DOG ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY » 49ERS PLAYOFF Canine left...
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SANTA ROSA High 50, Low 32 THE WEATHER, C8 Advice B7 Business B8 Comics B6 Crossword B7 Editorial A8 Horoscopes B5 Lotto A2 Movies B5 Nation-World B1 Obituaries B3 Smith A3 State news A5 ©2020 The Press Democrat TRADE DEAL SIGNED: Pact with China includes protections for US trade, tech secrets; commitment to buy goods / B1 INSIDE Work starts on homeless camp Senate sets up Trump trial WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to transmit two ar- ticles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate, sending the president and his party into uncharted territory in a deeply divisive trial fraught with history and political risk. In a choreo- graphed ritual, the House formally appointed seven Democrats to serve as impeachment managers pros- ecuting the case before the Re- publican-controlled Senate. The group silently marched two charges of high crimes and mis- demeanors, encased in slim blue folders, across the Capitol to set in motion the third presidential impeachment trial in American history. The proceedings, commenc- ing on Thursday, will play out in a Capitol already divided by pol- itics during a contentious elec- tion year. Among the senators who will be sitting in judgment of the president will be four Democrats who are running for president, juggling their cam- paigns to defeat him with their duties as jurors. The parking lot has faded lines. It serves an abandoned building. It has little purpose except to offer a paved space for those pass- ing through — lunchtime walks for workers at Sonoma County’s Los Guilicos Juvenile Justice Cen- ter; mid-day jaunts for seniors and their pets from the nearby Oakmont neighborhood. But by 7 a.m. Thursday, it will be- gin a metamorphosis, as crews es- tablish an emergency homeless shel- ter complete with individual units, a warming station and service hub, showers and even a dog run with kennels. The temporary shelter off High- way 12, within a pocket of far-east- ern Santa Rosa, is meant for up to 60 people now living about 9 miles away — in the sprawling homeless camp that’s overtaken the Joe Rodo- ta Trail in west Santa Rosa. The $2 million plan, approved by the Board of Supervisors during a tense meeting Tuesday, came over the objections of Oakmont neigh- bors, and their opposition looks to be growing. “They’re concerned about secu- rity. They’re concerned about what to expect. They’re concerned about what kind of folks might be moving in across the street,” said Supervi- sor Susan Gorin, who represents the area and fought the location. “Should they expect those folks to walk through the neighborhood? Are they going to be walking across Highway 12?” Neighbors will have a chance to ask their questions and vent their frustration at a 9 a.m. community meeting Friday at the Berger Cen- ter in the Oakmont neighborhood. Nearly 200 have already reached out to Gorin in the past two days, she said. At the parking lot on Wednesday, COMPLAINTS » Residents of nearby Oakmont have reservations about move By TYLER SILVY THE PRESS DEMOCRAT TURN TO CAMP » PAGE A6 Democrats deliver articles; president to receive summons By NICHOLAS FANDOS AND SHERYL GAY STOLBERG NEW YORK TIMES TURN TO IMPEACH » PAGE A6 IMPEACHMENT CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Santa Rosa City Councilman Jack Tibbetts, left, talks with Oakmont resident Richard Shore on Wednesday at the site selected by county supervisors for a temporary homeless camp at the county’s Los Guilicos campus in Santa Rosa. INSIDE Impeachment articles get support of local congressmen / A6 AIRPORT EXPANDING DIRECT SERVICE » Aſter record-breaking year, carriers adding flights out of Sonoma County. A3 DOG ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY » Canine leſt to die in Mendocino forest recuperating under rescuers’ care. A3 49ERS PLAYOFF PREVIEW » Front office has done everything right to assemble a contender, Phil Barber writes. C1 THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2020 • SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA • PRESSDEMOCRAT.COM WINNER OF THE 2018 PULITZER PRIZE JOHN BURGESS / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Marybeth Adkins pauses at the site of her unfinished home in Santa Rosa. Adkins was surprised by the $73,175 invoice from Urban Equity Builders because she said she knew the builder hadn’t done any work on the doors or windows of her property on Waring Court in Coffey Park. Residents say builder reneged on promises Coffey Park homeowners, contractor wrangle over rebuilding of houses K evin Johnson has a few kind things to say about Urban Equity Builders. “Some aspects of my home are really nice,” said Johnson, a 53-year-old mechanical technician who chose the Santa Rosa contractor to rebuild the house he lost in Coffey Park in the October 2017 Tubbs fire. “The paint’s nice. The floor- ing’s nice. The trim work on the inside is great.” Those compliments were quickly over- shadowed in conversation with John- son, who recited a range of mistakes he claimed Urban Equity made on his house, some of which he included in written com- plaints to the state agency that licenses and monitors contractors. His gutters, after being installed incor- rectly, needed to be torn out and replaced three times. A pipe to carry natural gas from the main line to Johnson’s house was too narrow to supply all his appliances. A major leak in the garage ceiling required workers to tear out a second-floor deck. A plumber’s failure to install a section of pipe under an upstairs shower flooded the pantry below. Some 80% of the windows were framed incorrectly and additional framing errors on the roof caused the gutters on the back of the house to “look like a frickin’ noodle,” he said. Johnson is among a group of disgrun- tled Urban Equity customers who spoke to The Press Democrat about what they called the builder’s incomplete and at times improper construction work. A San Francisco attorney representing the contractor said Wednesday, “We deny any allegations of wrongdoing.” All lost their houses in Coffey Park, where 1,422 homes were destroyed in the Tubbs inferno. The northwest Santa Rosa neighborhood, most affected by the historic fire, has rallied remarkably. Some 97% of the houses are set for rebuilding to begin, under construction or have been By AUSTIN MURPHY THE PRESS DEMOCRAT TURN TO BUILDER » PAGE A2 2017 WILDFIRES » CONSTRUCTION DISPUTE The past decade was the hot- test on record, government re- searchers announced Wednes- day, the latest sign of global warming’s grip on the planet. And 2019 was the second warm- est year ever, they said, just shy of 2016. Analyses by the National Aeronautics and Space Ad- ministration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad- ministration showed that global average surface temperatures last year were nearly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1 degree Celsius, higher than the average from the middle of last century, driv- en in large part by emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels. That much warming means the world is far from meeting goals set to combat climate change. “These trends are the foot- prints of human activity stomp- ing on the atmosphere,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which conducted the NASA analysis. The average for 2019 was only a small fraction of a degree low- er than in 2016, a year with a strong El Niño, when changes in the ocean and air in the equato- rial Pacific Ocean led to shifting weather patterns worldwide — TURN TO HOTTEST » PAGE A5 Past decade hottest on record, researchers say By HENRY FOUNTAIN NEW YORK TIMES
Transcript of DOG ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY » 49ERS PLAYOFF Canine left...
SANTA ROSAHigh 50, Low 32
THE WEATHER, C8
Advice B7Business B8Comics B6Crossword B7Editorial A8Horoscopes B5
Lotto A2Movies B5Nation-World B1Obituaries B3Smith A3State news A5
©2020 The Press Democrat
TRADE DEAL SIGNED: Pact with China includes protections for US trade, tech secrets; commitment to buy goods / B1
INSIDE
Work starts on homeless camp
Senate sets up Trump trial
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to transmit two ar-ticles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate, sending the president and his party into uncharted territory in a deeply divisive trial fraught with history and political risk.
In a choreo-graphed ritual, the House formally appointed seven Democrats to serve as impeachment managers pros-ecuting the case before the Re-publican-controlled Senate. The group silently marched two charges of high crimes and mis-demeanors, encased in slim blue folders, across the Capitol to set in motion the third presidential impeachment trial in American history.
The proceedings, commenc-ing on Thursday, will play out in a Capitol already divided by pol-itics during a contentious elec-tion year. Among the senators who will be sitting in judgment of the president will be four Democrats who are running for president, juggling their cam-paigns to defeat him with their duties as jurors.
The parking lot has faded lines. It serves an abandoned building.
It has little purpose except to offer a paved space for those pass-ing through — lunchtime walks for workers at Sonoma County’s Los Guilicos Juvenile Justice Cen-ter; mid-day jaunts for seniors and their pets from the nearby Oakmont neighborhood.
But by 7 a.m. Thursday, it will be-gin a metamorphosis, as crews es-
tablish an emergency homeless shel-ter complete with individual units, a warming station and service hub, showers and even a dog run with kennels.
The temporary shelter off High-way 12, within a pocket of far-east-ern Santa Rosa, is meant for up to 60 people now living about 9 miles away — in the sprawling homeless camp that’s overtaken the Joe Rodo-ta Trail in west Santa Rosa.
The $2 million plan, approved by the Board of Supervisors during a tense meeting Tuesday, came over the objections of Oakmont neigh-bors, and their opposition looks to be growing.
“They’re concerned about secu-rity. They’re concerned about what
to expect. They’re concerned about what kind of folks might be moving in across the street,” said Supervi-sor Susan Gorin, who represents the area and fought the location. “Should they expect those folks to walk through the neighborhood? Are they going to be walking across Highway 12?”
Neighbors will have a chance to ask their questions and vent their frustration at a 9 a.m. community meeting Friday at the Berger Cen-ter in the Oakmont neighborhood. Nearly 200 have already reached out to Gorin in the past two days, she said.
At the parking lot on Wednesday,
COMPLAINTS » Residents of nearby Oakmont have reservations about moveBy TYLER SILVYTHE PRESS DEMOCRAT
TURN TO CAMP » PAGE A6
Democrats deliver articles; president to receive summons By NICHOLAS FANDOS AND SHERYL GAY STOLBERGNEW YORK TIMES
TURN TO IMPEACH » PAGE A6
IMPEACHMENT
CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Santa Rosa City Councilman Jack Tibbetts, left, talks with Oakmont resident Richard Shore on Wednesday at the site selected by county supervisors for a temporary homeless camp at the county’s Los Guilicos campus in Santa Rosa.
INSIDEImpeachment articles get support of local congressmen / A6
AIRPORT EXPANDING DIRECT SERVICE » After record-breaking year, carriers adding flights out of Sonoma County. A3
DOG ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY » Canine left to die in Mendocino forest recuperating under rescuers’ care. A3
49ERS PLAYOFF PREVIEW » Front office has done everything right to assemble a contender, Phil Barber writes. C1
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2020 • SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA • PRESSDEMOCRAT.COM
W I N N E R O F T H E 2 0 1 8 P U L I T Z E R P R I Z E
JOHN BURGESS / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Marybeth Adkins pauses at the site of her unfinished home in Santa Rosa. Adkins was surprised by the $73,175 invoice from Urban Equity Builders because she said she knew the builder hadn’t done any work on the doors or windows of her property on Waring Court in Coffey Park.
Residents say builder reneged on promises
Coffey Park homeowners, contractor wrangle over rebuilding of houses
Kevin Johnson has a few kind things to say about Urban Equity Builders.
“Some aspects of my home are really nice,” said Johnson, a 53-year-old mechanical technician who chose the Santa Rosa contractor to rebuild the house he lost in Coffey Park in the October 2017 Tubbs fire. “The paint’s nice. The floor-ing’s nice. The trim work on the inside is great.”
Those compliments were quickly over-shadowed in conversation with John-son, who recited a range of mistakes he claimed Urban Equity made on his house,
some of which he included in written com-plaints to the state agency that licenses and monitors contractors.
His gutters, after being installed incor-rectly, needed to be torn out and replaced three times. A pipe to carry natural gas from the main line to Johnson’s house was too narrow to supply all his appliances. A major leak in the garage ceiling required workers to tear out a second-floor deck. A plumber’s failure to install a section of pipe under an upstairs shower flooded the pantry below. Some 80% of the windows were framed incorrectly and additional framing errors on the roof caused the gutters on the back of the house to “look like a frickin’ noodle,” he said.
Johnson is among a group of disgrun-tled Urban Equity customers who spoke to The Press Democrat about what they called the builder’s incomplete and at times improper construction work. A San Francisco attorney representing the contractor said Wednesday, “We deny any allegations of wrongdoing.”
All lost their houses in Coffey Park, where 1,422 homes were destroyed in the Tubbs inferno. The northwest Santa Rosa neighborhood, most affected by the historic fire, has rallied remarkably. Some 97% of the houses are set for rebuilding to begin, under construction or have been
By AUSTIN MURPHYTHE PRESS DEMOCRAT
TURN TO BUILDER » PAGE A2
2017 WILDFIRES » CONSTRUCTION DISPUTE
The past decade was the hot-test on record, government re-searchers announced Wednes-day, the latest sign of global warming’s grip on the planet. And 2019 was the second warm-est year ever, they said, just shy of 2016.
Analyses by the National Aeronautics and Space Ad-ministration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-ministration showed that global average surface temperatures last year were nearly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1 degree Celsius, higher than the average from the middle of last century, driv-en in large part by emissions
of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels. That much warming means the world is far from meeting goals set to combat climate change.
“These trends are the foot-prints of human activity stomp-ing on the atmosphere,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the Goddard Institute for Space
Studies, which conducted the NASA analysis.
The average for 2019 was only a small fraction of a degree low-er than in 2016, a year with a strong El Niño, when changes in the ocean and air in the equato-rial Pacific Ocean led to shifting weather patterns worldwide —
TURN TO HOTTEST » PAGE A5
Past decade hottest on record, researchers sayBy HENRY FOUNTAINNEW YORK TIMES
