North Bay Business Journal

Unemployment rates across the North Coast continued to fall, with every county improving its jobless rate over both the last month and over the year, according to figures released by the Economic Development Department.

A Sonoma County-based nonprofit and several others with ties in the North Bay are among 48 organizations across the state to share in $37 million in outreach and education grants from Covered California, the state’s online health exchange developed under health care reform.

Petaluma-based Redwood Community Health Coalition received $830,000. Catholic Charities of California, which has a presence in Solano, Napa, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties, received $859,000. California Rural Indian Health Board, which has a presence in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, was given $300,000. The California NAACP, which has locations in Sonoma and Solono counties, received $600,000 and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Solano County received $100,00.

NORTH BAY — More capital is flowing to North Bay small businesses through loan programs backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration, with a 10.4 percent increase in dollar volume funded in Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties comparing the first half of the administration’s fiscal year to the same period one year ago, according to data from the SBA.

Given continued uncertainties around immigration policy in Washington and Sacramento and the budding of a 2013 crop that could be decent-sized, North Coast winegrape growers are looking for ways to stretch labor farther so they aren’t as short-handed as a number were during the record-volume 2012 season.

FAIRFIELD — Partnership HealthPlan of California, a nonprofit that administers Medi-Cal benefits in six counties, said recently that it is looking to fill 100 positions over the next 12 months after expanding significantly further into Northern California.

Unemployment rates across the North Bay in March dropped several percentage points, and Sonoma County had its best year-over-year job growth in 12 years, according to state figures released this morning.

Commercial real estate leases and sales in the north San Francisco Bay Area

Unemployment rates across the North Bay dropped in February, in some counties by more than a full percentage point, as the January holiday lull in hiring gave way to positive growth in a number of industries, according to preliminary state figures released Friday.

Five of the six North Bay counties added 13,900 jobs over 12 months.

Unemployment rates across the six North Bay counties ticked up in January, according to state estimates released Friday, a rise attributed to staffing reductions after the year-end holidays.

ROHNERT PARK — In his annual economic forecast at the Sonoma State University Economic Outlook Conference, Dr. Robert Eyler, director of the university’s Center for Regional Economic Analysis, said that the six North Bay counties of Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Solano, Mendocino and Lake could expect “broad growth” across various sectors through 2014.

A new office for the federally administered Small Business Development Center program opened Friday in Santa Rosa, expected to be joined by a first-ever Marin County office later this year. The two locations boost the physical presence for the national program along the Highway 101 corridor in the North Bay.

U.S. wine exports, 90 percent from California, last year increased 2.6 percent in winery revenue to a record $1.43 billion from 2011, but at the same time, shipment volume dipped 4.9 percent, a major wine trade policy advocacy group announced today.

Throughout the debate and the recent implementation of health care reform, health experts and politicians alike have touted the shift away from the fee-for-service model to more coordinated care, leading to better outcomes and lowered spending.

Beginning this year, however, the financial health of hospitals will likely depend on just how well care is coordinated, as a relatively little-known yet critically important piece of the Affordable Care Act is enacted: the “Hospital Value-based Purchasing Program,” overseen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.

SANTA ROSA — A training center for North Coast apprentice electricians is getting a major upgrade as the skills needs grow to work on increasingly advanced automation, alternative-energy and energy-efficiency systems.

New California legislation known as the “homeowner bill of rights” helped the rate of new foreclosures to plunge in the North Bay and beyond in January, while home prices and sales in general continued a steady upward climb, according to reports released today by Irvine-based foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac and San Diego-based real estate data service DataQuick.

NORTH COAST — Many wine industry experts figured the 2012 winegrape harvest was going to be the biggest in several years and refill grower pockets after two smaller crops, but the first official tally of the crop released Friday suggests it was the biggest ever, even crushing the giant 2005 harvest in value and tonnage.

Partnership Health Plan of California, a Fairfield-based managed Medi-Cal plan, has petitioned the state for further expansion, hoping to include Lake and six other Northern California counties, in addition to the six North Coast counties already in its network. …

Woodruff Sawyer & Co. of Novato is holding an seminar to discuss health care reform for employers, with subject matter including compliance with the Affordable Care Act, the California State Exchange and private exchanges, benefit design strategies, major employer issues for 2014, and other matters. …

Kristina Keck has joined Woodruff-Sawyer & Co. in the firm’s employee benefits practice as account executive, retirement plans. …

Covered California, the state’s insurance exchange set up under health care reform, plans to provide grants totaling $43 million for community groups to help spread the world of the exchange and how it will work. …

Insurance experts have questioned whether the penalty levied on individuals and business for not obtaining health insurance as part of the Affordable Care Act would be enough of an incentive, but a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that would be. …

St. Helena-based Albion Surveys announced John “Steve” Parrish as the newest member to its land surveying team. …

Cardiologist Monica Divakaruni, M.D., has joined Adventist Health-operated St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake. …

Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation announced the addition of Aruna Krishnan Jayaraman, M.D., to its network of gastroenterologists in Santa Rosa. …

Francine Halberg, M.D., radiation oncologist and breast cancer specialist at Marin General Hospital’s Marin Cancer Institute, is among 12 nationally prominent researchers and physicians named as 2012 Fellows of the American Society for Radiation Oncology. …

Tammy Brawner, a former Dominican University of California women’s basketball player and Dominican MBA grad from Oakland and Skyline High School, is the 10th female to play for the Harlem Globetrotters in its history. …

Marin Theatre Company’s board of directors has named Michael Barker as the nonprofit theater company’s new managing director. …

Jade Barrett has been named winemaker for the Howell Mountain Cabernet house. …

Unemployment rates in the six North Bay counties edged upward or remained unchanged in November, according to state figures, as lower employment in farming and processing winegrapes after the harvest helped offset hiring in retail for the holidays.

Despite the dip in farming employment, Sonoma County continued to have among the fastest annual job growth in the state last month.

Securing enough North Coast grapes to supply growing consumer demand for wine is spurring growth in staffing and services among some North Bay law firms that serve the industry, all of which is helping the legal industry rebound after several years of static business.