Chris Allen: San Jose CC, No. 14, 170 yards, 6-hybrid

Matt Arba: Deep Cliff GC, No. 3, 114 yards, 8-iron

Bill Ayres: San Jose CC, No. 7, 116 yards, sand wedge

Tami DeFiore: Deep Cliff GC, No. 8, 79 yards, 9-iron

Peggy Heath: Deep Cliff GC, No. 8, 79 yards, pitching wedge

Gary Hubbard: Spring Valley GC, No. 7, 160 yards, (club not reported)

Donna Lee: Deep Cliff GC, No. 8, 79 yards, 9-iron

Kohl G. Phillip: Deep Cliff GC, No. 10, 131 yards, 8-iron

Justin Polk: San Jose CC, No. 7, 156 yards, 9-iron

Ernesto Vallin: Deep Cliff GC, No. 10, 140 yards, 8-iron

Derek Hubbard, who police say was the victim of an early-morning robbery at his Encinal Street facility Monday, was being held without bail in Santa Cruz County Jail on Tuesday. Hubbard allegedly rammed into and shot at the escape vehicles of multiple thieves as they were leaving the scene around 4:30 a.m. Police later arrived in the area and were unable to apprehend the thieves, officials said.

Hubbard — who runs a cannabis cultivation, manufacturing and distribution center — had been the victim of a prior break-in robbery and was alerted to the most recent break-in via his security system, Santa Cruz Police Deputy Chief Jon Bush said.

In what turned into a rolling gun battle through the Harvey West neighborhood, Hubbard allegedly initiated the shooting with the departing thieves, according to Bush.

“(Hubbard) used lethal and deadly force to try and stop what was ultimately a property crime from occurring without there being any threat of violence toward him,” Bush said of investigators’ decision to arrest Hubbard.

While Santa Cruz police originally booked Hubbard Monday on suspicion of four counts of attempted murder, the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office elected to file numerous lesser charges, including felony shooting at an inhabited dwelling, four counts of assault with a semiautomatic rifle and three counts of assault with a deadly weapon. The charges include several special enhancements for the use of a weapon in the commission of a felony. Hubbard is scheduled for arraignment at 8:15 a.m. Wednesday before Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Syda Cogliati.

One of the vehicles believed to be involved in the robbery, reported stolen out of the Bay Area, was abandoned near the Pasatiempo exit of Highway 17. Police were unable to provide a description of a second vehicle believed to be involved.

The Sentinel spoke to a man who identified himself Tuesday as the general manager of the cannabis business who asked for anonymity for fear of danger to his personal safety. He said he and others in the field are aware of an organized crime ring whose members target licensed cannabis businesses throughout the state and have picked up their efforts locally in the past month and a half. Amid a group of local business owners sharing information, thieves had been using similar tactics that have large armed and masked groups showing up in multiple high-speed vehicles who are breaking in with professional tools, the manager said. He counted at least 10 people involved in Monday’s theft.

Professionals in the industry say they feel like they do not receive the same level of law enforcement response as other businesses, despite being highly regulated and highly taxed, the manager said.

“We’re put in such a bad and dangerous position right now,” the manager said. “These stings are targeting these companies and hitting them over and over and over again. Now they’re trying to prosecute someone for defending their own life and defending their own property when we’re being targeted by these monsters that would kill us in a second.”

One is a jet-setting high-stakes poker player with a taste for fancy resorts, drinks and cars. Another is a blockchain and cryptocurrency entrepreneur.

They’ve teamed up before for an online gaming venture in Southern California that made millions. Now they’re betting they can do it again. But first they’ll have to sell skeptical tribal leaders and the Golden State’s wary voters — who rejected two sports betting ballot measures in California last year — on a plan to legalize sports books in what would become the largest U.S. market.

Whether Reeve Collins and Kasey Thompson’s 2024 California sports betting initiative campaign gets off the ground could be decided as soon as this week, when they pitch their plan Wednesday to California’s tribal gaming leaders — the same group of people who feel blindsided and disrespected because they weren’t consulted before the partners filed their proposals with state authorities last month.

“The legalization of sports wagering has been a contentious battle in the past, but if the proposition is structured properly and has significant tribal support, 2024 will be the year it passes,” said Collins, one of the proponents of the new sports betting initiative. “We are doing our best to make that happen.”

Added business partner Thompson, “this is not something put together lightly.”

“If I’m willing to fire $25 million in a few weeks” in a bid to qualify a ballot measure, Thompson said, “it shows I’m pretty prepared for this.”

But are others? The California Nations Indian Gaming Association represents 52 federally recognized tribal governments dedicated to the gaming industry. In a statement released the day the proposed initiatives were filed, the organization said that it was “deeply disappointed” the measure proponents didn’t reach out to tribal leaders first.

Tribal leaders have largely avoided further comment before hearing the pitch, but it’s not expected to be warmly received. Victor Rocha, a gaming industry strategist with the Pechanga Band of Indians in Temecula, home to one of the state’s largest casinos, has been sharply critical.

In social media posts after the initiative proposals were filed, he called the proponents “morons” and “idiots” and he’s cut them little slack since, calling their effort a “fool’s errand” last week. But he did say the proposal “opens the conversation” about a possible 2026 measure that would introduce sports wagering at tribal casinos and, eventually, online.

“The tribes will take an incremental approach,” Rocha said in a Nov. 8 post. “We will not be hurried.”

Thompson took that as an encouraging sign.

“I can assure you I will spend time with him to make sure he knows this is the best proposal he’s ever seen,” Thompson said, adding that while no tribal leader has endorsed the proposed ballot measure, none have formally voiced opposition.

The new online gaming proposal comes less than a year after California voters dealt tribal casino and online gaming interests crushing defeats of two November 2022 ballot propositions, despite record spending — nearly half a billion was raised to support or oppose the competing initiatives.

Proposition 26 would have allowed tribal casinos and some horse racetracks to offer sports books, while Prop 27 would have legalized online sports wagering through tribal agreements with proceeds funding programs for homelessness and mental health. The measures split the tribes, and political analysts said voters were put off by the bickering and confusion over dueling plans.

Thompson and Collins were previously involved in a successful online gaming platform — Pala Interactive — developed with the Pala Band of Mission Indians in San Diego County. Nevada casino giant Boyd Gaming Corp. bought Pala Interactive a year ago for $170 million. Boyd Gaming and the Pala Band of Mission Indians said they aren’t involved with the proposed California initiatives.

“We’ve swam in these waters before,” said Thompson. His Instagram account describes him as one of the original “Molly’s Game” high-stakes poker players, and is filled with images of him in private jets, sports cars and at resorts and sporting events. He calls himself as an online gaming executive and “founder of amazing companies” with a passion for charities. He also cofounded All In Magazine, a poker industry trade publication.

Collins describes himself on LinkedIn as “a long-standing pioneer in both digital marketing and the Bitcoin/Blockchain space,” who co-founded BLOCKv, Tether and SmartMedia Technologies.

Thompson said the last-minute filing for a 2024 ballot measure was strategic and designed to eliminate the possibility of competing initiatives. He said their proposal would offer tribes a variety of ways to profit from sports books at no cost to themselves, as he and his partners are prepared to bankroll getting the measure before voters.

Thompson believes it would bring overseas sports books into the sunlight as legitimized operators, similar to what happened with PokerStars, now owned by FanDuel’s parent Flutter. Those overseas sports book are now profiting from gray-market gamblers in the Golden State without providing revenue to tribes or the state.

Unionized Starbucks baristas plan to hold their biggest strike yet this week, accusing the coffee giant of refusing to fairly negotiate at cafes that voted to organize.

Thousands of employees at hundreds of sites will mount one-day work stoppages on Thursday, according to the union Starbucks Workers United.

Also see: Here’s what this year’s Starbucks holiday cups look like

The strike is pegged to the company’s Red Cup Day, a popular promotional event when Starbucks gives out holiday-themed reusable cups. The union says Starbucks has illegally refused to negotiate in good faith over issues including staffing and scheduling that are particularly onerous during such promotions.

“Starbucks has made it clear that they won’t listen to workers, so we’re advocating for ourselves by going on strike,” Oklahoma City employee Neha Cremin said in an emailed statement.

In an email, Starbucks said it’s the union that’s refusing to fairly negotiate. The two sides have disagreed in many store locations about ground rules for the meetings, including whether workers should be allowed to participate via videoconference.

On Monday, the coffee chain alleged that it’s been months since the union agreed to meet for contract talks, while the union claimed Starbucks has refused to meet unless workers agreed to illegal infringements on their rights.

“We are aware that Workers United has publicized a day of action at a small subset of our U.S. stores this week,” Starbucks said. The company, which denies wrongdoing, said it hopes that the union’s “priorities will shift to include the shared success of our partners and working to negotiate union contracts for those they represent.”

Workers United has prevailed in elections at more than 350 of Starbucks’ roughly 9,000 corporate-run US stores, starting with a landmark win nearly two years ago in Buffalo, New York. California has at least 28 unionized stores, with 12 in Southern California and 14 in the Bay Area (see list below).

Regional directors of the US National Labor Relations Board have issued more than 100 complaints against the company, alleging illegal anti-union tactics including closing stores, firing activists, and refusing to fairly negotiate at unionized cafes. At the first two stores to unionize, the agency alleged the company “bargained with no intention of reaching agreement.”

Investigations and appeals in such cases can drag on for years, and the agency lacks authority to issue punitive damages or hold executives personally liable for wrongdoing. So the union has sought to deploy other forms of pressure, including outreach to politicians, customers, and students at universities where Starbucks has contracts. On Nov. 16, striking workers plan to visit non-union cafes to talk to fellow baristas about joining their efforts.

List of unionized Starbucks in California, according to unionelections.org.

Bay Area locations:

Berkeley: 2224 Shattuck Ave.

Capitola: 1955 41st Avenue

Fairfield: 1450 Travis Boulevard

Oakland: 1211 Embarcadero

Pleasanton: 511 Main Street

San Francisco (2): 4094 18th Street, 744 Irving Street

San Pablo: 14330 San Pablo Ave A

Santa Cruz (2): 745 Ocean Street, 1909 Mission Street

San Jose (2): 1338 The Alameda, 1430 Monterey Hwy

Santa Clara: 71 Washington

Sunnyvale: 1291 S. Mary Ave

Other California locations:

Anaheim: 1570 South Disneyland Drive, Suite 105

Anaheim: 131 East Katella Avenue, Unit 10

Barstow 2489 Lenwood Road

Encinitas: 905 Orpheus Ave.

Huntington Beach: 6502 Bolsa Ave.

Lakewood: 4833 Candlewood St.

Long Beach: 3390 East 7th St.

Los Angeles: 138 South Central Ave.

Los Angeles: 3241 Figueroa St.

Los Angeles: 6066 W. Olympic Blvd.

La Quinta: 79845 Highway 111, Suite 104

Sacramento

San Diego: 1240 University

Santa Maria

The more exciting action for the region is likely to come next.

“We did see the first system really covering more of the North Bay than anything, and we did get some rain there,” meteorologist Roger Gass said Tuesday afternoon. “But it wasn’t anything heavy.”

The weather service said one-third of an inch of rain fell in Santa Rosa, the wettest spot in the region. Two-hundredths of an inch fell in Vallejo, but that was as far south as any significant rain traveled, according to the weather service.

Next comes the middle system of the three. It is expected to bring a wider, heavier path of rain, beginning Wednesday and lingering into Thursday, Gass said.

After that storm cell departs, the third system will roll into the region on Friday.

“This next one is looking to be more plentiful in terms of rain than the one that just went through,” Gass said. “That one is probably going to be most impactful on the coastal ranges and less so in the interior valley. The Friday storm is probably on track to be the wettest overall.”

The rain — what little rain there has been so far — has been caused by a low-pressure system spinning offshore that is expected to stay around for a few days.

Significant amounts of rainfall were anticipated by forecasters as they looked at the weather models last week. Forecasters predicted the start of the rain this week would kick off around midnight Tuesday, but by 7 a.m., only trace amounts had fallen in the East Bay and South Bay.

At mid-morning, most of the Bay Area saw blue skies with some light wispy clouds in certain areas.

By sometime Saturday or early Sunday, those clear skies will have returned and will settle in for a bit, Gass said. A “substantial break” in stormy weather is expected and could last through Thanksgiving, he said.

Until then, forecasters said residents should be prepared for rain, even if not quite so much.

“I know this was kind of a dynamic forecast with a lot of uncertainty associated with it a few days out,” NWS meteorologist Sarah McCorkle said early Tuesday. “Now we have a better idea of how much rain we’re going to get and it does look like we’re trending a bit downwards.”

Both police and a business representative for an industrial cannabis facility on the 300 block of Encinal Street were put on alert when burglars tripped a security alarm at the site prior to 4:30 a.m., Santa Cruz Police Deputy Chief Jon Bush said. The business representative, however, arrived at the facility ahead of officers, catching at least two thieves leaving the site. The representative apparently attempted to apprehend the thieves by ramming his car into one of two believed fleeing vehicles, according to Bush.

“At some point, shots are exchanged between the victim and the suspect, and vice versa, is our understanding,” Bush said. “The suspects ultimately ended up fleeing. They’re still outstanding.”

A Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office deputy soon after located one of the vehicles, a white SUV with rear-end damage, abandoned near northbound Highway 17’s Pasatiempo exit. The vehicle had been reported stolen out of the Bay Area, Bush said.

“We currently are interviewing the (business) owner to determine if there is any criminal charges that he may face in regards to his use of a firearm to attempt to apprehend the suspects,” Bush said late Monday afternoon. “Albeit they were committing a commercial burglary, we are investigating whether or not the force (the business owner) used, particularly in the ramming of the car and the use of the firearm, was lawful and reasonable for the situation.”

Bush said that, generally, a credible threat to life is required to justify the use of deadly force — such as if the thieves fired first. As of late Monday afternoon, the department had not located the thieves nor made any formal arrests, he said. He was not able to immediately provide a description of the thieves.

In March, two cannabis-related facilities in the same neighborhood were similarly struck in back-to-back overnight robberies, also involving the use of multiple stolen vehicles or mismatched license plates. Bush said those most recent robberies remained under investigation and that no arrests had been made in either case.

The first of two waves of rain arrived in the Bay Area in the early hours of Tuesday, Nov. 14, the National Weather Service said.

The updating radar map above shows areas of precipitation in green, with greater intensities indicated by yellow and orange.

Updates on road closures and chain controls in the Sierra Nevada can be found on CalTrans’ website or mobile app or by calling (800) 427-7623.

Ramos, a patient biller at the UC Irvine Medical Center, lives in Mira Loma in Riverside County with her parents and two children. For eight years, she’s been making the 80-mile round-trip trek to Anaheim that could take up to two hours one way when traffic is bad — which frequent 91 Freeway travelers know can be often.

“Two hours in the morning; two hours in the evening,” Ramos said. “I spend half a day of work in traffic.”

Ramos’ story is not unique. For many other Californians, union leaders say, living near their place of work is not an option because few can afford a place close to their jobs.

To make matters worse for UC workers like Ramos, campuses and medical centers are often located in cities with some of the highest housing costs in the state, according to a report released in June by researchers for Ramos’ union. The average cost of living in counties with a UC campus is 47% higher than the national average, the report states. 

And after a year of workers’ strikes across the Golden State, housing affordability and other labor-related issues have taken center stage as key election issues in California’s U.S. Senate race.

We spoke to the candidates who have, thus far, declared their candidacy for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein‘s seat about these issues. Here is a brief roundup of their positions.

Adam Schiff, Democrat

Rep. Adam Schiff believes the federal government should foremost revisit its housing policies. “We just have kind of a haphazard approach to housing which isn’t cutting it,” he said.

For starters, the Burbank Democrat said the federal government needs to increase federal financial assistance, such as grants directed to states, by “hundreds of billions” of dollars to build affordable housing and expand low-income housing tax credits, an incentive to build affordable rental housing for low-income households.

“We have a major supply problem. There’s just not enough low-income, certainly not enough affordable, housing,” Schiff said. “Tax credits are a really useful way of addressing that.” 

Schiff, 63, also wants to see the federal government expand the availability of low-interest loans to build affordable multifamily housing in California. 

Barbara Lee, Democrat

At a recent town hall, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said California has not kept up with inflation and the cost of living. The federal government, she said, could invest in various affordable housing strategies to mitigate the situation.

One such strategy, Lee said, is outlined in a bill she introduced earlier this year called the Deposit Act. Housing policy in the U.S. has largely been left to state and local governments, but under Lee’s legislation, the federal government would expand the Section 8 housing choice voucher program and help those in the program cover their security deposits and moving costs. The bill has not been heard in a committee yet. 

“Oftentimes workers don’t have the money to put down for a house or an apartment,” Lee, 77, said. “And so why don’t we have HUD establish a revolving fund so that workers can access this fund for deposits for a place to live?”

Christina Pascucci, Democrat

Christina Pascucci, a former KTLA reporter and recent entrant into the race, believes the housing shortage is a public safety issue.

“It exacerbates the homelessness crisis when you don’t have places where people can afford to live,” she said. “It’s also a public safety issue when you have first responders that are forced to live out of state because it’s cheaper just to fly to California and afford a home in another state. What if there’s a wildfire that erupts? It’s all hands on deck.”

Orange County Fire Authority officials estimate the number of its force that live out of the state to be 60 out of 1,100. In nearby Los Angeles, 160 firefighters of its 3,000-plus workforce live outside of the state, according to The Guardian.

Pascucci, 38, said she witnessed the affordable housing crisis firsthand when she was out in the field reporting. 

“I was doing wildfire training with the Orange County Fire Authority recently when I was still at my job,” Pascucci said. “One firefighter told me an estimated 15 to 20 firefighters that he knows off the top of his head are living out of state — not even just a several-hour commute but out of state — because that is how dire our affordable housing crisis has become.” 

“This absolutely needs to be addressed, and quickly,” she said. “So I’m for all of the above approaches when it comes to affordable housing, workforce housing and market-rate housing.” 

At the federal level, Pascucci said she would push for the federal government to fund building workforce housing — middle or moderate-income housing — for teachers, police, firefighters and other first responders as well as introduce legislation that helps affordable housing projects get off the ground at a faster pace.

Eric Early, Republican

Republicans in the race, including attorney and businessman Eric Early, have concerns about the federal government upping its spending. While affordable housing is a top issue, he said “cutting checks” will make the situation worse.

“One thing we can’t do is keep sending money from a government that has no money,” said Early. “What ends up happening is everybody’s taxes go up and inflation increases.”

But Early said he supports loosening regulations to make it easier to build affordable housing. The cost to build a house in California comes with a price tag higher than elsewhere in the country, even before a nail is banged into the first two-by-four, he said. 

Early pointed to legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September as part of the chief executive’s housing package. The measure streamlines affordable housing production by exempting local governments from a provision in California’s Environmental Quality Act that requires affordable housing proposals funded by local municipalities to go through an additional review of the project’s environmental impact, unlike state-funded projects, which undergo just one.

“CEQA must be changed because it was being used to often extort builders and developers, and all of that ends up getting passed to the consumer,” Early, 64, said. “This exemption will decrease costs to build affordable homes.”

Katie Porter, Democrat

Rep. Katie Porter from Irvine has repeatedly stated that housing affordability is her No. 1 issue.

Porter, 49, said she would push, as a senator, for legislation to have the federal government fully fund Section 8 vouchers for low-income families, seniors and people with disabilities. That includes the Housing Choice Voucher Program, the largest federally funded housing program in Orange County that provides rental assistance to qualified tenants, she said.

“For healthcare, everyone who qualifies for Medi-Cal is able to get it,” Porter said. “We need to do the same thing with regard to housing vouchers.” 

Porter would also like to see the low-income housing tax credit, which she described as the “best and most effective program” to build affordable housing, quadruple.

Lexi Reese, Democrat

Lexi Reese, a former Google executive, wants to take a slightly different approach in her plan to “house every person in California.”

As a senator, she said she would propose legislation that would give tax credits to businesses that invest in their employees by way of paying them a living wage and providing them with job training, childcare expenditures, healthcare and transportation credits to get from their home to their place of work. To qualify, businesses would have to spend these funds on workers who earn below a given threshold. 

Businesses that don’t abide by this would have to pay a fine that would subsidize tax credits for those that are, Reese, 48, said.

She is calling it the “Human Capital Tax Credit Bill” and is loosely basing it on previous legislation from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, that died in the previous Congress.

A short-term solution, though, would be to make commuting free for workers providing essential services, including teachers and healthcare workers, Reese said, which can come in the form of free mass transit or a transportation credit card. 

Steve Garvey, Republican

Former Dodgers star Steve Garvey has pledged to run on a platform focusing on quality-of-life issues, including the cost of living and housing affordability.

When pressed for specific policy proposals he has to mitigate the housing affordability crisis, Garvey, 74, opted to talk broadly about the economy, which he said is the overarching issue. 

Garvey said the economy must recover before more money is spent on housing.

“I would heavily focus on getting our economy back,” Garvey said. “Let’s cut back taxes; let’s get cash flow involved again. Let’s get to where people are not losing $800, $900 a month and $10,000 a year because of inflation.”

Though California rent increases are slowing down, residents of the Golden State on average pay 43% more than the nationwide norm. This summer, Orange County was the second costliest county in the state for renters with the average rent hovering around $2,638 a month. 

Up until last year, each group flew in a single line, forming a sine wave in perfect formation. Each exactly follows the bird ahead. They flap their wings to rise 30 to 40 feet, then at the top, they glide down to skim the surface so closely that their wing tips dimple the surface of the water as they again flap their wings to rise.

But for the past two years, they have nearly completely lost this precision. They straggle in irregular groups, some large, some small. Sometimes a semblance of the old formation happens. What do you think happened? Did they lose their leader?  Did homeschooling fail? Did they decide to become free to fly without regimentation?

It’s an existential crisis.

— Roger Ecker, Alameda

DEAR ROGER: Maybe they’re carrying too much emotional baggage in their pouches.

I’ve spoken with some bird experts and while they can’t provide an exact reason for the change, they say it’s not unusual for pelicans to do their own thing and not fly in formation.

It could have to do with the supply of food. It might not be as plentiful, so the fish are more widely dispersed. It might have to do with the number of other birds around at a specific time of the year. Regardless, they say there is nothing to be concerned about.

JD Bergeron with International Bird Rescue near Fairfield says they haven’t seen any illnesses or concerns with brown pelicans, other than the usual injuries and entanglements in abandoned fishing lines and hooks.

Perhaps the pelicans are as discombobulated as we are in these post-pandemic, unsettling times.

DEAR JOAN: There’s a dreadful odor coming, apparently, from a dead animal under my daughter’s house. Her husband says there’s no way to reach it. He hasn’t been able to see exactly where it’s located nor what it may be, but the smell permeates the floor and the children’s bedrooms are affected.

Do you have any suggestions?

— R. Nakano, San Jose

DEAR R.: The best bet is to hire a pest control company that will find the source of the smell, remove the dead animal and clean the area to help eliminate the odor and any biological concerns.

Next, clean the house using vinegar or a product that has vinegar in it. They might also set out bowls of vinegar, which is good for absorbing and removing unpleasant odors. Make sure the bowls are safely out of reach of children and pets.

If they do nothing, the stench will disappear in a few weeks, but trust me, it will be agonizing until then.

Krane Pond update

Fantastic news. With your help, Save Mount Diablo has met its $500,000 goal for purchasing and preserving Krane Pond, an important water source for wildlife on Mount Diablo and surrounding areas.

I’ll have more details on what happens next in next week’s column, but on behalf of Save Mount Diablo, myself and wildlife, thank you.

Animal Life runs on Mondays. Reach Joan Morris at AskJoanMorris@gmail.com.

The California Highway Patrol was called around 2:04 p.m. to a reported crash of a red 2008 Victory Vision and a white 2003 Toyota Tundra for reasons still under investigation on Highway 1 at Dimeo Lane in unincorporated Santa Cruz County.

The cause of the crash is under investigation. The CHP said it is not believed that alcohol or drugs were a factor.