Alameda County supes deciding if funding for homelessness can be used elsewhere
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors is deciding how to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in sales tax money that was marketed as funding to help the unhoused.
Watch CBS News
John Ramos accidentally launched a lifelong career in journalism when he began drawing editorial cartoons and writing smart-alecky satire pieces for the Bakersfield High School newspaper.
Later, while attending Fresno State, John took a 3-week summer job at a local TV station filling in for a graphic artist...who never returned from vacation. Suddenly working full-time in television, he quickly moved from graphics to photography and spent many years covering news in the Fresno area.
John's career took a turn in 1995 when he was conned into taking an assignment to create a weekly news magazine show, for which he would be the sole photographer and editor. Defying all logic, the show succeeded and John ended up winning a regional Emmy Award, a national Iris Award for Television Programming, an Edward R. Murrow Award and was named Associated Press Editor of the Year two years in a row.
That's when he met Ann, his future wife. She was also working in Fresno, but wanted to move back to the Bay Area to be near family. John tagged along, taking a job at KPIX in 2003, working mainly in the Oakland/Contra Costa areas.
In 2011, John was asked to become a "Multi-Media Journalist" or MMJ, meaning he must produce, shoot, write and edit his own stories under daily deadline pressure...all while working out of a van. It's not for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, John has developed a reputation for telling thoughtful, human stories, often with a hint of irreverence. He loves to find the humor in situations while, at the same time, respecting the viewpoints of others.
"I try to be fair in expressing people's positions...even it I don't happen to agree with them." he says. "But I'm also not afraid to point out when something just doesn't seem to make much sense."
It's been a fun, fascinating, challenging career for a guy who never really planned anything in his life. But, you know, things tend to work out OK...if you just have a little faith.
John lives in Concord with Ann and their two smart-alecky daughters.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors is deciding how to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in sales tax money that was marketed as funding to help the unhoused.
It's the result of a study showing that people prefer to take a train rather than a bus, and it's creating an opportunity to reorganize how people use transit up and down the Highway 101 corridor.
Trash services across many Northern California cities will resume on Saturday after Republic Services and Teamsters reached a tentative deal.
On Wednesday evening, the public was eager to get a look at a redevelopment proposal for its marina that had some people excited and others skeptical.
At Tuesday afternoon's meeting, the Oakland City Council approved a new ordinance that would allow its animal shelter to refuse unwanted or abandoned pets being surrendered to their care.
Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of a popular tradition in the North Bay, the Enmanji Teriyaki Barbecue in Sebastopol. In addition to the secret-recipe teriyaki chicken, the small town also serves up some lessons in humanity.
Pickleball has taken the sporting community by storm and cities across the Bay Area are busy converting tennis courts into pickleball facilities.
It was 1964 when the wrecking ball began tearing apart downtown Santa Clara, transforming what had been, for generations, a quaint city center into the dream of a modern, high-rise, futuristic utopia.
A federal judge last week ordered the release of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee who was arrested coming out of an immigration hearing in San Francisco.
The fire began at a Lexington Reservoir park when a man lit a bottle rocket. It led not only to the biggest fire anyone had ever seen, but it also changed the way wildland fires are fought in California.
Tens of thousands of people jammed into 12 blocks of San Francisco on Saturday for the weekend-long Fillmore Jazz Festival.
As the Bay Area moves closer to the July 4th holiday, city leaders are preparing for the likely scenario of the skies above Oakland being filled with illegal fireworks.
One demonstration in Sonoma County is being noted, not for its size, but for its persistence.
Breeze of Innovation was designed as an homage to San Jose's last iconic structure. In 1881, when the electric light bulb was still a technological wonder, the city erected an illuminated 237-foot tower that became a sensation.
A day after President Trump announced the U.S. struck nuclear facilities in Iran, the Department of Homeland Security warned about the potential for low-level cybersecurity attacks.