Features

FREMONT — Bay Area Rapid Transit officials and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority announced Wednesday a tentative deal to take BART south from Fremont to San Jose and Santa Clara. 

The transit route extension would cost an estimated $3.7 billion and take BART an additional 16 miles along the Silicon Valley Rapid Transit Corridor serving Milpitas, San Jose and Santa Clara with seven stations. The funding for the project is expected to come from VTA, the state of California and federal grants. 

BART director Thomas Blalock said BART taxpayers will be protected from spending funds to subsidize the system. 

The agreement also calls for the South Bay transit agency to pay $48 million per year to BART to cover the cost of running trains and maintaining the system, and to cover much of the cost of building the extension. The VTA runs Santa Clara County’s buses and light-rail system. 

The South Bay agency runs Santa Clara County’s buses and light-rail system. 

VTA and BART must ratify the agreement. The VTA board is expected to consider the agreement at a meeting on Nov. 9. The BART board will take up the agreement at a meeting on Nov. 13. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reached a settlement on Wednesday over a lawsuit that alleged racial harassment and retaliatory discharge. 

The terms of the settlement include the payment of $35,000 to Keith Bogard who was allegedly racial harassed by a resident of one of Catholic Charities’ facilities. Bogard left the employ of Catholic Charities over three years ago. 

Catholic Charities denies the allegations but has agreed to provide the equal employment opportunity training to employees as well as residents. 

SAN LEANDRO — Registered nurses approved a new collective bargaining agreement with the San Leandro Hospital, the California Nurses Association announced Wednesday. 

The new contract, which was reached Oct. 31 and approved by vote Tuesday, will provide for a 19.5 percent wage increase over three years and is retroactive to July 1, 2001. 

Under the new agreement, newly hired nurses and recent nursing school graduates will not be counted in determining staffing levels. 

A “Staff Nurse Availability List” will be maintained for use by the charge nurse when the number of RNs at work is considered inadequate for a shift on a unit, as part of the agreement.