October 31, 2022

Dear Community Members,
 
It’s been an amazing month of kindness with many wonderful stories floating out there in the community. I’ve personally experienced a lot of kindness this month and I’m very proud of the work so many community members have put into these efforts. It’s a personal choice we make to decide every day if we want to bring kindness to those around us or, instead, sow the seeds of discord. What has also been quite clear to me is that some people out there didn’t ‘get the memo’ on kindness. That said, it is never too late to turn over a new leaf! I would love to see us decide to make this kindness campaign a permanent part of our culture.
 
There was probably no better way to put a capstone on the kindness campaign than spending the afternoon at the Soroptimist ‘Bewitching Tea’ fundraiser. It was great to be surrounded by such positivity and to be able to assist in raising funds for the SafeQuest Hope House, a project that will create transitional housing for victims of domestic violence and their families. I want to sincerely thank the many wonderful people who showed up and gave deeply to this important initiative.
 
A couple interesting and positive items from the City. First, our Library has been working hard on many grants and initiatives. As a City staff we are constantly looking for ways to add value to the community in the services we provide while finding new revenue streams that decrease community costs. It's our goal to increase efficiency, find innovative revenue sources and improve community services. Towards this end, the Library has received three Library Services and Technology Act Grants and a California Library Literacy Services Grant. The Library has also now partnered with the Benicia Unified School District, in the form of a contract, to work with the District’s library technicians to provide enhanced library services to teachers and students. This contract, enabled by Education Code 18134, is the first of its kind in the state and is being used by the California Department of Education as a suggested model for innovation and value. It is a true win-win, for the City and School District. I’m very proud of the library team and the leadership of our Director of Library and Cultural Services, Jennifer Baker! If you are interested in seeing more, you can check out the staff report that will be presented to Council on Tuesday here: www.ci.benicia.ca.us/agendas.
 
Secondly, if you were not aware, the City hosts commercial bee hives in our City. Many commercial beehive companies need a place to keep their hives ‘between jobs’. We have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) where the company pays (a nominal fee) to store their hives here. In return, in addition to the small revenue stream, we have many wonderful pollinators working in our town, and, in a small way, do some good for the environment. I recently was in communication with the company, who are looking to expand their footprint. They told me that their hives in our town “were some of our healthiest colonies and we were pleasantly surprised!”. And I would say, it’s fantastic seeing that we have even been able to communicate our vision of excellence to our worker bees!

Erik Upson
City Manager