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Noelia Corzo and Ray Mueller were sworn Tuesday morning to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, representing Districts 2 and 3 respectively.

Family, friends, and supporters of the newly-elected Supervisors filled the board chambers, cheering loudly when each finished taking their oaths of office.

Corzo was sworn in first by her son and mother. Elected this November to replace Carole Groom as District 2 Supervisor, who declined to seek re-election after serving three terms, Corzo previously served on the San Mateo-Foster City School Board. She is the first Latina and only woman currently on the Board of Supervisors.

District 2 includes most of Belmont, San Mateo, and Foster City.

In her first remarks as a seated supervisor, she cited her difficult upbringing as the daughter of a single mother as informing her approach to public service.

Mueller was sworn in by his wife and children to represent District 3, which includes Menlo Park, unincorporated coastal communities, Emerald Hills, Half Moon Bay, Pacifica, Atherton, Portola Valley, Woodside, and parts of Belmont.

Mueller previously served on the Menlo Park City Council. He replaces Don Horsley, who declined to seek re-election after serving three terms on the board.

Mueller thanked his family and constituents for supporting him.

Starting this year, Supervisor Dave Pine was elected by his colleagues to serve as Board President. Supervisor Warren Slocum will served as Vice President.

Lucid Motors, makers of luxury electric vehicles, has opened a new studio and service center at 355 Adrian Road in Millbrae.

Headquartered in Newark, Lucid’s first car is the Lucid Air, a luxury sedan named the 2022 MotorTrend Car of the Year that starts at $77,400. The Lucid Air Dream Edition, which costs $169,000, “features an official EPA estimated 530 miles of range or 1,111 horsepower,” the company said.

The Lucid Air is produced at Lucid’s new factory in Casa Grande, Ariz.

Millbrae’s studio hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday, Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Lucid’s only other Bay Area location is at West Valley Fair in San Jose, where it has a studio.

Learn more about the company here.

Bay Area officials have lauded passage of the federal $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, saying the bill will help fund a wide range of local projects.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) Chair Alfredo Pedroza and Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) Executive Board President Jesse Arreguín said the bill will help “fuel” Plan Bay Area 2050, the long-range regional plan for transportation, housing, the environment and the economy that the agencies adopted last month.

Pedroza, who is also a Napa County supervisor, said that the increased transit capital funding will “help modernize our existing transit network,” while the expansion of nationwide grant programs to the tune of $140 billion will allow the Bay Area to compete for money that can help largescale new projects come to fruition.

Bay Area cities and counties will also be able to compete for funding via a $4.5 billion fund for bridge repair projects throughout California, to “upgrade bridges along local streets and roads” per an MTA statement. Funding is also dog-eared for airports, ports and inland waterways.

The Bay Area is also expected to see $4.5 billion out of an approximate $475 billion reauthorization of the central federal transportation program spanning the next five years, per the statement. This represents a 56 percent increase over the existing Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act from 2015.

Other facets of the bill, such as $65 billion for expanding broadband service, $65 billion for upgrading the power infrastructure and $71 billion for resilience, water storage and environmental remediation, will help narrow the digital divide for low income households, reduce greenhouse emissions and equip shoreline cities to adapt to rising sea levels, said Arreguín, who is also the mayor of Berkeley.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s resilience, remediation and water storage sections include—among other initiatives—more than $8 billion for reservoirs, water recycling and ecosystem restoration in California and other western states; $3.3 billion for the reduction of wildfire risks; and increased funding for the San Francisco Estuary Partnership and restoration projects around the bay.

California and other states will be able to cultivate digital equity plans to subsidize Internet service costs for low-income households as part of the bill’s $65 billion investment to help expand broadband service.

Nationwide, $17 billion will be set aside for Army Corp of Engineers flood control projects; $1 billion for FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grants; and $1 billion for state and local government grants to develop cybersecurity plans.

The bill’s power infrastructure and clean energy sections will direct $65 billion toward creating a new Grid Deployment Authority; provide states with grants to prepare the electric grid against extreme weather; establish four regional clean hydrogen hubs; fund state and local governments via grants for energy efficiency and conservation projects; and fund a competitive grant program for states or regional partnerships to update building energy codes.

MTC serves the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area as the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency, while ABAG functions as the council of governments and the regional planning agency for the Bay Area’s 101 cities and towns and nine counties.

Photo courtesy of MTC