Benicia CleanTEch EXPO

[www.beniciacleantech.com]

Benicia CleanTEch EXPO 
It's FREE!
2060 Camel Road - Benicia Historical Museum
22 CleanNov 2nd, 1-5 PM
Nov 3rd, 10AM-4PM

Benicia CleanTech Expo is a collaboration with the City of Benicia's Office of Economic Development and Community Sustainability Commission in a partnership with the Solano Center for Business Innovation and
Benicia Historical Museum, and the Benicia CleanTech Steering Committee
Benicia's commercial-industrial sector has a lot to gain by sustainable business practices and in considering the value creation of Clean Technologies and Services.  The win-win for Benicia is a low carbon, thriving economic sector.

Tech Exhibitors including
* CODA Automotive (2 cars, one will offer a ride along)
* 3D rapid prototyping demonstrations from F3
* California eBikes
* Wireless Broadband...in the Industrial Park
* Solar providers
* KIVA luggage (they will be selling great product)
and others...
AND
Workshops on the half hour:
* Dominican University of California - CleanTech trends, marketing, etc
* Wattzon:  Home energy audits
* Carbon Lighthouse: Commercial/Industrial energy audits
* Rae Lynn Fiscalini and David Subocz:  Design opportunities for efficiency
* Doug Snyder:  How to convert your bicycle to electric

Did I mention the Amazing prizes?
Nov 2 - iPad
Nov 3 - Electric Bicycle valued at $2000!


2012-10-26 "Benicia, California, Spaceship Earth: Road to the future" by Constance Beutel from "Benicia Herald"
[beniciaherald.me/2012/10/26/crewmember-report-benicia-california-spaceship-earth-road-to-the-future/]:
Constance Beutel is chair of Benicia’s Community Sustainability Commission. She is a university professor and videographer and holds a doctorate from the University of San Francisco.

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IN GETTING READY FOR THE FIRST-EVER Benicia CleanTech Expo next week, I put together a short video to help spread the word and to showcase the solid commercial and industrial heritage of our city.
One of the many proud sponsors of the CleanTech Expo is the Benicia Historical Museum. Elizabeth d’Huart, museum executive director, immediately saw the connection from Benicia’s past to the emerging future and has been an energetic and supportive partner in making the Expo possible.
Of course, the museum’s immediate proximity and connection to the Industrial Park make it a perfect venue. It is located at 2060 Camel Road and its neighbors are AMPORTS and CODA — if fact the two are literally across the street. From where the museum sits on the hill, you can overlook the tremendous economic engine of Benicia below.
The museum contains a first-class permanent exhibit, “Benicia’s Industrial Legacy,” that occupies the entire first floor. This exhibit will be open to the public attending the CleanTech Expo in the museum hall. Physically seeing the progression in the use of tools and materials from our past to the revolution in clean technology, products and services drives home just how important that industrial legacy is to an emerging and sustainable future.
Here’s the lineup of Expo exhibitors, in their own words:
• Allied Waste Services provides high-quality, comprehensive solid waste and recycling collection services for residential and commercial customers. We conduct our operations in a safe, ethical and environmentally conscious manner and dedicate our resources to improving the quality of life within the communities we serve.
• Ally Electric and Solar has been delivering comprehensive electrical and solar services in a timely manner, with genuine commitment to quality on every project, since our inception. From design to finish, our experienced electricians provide the expertise to ensure your electrical project in the Bay Area is completed on time, on budget and up to code.
• Benicia Magazine is a unique and sophisticated publication that showcases the many delightful things about this waterfront community and surrounding areas.
• Bio Clean LLC, in concert with the developer Vorsana Inc., represents a new generation of agricultural waste and manure treatment technology and devices for agricultural producers.
• California eBike is able to provide you with the best quality electric bike conversion kit in North America using the most advanced lithium ion batteries, motors and controllers. We can provide them in a variety of powers, in a variety of sizes to suit nearly all adult bikes, and in a variety of styles.
• Carbon Lighthouse makes it profitable for commercial and industrial properties to become carbon neutral through a blend of energy efficiency, renewable energy and carbon permit retirement. We focus our efforts on low capital improvements that result in high carbon savings and reduced energy costs.
• City of Benicia Office of Economic Development is responsible for implementing the adopted Economic Development Strategy (2007), facilitating businesses relocating to or expanding within Benicia, monitoring the status of the city’s economy, recommending strategies, initiatives, and projects to improve economic vitality citywide, and representing the city’s developable real estate interests.
• Community Sustainability Commission was inaugurated in 2010. Its purpose is to educate, advocate and provide oversight for integrated solutions that seek a sustainable equilibrium for economic, ecological and social health and well-being, both now and in the future. The commission has oversight for the city of Benicia’s Climate Action Plan and makes grant recommendations to City Council for energy and water efficiencies made possible by the Valero-Good Neighbor Steering Committee Settlement.
• CODA Automotive designs, manufactures and sells electric vehicles and lithium-ion battery systems purpose-built for transportation and utility applications. Our vision is to be the key technology provider to reduce global dependence on oil and the harmful social, economic and environmental consequences that follow. Our focus is green technology.
• Diablo Solar Services has been a San Francisco Bay Area leader in solar energy systems for 27 years. We offer industry-leading Fafco solar pool heating systems to heat even the largest pools. We also provide solar PV electric panels for electricity production.
• Dominican University of California Green MBA approaches sustainability as a complex issue — not only studying and using existing tools, frameworks and practices, but also creating new ways of thinking about how to resolve and mitigate complex issues such as climate change.
• Energy Upgrade California/Solano County helps you make home improvements that can save energy and make your home more comfortable.
• Rae Lynn Fiscalini, Architect, AIA, LEED AP, is an architecture, landscape and sustainability design studio in the San Francisco Bay Area, since 1990. David Subocz, principal of William de Ess Studios of Santa Cruz, since 1991, is a Certified Green Building Professional with expertise in energy efficiency, structural design and fabrication, and historic preservation.
• Fortune Marketing Company will help your business grow by installing a marketing system that works!
• F3-Inc. combines 3-D laser scanning, high-precision digital levels along with GPS surveying to place your project correctly on the appropriate datum or boundary survey accompanied with aerial imagery for visual presentation.
• Industrial Asset Recycling specialize in targeted commercial and industrial asset liquidation solutions for companies who want to maximize their use of cash from non-performing capital investments.
• iSystems Technology Inc. offers a wide range of personalized services to accommodate your businesses technology needs. We can custom tailor any of our services into a single package that is easy to maintain.
• Jefferson Street Mansion is a Civil War-era mansion that has been fully restored. Located in the Historic Benicia Arsenal where Generals Sherman and Grant once resided, it is available for overnight accommodations, a fine dining experience or to host a special event or wedding reception.
• KIVA products give you the freedom to embark on new adventures with durable, fun, and functional bags that look great and roll with any style. Our eco friendly gear is designed and manufactured to hold up to even the most demanding explorer; so we can protect your belongings, and protect the earth.
• Pacific Crown Builders applies the modern principles of building science to analyze and upgrade the energy performance, health and safety with the comfort of your house.
• Sustainable Energy Associates is a mechanical engineering and business development firm providing services to the energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainability industries. SEA does program design, business development, LEED application review and consulting, and project implementation for schools and colleges, public agencies and municipalities, utilities, and resource management companies.
• WattzOn makes it simple and easy for consumers to understand how they use energy and their opportunities to save.
It’s free, there are big prizes and the Expo is important
The Benicia CleanTech Expo is free and there will be drawings for prizes: an iPad (Nov. 2) and an electric bicycle valued at $2,000 (Nov. 3). There will be workshops on the half hour that address clean tech opportunities, greening the business and home, solar photovoltaics, converting your bicycle to electric and more.
Clean technologies offer a transitional path to a profitable and low-carbon future. The Expo is an important recognition of the road Benicia is on.

Anti-Sovereignty: monopolized "Big-Box" Stores

Wal-Marts is the reason that Maine passed a law that if a company employed over 20,000 employee's they had to offer healthcare. They were costing the state millions in food stamps and Medicaid for Wal-Mart employees. Wal-Mart alone cost California almost 100 million dollars in state aid for Wal-Mart employees. Those low prices come at a very high price for tax payers.
And Walmart stock is up 37% from this time last year: https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:WMT Owners profit while taxpayers buy food for their employees. Brilliant business model!
Don't forget SAMs Club is a Walmart store.
While traveling the United States, I found that in every city where there was a super-Walmart the original 'main streets' were either gone or barely hanging on. The little shops cannot compete. In one struggling city I learned they fought off supper-Walmart but Walmart simply went to the next city over. Now the small shops are still gone and no taxes from Walmart. Their city was filing bankruptcy. So so sad. i know 2 ladies who work there and both are on welfare also...SAD
The Walton family is a disgrace.....they are all multi billionaires running their plantation......never giving their workers a livable wage......it really is modern day slavery...

"Vallejo Gardens Project Hopes to Revitalize Downtown"

[http://www.baycrossings.com/dispnews.php?id=2820]:
Vallejo Gardens, located at 620 Marin Street, is part of Matt Shotwell’s mission to revitalize downtown Vallejo.

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Matthew Shotwell is on a mission to rebuild and rejuvenate his beloved city of Vallejo. The latest iteration of his vision is Vallejo Gardens, a common creative space at 620 Marin Street that will bring new products, fresh foods, arts and crafts to downtown Vallejo.
Shotwell’s mission to revitalize downtown Vallejo began when he established the most successful medical cannabis compassionate care facility in Solano County—bringing increased foot traffic to the ghost town of downtown Vallejo. Shotwell was then instrumental in the passage—by an overwhelming margin of 76 percent—of city legislation to tax medical cannabis distribution, the revenue of which was to be devoted to maintaining vital city services including the fire and police departments, schools, recreational centers and libraries. The same day the tax was to be implemented by the city manager, however, the city police department launched massive city-wide raids resulting in the closure of many dispensaries.
This left Shotwell in search of a new project. Recognizing a need to reduce community blight such as the vacant lots often used as illegal dump sites, Shotwell first began by starting a community garden in a long vacant lot next to his residence on Napa Street. He then reached out to his friend and business partner Kip Baldwin—with whom he had co-created a television show—to develop a new venture.
Vallejo Gardens will be a common creative space that will serve as an incubator for the citizens of Vallejo and the surrounding areas to introduce their visionary products, whether food, arts or crafts to the marketplace and test the viability of those products. Similar to the current pop-up trends in restaurants and retail, Vallejo Gardens will provide a unique forum for community members to develop, experiment with, and test market viability including profitability of new products.
Vallejo Gardens’ immensely successful Labor Day grand opening saw approximately 400 of Vallejo’s residents—including local luminaries such as councilwoman Marti Brown and Vallejo Times columnist Rich Freedman—pass through its doors eager to find quality local and organic foods. Shotwell and Baldwin have decided to double down on this worthwhile and needed gamble by working with the Vallejo’s Co-op’s group steering committee to turn Vallejo Gardens from a once-a-week grocery treat to an everyday downtown quality food shopping destination.
Baldwin and Shotwell’s immediate plans are to continue with the local and sustainable food offerings every Monday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and add a Thursday market from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., which they hope to have up and running by October 4. The Thursday market will help fill the food void that will follow the October finish of Benicia’s seasonal farmers market. Featured vendors at the Monday market are CobbleStone Bakery, Feather River Organic Fruits, Yogi Vegan Indian Cuisine, Hummus Heaven, Popcorn Karma, and FeNella’s Berries, among others.
Additional plans include a Saturday crafts market that will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., coinciding with the Saturday farmers market on Georgia Street. The crafts market will launch on October 6 to help celebrate the art walk taking place downtown from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Featured vendors for the crafts market include Pearls by Roxanna.
Shotwell and Baldwin are also working closely with Vallejo Co-op to open a Whole Foods-inspired convenience store in the front of their building on Marin Street, which they hope to have open before Thanksgiving.
Baldwin and Shotwell also want the community to know their commitment to this being a common place for all citizens of Vallejo to come and develop their ideas and dreams. So whether you are a budding farmer, chef or artist, Vallejo Gardens is here not just to provide the community fish, but to give them a hole where they can catch their own fish.
Vallejo Gardens is calling out to all farmers, food purveyors, temp food facility operators, crafts and art persons of all types, volunteers and investors, who want to be part of this amazing opportunity. For further information, contact either Matt Shotwell or Kip Baldwin at: vallejogardens@gmail.com. Be sure to join their Facebook Like and Group pages and follow them on Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/VallejoGardens?ref=ts and https://www.facebook.com/groups/vallejogardens/?ref=ts and https://twitter.com/VallejoGardens.