Saying that Silicon Valley residents seeking cheaper housing are bringing too much traffic and sprawl, activists in San Benito County, the rural county touching Santa Clara County’s southern edges, have qualified a measure for the November ballot that could dramatically put the brakes on new development there.

The measure, if approved by a majority of San Benito County residents, would ban most new development on land zoned for farming and ranching in the county unless it is approved by voters.

The area is famous for its rolling ranchlands, the soaring California condors of Pinnacles National Park, and the 18th-century Spanish mission at San Juan Bautista.

As housing prices in the Bay Area have continued to surge, more development in San Benito County is bringing a new generation of commuters, a need to build new schools and stores, and losses of orchards and farmlands to become suburbs — not unlike what happened in Santa Clara County in the 1950s and 1960s, some say.

“We’re growing extremely rapidly,” said Andy Hsia-Coron, a retired school teacher who is one of the organizers of the initiative. “There are forces in Silicon Valley looking to use our county for housing and dumping their garbage. It’s a rural county next to a huge metropolitan area. And we are paying the consequences of that.”

Opponents say such measures can go too far, limit property rights and stall local economic growth.

“Land use measures of this type are pretty drastic,” said Donald Wirz, president of the San Benito County Farm Bureau in Hollister. “It makes it so that farmers and ranchers are stuck in terms of the improvements they can make on their land. It makes it more difficult to get bank loans, and can limit property owners’ flexibility.”

From 2020 to 2023, San Benito was the fastest growing of all 58 counties in California, according to the U.S. Census, growing by 5.6%. By comparison, the nine Bay Area counties each lost between 1% and 7% of their populations over that same time.

San Benito County starts from a much smaller population base, however. Even though its land area is the same size as its adjacent neighbor, its population is only 3% as big — 68,175 in 2023 — about the same as Santa Clara County’s population was in 1910.

Napa, Sonoma and Ventura counties already require voter approval to change the zoning and develop orchards, ranchlands, vineyards and farms. Backers of the ballot measure say San Benito County needs that protection also.

“County supervisors allowed developers to cut down our orchards and build subdivisions to house Silicon Valley workers,” the November ballot measure says. “For many years, inadequate road impact fees allowed our roads to deteriorate. Our schools are overcrowded and residents feel that the supervisors have not required developers to do enough to support our schools. A majority of San Benito residents live in areas with less than three acres of parks or open space for every 1,000 residents. Many residents now realize that our supervisors’ cumulative land use decisions are negatively impacting our quality of life. Our peaceful, rural lifestyle is disappearing.”

Ten years ago, San Benito County voters shocked the oil industry when they passed a ban on fracking. In 2020, voters also killed a plan to build hotels, gas stations and restaurants at four locations along Highway 101 south of the Santa Clara County line.

But the slow-growth forces suffered a setback two years ago when voters defeated a similar measure to the current ballot initiative.

The San Benito County Farm Bureau, the San Benito Chamber of Commerce, and various unions came out against the measure, saying it went too far. The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to oppose it.

Supporters of that initiative, Measure Q, included the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, Green Foothills and Save Mount Diablo. But opponents outspent them 10-1, and the initiative failed.

This time, Hsia-Coron said, things are different.

Voter turnout is expected to be much larger this fall than it was two years ago because of the presidential race, he said. And in March, voters installed a more slow-growth majority to the county board of supervisors. That vote followed a controversial proposal to expand the John Smith Road Landfill near Hollister fivefold to accept more waste from Santa Clara County and other Bay Area counties.

Waste Connections, the Texas-based company that operates the landfill, withdrew the plans in April amid broad public opposition. The debate brought people to planning commission meetings in large numbers, voicing concerns about more garbage trucks on narrow roads, water pollution and other impacts. Yard signs sprouted. And the slow-growth advocates, called the Campaign to Protect San Benito, had no trouble collecting nearly twice as many signatures as they needed to qualify for the November ballot after they told people its passage would block future landfill expansions without a public vote.

“The frustrations are really growing,” said Hsia-Coron.

There are a few exceptions in the proposed new rules. Public facilities like libraries and schools as well as housing needed to meet state-mandated quotas could be built on farmland without a public vote.

That’s OK, said Hsia-Coron. But excessive sprawl development is not.

“Since most of the new folks who are moving here are working in Silicon Valley, it’s not a very feasible model for them to be driving three hours a day to and from work,” he said. “The housing needs to be closer to where people are working. They are pricing the locals out of the market here.”

The California Coastal Commission has reached an agreement with a Monaco billionaire, Patrice Pastor, to put up “coastal access” signs, build a public restroom, improve trails and guarantee public parking spaces at Rocky Point, located along Highway 1 about 10 miles south of Carmel.

The area is the site of a well-known restaurant that dates back to 1947. The previous owners, Peter and Grace Wang, closed Rocky Point Restaurant in 2020 when the COVID pandemic began. Pastor — who also has bought other iconic properties in the Carmel area — purchased it in 2021 for $8 million and announced plans to refurbish and open a new high-end restaurant at the site.

But the property didn’t come free and clear.

The Coastal Commission’s enforcement division had been investigating the Wangs for a significant number of violations, including adding parking onto an adjacent open space property owned by Monterey County, and constructing a deck, buildings, lighting and a leach field without the required permits. The couple also closed gates on the road leading from Highway 1 to the restaurant, put up no trespassing signs, and posted a guard when the restaurant was closed, even though the road runs over county-owned land.

Under a settlement signed May 17 by Pastor and the commission, he agreed to clear the violations. He will not face a fine if he makes the improvements to the 2.5-acre property and includes permanent public access in the deed and development rights to most of the bluffs surrounding the restaurant. The value of those rights, along with the new restrooms, trails, native plants, benches, signs, 24 parking spaces and eight electric vehicle chargers is roughly $4 million.

“This property is breathtaking,” said Lisa Haage, chief of enforcement for the Coastal Commission. “It is the kind of view that people think of when they think of the California coast. It is a gorgeous, gorgeous area — one of the iconic views of California.”

Pastor, 51, is the grandson of Jean-Baptiste Pastor, an Italian businessman and developer who in the 1920s and 30s won contracts to build the water supply system and soccer stadium in Monaco, a tiny country on the French Riviera, and with the proceeds bought land along the Monaco waterfront at low prices after World War II and made a fortune.

Today, Monaco is among the wealthiest and most exclusive places in the world, famous for its glamorous casinos, sunny beaches and Formula One Grand Prix race.

In recent years, Pastor has raised eyebrows — and some controversy — in Carmel. A real estate company he founded in 2015, Esperanza Carmel, has purchased at least 15 properties in the seaside enclave worth roughly $100 million, including the Carmel Beach Hotel, the Hog’s Breath Building, L’Auberge Carmel Hotel, and the La Rambla Building.

Last year he purchased an oceanfront home in Carmel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for $22 million.

Representatives of his real estate company did not return calls asking about the Rocky Point agreement.

But in an interview in February with the Daily Mail, a London newspaper, Pastor said he “cannot understand” why some locals in Carmel are worried about his buying spree, which critics have said could raise rents.

“We love the town, and we want to protect its unique history and character,” Pastor told the newspaper.

The agreement to settle the coastal violations at Rocky Point is scheduled to be voted on by the full Coastal Commission on June 14 at its meeting in Morro Bay. If approved as expected, it does not affect Pastor’s plans to re-open the restaurant.

In 2022, he applied to Monterey County to operate a restaurant there with 166 seats, an inn with 14 units, and three employee housing units and a visitor center.

But that application does not comply with the new consent order, and coastal commission staff say they expect him to revise it, and he will be required to get approval before construction can occur.

In the meantime, environmental groups say the public access deal seems like a positive step for the Big Sur coast.

“There is great need in Big Sur for additional parking off the highway, and bathrooms,” said Rachel Saunders, director of conservation for the Big Sur Land Trust, a nonprofit environmental group. “There is a lot of concern about visitor management. If this land can be used in a way that helps address some of those issues, that’s a good thing.”

Saunders, who said she had not yet seen the staff report on the issue, noted that during holidays, including last Memorial Day weekend, popular areas in Big Sur have faced traffic jams, litter and people using the restroom along the side of the highway.

“There’s just a mass of humanity coming,” she said. “It’s a gorgeous place. I understand why people like to come. But there needs to be more done to provide adequate visitor facilities.”

The Rocky Point saga isn’t the first controversy involving wealthy people and the jaw-dropping scenery of Big Sur.

In 2013, Facebook billionaire Sean Parker held an extravagant Lord of the Rings-themed wedding in Big Sur, after which he agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle violations of California’s coastal laws because his crews built — without permits — rock walls, a stone bridge, a cottage, dance floor and other structures in a sensitive redwood forest campground owned by the Ventana Inn. Hundreds of guests, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and others, attended the affair. Money from the settlement was used to fund environmental restoration, build trails and create an iPhone app, called YourCoast, to help the public find beaches, restrooms and parking along the California oceanfront.

At Rocky Point, Pastor took down the “no trespassing” signs and agreed to leave the gates open at the request of the Coastal Commission. The new agreement guarantees public access into the future regardless of who owns the property.

Visitors wandering near the area this week were confused.

“We were hungry and we thought maybe there were cheeseburgers or oysters here,” said Kristy Benson, a San Francisco resident. “Everything is closed. But the views are incredible.”

But in California, that universal phrase may soon be going the way of “Yada, yada, yada,” “Heeere’s Johnny!” and “Send me a fax.”

On Tuesday, lawmakers in the California state Senate and Assembly approved two bills that would ban supermarkets, retail stores and convenience stories from providing shoppers with thicker, reusable plastic bags. If those bills pass the other chamber and are signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, which is likely, the measures would take effect Jan. 1, 2026.

California already bans flimsy, single-use plastic bags at most supermarkets and retail stores. They were prohibited in 2016 when voters passed Proposition 67 over concerns about litter on the streets and plastic pollution in the ocean.

But that ballot measure contained a loophole, inserted by some Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento who had plastic bag factories in their districts. It said that thicker plastic bags could still be used at stores if they were labeled as recyclable and could be reused.

Now a coalition of environmental groups and their supporters in the state Capitol say those bags need to go too.

“With tougher rules and eco-friendly alternatives, we’re ready to kick plastic bags to the curb and reclaim our environment,” said Assemblywoman Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, the sponsor of one of the bills.

The numbers of those sturdier plastic bags, which have handles and are common at stores such as Safeway and Target, have been climbing, and studies show that most of them aren’t being recycled.

An investigation by ABC News last year found that when journalists put electronic tracking tags on 46 bundles of plastic bags left in recycling bins in WalMart and Target stores around the country, only four ended up at recycling centers. Half went to landfills and waste incinerators, seven stopped pinging at transfer stations that don’t recycle or sort plastic bags, six last pinged at the store where they were dropped off, and three ended up in Indonesia and Malaysia, where some U.S. trash is shipped for processing.

Cal Recycle, the state agency that tracks garbage going to landfills, found that in 2014, there were 83,000 tons of plastic bags in the state’s waste stream. After the statewide grocery ban passed, that number fell to 67,000 tons. But by 2021, it had shot up to 139,000 tons.

Part of the reason is that the bags became cheaper to produce; also, Newsom’s administration banned people from bringing their own cloth bags to stores in 2020 when the COVID pandemic first began, over fears that the virus could be transmitted by the bags. Later studies found it couldn’t.

“It seemed that behavior sort of shifted, and that led to more plastic use,” said Nate Rose, a spokesman for the California Grocers Association, which supports the bills. “Looking back, we knew so little about COVID and how it was spread.”

He noted that some store chains, including Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, already provide only paper bags at the checkout. The grocery industry has faced several lawsuits from consumers who say the thick plastic bags are not really recyclable, as the stores claim.

“It won’t be a drastically different shopping scenario,” Rose said. “There are still going to be paper bags available, and you can bring your own bags from home. It should be a smooth transition.”

The two bills are SB 1053, by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, which passed the state Senate by a 30-7 vote, and AB 2236, by Bauer-Kahan, which passed the Assembly by a 51-7 vote. Newsom has not said how he will act on the bills, but he has signed others in recent years to strengthen recycling laws.

Some lawmakers say the measures are the latest example of California behaving like a “nanny state.”

“There are too many mandates on what people can and can’t do,” said Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Chico. “What kind of car they can drive, things like that. I don’t see there’s a big need for it. Let people make the decisions they want to make.”

Two other states, New York and New Jersey, have also banned the thicker reusable plastic grocery bags over environmental concerns.

The California bills also would require that paper bags have at least 50% recycled paper content, up from the current 40%, and require stores to charge at least 10 cents per bag to recoup their costs.

Under the bills, one type of plastic still would be allowed in supermarkets, retail stores and convenience stores: the thin bags on rolls that are used to hold loose fruits and vegetables, or in the meat department.

But those are changing also. A law signed by Newsom in 2022 from Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, requires that those types of bags, called “pre-checkout bags” in grocery store lingo, must be replaced no later than Jan. 1, 2025, with recycled paper bags or bags made of compostable plastic.

Environmental groups point to studies showing that millions of tons of plastic are ending up in the world’s oceans, breaking into trillions of tiny, confetti-like pieces and being consumed by fish, including fish people eat.

“At the check stand, when they ask if you want paper or plastic, they don’t say, ‘Do you want recycled paper bags or plastic bags that will take more than 100 years to break down, will pollute the ocean, and might turn up in our food and drinking water?’ ” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a Sacramento advocacy group.

“It’s not an abstract. It becomes part of the ocean food web. And we are literally consuming our own plastic garbage when we eat fish,” he said.

And now, after a recent rough patch, the Capitola Wharf, an 855-foot-long wooden structure that juts into scenic Monterey Bay and forms the backdrop for countless beach vacation photos, is nearly ready for a new chapter.

A $10.6 million construction project to rebuild and strengthen the beloved wharf is nearly finished. Work began last September, after the structure was badly battered and torn in half by pounding waves during a “bomb cyclone” storm that pummeled the Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Mateo county coastlines in January 2023, causing flooding and power outages across the Bay Area.

Heavy construction is expected to be completed next month, and the wharf is scheduled to reopen to the public on Aug. 14.

“It has been about 17 months since the damage,” said Capitola City Manager Jamie Goldstein. “We’re looking forward to reopening it three months ahead of schedule. We are really happy with the progress.”

Photos of the wrecked wharf became the signature images of the Jan. 5, 2023, storm that made international news. In the days afterward, President Joe Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom visited Capitola and nearby Seacliff State Beach, where the waves destroyed another wooden fishing pier, built in 1930. That one hasn’t been rebuilt.

On Friday, construction workers from Cushman Contracting, a Santa Barbara firm, continued to secure huge pressure-treated Douglas fir planks on the Capitola Wharf. Nearly all of its decking, along with its railings, have been replaced.

Crews have widened the wharf from 20 feet to 36 feet wide, on the half nearest to the shore that is particularly vulnerable to big waves.

Where only three wooden pilings once propped up each section, crews increased it to six, driving 120 stronger fiberglass pilings 20 feet into the Monterey Bay sea floor, and wrapping other wooden pilings in protective composite sleeves. They repaired the 40-foot-wide chasm that waves tore into the structure.

In June and July, an ornate entrance gate, interpretive panels, trash cans and other features will be installed. There will be a new boat launch area, new restrooms, free mounted binocular stations, and signs about Monterey Bay, its wildlife and history.

But the new wharf won’t last forever.

“There’s been a long history of construction and destruction at the Capitola Wharf,” said Gary Griggs, a professor of Earth sciences at UC Santa Cruz. “It’s sort of like the Big Sur Highway.”

In 1983, big storms smashed 35 feet off the wharf’s end and destroyed a 30-foot section in the middle. Before that, a 200-foot section failed during the winter of 1913, stranding a fisherman on the end who had to be rescued.

“It’s the nature of the beast,” Griggs said. “Anything you stick in the ocean is going to be impacted sooner or later. The question is how strong do you want to rebuild it?”

The wharf, first built in 1857 by Frederick Hihn, a German immigrant who came to San Francisco during the Gold Rush in 1849, to transport redwood lumber and other goods onto ships, also was damaged in 1926, 1953, 1960, 1965 and 1982.

It was even damaged again last December, which helped increase the original $7.7 million repair cost to $10.6 million. The warming climate is generating bigger storms, Griggs said, so it will take more battering in the decades ahead.

“In each case, we decide these places are worth saving,” Griggs said. “We are going to keep the Capitola Wharf. We are going to keep the Big Sur Highway.”

Goldstein said city leaders in the quaint seaside village of 10,000 residents, about 5 miles south of Santa Cruz, know that although the new wharf is stronger, it’s not invincible.

“The wharf is part of Capitola’s history and culture,” he said. “It was here before Capitola was a city. It provides free public access to the ocean, and is an important part of our sense of place.”

“Is this a forever project? No. It has been damaged a number of times throughout history. But this generation is repairing it and handing it off to the next generation.”

One thing missing now from the old wharf: the buildings. The two storm events last year so badly damaged the two businesses on the wharf, the Wharf House restaurant and the Boat and Bait boat rental shop, that they had to be demolished. The bait shop is expected to reopen there later this summer in a modular temporary unit, and long-term plans have begun to decide whether to build another restaurant or other amenities.

Local residents and business owners say visitors ask every day when the wharf will reopen.

“My kids learned to fish out there,” said Josh Whitby, kitchen manager of Zelda’s, a restaurant on the Capitola waterfront that suffered major damage in the January storm. “It’s going to be nice to get back on it.”

Zelda’s reopened three months after the storm. Whitby was in the restaurant when a huge, 600-pound wooden beam that had broken off the wharf crashed through the restaurant’s windows.

“It was 7:45 am and I watched wave after wave smash through the window and wash across the floor,” he said. “There was anger, some sadness. I didn’t know if the whole building was going to come down.”

After $450,000 in repairs, Zelda’s is back, gleaming and good as new.  The beam is now mounted like a trophy on the wall. In an amazing bout of bad luck, Whitby’s family also owns Betty’s, a restaurant on the Lahaina waterfront in Maui that burned down last August during that island’s devastating fires.

“I was thinking, ‘What the hell did we do to have to go through this twice in one year?’ It was pretty rough,” he said.

Steve Perricone, a Hollister resident who owns a vacation rental house near the foot of the Capitola Wharf with his wife, Sandi Perricone, said the number of visitors has been down slightly over the past year. But the new wharf should be a nice draw, he said, in a town that attracts tourists from the Bay Area, the United States and other countries around the world.

“We miss the weekend music and activities out there,” he said. “It’s a fun place to people-watch. It will be great to have it open again.”

Unveiling his revised $288 billion May state budget for 2024-25, Newsom laid out a plan that relies on taking some money from “rainy day” reserves set aside in prior years, while also delaying some state programs. It leaves 10,000 state jobs unfilled and reduces spending on other programs — from new water storage to middle-class scholarship programs to housing assistance for low-income people.

“We have to be responsible. We have to be accountable. We have to balance the budget,” Newsom said.

In January, Newsom announced that the state had a $38 billion state deficit. The state Legislative Analyst’s Office said in February it could be as high as $73 billion, a number the governor rejected. Newsom said Friday the total turned out to be $44.9 billion. By March, the governor and state lawmakers reached a deal to reduce it by $17.3 billion, leaving a $27.6 billion deficit now.

Under state law, the Legislature is required to pass a budget by June 15 or lawmakers won’t get paid. After that, Newsom has until July 1 to agree with them on a final spending plan.

Republicans, in the minority in both the Assembly and Senate in Sacramento, criticized the proposal and generally called for more spending cuts.

“California’s budget situation is a mess,” said Assemblyman Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield, the vice chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee. “I have said repeatedly that budget gimmicks, cost shifts and more borrowing only creates more problems in the future. Using budget reserves to prop up unsustainable spending is not only unwise, it’s fiscally irresponsible.”

California’s budget went from a surplus three years ago to deficits over the past two years. Capital gains taxes surged in 2021 due to a booming stock market but plummeted in 2022 following a market downturn, which reduced the amount of capital gains taxes that the wealthiest Californians pay. Also, state budget analysts had difficulty accurately predicting how much tax money would be coming in after the IRS allowed Californians last year to delay paying taxes from April until November due to the historic storms that upended many communities.

“It’s boom or bust,” said Sanjay Varshney, a professor of finance at Sacramento State University. “The top 1% of earners account for almost half the budget. So what happens to the 1% has a major impact on the state budget.”

California’s government, and many state residents, also received billions in emergency funding from the federal government during the COVID pandemic, which now has run out.

Newsom echoed that concern. He said the state should begin budgeting in two-year cycles. On Friday he also laid out a plan for 2025-26, although that will be subject to change next year.

For this year, the governor proposed closing the budget deficit with:

• $15.2 billion in cuts: Those include cutting $500 million from water-storage programs, $2 billion in broadband funding, $510 million in middle-class scholarship programs, and $550 million in preschool and kindergarten programs.• $14.8 billion in pauses and shifts: Among them is moving $4 billion in spending for electric vehicle and renewable energy programs out of the general fund to be covered by the state’s cap and trade funds, which are fees paid by polluting industries. Another $1.4 billion in childcare programs would be delayed; and $972 million in childcare programs would shift from the general fund to be paid for by cannabis funds.• $7.5 billion in revenues and borrowing, which includes some budget tricks, such as saving $1.6 billion by delaying from June 30 until July 1 the date that state workers are paid, which moves the expense into a new fiscal year.• $4.2 billion from rainy day reserves.• $3 billion in efficiencies: These including leaving 10,000 state jobs open and cutting 8% from state department office budgets by reducing landlines and printing costs.

Not proposed for cuts were some of the main new programs that Newsom and Democrats in the Legislature have put in place in recent years. Those include pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds and expansion of Medi-Cal, the state’s low-income health care program, to immigrants in the country illegally, which state budget analysts estimated last year would cost $3.1 billion annually.

“Our values are intact despite some tough choices we are making in this budget,” he said.

Permanently locking in place new costs from the boom years is now posing a challenge, said Sun Won Sohn, a professor of economics at Loyola Marymount University.

“The state assumed that good times would continue, especially because the state has a rainy day fund,” he said. “These assumptions turned out to be wrong.”

Also Friday, Newsom proposed $1 billion in cuts to several state housing programs aimed at financing and preserving existing affordable housing.

Among them are the Multifamily Housing program, the Foreclosure Intervention Housing Preservation Program, and the Infill Infrastructure Grant Program. But he said new funding from Proposition 1, a $6.4 billion bond approved by voters in March, is set to increase the number of treatment beds and supportive housing facilities for homeless people.

“There are components of our housing strategy where we are making adjustments, but the core mission remains firm,” Newsom said, adding that the state is committed to “more investment for housing the homeless than ever.”

Educators will be watching the budget negotiations in the Capitol closely. They are particularly concerned about Proposition 98 — the voter-approved, constitutional mandate that guarantees minimum funding for K-12 schools and community colleges.

In January, Newsom proposed lowering the funding requirements to reflect the lower-than-expected state revenues. But because the funding formula builds on prior years to determine how much money to allocate to schools each year, that change could reduce funding for schools by billions of dollars. Educators said they’re prepared to fight.

“It sets a terrible precedent that would destabilize education funding and also violate the voters’ intent when they passed Prop 98,” said Troy Flint, a spokesman for the California School Boards Association. “We are opposed to that decision in the extreme, and we will be fighting against it vigorously.”

Transportation agencies were spared direct cuts in this go-round. Last year, Newsom and state lawmakers agreed to a $1.1 billion bailout of transit agencies, which are running large deficits due to severe drops in ridership as more people work from home. Friday’s budget did not reduce the size of that bailout, but “much of this funding is likely to be delayed,’’ said Rebecca Long, director of legislation and public affairs for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, adding that the state remains committed to protecting transit services and capital projects.

Overall, Newsom said he understood concerns from various interest groups about cuts and delays in programs, all of which must still be approved by lawmakers. But rather than lay off state workers, impose furloughs or deep cuts in social welfare programs, or raise taxes, he said his approach is the best alternative.

“We have a math problem,” he said. “Is this what I want to do? No.”

A likely candidate for president in 2028, the governor was adamant about not increasing taxes on corporations or the wealthy, something that liberals in the Legislature and some advocacy groups have urged him to do.

He emphasized that despite the current deficit, California still has the fifth-largest economy in the world and just set records for tourism spending and continues to lead in fields from artificial intelligence to computers to immunology.

“People visit from around the world and say, ‘What is it about this state where you continue to punch above your weight, continue to invent the future,’ ” Newsom said.

Staff writer Kristin Bender contributed to this story. 

But many of the park’s most iconic images — timeless, internationally famous shots of Half Dome, Tunnel View, Mirror Lake and other wonders that strikingly depict America’s natural heritage —  were made by Bay Area native Ansel Adams.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Postal Service will issue 16 commemorative stamps featuring some of Adams’ most renowned photographs, including images of Yosemite Valley, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other majestic western landscapes, from the Grand Tetons to Monument Valley, Arizona.

The first such tribute to Adams’ work by the Postal Service, the stamps will be released at a first-day issue ceremony in Yosemite National Park, only a few feet from the Ansel Adams Gallery, where Adams, who died in Monterey in 1984, worked for decades redefining nature photography.

“It’s an incredible honor for Ansel,” said Matthew Adams, his grandson, on Thursday. “It shows that his popularity continues 40 years after he passed. His work resonates across time. He would be excited and honored.”

Adams timeless black-and-white photographs are celebrated for their sharp focus, high contrast and complex dark room craftsmanship. Many of them he took with large format cameras on a tripod mounted to a platform he built on the roof of his 1940s-era Woody station wagon.

An art director with the Postal Service, Derry Noyes, worked with the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust to select the 16 photographs featured on the stamps, Matthew Adams said. Before he died, the legendary photographer set up the trust to manage the rights to his images.

The Postal Service is printing 20 million of the stamps, said David Coleman, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Washington D.C.

More than 400 stamp collectors, photographers, and other fans of Adams’ work are planning to attend the ceremony at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Yosemite Valley to unveil the stamps. Anyone who pays admission to enter the park is allowed to attend.

“There’s a huge buzz around the park,” said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. “We’re super-excited. Ansel Adams is synonymous with Yosemite. He pioneered a lot of his techniques with the big box cameras here in Yosemite in the 1930s and 1940s.”

At that event, which will feature remarks by Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon, Matthew Adams, and Daniel Tangherlini, a member of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, first-day covers of the stamps will be sold, with a postmark from the Yosemite Valley post office.

“People come from all over the world and ask where did Ansel Adams take this photo, or that photo?” Gediman said. “His work epitomizes the spirit of the park in a way the way no other photographer has ever done. In a lot of people’s opinion, Ansel Adams is the preeminent photographer for national parks.

“This is a really fitting and well deserved tribute to his life and legacy.”

Adams had a remarkable life.

Born in 1902 in the Fillmore District of San Francisco, he broke his nose when he fell down during the 1906 earthquake as a 4-year-old child. It remained crooked his whole life. As a boy, he spent time exploring Baker Beach and other wild areas around the city. He visited Lick Observatory near San Jose with his father to study the planets and stars.

He became an accomplished piano player.

When he was 14, he visited Yosemite for the first time with his family. His parents gave him a Kodak Brownie No. 1 box camera, which inspired him to photograph the waterfalls and scenery of the park. He returned the next year with a tripod and more cameras. He began to learn darkroom techniques, joined photo clubs and read photography magazines.

A lover of nature, Adams joined the Sierra Club and worked at LeConte Memorial Lodge in the park from 1920 to 1923. His first photographs were published in 1921 when he was 17, and his prints began selling in the park at Best’s Studio, the business of landscape painter Harry Best, whose daughter, Virginia, Adams eventually married, and whose studio later became the Ansel Adams Gallery.

He began traveling to parks around the West. He published his first book, Taos Pueblo, in 1930; then put up an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution the following year featuring his photographs of the Sierra Nevada, and a year later, opened a photo gallery business in San Francisco in 1933.

He was first elected to the Sierra Club’s board of directors in 1934 and served on its board for 37 years. During that time his photographs helped conservation groups push Congress to establish new national parks, including Kings Canyon. He donated photographs as part of the campaign to advocate for voters to pass Proposition 20 in 1972, which created the California Coastal Commission.

Adams helped establish the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Today his work hangs in many of America premier fine arts museums, and original prints have sold for hundreds of thousand of dollars.

He moved to the Carmel Highlands near Big Sur in the mid-1960s, taught photography workshops at Yosemite, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by in 1980 by President Carter.

Another U.S. postage stamp in 2002 featured an Adams image, “Sand Dunes at Sunrise,” that he made in Death Valley National Park in 1948. It was part of the “Masters of American Photography” issuance featuring 20 different photographers from Dorthea Lange to Edward Weston.

“Stamps are miniature pieces of art,” Coleman said. “And these Ansel Adams stamps are pieces of art. How much more Americana can you get than Ansel Adams?”

Under California law, motorists must pre-purchase 7,500 orders for any specialty license plate before the state Department of Motor Vehicles will agree to print it. But through March 31, only 4,135 orders had come in for the proposed 49ers plate, with a May 31 deadline looming.

To finish the drive, the family of Denise DeBartolo York, which owns the 49ers, has agreed to pay for the remaining 3,365 plates needed, as long as fans sign up for them, on a first-come, first-served basis. The cost is $50 up front to buy a 49ers plate and $40 a year to renew on top of normal vehicle registration fees, making the York family contribution about $168,250.

If the 7,500 total is reached as expected, the DMV will print the plate, and the 49ers will become the first professional sports team in the state with their logo on a California license plate.

“I’m over the moon. I’m really excited,” said Wade Crowfoot, secretary of California’s Natural Resources Agency, which oversees state parks. “It’s a great win-win. It’s a way for fans to demonstrate their support for the team and to do something great for their communities and California.”

Overall, 75% of the proceeds from sales will go to the state’s “Outdoors for All” program, which aims to expand access to parks to underserved communities, along with other state parks projects.

The nonprofit 49ers Foundation also will receive 25% of the proceeds for the team’s youth and science education programs.

California motorists can obtain the complimentary license plate by going to 49ersplates.com and using the code “faithful” during checkout. There are some conditions: Anyone obtaining a free 49ers license plate will have to pay their own renewal fees each year. And the free offer is only for regular plates, not personalized plates, which cost $103 each.

They may also go fast: The team announced the free offer to its season ticket holders first, and by noon Monday, about 2,700 free plates were left.

The specialty 49ers plates are eligible for autos, trucks, motorcycles or trailers registered in California.

“We had well over 4,000 folks sign up,” said Justin Prettyman, executive director of the San Francisco 49ers Foundation, of the numbers before the free offer was extended. “We made it more than halfway there. There was a lot of energy and excitement around the program, but it’s a long haul to get 7,500 people. It’s not an easy feat. We are really thrilled by the support and grateful to fans who did pledge.”

The 49ers Foundation provides programs to about 25,000 children a year across the Bay Area and from Salinas to Sacramento. The foundation funds health and wellness programs, has classrooms in Levi’s Stadium to teach science, math and other subjects to participating schools, and helps fund girls flag football programs.

Hall-of-Fame receiver Jerry Rice already filmed a short video promoting the specialty license plate that was shown on the scoreboard at Levi’s Stadium during home games. The California Natural Resources Agency set up a booth at 49ers games to help increase sign-ups.

But the best marketing tool may well be once the plates hit the street, sometime next year, Prettyman said.

“People will pull into Levi’s Stadium parking lot, and other people will say how do I get one of those?” he said.

More than $200 million has been raised over the years from California’s 14 specialty plates, among them the Yosemite plate, which funds projects in Yosemite National Park; a Snoopy plate that raises money for California museums; a whale-tail plate that has generated money for beach cleanups and coastal programs; a veterans plate that aids military veterans programs; and other specialty plates.

“These plates are surprisingly impactful,” Crowfoot said. “They protect open space, build hiking and biking trails, and support programs to get kids into parks. It’s a fun and creative way to support the outdoors. They  are a big deal. And in an era of budget uncertainty they provide consistent funding.”

Crowfoot said he expects the 49ers plate to raise several million dollars over the next five years. The money will fund a range of programs, from grants to build and renovate parks in low-income neighborhoods to school field trips to parks and historic sites.

But they don’t always succeed.

In 2010, a plate with an image of the Golden Gate Bridge — whose backers hoped it would raise $1 million a year for the California Coastal Conservancy — failed to secure enough buyers, as did a plate featuring an image of a bear and a mountain that would have funded projects of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, a state agency.

Last October, the Los Angeles Rams quietly dropped their campaign to create a specialty plate to help fund state parks after receiving only 1,055 orders after two years of trying.

California’s most popular commemorative plates first came out in the 1990s, with big splashy artwork, like the Yosemite and Coastal Commission’s whale-tail plates.

But complicating the trend is a state law, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, that limited the size of the art work on the plates. Prompted by concerns from the California Highway Patrol that officers were having a hard time reading the license plate numbers, the law required that any logo be no larger than 2-by-3 inches — about the size of a business card.

So fans wanting a plate with a huge image of famed coach Bill Walsh or the 49ers’ five Super Bowl trophies will have to wait until state lawmakers change the law. Until then, 49ers officials are optimistic the new plates are finally hitting their stride.

“Hopefully,” Prettyman said, “they will fly off the shelves.”

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal agency based in Oregon, announced the decision Wednesday evening, citing low numbers of Sacramento River winter Chinook, Central Valley Spring Chinook and Upper-Sacramento River fall Chinook salmon.

Despite ample rainfall over the last two winters, the state’s salmon populations are still struggling from the effects of the severe drought that gripped California from 2020 to 2022 when hotter temperatures and lower water levels in streams and rivers killed many of the young fish.

During the drought, cities, farms and fishing interests battled for limited water supplies.

On Thursday, fishing and environmental groups said state and federal water managers should have kept more water in rivers and behind dams to reduce the impact and managed it more effectively. That almost certainly would have meant less water would have been pumped to cities and farms during the drought.

“It’s heartbreaking. It’s a travesty,” said Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association.

“State and federal water managers are devastating our rivers,” he added. “They are removing vast amounts of water and creating lethally high temperatures in those rivers that are destroying salmon. If you kill all the baby salmon through California water policy, then two or three years later you aren’t going to have adults returning, or very few. This is the governor’s legacy.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced that the state would ask the federal government for a disaster declaration to provide financial assistance to the owners of commercial salmon fishing boats, recreational boats and others in the industry.

“Decades of climate extremes have severely impacted our salmon populations, and we’re taking action to address this crisis for the long-term,” Newsom said. “We’ll continue working with the Biden Administration and Congress to ensure California’s fisheries and impacted communities are supported during this critical time.”

Last year, the U.S. Commerce Department approved spending $20.6 million to help salmon fishermen after the season was closed. But Thursday, fishing industry officials said they have not yet received the money.

The news comes the same week that the state Department of Fish and Wildlife closed the commercial Dungeness crab season early this year, allowing it to be open for only three months, to protect humpback whales from becoming entangled in trap and buoy lines.

“We’ve had a reduction in our crab season, a reduction in our rockfish season, and now we are going to go nine months without potential income,” said Dick Ogg, a commercial salmon fisherman based in Bodega Bay. “This closure is very impactful to all of us. We are having a difficult time to say the least.”

The salmon closure this year is not expected to cause shortages of salmon in stores or restaurants in California. As with last year, there will be wild salmon available from Oregon, Washington and Alaska, along with farmed salmon from Norway, Canada and other countries.

But for families who own fishing boats, it’s another setback in a long downward trend.

California’s commercial salmon fleet has shrunk by nearly 25% in the past decade. In 2022, there were 464 commercial boats that participated in the salmon fishery, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, down from 616 a decade earlier in 2012. That number is a fraction of what it was a generation before when there were 4,750 vessels in the late 1970s.

Water interests pushed back against the claim that they are to blame.

“Salmon are a three-year fish,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, a group of urban and agricultural water agencies. “The impacts of the drought are showing up in this year’s numbers. Certainly fish need water, I don’t think anyone would deny that. But we have hatchery management issues, ocean conditions, lack of habitat and a whole host of other issues affecting them.”

Pierre noted that in 2022, cities and many farms were only receiving 5% of their water allocations from the State Water Project due to extremely dry conditions and water shortfalls.

Generally speaking, salmon populations have tended to rise and fall based on whether the state has been in a drought or not.

But the overall downward trend has been caused by a variety of other factors, scientists say, including the construction of dams that have blocked salmon migration up and down rivers, wildfires that can cause erosion and sediment to clog rivers and streams, and the huge pumps near Tracy operated by the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project, which can kill fish as they move water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta south to cities and farms.

Salmon fishing was also closed in California during the 2008 and 2009 seasons, for the first time in state history.

Salmon are born in rivers, swim to the ocean, grow in size and return to the rivers to spawn and die, usually over three years. Federal fisheries managers estimate that 133,638 Sacramento River fall run Chinook, the main commercial salmon species in the state, returned last year to the Sacramento River. That’s more than double the estimated 61,862 that returned the year before. But it is nearly 20% below forecasted numbers, even though fishing was banned last year. And historically, scientists say, more than 1 million of the fish returned to spawn.

In January, Newsom visited salmon restoration sites in Humboldt County, and announced a plan aimed at restoring populations of the iconic fish.

The plan called for continued removal of outdated or silted-up dams that block rivers. Four major dams on the Klamath River on the California-Oregon border are now being removed. It also called for restoring wetlands and stream habitat in the Delta, San Francisco Bay and other locations.

Commercial fishing organizations said they support this year’s salmon closure, noting that it should help to improve populations of the fish.

But they said they want more of a voice in statewide water decisions and more action to guarantee flows in rivers, streams and the Delta, especially during dry times.

“This is a huge sacrifice of our income as a commercial fishing fleet, for everyone who wants to take a boat ride into the ocean and get a fish for their barbecue for Father’s Day, and for markets and our local food security,” said Sarah Bates, captain of the Bounty, a 1926-era salmon troller she docks in San Francisco. “But we cannot be the only ones making a sacrifice.”

“Salmon have been feeding Californians for thousands and thousands of years,” she added. “Right now they are last in line for the water resources that they need to survive.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the settlement on Wednesday.

“Quest Diagnostics’ illegal disposal of hazardous and medical waste and patient information put families and communities at risk and endangered our environment,” Bonta said. “Let today’s settlement send a clear message that my office will hold corporations, including medical services providers, accountable.”

The company, based in Secaucus, New Jersey, operates at 623 sites in California.

It provides testing for cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases, neurological disorders, COVID-19 and employment and court-ordered drug testing.

Ten district attorneys from Alameda, San Mateo, Monterey, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Ventura, and Yolo counties joined Bonta in the legal action.

According to the prosecutors, the district attorneys’ offices conducted more than 30 inspections at Quest laboratories and patient service centers around the state starting in 2020.

They discovered hundreds of containers of chemicals, including bleach, solvents and flammable liquids, illegally thrown in dumpsters and trash compactors, along with batteries and electronic waste, unredacted patient information, and medical waste such as used specimen containers for blood and urine.

Through the sloppy disposal methods, the company which has 50,000 employees nationwide, and revenues of $9.8 billion in 2022, violated various laws, including the Hazardous Waste Control Law, Medical Waste Management Act, Unfair Competition Law, and civil laws prohibiting the disclosure of personal health information.

The company has since hired an independent environmental auditor to review waste disposal at its facilities, and is reforming its training procedures for the handling, storage and disposal of hazardous waste, medical waste, and personal health information. Under the settlement, it is required to file annual reports with the state on its progress.

“These include investing in technologies for treatment of biological waste, secured destruction of patient information, programs to maximize recycling efforts and minimize waste-to-landfill disposal, waste-to-energy recovery of non-recyclable wastes, and enhanced waste audit and inspection measures to ensure continued compliance with applicable laws.”

The district attorneys said the shoddy disposal practices were widespread.

“This was not an isolated incident by a single Quest Diagnostics testing facility,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “This was Quest Diagnostics laboratories and testing facilities across the state skirting California’s hazardous waste laws while ignoring the very real environmental and health impacts.”

The company will pay $3,999,500 in civil penalties that will be divided between the counties and several state agencies that oversee hazardous waste; $700,000 in costs and $300,000 to pay for environmental training and enforcement programs in California.

Roughly half of California’s 58 counties, including several Bay Area counties — Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano — are expected to be out of compliance under the new rules, including large parts of the Central Valley and Southern California.

The new national standards, endorsed by health and environmental groups and criticized by the oil, manufacturing and other industries, are expected to mean stricter rules for oil refineries, factories and power plants, along with diesel-powered vehicles and other emissions sources.

Particulate pollution can lodge deep in the lungs of people, increasing the risk of asthma, cancer, heart attacks and other ailments. The risk is particularly high in low-income communities located near ports, freeways, power plants, factories and rail yards.

On Wednesday, the EPA said that the new rules would prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths nationwide, along with 290,000 lost workdays, and yield up to $46 billion in net health benefits by 2032. For every $1 spent to comply with the rules nationwide, up to $77 in human health benefits would accrue by 2032, the agency said.

“This final air quality standard will save lives and make all people healthier, especially within America’s most vulnerable and overburdened communities,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. “Cleaner air means that our children have brighter futures, and people can live more productive and active lives, improving our ability to grow and develop as a nation.”

Currently, the Bay Area’s air meets federal health standards for particulate pollution. But the Los Angeles Basin and the San Joaquin Valley do not.

Under Wednesday’s rules, the EPA will decide in 2026 which areas are in compliance and which are not. For areas out of compliance, state air regulators will set tougher rules on the largest emission sources. If local air districts do not submit plans for cleaning the air, the federal government can withhold highway funds, although that is rare.

Industry groups said the rules will add costs and regulations and could limit job growth.

“Today’s announcement is the latest in a growing list of short-sighted policy actions that have no scientific basis and prioritize foreign energy and manufacturing from unstable regions of the world over American jobs, manufacturing, and national security,” said Will Hupman, vice president of the American Petroleum Institute. “As we review the final standard, we will consider all our options.”

The rules were last updated in 2012 by the Obama administration. The tighter rules were embraced by the Biden administration after the Trump administration rejected them in 2018. The outcome of the November presidential election is very likely to decide whether they remain in place.

Environmental groups on Wednesday called the new standards a major advance.

“The EPA is putting public health first by requiring polluters to cut soot from the air we all breathe,” said Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This will help save lives today and improve the health of generations to come.”

Smog and other types of air pollution have declined significantly in the decades since President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act in 1970 and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan established the California Air Resources Board in 1967.

Particulate pollution has fallen 42% nationwide since 2000, according to EPA data, largely due to regulations such as requiring scrubbers on smokestacks at factories and power plants, cleaner blends of gasoline and diesel fuel for cars and trucks, tougher standards on engines and other federal and state rules.

California has gone farther than other states, requiring diesel trucks to undergo smog checks, regulating pollution from large ships and locomotives, and requiring the owners of old semi-trucks to replace their engines. The state also has offered industries financial help to upgrade engines and other polluting equipment, funded in part by a $2 fee on vehicle registrations.

But a growing source of soot pollution in California and other Western states is from wildfires where smoke drifts hundreds of miles. The EPA rules allow states to request exemptions from the rules when wildfires spike soot levels on the grounds that they are “exceptional events.”

Soot pollution also is known as “PM 2.5” —  for particulate matter 2.5 microns or smaller, so small that 30 of the particles can line up across the width of a human hair.

The current annual health standard for such pollutants is 12 micrograms per cubic meter, averaged over three years. Under Wednesday’s new rules, it will fall to 9. The EPA’s scientific advisory panel recommended that EPA tighten the annual standard to between 8 to 10.

The main state agency that regulates air pollution in the Bay Area also endorsed the new rules Wednesday.

“The stronger standard will drive additional health protections for Bay Area residents, particularly those living in communities disproportionately impacted by air pollution,” said Philip Fine, executive officer of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

During the process to develop the rules, questions arose about whether they might hurt President Biden’s re-election chances in key industrial states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Reagan, the EPA chief, said in a call with reporters that industry has used technology to comply with improved air quality rules in the past, and that since 2000, the U.S. economy has grown 52%, even as air pollution rules have tightened and public health has improved.