Day Around the Bay: Napa Brush Fire Grows to 100 Acres, Forces Evacuations

• After the city of Oakland announced they would allow a stunning 6.7% rent increase on rent controlled units starting July 1, Oakland City Council will consider legislation to block the huge allowable increase. Councilmember Carroll Fife, herself a Moms 4 Housing organizer, introduced legislation today to cap that rent increase at a far more normal 3%. (For perspective, San Francisco’s annual allowable increase is 2.3%.) [NBC Bay Area]

• A huge brush fire was reported in Napa at about 4 p.m., and it’s already at 100 acres and has a name, the “Old Fire.” The fire reportedly started at 2300 Old Soda Springs Road, and CalFire has already ordered evacuations for large sections of that road. [KRON-4]
• Berkeley preservationists have gotten People’s Park listed on the National Register of Historic Places, hoping to dissuade UC Berkeley from building 1,100 units of student housing there. The school seems unmoved by the designation, with university spokesperson Dan Mogulof saying the historic distinction “does not prevent any future development.” [Berkeleyside]
• A San Francisco commercial fisherman was nabbed for illegal crabbing in the North Farallon Islands State Marine Reserve, in what DA Boudin calls “the most egregious case of unlawful crabbing activity in San Francisco’s history.” [Bay Area News Group]
• Bay Area lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) companies have taken a hit on the open market after blank-check-company mergers, with six having lost half of their value, and two losing more than 90% of their value. [San Francisco Business Journal]
• Iconoclastic Marin winemaker Sean Thackrey, of Orion and Pleaides fame, died Monday of cancer. He was 79. [Chronicle]

Image: @monterossino via Twitter