The shift, made this week, is accompanied by a new court calendar reserved for people who discover they are the subject of bench or arrest warrants, and until now had to submit to jail booking — and possible detention — just for the chance to argue to a judge why they shouldn’t be in custody.

According to the court and attorneys involved in shaping the new policy, the change had been in the works for several months. The issue gained added public pressure in July when the ACLU and the Stanford Law School Criminal Defense Clinic sued the court over the previous practice.

The plaintiffs — led by a man who discovered he had a warrant for a minor offense, then spent three days in jail only to be released at arraignment — called the system a “bail or jail” test that unfairly burdened poor people.

“Our hope is that this allows people to avoid truly unnecessary incarceration,” said Emi Young, a staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California. “That’s something that never should have happened. It was extremely harmful to individuals and was bad public policy.”

The Superior Court declined to offer any comment other than to assert that the lawsuit was not the catalyst for the policy change.

Under the new protocol, people who learn they are wanted for a warrant now have the option, through an attorney, to request an arraignment date on the court calendar. They would still have to submit to an “informal booking” requiring a photograph and fingerprint recording, but they would head to court from there instead of being faced with posting bail or going into jail custody. In its initial stages, the reserved calendar for these cases will be on the second and fourth Mondays of the month.

A judge still has the final say on whether someone will be released, based on a person’s individual case and history. The kinds of cases on this calendar will typically involve minor and nonviolent offenses for which there is a good chance that someone will be ordered released while their case is adjudicated.

Meghan Piano, a county deputy public defender who was involved in drafting the new protocol — joined by representatives for the court, pretrial services, the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office — said the change is an important step toward leveling court access.

“Prior to this calendar, if you were poor and could not post bail, you sat in jail, whereas your wealthy neighbor would never step foot into a cell,” Piano said. “What matters is that we are here addressing this gaping hole of inequity.”

In several ways, this new calendar is a return to form. A similar practice was instituted as an emergency measure near the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. But in July 2022, Criminal Division Supervising Judge Daniel Nishigaya sent an email directive to judges stating that continuing to calendar unserved arrest warrants created an “administrative difficulty” that muddied recording, tracking, and reporting of cases.

Brandon Cabrera, supervising deputy district attorney for his office’s court diversion and mental-health unit, said a series of meetings followed in which there was a consensus to move away from forcing jail stays for people whose situations meant they would likely be released by a judge anyway.

“We got all the right people finally together to have a conversation about this,” Cabrera said.

Cabrera said that led to discussions about how to tackle those “administrative difficulties,” which ultimately led to the court agreeing to reserve a court session on two Mondays a month, when the arraignment calendar is the least busy, and the sheriff’s office agreeing to staff those Mondays at the county jail specifically to handle the warrant bookings.

What resulted, partly at Piano’s urging, was a “one-stop shop” system in which someone could get booked at the jail and go to court on the same day to see a judge and argue for release.

The new system is currently in a pilot phase, starting with one case this past Monday, and continuing with a full 10-case calendar Nov. 27.

Piano, who supervises the Pre-Arraignment Representation and Review program at her office, said she is already getting a flood of inquiries from people about the new court calendar.

“Just in the past week I have received numerous phone calls from people who really want to take care of their case but are petrified, and rightfully so, of having to sit in custody while they do so,” she said.

“It’s this unexpected complete interruption in life. All the main staples of what people have to hold on, their housing or their job or their family situation, they get ripped away from all that,” De-Bug cofounder Raj Jayadev said. “Even if the jail stay is only a couple of days, some of those things might never come back.”

Cabrera added that the new policy helps streamline the court system by incentivizing people to resolve their warrants, and allow cases to move along rather than wait for an unserved warrant to get activated by a happenstance encounter with law enforcement.

“If we can avoid someone waiting two to three days in jail and we know they don’t need to be there, this is a perfect solution,” he said.

Modera The Alameda, a 168-unit apartment building on The Alameda near the SAP Center and Diridon train station, is a step closer to transformation into an affordable housing complex following a unanimous vote by the San Jose City Council.

A $100 million package of tax-exempt bonds to finance the purchase of Modera The Alameda is the funding centerpiece of the affordable housing conversion.

The city’s decision paves the way for the anticipated future owner of the property to pursue the financing for the apartment complex at 787 The Alameda.

The $100 million financing package would be used for “the acquisition, rehabilitation, improvement, and equipping of 167 apartments and one manager’s unit to transition to an affordable housing development,” a city staff report states.

The California Municipal Finance Authority, an agency jointly established in 2004 by multiple government agencies, is slated to issue the bonds for the purchase of the Modera apartment complex.

“This will allow the Modera development to move forward with its current financing plan and create much-needed affordable housing,” the city staff report stated, referring to the financing package to convert Modera into affordable housing.

The California Municipal Finance Authority acts as a conduit for tax-exempt bonds to finance an array of projects to promote economic development.

“San Jose lacks a sufficient amount of affordable housing to meet residents’ needs,” the city staff report states.

The conversion proposal sketches out a plan whereby Catalyst Impact Fund, a nonprofit, would purchase Modera, the city documents show. Catalyst Impact would buy Modera the Alameda from current owner AEW Capital Management.

Once the apartments are converted to affordable housing, they would be set aside for very low-income and low-income individuals and families.

People who live in Modera typically pay monthly rents that range from a low of slightly more than $2,300 a month to nearly $4,600 a month, apartments.com reports.

“To avoid displacement of any current market-rate residents, units will transition to affordable upon move-out,” the city staff report states. “Existing residents who income-qualify will be offered affordable rates upon lease renewal.”

Of the 168 units, 34 units will be set aside for people at the 50% area median income level and the remaining 134 units will be restricted to people at the 80% area median income level, city officials say.

“The 2023 income limit for households with 50% area median income is $62,450 to $89,200 a year and the 80% area median income is $96,000 to $137,100 a year,” the city staff report stated.

Modera’s current assessed value is $101.7 million, county documents show.

The proposal would remove Modera from the property tax rolls — which means the complex would no longer generate property tax revenue once the new owner takes over.

About $1 million a year in property tax revenue would be wiped out as a result of conversion to affordable housing.

Despite the loss in property tax revenue, a conversion makes sense, in the view of Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use consultancy.

“Existing units can be purchased for less than the exorbitant cost to build new affordable housing,” Staedler said.

Ryan Christopher, a San Jose resident, wrote an email to city staffers that raised questions about the wisdom of the conversion to affordable housing, especially if a significant hit to San Jose’s revenue from property taxes is in the offing.

“It appears to me that the 80% area median income rents are very similar to the current rents at the property,” Christopher wrote in a Nov. 14 email to the city. “As such, it seems questionable that there is a public benefit, and certainly questionable that we should forgo tax revenue to support this.”

But a recent study conducted by Kantar on behalf of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) found that both parents and teens are not only aware of GAI but also mostly optimistic about its impact. The study included teens (13-17) and their parents completing an online survey with 1,000 participants in each of three countries: The U.S., Japan and Germany. I’ll focus mostly on the U.S. responses, which, for the most part, were similar to those from the two other countries.

Familiarity and use

When it comes to awareness, U.S. teens (69%) and parents (74%) are mostly familiar with GAI with 25% of parents saying they “know a lot,” compared with 22% of teens, which itself is different from most other tech issues where teens tend to be more aware than their parents. But what’s most surprising is that 45% of U.S. teens agreed that their parents know more than they do about GAI while only about a third (32%) of teens said that they know more. Parents concurred, with the same percentage saying their teen knows more compared with 43% saying “I know more than my teen.”

The report didn’t speculate why parents feel more clued-in than teens, but I’m guessing it has something to do with extensive news coverage of GAI and the fact that parents are more likely to consume mainstream news than are teens. Teens are more likely to get their news from digital sources, including social media.

Even though parents are more likely to say they are aware of GAI, U.S. teens are slightly more likely (67%) than parents (64%) to “have used or tried using genAI.”

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of U.S. parents and 63% of teens say they mostly use GAI for its analytical tools while 67% of parents and 61% of teens have used it for creative tasks. The report said that teens are more likely (74% vs. 59%) to use GAI “to be more efficient at tasks including proofreading and creating synopses of longer works.”

Only about a third (34%) of American parents feel that they “don’t have enough information and education about genAI,” compared with 47% in Germany and 73% in Japan.

Top concerns

Respondents were asked to rate their top concerns, and both parents and teens picked job loss as No. 1, followed by the spread of false information. Parents picked “loss of critical thinking skills” as No. 3, while teens were more likely to worry about “AI surpassing humans.” The teens picked “new forms of harassment” as their fourth concern, but that didn’t make it on the parents’ top 5 list. Both groups rated “growing dependency on genAI” as No. 5.

“Teens,” said the report “are acutely aware of the potential for genAI to be used for more sophisticated means of bullying, or to create new or intensified forms of harassment. From parents’ perspective, many express trepidation that their teens will lose opportunities to engage in deep analysis, original ideas and meaningful thinking.”

Parents were asked if they need more information to help them guide their teens, and 55% of U.S. parents said they wanted to know more about the potential risks vs. the benefits. Just under half (49%) picked benefits. Fortunately, these are not mutually exclusive. ConnectSafely is currently working on a parents guide to GAI which will focus on both risks and benefits.

Perceived vs. actual risks

It’s important to remember that a survey measures perceived risks, not necessarily actual ones. GAI is still very new, and we don’t yet know what the real risks are. It’s not yet clear, for example, whether GAI will result in a net loss or a net gain in jobs, though it’s likely to have a negative impact on some job categories. We know that GAI can result in misinformation, but there are efforts in place to use it to help combat that very scourge. The same can be said for bullying and harassment. Time will tell, and we might be surprised to find that some of our fears don’t turn into major problems, while other problems may emerge that we are not thinking about right now. I know this from personal experience as the author of the1994 booklet, “Child Safety on the Information Highway,” which was written before there was a lot of research and well before some problems emerged that I wasn’t able to anticipate nearly 30 years ago.

Generally positive perceptions of GAI

Despite concerns and plenty of negative press, parents do feel positive about their teens’ use of GAI. Two-thirds (66%) of U.S. parents said they felt positive, compared with 70% in Germany and 59% in Japan.

About two-third of parents (66%) and teens (65%) agreed that “Using genAI tools will be a vital skill to have to remain competitive in school or career. About 60% of both groups also feel that “GenAI will augment or supplement humans, but we’ll still need human creativity,” vs. “it will surpass human capabilities and take over many tasks,” while 55% of parents and 57% of teens say it “will make it easier to stay connected with others,” vs. “it will make it harder to stay connected with others.”

Trying it out

Although this survey sheds light on how adults and teens are using GAI and paints a reasonably optimistic picture of how it’s perceived, the best way for you to learn about GAI is to try it. Google Bard, Microsoft Bing and ChatGPT all offer free access to GAI services that make it easy for anyone to ask questions or create content. I find it fascinating to try out different scenarios on these services and have used them in my work to generate ideas and recently used ChatGPT’s Dalle2 image-generation tool to create artwork to accompany some of my blog posts. I understand that it can make mistakes, so I never rely on it without verifying information. I also have an ethical responsibility to do my own work in my own words, so I use it mainly for ideas and research rather than a shortcut to wordsmithing. But, just as I can’t imagine going back to my old typewriter, it’s now hard to imagine doing creative work without getting at least a little help from Generative AI.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

Nov. 9

Petty theft, theft by credit card: At 2:35 p.m., two suspects worked together to distract the victim, who was shopping at Safeway in the Argonaut Shopping Center on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, and then stole the victim’s wallet from a shopping cart for a loss valued at $195. The suspects then used credit cards from the wallet to make fraudulent purchases totaling approximately $1,412.

Nov. 10

Check fraud: A Saratoga resident reported that someone obtained a check put into outgoing mail at a US post office, then altered and cashed the check for a loss of about $4,000.

Blackstone Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Schwarzman and Visa Inc. CEO Ryan McInerney will also join them at the soiree in San Francisco, according to people briefed on the matter. Pfizer Inc. CEO Albert Bourla earlier confirmed he would attend the event, as he spoke on the sidelines of a summit that’s part of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meetings.

Technology CEOs including Qualcomm Inc.’s Cristiano Amon and Broadcom Inc.’s Hock Tan are also on the guest list, said the people, who asked not to be identified sharing details of a private event.

Xi will have the chance to talk up China’s economy to some of the world’s most-powerful foreign investors at the event, after a post-pandemic reopening expected to spur global growth failed to deliver. The Chinese leader will go into the dinner after wrapping an afternoon of talks with US President Joe Biden, aimed at stabilizing a tumultuous bilateral relationship that’s also troubled investors.

China is a major market for consumer electronics, accounting for about one-fifth of sales for Cupertino, California-based Apple. Qualcomm and Broadcom are among the world’s largest makers of chips for mobile phones, and their components are used in millions of handsets sold across China. Representatives of Apple, Qualcomm and Broadcom either declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment.

China sees investment by international companies as key to upgrading its faltering economy and has stepped up efforts to attract foreign investors this year. Its tightening of national security controls and messaging that foreign actors pose spy risks, along with years of policy crackdowns, have left some skeptical of that message.

“The Chinese economy is clearly weakening. There’s no question,” said Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “But if you need to stay in China, and you’re worried about your position because of Chinese government behavior, it’s even more important to be able to talk to Xi.”

Details around the dinner have been closely guarded. Its hosts, the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations and the US-China Business Council, had in recent days remained silent even over which Chinese leader would attend the event, as well as its location.

Shortly before the event — being held at a San Francisco hotel where crowds gathered in support and in protest of China — the official program was available to attendees: Xi would address the dinner following an introduction from Chubb Ltd. CEO Evan Greenberg, chair of the committee.

Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, claimed at an anti-CCP rally on Saturday that attendees were paying $40,000 to sit at Xi’s table. The Chinese leader is also expected to deliver an address to the dinner.

A group of Xi’s “old friends” from Iowa have also been invited to the dinner, Bloomberg earlier reported. The group hosted Xi during a visit to the US to learn about agricultural practices some 38 years ago, when he was a little-known Chinese Communist Party official.

–With assistance from Fran Wang, Gabrielle Coppola, Aisha Counts, Dawn Lim, Silla Brush, Mark Gurman and Ian King.

(Adds details on program starting in ninth paragraph.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

When the Spartans play San Diego State Saturday night at Spartan Stadium, they will be honoring seniors who were part one of Brennan’s first recruiting classes and pivotal to this season’s turnaround.

“It’s an emotional day for the guys who actually are realizing it’s their last game at (Spartan) stadium,” Brennan said. “The guys we’re talking about are really special guys that have been very impactful on and off the field. I hope there’s just a lot of people here to celebrate the seniors that are playing their last game.”

Among the 17 seniors are running back Kairee Robinson, quarterback Chevan Cordeiro, offensive lineman Jaime Navarro and Anthony Pardue, twin defensive backs Tre and Andrew Jenkins, safety Chase Williams and defensive lineman Noah Lavulo.

Many of the seniors have been with Brennan since they were freshman in 2018, a class that has defined Brennan’s tenure at SJSU.

That class included Robinson, Navarro, Pardue and the Jenkins twins. They all were essential pieces to the team that won the Mountain West championship in 2020 and helped SJSU earn a bowl game appearance in 2022.

The countdown to the last home game of their college careers has been in the minds of Tre and Andrew Jenkins since the season started..

“We kind of knew that going into the season that for all the seniors, we know it’s our last season,” Andrew said. “So we already had those conversations with our best friends, me and Tre have been having those tough conversations to know that we got to enjoy these moments.”

After starting the season 1-5, the Spartans have won four straight to move into a three-way tie for third place in the Mountain West.

SJSU (5-5, 4-2 MW) trails Air Force and UNLV (both 5-1 in conference) with two regular season games remaining, so a few things need to break their way, but there suddenly is a path for the team to get back to the conference championship game for the second time in four years..

The Spartans have leaned on their senior playmakers to get them to this point. Robinson, Andrew Jenkins, Navarro and Lavulo are all having career years.

Robinson has rushed for 919 yards and 15 touchdowns. He recently broke the SJSU record for consecutive games with a rushing touchdown held by Tyler Ervin in 2015, and is tied for the single-season rushing touchdown record with Johnny Johnson (1988) and Deonce Whitaker (2000).

Lavulo has been a standout on the defensive line, totaling 35 tackles, 7 tackles for a loss and 3.5 sacks — all career highs.

“I think playing better football right now is a collective effort and everybody is all in on it,” Brennan said. “That’s why it’s really fun to be a part of it and to just see how hard the players are working and how much they care.”

Robinson says the only thing that has mattered this season is getting to the conference title game.

“I haven’t tried to think about it too much,” Robinson said of his record-breaking personal accomplishments. “I’m just focused on getting an opportunity to make it to the conference championship and focusing on this year and this moment.”

Seats are already filling up at Spartan Stadium in anticipation for senior day. The Jenkins twins reserved 30 seats and are looking for more. Robinson said there will be a whole section reserved for all of his relatives.

“It’s going to be a big crew for sure,” Robinson said. “All from Antioch.”

As emotional as Saturday’s game will be, the end might not be so near for SJSU’s seniors. There will still be one more regular season game and the potential for the Mountain West championship game and a bowl game still out there.

“I still think their legacy is still being written,” Brennan said. “We still have a lot of football to play. Maybe ask me that question. In two weeks.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service also offered the broad scientific explanation for the pond’s color: “It’s natural. Tiny microscopic organisms specialized to live in very salty water live here, including the microscopic algae known as Dunaliella salina and halobacterium.”

Meanwhile, Santa Clara County Parks explains on its website that a nearby levee project could be making A12’s water pinker than usual: “In 2021, Valley Water, the State Coastal Conservancy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began construction of the South San Francisco Bay Shoreline Project (Phase I) between the Alviso Slough/Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek. The levee construction requires very low water levels, therefore we did not replenish water into these ponds as they naturally evaporate throughout the summer. As a consequence, Pond A12 got saltier and pinker.”

Elsewhere, teams will play semifinals in hopes of reaching next week’s section championship games.

The biggest of the games Friday are De La Salle against San Ramon Valley for the North Coast Section Open Division title at Dublin High and Serra facing Wilcox for the Central Coast Section Open Division championship at San Jose City College.

But there should be plenty more drama throughout the Bay Area.

Los Gatos at St. Ignatius in the CCS and California at Pittsburg in the NCS fall into the must-see column, as does Cardinal Newman at Las Lomas and Christopher at Menlo School, the latter four a combined 44-4 on the season.

The Bay Area News Group will have complete coverage throughout. If you have not already, please sign up for a digital subscription. Your contributions keep us going.

Here are this weekend’s top matchups and schedule:

NCS Open/Division I

Open championship game

No. 2 San Ramon Valley (10-1) vs. No. 1 De La Salle (9-2) at Dublin HS, Friday, 7 p.m.: The first game this season between these schools was an all-time classic, won by De La Salle 33-27 in overtime on a walk-off touchdown run by Derrick Blanche. Both teams have not lost since then but San Ramon Valley almost did last week. The Wolves survived in overtime against Campolindo 38-31, but only after the seventh-seeded Cougars erased a 21-0 deficit in the first quarter to take a seven-point lead in the fourth. De La Salle has won 30 consecutive NCS championships and 39 overall. The Spartans have not lost to an NCS opponent in 32 years, improving their record over that span to 269-0-1 with an opening-round victory last week over James Logan. SRV was bumped up to the NCS’s top division this season after winning the section’s Division II championship last year. SRV QB Luke Baker passed for 204 yards and three TDs last month against DLS but was most effective scrambling out of the pocket. Despite being sacked five times, he ran for 179 yards. As he did last week, RB Matthew Garibaldi could take some of the workload from Baker. The junior had a big game rushing and receiving in the win over Campo. The winner Friday advances to a NorCal regional. The runner-up will play California or Pittsburg for the NCS’s D-I title and a second regional berth next week. – Darren Sabedra

Division I semifinal

No. 4 California (7-4) at No. 3 Pittsburg (11-0), Friday, 7 p.m.: The winner will play the De La Salle-San Ramon Valley runner-up for the NCS’s Division I title next week. PIttsburg rallied from a fourth-quarter deficit in its 38-35 regular season victory over California. The Pirates defeated Amador Valley 41-14 in the first round of the playoffs last week as junior quarterback Marley Alcantara threw 44- and 85-yard touchdown passes to Makari Kenion in the second half to pull away from the Pleasanton school. The Pirates defense, led by junior safety Jadyn Hudson and pass rusher Jewelous Walls, has not allowed more than 20 points in any of its last six games. California showed in the first game against Pittsburg that it could score against the Pirates. Quarterback Jayden Macedo and receivers Nick Fox and Chase McGill are capable of putting up points in a hurry. California rallied from a 17-3 deficit in the second quarter against Clayton Valley Charter in the first round. CalPreps.com’s computer predicts Pittsburg to win 34-21. – Joseph Dycus

CCS Open/Division I

Open championship game

No. 7 Wilcox (8-3) vs. No. 1 Serra (11-0) at San Jose City College, Friday, 7 p.m.: Serra is the section’s most dominant team, maybe its most dominant team of all time. The Padres have won all but two games this season by no fewer than 28 points and have outscored opponents 456-91. They beat Folsom and De La Salle to open the year and powered through the West Catholic Athletic League with only one somewhat close call, a 24-13 victory at Valley Christian on Oct. 27. The Padres are aggressive and well-coached on defense – with seniors such as Jabari Mann, Joseph Bey and Danny Niu leading the way – and explosive on offense behind the likes of Oklahoma State-bound quarterback Maealiuaki Smith. Serra has won 10 consecutive CCS playoff games, including a 27-14 victory over Wilcox in 2019. Wilcox reached the Open final by stunning second-seeded St. Francis 52-28 last week. The victory bought the Chargers at least two more games because of the CCS’s new playoff format. The Open Division runner-up now plays for the section’s D-I title the following week. For Wilcox to have any shot to keep the score close against Serra, its veer option will have to be flawless both in yards and time consumption. Last week, Elijah Walker ran for four TDs and scored on a kickoff return. Calpreps.com’s computer says Serra wins 42-12. – Darren Sabedra

Division I semifinal

No. 4 Los Gatos (9-2) at No. 3 St. Ignatius (8-4), Friday, 7 p.m.: Los Gatos “broke the curse” and defeated West Catholic Athletic League opponent in the first round of the playoffs last week with its 28-14 victory over Archbishop Riordan. That was a role reversal from the past two years when the storied South Bay public school lost to Bellarmine and Archbishop Mitty in dramatic finishes. Senior quarterback A.J Minyard, running back Boxer Kopcsak-Yeung and linebacker Henry Masters keyed a 14-0 second half that helped Los Gatos pull away from Riordan. Los Gatos will aim to do it again when it travels to San Francisco to face another WCAL school, St. Ignatius. SI edged out Valley Christian to advance past the first round. Soren Hummel threw a five-yard touchdown pass back over the middle to Monroe Barnum with 7.8 seconds for the winner. Like Los Gatos, St. Ignatius also has an effective running game, keyed by offensive lineman John Mills and running back Jarious Hogan. The winner will advance to play the Serra-Wilcox runner-up for the CCS’s Division I championship next week. CalPreps.com’s computer predicts Los Gatos will win 27-17 in the programs’ first matchup since 2006. – Joseph Dycus

CCS Division II

Semifinals

No. 8 Christopher (10-1) at No. 5 Menlo School (10-1), Saturday, 1 p.m.: Three of the top four seeds in this division are out. Among them were the two teams with the worst records in the eight-team bracket. Menlo sacked unbeaten No. 4 seed Live Oak and Christopher surprised top seed Archbishop Mitty 32-28, rallying from a 28-19 deficit with two touchdowns in the game’s final five minutes. Menlo’s 30-28 triumph over Live Oak was just as dramatic. Andres Gonzalez Combera kicked a 21-yard field goal with three seconds left. Christopher comes into Saturday’s contest against the Knights as the slight favorite, according to the calpreps.com computer. The Cougars do have an edge in marquee talent with explosive receiver Amari Bluford, who began Christopher’s comeback against Mitty with a 95-yard kickoff return. RB William Rizqallah then scored the winning touchdown with 42 seconds to go on a 7-yard run. Bluford and Rizqallah are attracting some college attention, as is MLB Evan Vernon, who has 117 tackles. Junior QB Jaxen Robinson is flying under the radar, but he goes 6-5, 220, and has thrown for 1,871 yards and 20 TDs. Menlo is led by dual-purpose QB Mikey McGrath, who has passed for 1,563 yards and rushed for 641 more. He has accounted for 27 touchdowns. Sophomore Jack Freehill also sees his share of playing time. He has thrown for 790 yards. Both teams slightly favor the pass over the run. Menlo has a trio of solid receivers in Brady Jung, Harry Housser and Nicholas Scacco. Jung is the favorite target with 48 catches for 861 yards. College scouting services are checking him out. David Mhatre, with seven sacks, will need to be kept in check by the Christopher offensive line. – Mike Lefkow  

NCS Division III

Semifinals

No. 3 Cardinal Newman (10-1) at No. 2 Las Lomas (10-1), Friday, 7 p.m.: If Las Lomas coach Doug Longero had been asked in September if his team would be playing Friday night, it’s likely his answer would have been no. The Knights are a young team, with a roster that numbers less than 10 seniors. But the schedule provided time for the Knights to develop. Their first two games were at home. They had to play a non-league contest against eventual Diablo Athletic League Valley champion Alhambra, but the Knights, who are in the DAL Foothill, led 28-7 in the second quarter. The toughest part of the season didn’t occur until back-to-back games against Campolindo and Acalanes last month. The Knights split, with Acalanes handing them their only defeat. Another key for Las Lomas was going 4-0 in games decided by a touchdown or less. Sophomore QB Dylan Thomas has been a big part of Las Lomas’ growth with 1,802 passing yards and 20 touchdowns. Junior WR Roman Mercado has 55 catches for 975 yards and 11 TDs. He also has four interceptions. One senior making a huge contribution is Sava Pourides. He has run for 712 yards and nine scores and also leads the defense with 79 tackles. The Knights struggled past Ukiah 17-7 in the first round of the playoffs while Cardinal Newman walloped American Canyon 49-14. Lately, 5-8 junior Wyatt Knechtle appears to be getting more and more time at quarterback. The key to the offense is 6-4, 200-pound RB Zachary Homan, who has 1,959 yards and 32 touchdowns. He has gone over 100 yards in nine games, including 273 against American Canyon. Cardinal Newman is physical up front, where DE Jesse Myers and NG Kahlio Vaetoe have combined for 15 sacks. – Mike Lefkow  

CCS Division IV

Semifinals

No. 5 Leigh (8-3) at No. 1 Palo Alto (6-5), Friday, 7 p.m.: Palo Alto is seeking its second consecutive appearance in a CCS championship game after routing Seaside 55-21 in the opening round last week. The Vikings won the Division V title last season. Leigh advanced to the semifinals with a 21-20 victory on the road over North Salinas. The Longhorns have not reached a CCS final since 2000. Palo Alto has heated up offensively since a midseason drought in which the Vikings were held scoreless in three consecutive games by Los Gatos, Menlo-Atherton and Menlo School. They have averaged 43.7 points in the past three weeks, all victories. Jeremiah Madrigal ran for four touchdowns and Jason Auzenne added two against Seaside. Leigh qualified for the playoffs in its final regular season game with a win over Westmont. In last week’s victory over North Salinas, Charlie Lyon passed for two TDs and Shayan Shariat ran for one to lead the Longhorns. Leigh and Palo Alto have met just once in the MaxPreps era (2004-present). Palo Alto won 48-0. Calpreps.com’s computer projects it to be much closer this time. It says Palo Alto wins 21-14. – Darren Sabedra

No. 3 Branham (9-2) at No. 2 Mountain View (5-6), Friday, 7 p.m.: The first team to 40 points could win this game featuring two potent offenses. Branham defeated Mountain View 66-45 in a CCS Division IV semifinal last year. Last week, Branham routed Greenfield 41-14 behind another big game from quarterback Jack Lewis. He has thrown for 31 touchdowns and run for another 10 this season. Running back Elias Antillon rushed for a 53-yard touchdown against Greenfield and is also a capable receiver. Branham might need defensive lineman Francis Mone to dominate the line of scrimmage for a second week in a row to beat Mountain View. Arturo Hernandez, a powerful senior running back, rushed for 174 yards and a touchdown in Mountain View’s 49-21 rout against Burlingame last week. Receiver Lex Silver is also a threat. He caught three passes for 120 yards and two touchdowns last week. The winner will play Palo Alto or Leigh for the championship next week. CalPreps has Mountain View winning Friday, 38-35. – Joseph Dycus

NCS Division V

Semifinals

No. 4 Alhambra (8-3) at No. 1 Miramonte (7-3), Friday, 7 p.m.: Alhambra won the DAL Valley with a 4-0 record, outscoring its opponents by an average of 42 points. Miramonte finished fourth in the DAL Foothill, losing by an average of 34 points in its three defeats. So how will this semifinal matchup shake out on Friday night? The calpreps.com computer is picking Miramonte by 13 points. What this game could come down to is how the favored Matadors handle Alhambra QB Beau Blau. The 6-0, 165-pound senior has passed for 1,760 yards, run for 1,237 more and accounted for 42 touchdowns. Contain him, and Miramonte can begin planning ahead for next week. But if Blau is allowed to run free, anything can happen. Bulldogs coach Alan Hern said Blau is beginning to get some attention from the junior colleges and lower division four-year schools. Blau does get some help. Receiver Luke Beatty has 36 catches for 771 yards and 13 touchdowns. Miramonte also has a dual-threat QB in sophomore Carson Blair. He has 1,247 passing yards and has run for 364 yards. His three top receivers won’t be easy for Alhambra to contain. Finn McManus, Jack Quinnild and Andrew Bjornson. all stand at least 6-2, and have caught at least 22 passes for well over 300 yards apiece. Only McManus graduates. Miramonte has won seven in a row and 11 of the last 12 against the Bulldogs dating back to 2010. None of those games were decided by less than two touchdowns. – Mike Lefkow 

Schedule

Central Coast Section

Open/Division I

Open championship game

No. 7 Wilcox (8-3) vs. No. 1 Serra (11-0) at San Jose City College, Friday, 7 p.m.

Division I semifinal

No. 4 Los Gatos (9-2) at No. 3 St. Ignatius (7-4), Friday, 7 p.m.

Note: The first-round winners in the top half of the bracket will play for the Open Division championship in Week 2 of the playoffs. The loser of the Open Division championship will play the winner of the bottom half of the bracket for the Division I championship in Week 3 of the playoffs.

Division II

Semifinals

No. 6 Monterey (8-3) at No. 2 Soquel (9-2), Friday, 7 p.m.

No. 8 Christopher (10-1) at No. 5 Menlo (10-1), Saturday, 1 p.m.

Division III

Semifinals

No. 7 Alisal (10-1) at No. 6 Scotts Valley (10-1), Saturday, time TBA

No. 4 Palma (4-7) at No. 1 Menlo-Atherton (5-6), Friday, 7 p.m.

Division IV

Semifinals

No. 3 Branham (9-2) at No. 2 Mountain View (5-6), Friday, 7 p.m.

No. 5 Leigh (8-3) at No. 1 Palo Alto (6-5), Friday, 7 p.m.

Division V

Semifinals

No. 7 Leland (4-7) at No. 3 South San Francisco (10-1), Friday, 7 p.m.

No. 4 Santa Teresa (5-6) at No. 1 Woodside (7-4), Friday, 7 p.m.

North Coast Section

Open/Division I

Open championship game

No. 2 San Ramon Valley (10-1) vs. No. 1 De La Salle (9-2) at Dublin HS, Friday, 7 p.m.

Division I semifinal

No. 5 California (7-4) at No. 3 Pittsburg (11-0), Friday, 7 p.m.

Note: The first-round winners in the top half of the bracket will play for the Open Division championship in Week 2 of the playoffs. The loser of the Open Division championship will play the winner of the bottom half of the bracket for the Division I championship in Week 3 of the playoffs.

Division II

Semifinals 

No. 5 Heritage (5-6) at No. 1 El Cerrito (9-1), Friday, 7 p.m.

No. 6 Rancho Cotate (7-4) at No. 2 Windsor (8-1-1), Friday, 7 p.m.

Division III

Semifinals

No. 5 Tamalpais (8-3) at Marin Catholic (10-1), Saturday, 1 p.m.

No. 3 Cardinal Newman (10-1) at No. 2 Las Lomas (10-1), Friday, 7 p.m.

Division IV

Semifinals

No. 4 Maria Carrillo (6-5) at No. 1 San Marin (11-0), Friday, 7 p.m.

No. 3 Vallejo (8-3) at No. 2 Acalanes (7-4), Friday, 7 p.m.

Division V

Semifinals

No. 4 Alhambra (8-3) at No. 1 Miramonte (7-3), Friday, 7 p.m.

No. 3 Analy (7-4) at No. 2 St. Bernard’s (8-3), Saturday, 1 p.m.

Division VI

Semifinals

No. 4 Fortuna (8-3) at No. 1 St. Vincent de Paul (9-2), Saturday, 1 p.m.

No. 3 Salesian (9-2) at No. 2 Moreau Catholic (6-5), Friday, 7 p.m.

Division VII

Semifinals

No. 5 Ferndale (7-4) at No. 1 Clear Lake (9-1), Friday, 7 p.m.

No. 3 Kelseyville (8-3) at No. 2 Willits (8-3), Friday, 7 p.m.

Oakland Section

Semifinal

Oakland Tech (5-5) at Castlemont (6-4), Friday, 7 p.m.

“It’s gonna be a little strange,” Taylor said. “I think once the game gets going, it’ll feel pretty normal to go into a kind of competition mode, but yeah, it’ll be a different experience for sure.”

Taylor was Cal’s quarterback from 1986-89 and started two Big Games, which resulted in a tie in 1988 and a loss in 1989. He graduated as the program’s all-time leading passer with 8,126 yards.

He soon turned to coaching, and had stints coaching receivers, quarterbacks and tight ends at Cal from 1996-99, even serving as the team’s recruiting coordinator in 1999. When he stepped away from coaching, he worked as an analyst on Cal radio broadcasts from 2005-11.

“Just being a part of Cal for so long and having such a love for the university and what it’s given me, I’ll always have a lot of gratitude for the university, the program there, and I always will love Cal,” Taylor said. “Now being on the other side of it, this is my family – the Stanford Cardinal – and excited to be able to go into a battle.”

Taylor’s playing career featured two of the most memorable games in the rivalry, which has been played 125 times on the football field. As a freshman, Taylor was sidelined with a broken jaw when 1-9 Cal upset 16th-ranked Stanford in the final game for coach Joe Kapp, who knew he was being fired after the season. Taylor’s junior year, when he made his first start against the Cardinal, Stanford’s Tuan Van Le blocked a 20-yard field goal at the end to preserve a 19-19 tie – the last tie in Big Game history.

“I remember neither team really knew what to do,” Taylor said about the tie. “Because typically, your memories of The Big Game my freshman year is Joe Kapp being carried off the field, it was a huge upset and everybody’s on the field and you celebrate and you run around with the Axe and it’s just great energy. And if you lose the game you saunter off, and you’re not really that excited. So once we all realized it was a tie and there was going to be no celebration for either team, we just kind of walked off and left. It was very strange.”

But Taylor had another strong memory from the tie game, and it wasn’t something that happened between the lines. He remembered looking at the south endzone and seeing a scuffle between the mascots, Oski the Bear and the Stanford Tree.

“It was a legitimate fight,” Taylor said. “They were trying to hurt each other. It was in between series and I remember Oski trying to tear the Tree apart and I remember Oski pointed his finger – one of those four fingers he has – at the Tree, like ‘This isn’t over,’ you know? I’m like, this is bizarre. I was living in a cartoon world or something.”

And now Taylor will experience the rivalry from the other sideline.

“Obviously every game is really important, but there’s a different energy around the Bay Area, and people are a little bit more interested in this game,” Taylor said. “There’s no other rivalry like Cal-Stanford where I think the universities have so much respect for each other and what they stand for, and being obviously so close in proximity, and we’ve had wild games that have taken place here. People on the national stage still remember The Play. So it’s exciting to be a part of it.”

Note that if you are headed into San Francisco, the massive APEC international conference running through Nov. 19 is going to pose traffic issues. More about that is here along with a map detailing the more heavily affected areas.

And, as always, be sure to double check event and venue websites for any last-minute changes in health guidelines. Meanwhile, if you’d like to have this Weekender lineup delivered to your inbox every Thursday morning for free, just sign up at www.mercurynews.com/newsletters or www.eastbaytimes.com/newsletters.

1 SEE, HEAR & LAUGH: Here comes Tiffany

Tiffany Haddish, one of the funniest humans on the planet (and there are a lot of funny humans on the planet) is headed to Oakland’s Paramount Theatre on Saturday. Here’s what she has to say about her comedy tour.

2 DINE: Mexican-Japanese deliciousness

Good Luck Gato, a new joint in Oakland, applies the fun izakaya formula to a Mexican-Japanese menu. Intriguing, huh? We checked the place out recently and here are our thoughts.

3 WATCH: Godzilla’s best performance since …

Yes, the giant lizard and underrated actor is back in the terrific new series titled “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.” It tops our list of new shows and movies you should totally watch this weekend.

4 COOK: Get a head start on Thanksgiving

No, we aren’t expecting you to start cooking your bird this weekend, but here’s how you can get a jump on the holiday. And if you’re thinking of grilling your turkey this year, here’s a sure-fire recipe for that.

5 BREW & QUAFF: Coffee cocktails, anyone?

Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen identify themselves as coffee journalists, so you know they must be brilliant. And their latest book explores how to employ coffee in some mighty tasty cocktails.

6 SEE & HEAR: Great shows are all over

Smuin Ballet is back with the company’s beloved holiday show (feather boa and all). And that’s just one of the great shows going on this weekend.

7 PLAY: Surprising new ‘Mario Bros’ game

We recently checked out the new “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” game. One of its charms is the way it keeps defying expectations.