Wednesday Morning News Roundup

A 12-year-old Oakland boy is missing and police are asking for help locating him, police said Tuesday.

Garrion Watson was last seen at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the 6900 block of Foothill Boulevard in Oakland. Garrion ran away but is in good physical and mental shape, according to police.

He is 5 feet 4 inches tall, 110 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He was wearing khaki pants and a T-shirt.

Anyone with information that can help locate Garrion is asked to call the Police Department’s missing person’s unit at (510) 238-3641.

A traffic fatality has been reported Tuesday night in unincorporated Santa Cruz County outside Scotts Valley, California Highway Patrol officials said.

The crash was first reported at about 6:40 p.m. in the 1900 block of Granite Creek Road.

Contra Costa County’s ban on the sale and delivery of electronic smoking devices and cannabis e-liquids will remain in place, the board of supervisors decided Tuesday.

The vote was 4-1, with District 4 supervisor Karen Mitchoff voting no.

Supervisors enacted the ban in 2019, targeting flavored vapes that appealed to children and vaping products that haven’t been reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The ban only applies in unincorporated areas.

In May, the board asked county health officials to come back with information on what’s changed since the ban, including updated safety information on new products and updated state and federal regulations. The answers weren’t enough to change the board’s collective mind.

District 5 supervisor Federal Glover said the vote sends a message to young people “that we’re paying attention.”

s San Francisco continues its effort to buy PG&E’s electric facilities and transition the city to public power, city officials said on Tuesday they’ve asked the California Public Utilities Commission to determine the value of PG&E’s local electric infrastructure.

The formal request asking the CPUC to determine the value of PG&E’s electric assets serving the city comes after the utility has twice rejected a $2.5 billion offer made by the city to purchase its local assets.

Back in 2019, after PG&E filed for bankruptcy as it faced liabilities for deadly wildfires throughout the state, the city made its initial offer. PG&E rejected a second offer the following year.

City officials allege the utility has also imposed more than $1 billion in new charges for city customers and delayed basic power hookups for public buildings, including schools, affordable housing projects, transit projects and a University of California at San Francisco research facility.

“While I want to work with this company as a partner, it’s been very challenging,” Mayor London Breed said, speaking Tuesday at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

Trade workers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory began a three-day strike Tuesday after their workplace allegedly required on-call hours without negotiations.

The 235 workers, all union members of the Society of Professionals, Scientists and Engineers, will stand in front of the lab’s gates from 4:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. for three days this week in hopes that the lab will open up room for bargaining.

They make up a small percentage of the 6,000 workers at the lab, but union chief bargainer Steve Balke said they cover essential departments to make the lab run.

“We’re all skilled trades. We’re electricians, plumbers, carpenters, sheet metal workers, welders, boiler guys, handling heavy equipment, security alarms, fire alarms,” Balke said. “We might be a small group but we are an integral part of this lab. We want them to know that, because right now they don’t treat us that way.”

Balke said on-call hours at the laboratory were voluntary for years, until workers ran into restrictions and were less incentivized to sign up.

Wednesday will be partly cloudy and breezy. Highs will be in the upper 50s to the lower 70s. Southwest winds will be 10 to 20 mph, increasing to 20 to 30 mph in the afternoon.

Wednesday night will be mostly cloudy an breezy. Lows will be in the mid 50s. West winds will be 20 to 30 mph, decreasing to 10 to 20 mph after midnight.

Thursday will be mostly cloudy in the morning before becoming partly cloudy. Highs will be in the upper 50s to the lower 70s. West winds will be 10 to 20 mph.

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Copyright © 2021 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.