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IT’S YOUR PAPER www.claytonpioneer.com
April 8, 2005
925.672.0500
Spring is bustin’ out all over GREGG MANNING
MAYOR’S CORNER Business license tax and landscaping are top priorities for City Council Here it is April and the City Council is still grappling with the issue of business licenses. In our first April meeting on the fourth, we did not deal with the business license issue because we are waiting for the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission to rule on the requests for ruling by both Pete Laurence and Bill Walcutt. Both of them believe they should be able to participate in the discussions because they would not materially benefit from the resulting City decision and have asked the FPPC for a ruling. I believe we will have a ruling on this matter in a few days and the entire Council will address the business license matter on April 19. Once all five of us address the matter we will reach agreement on a final ordinance.
SPRING, AND THE CITY IS MAGNIFICENT
Clayton is a great place, and this time of year the landscaping looks wonderful. To see it for yourself, you have only to
See Mayor, page 5
Tamara Steiner/Clayton Pioneer
IT’S SPRINGTIME IN CALIFORNIA AND THAT MEANS POPPIES. The garden at the Clayton Museum is alive with the bright orange wildflower. California Indians cherished the poppy as both a source of food and for oil extracted from the plant. Its botanical name, Eschsholtzia californica, was given by Adelbert Von Chamisso, a naturalist and member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, who dropped anchor in San Francisco in 1816 in a bay surrounded by hills of the golden flowers. Also sometimes known as the flame flower, la amapola, and copa de oro (cup of gold), the poppy grows wild throughout California. It became the state flower in 1903. Source: 50states.com
Teatime in Clayton is all about friends City of Concord honors mother and daughter JILL BEDECARRÉ Clayton Pioneer
England’s Tea Cottage that just opened in Clayton Station is as much about friendship as it is
about tea. The tearoom was a labor of love among close friends, Pam Barnett and Sally Englund. One step inside this new Clayton establishment and you
Tamara Steiner/Clayton Pioneer
SALLY ENGLAND’S AND PAM BARNETT’S NEW TEA COTTAGE is a place “where good friends gather.”
can see and feel that the tea cottage is not your typical restaurant. Inscribed on the back of the tea cottage’s menu is a note from their husbands, Duane Barnett and Derry Englund which reads “There are relationships in life that help define you and in the case of Sally and Pamela, it is more than true. The weaving of the fabrics of our lives as individuals, family and friends has left its indelible mark on all four of us. The Tea Cottage has been a dream and passion between friends for many years and now it has become a reality.” The friendship that weaved its way into the fabric of Clayton’s first tearoom had early beginnings. Sally Englund and Duane Barnett are cousins. Duane, who was best friends with Derry Englund at the time, set Sally and Derry up for a date. That date soon led to a
Make mom “Queen for a Day” Moms are the greatest. They spend most of their waking hours taking care of everyone else before they do anything for themselves. You can fix that. Write an essay telling us why your mom should be crowned the Clayton Pioneer’s “Queen For A Day,” and win a day of pampering in
Pioneer Territory for the “queen of your heart.” If yours is the winning essay, your mom will receive a very special and elegant “Tea for Two” at the new “Englund’s Tea Cottage,” a relaxing massage and very special gift basket from Clayton Mind and Body Connections, a
pampering facial from Cynthia Gregory at Permanent Solutions and a bouquet of lovely spring flowers from Clayton Flowers. And, last but certainly not least; we will publish the winning essay in the Pioneer along with a photo of you and your mom in the May 6 issue.
wedding and a marriage that has lasted for 36 years. Pam and Duane moved to Lodi and Sally and Derry settled in Clayton, yet the two couples continued to share a close fourway friendship. They met often for dinner and took an annual cruise together, which was when Sally and Pam started to patronize teahouses. “She and I went to tea all the time,” says Sally. “When we would check into a hotel, the first thing we did was look in the phone book for the nearest teahouse. Our husbands didn’t like it as much as we did but went along for support.” For five years they sipped tea together at small town tearooms and big name giants, like the Empress Hotel in Victoria on Vancouver Island, the Grand Mum of tearooms.
TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
Clayton resident Patti Collyer and her daughter, Shannon, were recognized and honored by the City of Concord at the 18th annual Human Relations Commission’s awards and recognition ceremony last Monday. Patti Collyer received the Commission’s Humanitarian Award for her work with youth groups and daughter Shannon
See Teatime, page 17 To be eligible, you must be a Clayton resident between the ages of 6 and 18. Your essay must be typewritten and must be between 200 and 350 words. Mail or e-mail your essay to The Clayton Pioneer, PO Box 1246, Clayton, 94517; essay@claytonpioneer.com, or drop off at the Pioneer office at 6200 F Center St., Clayton. Deadline for entries is 5 p.m., April 27.
PATTI COLLYER
received a $500 scholarship in recognition of her community services work. The senior Collyer has been the Coordinator of Youth Ministry at St. Bonaventure’s Catholic Community in Concord for the past eight
years. But her work with children and teenagers began more than 19 years ago when she volunteered to coordinate the early childhood and elementary school program at St. Francis of Assisi in Concord. “I never thought I’d be doing this,” she said in a telephone interview from Dallas where she and Shannon are vacationing. With a Bachelor’s in Business Administration and a background in marketing, “I thought I was going to be a corporate president and a millionaire.” But, when she began having children, her goals changed. “Thank God,” she laughs, “children saved me from Yuppiedom.” However, everything in her education and background applies to what she does today. “I think of myself being on God’s marketing team,” she explained. “God’s the easiest thing in the world to sell. He’s free, everyone needs Him and He’s never obsolete.” Collyer’s clear sense of purpose guides her as she faces the sometimes daunting task of
See Collyer, page 6