Bay Area

Rebecca Kaplan’s Statement on Housing Crisis Addresses Wedgewood, Contributions to Oakland Community Land Trust

Published

5 years ago

January 9, 2020

Barbara Lopez, Chief of Staff to Rebecca Kaplan

For the past several weeks, a group of homeless mothers and their children have been residing in a formerly-vacant home in West Oakland. A large investment corporation, with a troubling history of questionable evictions, is seeking to evict the women.

The case is pending in court, and the corporation has hired a controversial spokesperson, Sam Singer, to create a public relations response for them. The company has now chosen to claim that they wish to work with a non-profit to use the house to benefit at-risk youth through jobs rehabbing houses, and have blamed the homeless moms for causing delay in the launch of this alleged program they claim they would be launching if they kicked the moms out of the house.

Unfortunately, the specific organization that Wedgewood named appears to have no office or personnel anywhere in this region, no local business license, and no track record that can be found performing this type of work.

In addition, there is no evidence that Wedgewood is serious about launching this alleged program to employ low-income youth renovating houses. As such, for a program to be real would require staff and would obviously require more than one house to be viable.

Wedgewood owns and buys hundreds of houses. Yet, thus far, they have not offered any of their other properties into the program they claim to be launching. Wedgewood has stated they would then sell the house, and send a portion of the proceeds to groups in Los Angeles, leaving no benefit to the local community.

Luckily, there is a viable, licensed, local non-profit that is located in Oakland and does actually have the capacity to respond — and they have offered to Wedgewood to buy the house from them. The Oakland Community Land Trust (OCLT), which has experience acquiring, rehabbing, and otherwise handling houses, including those needing renovations, providing them as affordable housing for lower-income residents in our community.

Council President Rebecca Kaplan continues to urge Wedgewood Corporation, as she did in a letter back in Dec. 2019, to sit down with the OCLT and seek to work out a mutually beneficial situation which allows Wedgewood to get paid for their property and end the situation of strife and negativity.

Kaplan is also seeking other property owners who are willing to sell their properties to help, and work with the OCLT.

At a time when homelessness has increased 47 percent in Oakland since 2017, in part because of soaring housing prices, we need to work in partnership with multiple stakeholders to resolve this crisis.

Anyone interested in selling or donating a house for such a use, should contact the Oakland Land Trust at (510) 463-2887.

Councilmember At-Large Rebecca Kaplan is an honor graduate from MIT and was elected in 2008 to serve as Oakland’s citywide Councilmember, she was re-elected in 2016. She also serves on the Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC).

Barbara Lopez, Chief of Staff to Rebecca Kaplan

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Oakland Post: Week of May 28 – June 30, 2025

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Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System

While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Image courtesy The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.

The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.

“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”

“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”

The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.

Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.

“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.

Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.

Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.

For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.