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April 2020 Online
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MDUSD volunteers serving 40,000 meals each week during pandemic JAY BEDECARRÉ The Pioneer
In a typical five-day school week in February, the food service staff in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District serves approximately 100,000 meals at 47 sites. In spite of the closure of all school campuses, district staff volunteers are preparing about 40,000 meals weekly distributed through curbside service at nine schools. Dominic Machi is the district’s Director of Food & Nutrition Services. As he observed the process Friday in front of El Dorado Middle School in Concord, Machi showed obvious pride for what his 82 staff volunteers and several dozen other MDUSD administrative, staff and faculty volunteers are accomplishing in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. “I want to acknowledge the incredible work happening during this crisis. Placing Jay Bedecarré/Pioneer their lives on the line as also Over 125 Mt. Diablo Unified School District employees are volunteering their time and talent to prepare food and distrib‘First Responders,’ which was ute food during lunchtime three times a week at nine school sites in Concord, Bay Point, Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill.
See Meals, page 5
TAMARA STEINER PUBLISHER
All over the country, free community newspapers are shutting down – threatened into extinction by the cost of paper, printing, postage and people. Since May 2003 here at the Pioneer, our small, stellar
On Friday at El Dorado Middle School, from left, Amanda Hill, Mary Mingay and Ian Maslen were part of the crew that assembled and handed out over 400 meals in 90 minutes.
Reaching out to our readers: Please support local journalism staff has spit in the face of danger, defied the revenue gods and month after month delivered a quality print newspaper on deadline for 393 issues that our advertisers are proud to call home. Five weeks ago, the COVID-19 pandemic upended all that, shutting down businesses and sending us all into self-isolation. Advertising, which is our only source
of revenue, dwindled to a fraction of what we need. Off-kilter but undaunted, we keep on keepin’ on. We have not furloughed anyone, and we are working harder than ever across multiple platforms to keep you informed and to support our local businesses, whether they are advertisers or not. We are committed to the communities we serve. We
from 24 for the first weekend of the shelter in place in March to 32 tickets this past weekend. In an email comment to the council, Regency Drive resident Dan Walsh said he has been seeing a thousand people on his street on Saturdays. “I have personally witnessed groups of up to 20plus gather outside my house, violating every possible social distancing regulation,” he wrote. “These hikers are nothing like the hiker issues we brought before the City Council last year. These hikers are way worse. The level of rudeness is something I’ve never witnessed here in the last 20 years,” he said, adding: “I personally witnessed a female hiker squat down in the street, defecating.”
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will continue to cover the coronavirus, city councils, politics, sports, schools, businesses and performing arts. Although digital-only for now, we plan to be back in print with free delivery as soon as the smoke clears. But to do this, we need your help. We turn to you, our readers, with an appeal for your financial support as we reposition for the future.
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Lennar, city part ways on base project after labor talks stall TAMARA STEINER The Pioneer
Meanwhile, no deal with Coast Guard for affordable housing Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS) master developer Lennar Concord LLC and the city of Concord called it quits March 24, when the council refused Lennar’s request for a six-month extension to the Exclusive Negotiating Agreement (ENA) – allowing it to expire March 31. After negotiating for nearly two years, Lennar and the Contra Costa Building Trades Council (BTC) were unable to reach agreement on how much union labor the developer would use on the $6 billion project. Using 100 percent union labor would “sink the project, financially,” Kofi Bonner of Lennar Five Point told the council at a marathon meeting with more than five hours of public comment that stretched over two nights Jan. 7 and 8. “No one can deliver the project envisioned by this community plan, satisfy the agreed to community benefits and meet the Navy and city’s revenue objectives under the terms of the building trades’ PLA (Project Labor Agreement),” he said. Dan Cardoza, attorney for the BTC, said Lennar hadn’t given them enough financial information to back up its claims. “We need to know what labor costs they assume,” Cardoza said. “Lennar has only given this information to the
See Lennar, page 8
Clayton ups parking ban to halt hordes of hikers BEV BRITTON The Pioneer
In an effort to keep large groups from accessing Mount Diablo State Park through Regency and Rialto drives, the Clayton City Council imposed a 24/7 ban on nonresident parking starting at 12 a.m. April 23. A previously approved pilot program authorized resident-only parking through permits 8 a.m.-6 p.m. on weekends and federal holidays. However, due to the shelter in place order, residents say droves of people from other cities are filling their streets to get to the trails. The 24/7 parking ban will be lifted along with any shelter in place rules. Clayton Police Chief Elise Warren told the Pioneer that citations are “clearly upticking” in the neighborhood –
COUNTY ORDER
Although Mount Diablo State Park remains open, all parking lots are closed – including one at Mitchell Canyon Road. Warren said she has contacted the park superintendent “a couple times” about the problem. “They are not willing to reopen the parking lot, so the local streets are heavily impacted and there are limited options on how we can help relieve that,” she said at the April 21 virtual meeting. “This issue is very urgent. We’re really upset with the park for their lack of concern for residents,” Regency Drive resident Jeff Weiner told the council. “Many of us are in a highrisk group for COVID-19, and we don’t need all these hikers Tamara Steiner/Pioneer in our area. This is not a park- City workers were on site early Wednesday morning following a city council decision to restrict parking on Regency Dr. to residents only 24/7. The neighborhood was overrun with
See Hikers, page 5 those seeking trail access after the state park closed nearby parking lots.