HAPPY EASTER FROM YOUR HOMETOWN WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
Vol. 17, No. 16
READ FAMILY-FRIENDLY NEWS AT WWW.THEPRESS.NET
Resident takes on HOA rules
Taking in the scenery
by Dawnmarie Fehr Discovery Bay resident Lisa McBride thought nothing of turning her porch light to blue on April 1 to support the Light It Up Blue campaign for autism awareness month. She’d forgotten all about a letter she’d received from the Lakeshore Homeowners Association (HOA) back in February asking that she change her porch light from pink, for Valentine’s Day, back to white. Since her 19-year-old son, Jake, was diagnosed with autism at age two, McBride has participated in autism awareness movements with gusto, spreading the word about the developmental disorder that can impair one’s ability to communicate and interact socially. Turning her light to blue in April was an ingrained habit. The letter she received in February hadn’t upset her; she found it confusing, since she had
Honoring The Volunteers Photo by Tony Kukulich
K
athryn Meinhardt of Brentwood cycles past a mustard field during the fifth annual Discovery Bay Triathlon – sponsored by the Discovery Bay Community Foundation – Sunday, April 14. The sprint-distance competition featured a 700-yard swim, 16-mile bike course and a 3.1-mile run, while the Olympic-distance competition featured a .93-mile swim, a 24.8- mile bike course and a 6.2-mile run. To view more photos of the event, visit www.thepress.net/multimedia/slideshows
see HOA page 30
Resources to fight East County fires reduced Staff Writer
Upcoming changes to the automatic-aid agreement between the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District (ECCFPD) and the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District (ConFire) will likely degrade ECCFPD response times and service levels. As ConFire deals with increasing demand on its resources within its own district, the new agreement attempts to reduce the number of units sent from ConFire to assist ECCFPD. ECCFPD will accomplish this, in part, by reducing the number of engines dispatched to a structure fire from the current county standard of five, to three.
“ For the start, it will be our three engines (with) nine firefighters, which is nowhere close to the industry standard that we need to keep our firefighters safe and our citizens safe.
”
ECCFPD Fire Board President Brian Oftedal “For the start, it will be our three engines (with) nine firefighters, which is nowhere close to the industry standard that we need to keep our firefighters safe and our citizens safe,” said ECCFPD Fire Board President Brian Oftedal. “The direct impact is, most likely, delayed response times. Our response times are already outside
SAVE NOW
of industry standards, and we have a lot of work to do with fewer resources responding and/or resources coming from farther distances. Our response times are going to be stretched.” ECCFPD, which includes the cities of Brentwood and Oakley, the town of Discovery Bay, along with Byron, Bethel Island, Knightsen
10% OFF Any Service
FAIRVIEW HEATING & AIR CONDITIONING, INC. Connect with The Press!
Scan QR code with your mobile device.
Every Fifteen Minutes
Students at Heritage High School participate in Every 15 Minutes program. Page 8
Correspondent
by Tony Kukulich
April 19, 2019
Service • Repair • Installation
Contractor’s Lic. #533790 C-20
925-625-4963 • www.fairviewair.com
and Morgan Territory, operates three stations. At any point, there are nine firefighters and a battalion chief responding to service calls in the district, which covers 249 square miles and 119,000 residents. While many of the 8,000 calls the district responds to in a year can be handled with one or two engines, an incident like a house fire draws a standard response of five engines. With only three stations in the district, ECCFPD is unable to provide all of the necessary resources to fight a residential fire. The automatic-aid agreement with ConFire fulfills the balance of resources by dispatching additional engines, usually from ConFire’s see Fires page 30
Volunteer and paid-on-call firefighters of the East County fire districts honored. Page 7
Baseball Heartbreaker
Liberty baseball loses tough game to North Coast Section’s Acalanes. Page 21 Calendar................................31 Classifieds.............................25 Cop Logs................................29 Entertainment.....................11 Food........................................10 Health & Beauty....................6 Milestones............................12 Opinion..................................20 Pets.........................................18 Sports.....................................21
Maritime Training
Burgis Meeting
www.thepress.net/news/webextras
www.thepress.net/news/press_releases
Grays Historical Seaport, is accepting students for Merchant Mariner course.
Diane Burgis will convene an East County Nonprofit Roundtable on April 29.