YOUR HOMETOWN WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ward Winning News al A pa
Vol. 9, No. 21
Including Surrounding Communities
www.thepress.net
Family wants paralyzed man home Injured in ambulance crash two years ago, awarded $24 million
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May 22, 2009
THIS WEEK
In memory of the fallen
by Dave Roberts Staff Writer
Monday, April 16, 2007 began like many other days for 83-year-old Louis Del Barba. Around 8:30 a.m. he got into his 2005 Chevy Silverado pickup truck and left his turn-of-the-19th-century home on Rose Avenue in Oakley to visit friends at the Antioch Senior Center. He drove to the end of Rose Avenue at Main Street, stopped and pulled out into the intersection to turn left. Suddenly, apparently out of nowhere, an ambulance traveling on Main Street at least 58 miles per hour in the 30 mph zone heading to Brentwood to aid an asthmatic child barreled straight for Del Barba’s truck. The 5-ton American Medical Response (AMR) see Family page 21A
Unfurl your flag, bring your binoculars and keep your eyes on the skies at the Memorial Day 2009 festivities.
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Photos courtesy of the Del Barba family
Lifelong Oakley resident Louis Del Barba, driving the pickup truck on the left, was paralyzed after the ambulance on the right crashed into him at Rose Avenue and Main Street two years ago.
Kids cast in the past Elementary students with a flair for the stage impersonated real Californians from the 1840s.
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Falcons mow ‘em down
Photo by Dave Roberts
The graffiti-laden trains that have been stored along Highway 4 in Antioch for a half year finally moved out of the area last weekend – but they could be back.
Graffiti trains make departure – for now by Dave Roberts Staff Writer East County officials, who have been trying to run out of town on a rail scores of graffitiladen train cars, breathed a sigh of relief this week when the cars finally left over the weekend. The bad news is that they could be back. “This was an effort I led in Washington, D.C. and with the
CCC Mayors Conference as well as the Delta Six (committee),” said Antioch Mayor Jim Davis via e-mail regarding the trains leaving the Union Pacific Mococo Line in Antioch, where they moved in a half-year ago and were quite visible to motorists on Highway 4. But Union Pacific spokeswoman Zoey Richmond said that while company officials are aware of elected officials’ con-
cerns about the trains, the cars were moved because they were needed to haul freight for a customer. “That’s the reason why we have to keep these cars stored in various areas throughout our system,” said Richmond. “At a moment’s notice we can have a customer call us up needing to ship something, and we need to be ready to serve that business.” Although there are no cur-
Sound off!
rent plans to again store rail cars in East County, Union Pacific could do so at any time, despite concerns that have been voiced by community officials, she said. “We have around 60,000 rail cars in storage because of the slow economy,” she said. “From time to time the communities do complain about them being unsightly, being a little irritating. see Graffiti page 21A
They call it “soft”ball, but laying a bat on Freedom pitches is getting pretty hard.
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INSIDE Business .............................7A Calendar ..........................27B Classifieds ........................17B Cop Logs ..........................17A Entertainment ................12B Food .................................14B Health & Beauty ............... 8B Milestones .......................11B Opinion ...........................16A Sports ................................. 1B WebExtras! ....................... 1B
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Share your activities, thoughts or beliefs.Start a blog at www.thepress.net. Read more on page 20A.
FOR MOVIE TIMES SEE PAGE 5A