The earthquake early warning system, Senate Bill (SB) 135, was approved by Governor Jerry Brown on Sept. 24. The bill, introduced by Senator Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando), would expand the existing earthquake early warning system, the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN).

“When it comes to earthquakes in California, it is not a matter of if, but when. A fully developed earthquake early warning system will provide Californians critical seconds to take cover, assist loved ones, or pull over safely to the side of the road … Most importantly, it will save lives,” said Sen. Padilla in a released statement.

SB 135 would direct the coordination of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) with the California Seismic Safety Commission, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the California Geological Survey (CGS), UC Berkeley (UCB) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in creating a comprehensive early earthquake warning system.

“The signing of [SB] 135 by Gov. Brown is a critical step forward in our efforts to provide Californians with enough warning that an earthquake capable of producing intense ground shaking has begun, to take action, such as [taking] cover under a desk, [stopping] elevators and trains, [suspending] manufacturing or [taking] other actions that will help save lives, [reducing] injuries and [mitigating] economic and property losses,” said director of the Cal OES and Gov. Brown’s Homeland Security Advisor, Mark Ghilarducci, in a released statement.

The system would process the data from a range of seismometers around the state — located at fault lines and densely populated cities. The seismometers would process data by “primary-wave”— “p-wave”— analysis. The p-wave is the first wave that is detected, followed by the secondary “s-wave.”

Ph.D. physicist and external relations officer for the Berkeley Seismology Lab Jennifer A. Strauss explains the process of earthquake early detection.

“As you get further from the epicenter [of the earthquake] the p-wave outruns the s-wave. If you have enough seismometers around where there are faults, you can measure that first p-wave so that you can figure out when the s-wave is coming and get that out to the public,” Strauss said.

The unprecedented system would go further than the systems that are currently in place by providing the general public with systemwide automatic warning.

“We are talking tens of seconds,” Strauss said.  “We are figuring out how to craft a public system and decide what the alerts are going to look like … One major issue is that these alerts need to go out very quickly — in 20 seconds you need to get that information out. If, for example, San Francisco were to text a warning, it would take hours. This is why we are figuring out a systematic distribution method.”

In March, the pilot beta-system was able to provide a 30-second warning for the 4.7 magnitude Riverside County desert earthquake.

Deputy director for the OES Kelly Huston said that because of the unpredictable and potentially catastrophic nature of earthquakes, a systematic early detection system is imperative for the future safety of California.

“There are [many] considerations … Who would take advantage of this system and how do we pay for it? We have sub-work groups that discuss the options for funding — whether it will be federally, state or privately funded? We take advantage of the public-private partnership and are taking a comprehensive group-prioritizing approach to determine what system will work the best,” Huston said.

In Jan. 2013, the OES convened along with Caltech, UC Berkeley, Seismic Systems and California Emergency Service responders, among other organizations, to discuss the potential for an early earthquake warning system — the advantages, what people could do with the 30 seconds of warning, and the feasibility in general.

That warning would likely capitalize on the prevalence of cell phone usage; however, they are still currently working on how to craft a public system that would be most efficient in notifying the public.

“There are a lot of ideas on how it will work. The hope is to provide alerts that produce automated changes. Lets say at the time of an earthquake, a 30-second warning would allow a BART train in a tunnel the ability to take action and stop automatically. Or consider an assembly line in Silicon Valley that, with an automated heads-up could potentially stop processes and shut down to prevent catastrophic damage,” Huston said.

There are many ideas in the running that are sure to be tested in the coming months. With SB 135, the legislation makes these ideas even more feasible.

“Cell phones are a good method. Additionally, we’ll be utilizing TV and radio. Different businesses can have internal mechanisms that work best for their company protocols,” Strauss said.

The biggest challenge in question is funding for the project, which would cost an estimated $80 million, according to Strauss.

“In order to have the full-fledged program that what we think of as robust, we would need about $80 million for the first five years. The money would go to hire more people, buy a bunch more seismometers and [pay for the] cost [of] operations. For the next five years after that we would just need additional yearly funding,” Strauss said.

Full funding for the system will be determined by the OES by Jan. 1, 2016.

“Funding all depends on how complex of a system we want to have. There are a lot of players and everyone has a stake in the collaboration effort,” Huston said. “We don’t need a perfect system.”

On Oct. 23, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors applied for a $40 million state grant in hopes of renovating its county jail.

The funds would be used for upgrades that focus on reducing recidivism rather than expanding capacity. These would include new beds for the prison’s health care facility and equipment for its aging kitchen, which, according to Yolo County sheriff Ed Prieto, is “pretty well antiquated.”

Prison officials are also seeking to build an expanded Day Reporting Center (DRC). According to Deputy County Administrator Mindi Nunes, the new DRC would provide “everything a released inmate would need to reintegrate back into society,” running the gambit from housing assistance to mental health counseling.

The funds would come from a pool of $500 million in potential bond revenue put aside for county jails by SB 1022, passed by the California State Legislature in June 2012. If the application is accepted, the county will match the grant by 10 percent, bringing the total amount of funding for the facility to $44 million.

Built in 1988, Yolo County’s Monroe Detention Center has been in need of renovation for years.

“Everything we do is 24/7; if it’s a 10-year-old facility, that’s more like 30 years from wear,” Prieto said.

This need has recently become even more pronounced as the prison attempts to cope with an influx of longer-term prisoners following the enactment of California’s realignment legislation package, AB 109 and AB 117, in Oct. 2011. This legislation was aimed at reducing the state’s overcrowded correctional system by sending new low-level offenders to local county jails instead of state prisons.

However, as many of these new inmates have longer sentences, local facilities are struggling to cope with the changes.

“The facility is overbooked,” Prieto said. “We’re like the Embassy Suites of county jails.”

In addition to overbooking, the prison is faced with meeting the changing needs of a new population of long-term prisoners. Although the prison was designed to accommodate shorter stays of a year or less, as the average term length increases, so does the number of issues the prison faces.

In one case, the prison has been tasked with accommodating an inmate with multiple sentences totaling 18 years.

Longer-term prisoners usually require greater resources in terms of medical and psychiatric care. Coupled with their lengthy residencies, this can pose a tremendous burden on prisons that don’t have the proper facilities or personnel.

Despite these challenges facing the prison, a recent Yolo County Grand Jury report on the Monroe facility found that the “staff has been creative in developing and implementing programs that adapt to inmates with longer sentences, more serious convictions and unique problems,” and that “the Center’s buildings and grounds are as well-kept and maintained as possible, considering the age and condition of this much-used facility.”

The report goes on to detail the complex challenges that many aging county jails like the Monroe facility are facing due to realignment, recommending that upgrades “be implemented as a first priority as funds become available.”

Robert Oates, a project director with the Board of State and Community Corrections acknowledges that many of these renovations for county facilities are long overdue.

“Some of these facilities are past 50 years old, and they show it,” Oates said. “So it’s time.”

Sacramento County has also applied for funding; however, due to its large size, it is able to request an increased maximum of $80 million for the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center in Elk Grove.

According to Sgt. Lisa Bowman of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, these funds would pay for new medical and psychiatric beds at the facility as well as introduce new prison vocational offerings such as a culinary arts program.

Due to the limited amount of state funding and large numbers of county facilities facing similar challenges posed by realignment, many are saying the application process will be particularly selective.

“We’re facing some pretty stiff competition,” Nunes said. “Some counties went all-out in preparing their application, and hopefully we were one of them.”

This competition is evidenced by the 36 applications that were received by the Oct. 24 deadline, totaling more than $1.3 billion in requested funds.

“This is the largest we’ve had in years,” said Leslie Heller, a field representative from the Board of State and Community Corrections, in regard to the volume of requests coming in from counties.

“It will certainly be very competitive,”  Heller said. “We knew there would be a lot of applications.”

The Board of State and Community Corrections will now send the applications to be appraised by an executive board comprised of members of law enforcement offices, counties and medical associations across the state.

“We try to get a cross section of society,” Oates said. “It’s a fair process, as much as we could make it.”

The board will rank the applications and is scheduled to announce its selections in January.

North of Covell Boulevard and between F & J streets, the location previously occupied by the Hunt-Wesson tomato processing facility will soon be the site of the Cannery Project — a 100-acre development implemented by The New Home Company (TNHC).

It will comprise of 547 residential units and 10 to 15 acres of mixed-use commercial space. With the goals of the city and developer being to balance out demographics and bring in private-sector jobs, the community will house a mix of students, seniors and families.

Affordable housing is also an important part of the project, with 40 to 60 units slated to be built. The number of housing units is variable due to the affordable housing subsidy coming from property tax on the lots surrounding the units.

Rob White, chief innovation officer for the City of Davis, addressed the income gap which would inevitably result.

“The more higher income you can bring in, the more you can subsidize the affordable,” White said. “What we’ve found, in planning, is that the more you can mix neighborhoods and income levels, the more you help those in lower-income levels rise faster.”

Among senior citizens in Davis, agreement hasn’t been reached on whether TNHC has done enough to accommodate accessible housing. Community groups such as Choices for Healthy Aging (CHA) have called for more single level houses to be included in the project, while the City Senior Citizen Commission found the plan sufficient in March 2013.

Community development administrator for the City of Davis, Katherine Hess, noted the lack of consensus.

“The Davis Senior Citizens Commission said … they were comfortable with the project as it was presented,” Hess said. “Different people have different priorities, and it may not be possible to make everybody happy.”

However, according to Mike Webb, director of Community Development and Sustainability for the City of Davis, including more single-level units would pose a density problem.

For businesses in Davis, the Cannery helps alleviate a bit of the pressure applied by the opposing forces of keeping overhead low while remaining in a desirable location. Half of the commercial space at the Cannery will be leased to tech companies while the other half will serve the neighborhood with retail and restaurants. White is responsible for attracting businesses to the area.

“A lot of the folks that are going to go there are university startups [or are] coming out of incubation programs such as Davis Roots,” White said.

White went on to mention that research and development companies are more likely to succeed the closer they are to the knowledge base of a region (i.e. UC Davis). They also tend to have fewer issues recruiting employees on account of the desirable proximity to the university.

“We have even had companies come forward saying ‘We’ll pay the premium to stay, if you’ll open up land for us to use,’ … So that’s a big driver for us to make that opportunity available,” White said.

Economic diversity provided by the influx of high-paying private jobs will stabilize the Davis economy, which is currently skewed between the service industry and academia.

“We need to grow private sector jobs … in order to create the diverse economy which will really keep us healthy,” White said. “We have a university which really is a crown jewel of Northern California … It gets you thinking, why aren’t we doing more to support it?”

White added that while students are a large and important part of the population, they aren’t the providers of the most financial driver in the city.

One of the primary concerns voiced at public hearings is a fear that the current plan for bike connectivity is unsafe and/or incomplete. There have been three options discussed, the most likely to be approved is a pathway which runs parallel to Covell, underneath the train tracks which links to the H Street Tunnel.

Ellen Moriarty, a co-owner of local green planning firm MAK Design+Build, expressed concern that TNHC won’t be putting in a bike path linking the Cannery to North Davis. In doing so, the TNHC is cutting off one community from another without anticipating the interaction that will inevitably occur.

“Some parents are going to feel squeamish about sending their children on bikes across Covell. [They’re] going to wind up driving them,” Moriarty said.

Covell Boulevard currently lacks a bike path on its north side, so biking to North Davis would require multiple crossings across a fairly busy intersection.

The problem with vehicle access on F Street is that any crossing would require the train running alongside the street to sound its horn whenever it passes through. This safety precaution has drawn the ire of Davis locals who want to keep the noise out of their neighborhood.

“We talked to people from the railroad to discuss other alternative signaling devices with a more localized sound, but their short answer was ‘No, we’re going to sound our horns,’” Webb said. “Should the tracks go away, we can reassess.”

Traffic buildup was also brought up as an issue at the public hearings.

“I’m really surprised that the city planners and the traffic surveyors think that this is a workable solution, knowing how Covell already works,” Moriarty said. “You’ve got two points of entry which are not far away from one another … I don’t see how there isn’t going to be any back up.”

Even though there are still concerns being voiced by the public, city officials believe that the Cannery Project would be an asset to Davis. TNHC has proven responsive to locals’ needs, and the development will likely be adjusted throughout the course of its implementation, but it is definitely going forward.

There will be one more public hearing on Nov. 12 at City Hall at 7:30 p.m., and anybody with concerns is welcome to participate.

“[TNHC] is listening to the community. Some of it has been shouted so loudly that they didn’t have a choice but to listen. Davis is not an easy place to develop; there are a lot of competing demands,” Hess said. “In order for a project to also be financially viable, it can’t always be pushed to the level that some people want. It might never get off the ground otherwise.”