Bay City morning news roundup

Keith Burbank, Bay City News Service

A celebration will take place at City Hall in San Francisco on Wednesday evening following Abraham Lincoln High School’s win in a CIF state football championship bowl game last month.
Lincoln High’s Mustangs took home the Division 7-AA title by defeating the Panthers of Gardena Senior High School 35-26. The game was played Dec. 14 at City College of San Francisco’s George M. Rush Stadium.
The celebration will be held at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall at 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place. Mayor London Breed and other city officials are scheduled to attend.
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A Richmond school may soon be named after former first lady Michelle Obama, officials with the West Contra Costa Unified School District said.
The district’s board of education will consider the name change at a meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at DeJean Middle School at 3400 Macdonald Ave. in Richmond.
Board members will consider renaming Wilson Elementary School following a request by the school’s PTA president Maisha Cole and a Jan. 23 meeting of an ad hoc committee, which recommended the change.
District officials said if the board approves the change, it will be the first time in Northern California a school has been named after Michelle Obama and the second school in the state to get such a name.
Wilson Elementary School was named after Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States.
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Amid a housing shortage throughout the Bay Area, San Francisco supervisors on Tuesday approved an ordinance amending buyout regulations for landlords in order to help tenants stay in their units.
Supervisors approved the ordinance, initially introduced back in December by Supervisor Hillary Ronen, unanimously.
The ordinance requires landlords to file a declaration under penalty of perjury prior to starting buyout negotiations; requires a 30-day minimum between buyout negotiations and an agreement; and requires landlords clarify whether an eviction settlement agreement filed within 120 days of the start of buyout negotiations is a Buyout Agreement, which is subject to regulation.
“With speculative rents and sale prices continuing to break records, landlords have a powerful incentive to remove and replace tenants,” Ronen said. “But some landlords see cash buyouts as a way to get long-term tenants to move out quickly and avoid our condo conversion restrictions.”
Ronen said tenants sometimes feel pressured to accept cash buyouts.
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A new koala at the San Francisco Zoo & Gardens has a name following a naming contest to raise money for Australian bushfire relief, zoo officials said Tuesday.
The chosen name is Cobar Wollemi (pronounced Coe-bar Wall-em-eye). Cobar means “burnt earth” in an Aboriginal language while Wollemi is the name of pine trees, once thought to be extinct, and saved heroically from the bushfires.
“We landed on two names together because there was such a great story behind each of them,” Tanya Peterson, CEO and executive director of the San Francisco Zoological Society, said in a statement.
The contest raised $15,000. Zoo officials have not announced who came up with the koala’s name, but the two winners will be invited to meet Cobar Wollemi.
Australia’s wildlife was devastated by the bushfires and the devastation prompted the idea to raise relief money via a naming contest. People donated anywhere from a dollar to $5,000.
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The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved establishing a “universal meal pilot program” for food-insecure children in county schools.
The program – brought forward by supervisors Susan Ellenberg and Joe Simitian – allows for $8 million spending over four years, at $2 million per year, for schools with over 70 percent of food-insecure students.
Eligible schools have to apply to take part in the program.
The funding could serve an estimated 12,000 students with three million meals per year at a cost to the county of about $0.60 per meal, according to the program referral.
Ellenberg said Tuesday that the program will provide “significant health and academic benefits.”
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A pedestrian was injured seriously Tuesday afternoon in a collision in Alameda, police said.
Officers were called at about 1:30 p.m. to Walnut Street and Encinal Avenue near Alameda High School.
The pedestrian, who was an elderly woman, was in a crosswalk when a car her, Lt. David Pascoe said.
The woman was taken to a hospital in serious condition. The driver stopped and cooperated with investigators.
Pascoe said it is too early in the investigation to say whether speed or impairment played a role in the collision.
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Wednesday will be partly cloudy. Highs will be in the mid 50s to lower 60s. East winds will be around 5 mph, before becoming west winds at 5 to 15 mph in the afternoon.
Wednesday night will be mostly clear in the evening, then becoming partly cloudy with patchy fog after midnight. Lows will be in the mid 40s to lower 50s. West winds will be around 5 mph.
Thursday will be mostly cloudy in the morning, then becoming partly cloudy. Highs will be in the mid 50s to lower 60s. Southwest winds will be 5 to 15 mph.