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Monitor Notes: Sea Otters, Land Stewardship, Slow Streets, Voter Turnout

Welcome to Monitor Notes, a weekly roundup of news items, event announcements, and updates on past Bay Area Monitor articles.

 

Sea Change

Momentum seems to be growing for potentially bringing sea otters back to San Francisco Bay, an idea Robin Meadows covered for the Monitor in June. Last week, Bay Area researchers published an article further advancing the case, which Paul Rogers helpfully explained in the Mercury News. After you catch up on these latest sea otter developments, check out Robin’s new article for Scientific American about surprising research relating to drought prediction and oceans.

 

Listening to the Land

We all have roles to play in caring for our beautiful Bay Area landscapes, but sometimes we don’t feel like we have the power, the ideas, or the tools to do so. TOGETHER Bay Area will address this issue on Thursday, December 3 with a conversation about land stewardship led by Yakuta Poonawalla (pictured), community programs manager at the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. She will share her own story while helping participants consider new ways of engaging communities in land stewardship.

 

Slow Streets Survey

The December/January edition of the Bay Area Monitor magazine comes out next week, and features an article about slow streets programs around the region. As you can soon read, San Jose officials have been mulling over those possibilities. Help them and other South Bay communities move the discussion forward by taking Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition’s survey on the subject. Don’t live in the Valley? SVBC still recommends taking a look at this useful article from the California Bicycle Coalition.

 

Congratulations, California

There was a great deal of anxiety and tension over how the November 3 election would unfold under the unprecedented circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic. However, California voters responded with a historic turnout, casting close to 18 million ballots. It’s an encouraging feat, and CalMatters takes a look at how we did it. Included in their analysis is consideration of poll worker experiences, which is a good excuse for us to remind you that, in case you missed it earlier this month, you should check out this reflection about working the polls from the Monitor‘s Aleta George.

 

Monitor Notes is produced by Cecily O’Connor. To receive it by email, scroll to the bottom of this page, enter your email address in the box under “RECEIVE EMAIL UPDATES,” and click the red “SIGN UP” button.

 

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