Winning Ne wsp Award
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YOUR HOMETOWN WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
Vol. 13, No. 29
Staff Writer Faced with a reduction in staff, the Contra Costa Fire Protection District (Confire) will limit the number of engines that automatically respond to incidents in other fire districts. The decision, approved by the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors last week, means only two engines from Confire will automatically respond to assist firefighters in the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District (ECCFPD), which covers Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Bethel Island, Knightsen, Byron, Marsh Creek
and Morgan Territory. “To date, we’ve tried to be good neighbors,” said Confire Chief Daryl Louder. “We’ve shared resources and other jurisdictions have shared with us. It’s a win-win situation. However, we are at a point where our ability to share with other communities is much more challenging for us.” The automatic aid agreement between Confire and the ECCFPD is in place to ensure the closest unit, regardless of jurisdiction, responds to calls for help. Prior to the July 9 decision, the ECCFPD could resee Confire page 22A
Talk About Town Photo courtesy of the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District
Fires, such as this one on Tulare Street in Brentwood last Saturday, could take longer to extinguish in the future as the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors recently approved to limit mutual aid between the Contra Costa Fire Protection District and the East Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.
“ This training is a great step forward in a
Staff Writer A 2.5 magnitude earthquake hit Greenville, Calif. at 3:40 a.m. on Tuesday, but no one in Oakley, located more than 200 miles away, felt it. But residents should rest assured because if an earthquake of any magnitude ever rocks East County, Oakley officials will be ready. Californians are constantly reminded that the Big One, an earthquake that registers a minimum of 6.7 points on the Richter scale, could happen at any time, but the City of Oakley, in partnership with the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District, has established an official Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to manage any disaster. Oakley officials have operated a
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long process to get us ready for the Big One.
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Bani Kollo, Oakley police chief makeshift EOC out of a city hall conference room for years, but the local fire district made room for a formal EOC at the new fire station that opened on O’Hara Avenue in 2011. Thanks to a $55,000 State Homeland Security grant secured by the fire department and Oakley Police Department, the EOC was recently outfitted with top-of-the-line emergency technology that will prove to be essential in case of a natural disaster, chemical spill or any type of citywide emergency.
July 19, 2013
Let our Back To School Edition prepare you and your students for the upcoming school year. Page 1B
City officials prepare for the Big One by Samie Hartley
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Special edition
Confire cuts assistance to local districts by Kyle Szymanski
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“Recently, the EOC outfitting was complete,” said Police Chief Bani Kollo, “including internet-capable, wall mounted TV monitors; VOIP (Voice Operated Internet Protocol) phones; wireless access networks; a ceilingmounted projector and screen; emergency-specific white boards; interoperable communications and the infrastructure to support the associated and future technologies necessary to mitigate a disaster emergency in Oakley.” In May, city staff, along
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with members of the local fire and police departments, was joined by representatives from Ironhouse Sanitary District, Contra Costa Water District, Tri Delta Transit, Contra Costa Health Department, and the Oakley and Liberty Union school districts for the Oakley EOC’s first training exercise. The Emergency Services Division of the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff facilitated the training, and the group talked through an earthquake scenario using tactics established by the Standard Emergency Management System. The purpose of the EOC is to coordinate and manage personnel and resources to mitigate an emergency and expedite see Big One page 22A
Check out the three-dot column that keeps its finger on the pulse of the community. Page 21A
Living in the fast lane
Oakley’s Jacob Tuttle, 10, has a need for speed. Page 16A Back To School ................... 1B Calendar ............................ 15B Classifieds ......................... 11B Cop Log .............................. 14B Entertainment ................... 8B Health & Beauty ..............10A Milestones ........................14A Opinion ..............................21A Sports .................................16A
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COMMUNITY
JULY 19, 2013
Seen in the Mediterranean
Press file photo
The Gallery on Second in Downtown Brentwood will close at the end of August.
Brentwood gallery A scheduled to close
ntioch residents Richard Asadoorian and Barbara Cowan recently cruised the Rhone from Lyon to the Mediterranean. On July 4, Asadoorian sang the National Anthem to the passengers on the Van Gogh, and although none of the other passengers were American, they all stood out of respect during the performance. Thanks for bringing your Hometown Weekly Newspaper along for such a patriotic display of American pride.
by Samie Hartley Staff Writer After enriching the East County community with its numerous art shows, the Gallery on Second will close its doors at the end of August. Open in 2011, the Gallery on Second has hosted 15 arts shows and special exhibits. The location has served as a stop on the popular Artists’ Open Studio Tour and a meeting place for monthly Brentwood Open Mic nights. While the gallery gets a healthy dose of foot traffic, art sales are low, so owner and operator Jack Gaughan has decided to close its doors. “In the two years the gallery has been open, I’ve seen more than 3,000 visitors pass through the doors,” Gaughan explained.
Confire from page 1A quest up to five engines from the neighboring district and vice versa. Under the new agreement, once two engines are borrowed by either district, additional resources must be approved by a district duty chief, who’d evaluate call volume and service demand before allowing the additional units to respond into the neighboring district. If a request for more resources is denied, additional resources would be sought from outside the area, including Alameda county, Tracy or San Ramon, according to ECCFPD Fire Chief Hugh Henderson. “It’s going to impact us,” he said. “What’s worse is we’re not going to know what’s going on in the rest of the county. If there’s no auto-aid units available, we’re
Big One from page 1A emergency operations. The Oakley team will participate in another citywide training exercise in August to plan ways to handle a different emergency situation. “This training is a great step forward in a long process to get us ready
“People love to look. That’s been my favorite part, talking with visitors about art, but I haven’t sold many pieces. My wife and I own and operate the gallery, and without the monetary support, it’s become a financial burden.” But Gaughan doesn’t view the gallery closing as a failure. As Brentwood Arts Commission Chair, Gaughan has made a name for himself as Brentwood’s top creative arts promoter. He believes the Gallery on Second has planted a seed in the mind of art lovers, and when the economy fully recovers and people are buying art again, someone will open a bigger and better gallery in Brentwood. The Gallery on Second has hosted local artists such as painter Joel Summerhill, metal sculptor Sam Gill, muralist Bill Webber,
photographers Cathy and Mark Pemberton and ceramicist Cindy Williams. The final show, now on display at the gallery, features artwork by Oakley artist Nancy Roberts. The show runs through Aug. 17. But the Brentwood art scene isn’t about to die on Gaughan’s watch. The Brentwood Theatre Company presents “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Allan E. Jones Performing Arts Center at Liberty High School for a three-week run, beginning Friday, July 19. Gaughan is the show’s executive producer and is already compiling ideas for next year’s Broadway Under the Stars selection. Gaughan is also keeping his thumb on the pulse of East County’s art community as a coordinator for the Art, Wine & Jazz Festival, which returns to The Streets of Brentwood the weekend of Aug. 24. Last year’s
event featured more than 40 art vendors as well as food and wine vendors and one of the best lineups of live entertainment in the county. When Gaughan isn’t planning topnotch art celebrations, he enjoys working in his own studio. Gaughan is an accomplished sculptor and painter and was named Brentwood Art Society’s 2012 Artist of the Year. “It will be nice to get back to the studio,” he said. “It’s a little cluttered at the moment, so I need to clear it out, but I look forward to getting back to creating.” The Gallery on Second, located at 741 Second St. in Downtown Brentwood, is open Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, call 925-516-2741. To comment, visit www.thepress.net.
not going to know that until the time of the emergency.” Henderson said because of the location of mutual aid resources outside of Confire, the new agreement will have the biggest impact on the western part of the district, including the city limits of Brentwood, Oakley and the Marsh Creek and Morgan Territory areas. “We’ll still get units to the scene, but it might just take longer,” Henderson said. Vince Wells, president of firefighters union Local 1230, which represents both Confire and ECCFPD firefighters, said he’s discouraged that the agreement had to be changed, but it’s necessary. Confire, which covers nine cities and the unincorporated areas of the county, has
shut down seven of its 30 stations and laid off 22 of its 91 firefighters since the failure last November of a proposed seven-year parcel tax. “We’ve always worked well with our neighbors,” said Wells, a Confire captain. “Confire covers 304 square miles, 650,000 people, nine cities and the unincorporated parts of the county. We don’t have the resources to cover that, so we can no longer cover outside those boundaries.” The new agreement only intensifies the need for the ECCFPD to find a steady revenue source to sustain its current five stations, Henderson said. The district was forced to close Station 54 in Brentwood, Station 94 in Knightsen and Station 95 in Bethel Island, and layoff
15 firefighters last July following the failure of a proposed 10-year parcel tax. The federal government awarded the district $7.8 million in grants in September, which allowed it to reopen and staff Stations 54 and 94 until November of next year. The district is expected to see a slight increase in revenue from property taxes, which accounts for 98 percent of its annual revenue, but it’s not expected to be enough to keep those stations open, according to Henderson. “We did receive some (revenue) growth, but it’s still not going to take us out of the woods,” he said. “We’re still going to have to move forward on some type of revenue measure.” To comment, visit www.thepress.net.
for The Big One,” explained Kollo, who delivered a formal presentation to the Oakley City Council at its July 9 meeting. He mentioned that in addition to local training exercises, Oakley will participate in statewide emergency training in November.
Kollo also reported that the police department is looking into establishing a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), which is a group of speciallytrained residents who assist public safety officials in case of a crisis. Brentwood has its own CERT program, and Oakley plans
to adopt a similar program. CERT members are trained in disaster preparedness to handle hazards that may impact their local neighborhoods, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization and disaster medical operations. To comment, visit www.thepress.net.