decades of smoke-free air laws have proven this empirically to be false. Never mind the lack of consent the other customers are not entitled to with the way things are now. The full video is available for those who wish to see it, but I at least wanted to show my somewhat rushed comments to get as much in under the wire, including my last line, which I’m proud to have stolen from a fellow advocate.
The full video is here:
Vallejo Garden Tour 2026
I took this footage at the first house we went to on the Vallejo Garden Tour. It’s way the heck up the Napa River in a far corner, which is the very tippy top of Vallejo near the Napa border. This is the view from there, which spans so much of the North Bay. You can see Mount Tam and Mount Diablo so clearly from sea level.
Would you believe that two gardens in a row had pygmy goats? Two sets of two! They had me at goats! My friend Tehraleigh has hers out, so I was able to pet them for a while. I always make a beeline for them at county fairs. We get fresh eggs and local honey from Tehra’s BananaTreeFarms.org right here in Vallejo!!!!?
