Good Day, Sunshine

Today is WEDNESDAY, June 22, 2011. Did you survive the heat yesterday? Apparently there's more where that came from today, so be prepared to be inside, or at least take precautions if you plan to be outside today. Water, sunscreen and shade are your best friends on a day like this. Oh, and air conditioning, if you have it, or can find it.

Next Tuesday, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors will begin the process of deciding new boundaries for its supervisorial districts, as it does every 10 years after a census. The county has submitted four proposed maps, Dan Bornstein of the Contra Costa Times has submitted a map, a citizen group has submitted one, and there is one that specifically keeps cities inside district boundaries. The goal is to have districts divided evenly by population. The City Council last week weighed in on its preference, map No. 7, which keeps Martinez intact as a district, and shares boundaries with Pleasant Hill and Concord (currently Martinez is aligned with Pinole, Hercules, Lafayette, Moraga and parts of Walnut Creek). Also, map six keeps the city intact, and it's the council's second preference; it would align us with the waterfront cities to the east. Three of the maps divide the city, and two of them divide the city along the familiar north/south dividing line of Highway Four, a division folks around here have been trying to overcome for decades. You should weigh in on this if you can spare a Tuesday afternoon; the board will begin its meeting on this issue at 1 p.m. June 28 in the Board Chambers of the . Check out the maps here and let us know what you think.

Weather:
Today — Sunny, with a high near 85. Southwest wind 7-11 mph.
Tonight — Clear, with a low around 55. West southwest wind 10-20 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.

Headlines:

This Day in History:
1898 — U.S. Marines land in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
1922 — In what has come to be called the Herrin Massacre, 19 strikebreakers and two miners are killed in Herrin, Ill.
1944 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Serviceman's Readjustment Act into law, which came to be known as the G.I. Bill.
1969 — The Cuyahoga River in Ohio catches fire, causing a crackdown on pollution into the waterway.
2009 — Eastman Kodak announces it no longer will make Kodachrome color film.

Weather from the National Weather Service; Today in History from Wikipedia and other sources.