PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID CLAYTON, CA PERMIT 190
IT’S YOUR PAPER www.claytonpioneer.com
August 4, 2006
925.672.0500
Clayton families welcome children from afar JILL BEDECARRÉ Clayton Pioneer
Nearly 19 years ago, my husband Jay and I found ourselv es heading to Los Ang eles International Air port to meet our new bab y daughter , Julie, for the first time. At the airport we anxiously w aited with many other expectant families who were also adopting infants and young children. Julie ar rived from K orea with eight other c hildren and two escor ts. She w as brought through customs with Holt Agency volunteers. I remember them calling our last name and handing J ulie o ver to us . She was four months old dressed in a tiny pink outfit. She had a pacifier and manila en velope which contained her passpor t and all her w orldly belongings . Her black hair stood straight on top of her head and her Korean escort k ept bo wing and sa ying “beautiful bab y.” We w ere speechless. We w ere anxious to bring her home and introduce her to her tw o brothers , Jason and Justin. In the years that followed, we leg ally adopted J ulie through the cour ts. She w as joined by her y oungest brother Jared less than a year later and became a U.S. citizen when she was three in a w onderful ceremony in Hercules. Here are the stories of three other Clayton families who, not afraid of the unknown, opened their homes and their hear ts to orphaned c hildren from lands far from Clayton. Tamara Steiner/Clayton Pioneer
DICK, KATHY, ALLI, 17,
AND
ZACH, 13, HOM
WITH CANINE COMPANION
RAY had a positive experience with two international adoption agencies.
See Children, page A11
Clayton man charged with a string of arson fires TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
A member of one of Clayton’s oldest families has been arraigned on fi ve counts of “felony arson of structure or forest” in connection with the string of grass fires in the Morg an Territory and Marsh Creek areas.
What’s Inside SECTION A Around Town . . . . . . . . . . .A2 Upcoming Events . . . . . . . .A4 Directory of Advertisers . . .A5 Real Estate . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A7 Financial Sense . . . . . . . . . . .A9 Sharing History . . . . . . . . .A10 Food for Thought . . . . . . .A11 Movie Review . . . . . . . . . . .A12 Garden Girl . . . . . . . . . . . .A13
SECTION B
Hiker’s Haven . . . . . . . . . . . .B1 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B2 Weather Words . . . . . . . . . . .B4 On the Net . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B5 Pet Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B6 Dining Around . . . . . . . . . . .B7 Church News . . . . . . . . . . . .B8 School News . . . . . . . . . . . . .B9 Crossword Puzzle . . . . . . . .B10 Community Calendar . . . . .B11 Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B12
Investigators from the California De partment of Forestry (CDF) ar rested J esse Lloyd Galvin, 53, at his home on Marsh Creek R oad at 10:30 p.m. on J uly 17. He w as arraigned on July 28. The first in the string of arson fires w as May 21, when a fire in Cur ry Canyon destroyed
an R V and pic kup. The latest occurred on Marsh Creek Road, across from Schwartz Trucking, about 2:30 p .m. on July 17, the afternoon of the arrest. All the fires w ere quic kly extinguished, said Capt. Eric Gomberg of the CDF Sunshine Station on Marsh Creek R oad. However, each fire threatened
homes in the area and had the potential to become a dev astating wildfire. Investigators from the CDF Arson In vestigation Unit are reviewing other fires in the area, and additional c harges could be filed against Galvin. Galvin had been under surveillance for some time before
his ar rest. CDF spok esman, Jesse Estrada, would not confirm local r umors that there were video cameras placed strategically along Morg an Territory and Marsh Creek that aided in the ar rest. It w as not kno wn at press time ho w Galvin w ould plead nor had a date been set for trial.
Heat wave stresses PG&E equipment TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
Triple digit temperatures and record breaking energ y demands deli vered a one-tw o punch to PG&E’s transformers, leaving sev eral thousand Clayton customers without power, some for sev eral da ys, during the height of the recent heat wave. Among the hardest hit w as the Cla yton Station Safew ay, where a series of outages beg an Friday evening, July 21 – forcing the 24-hour store to close at 6 p.m. The store opened ag ain for a few hours Saturda y mor ning, but another outag e about 2 p .m. closed the store until 6 a.m. Sunday. Again on Sunday, an outage closed it for several hours.
“We lost all the perishables,” said store manag er Aaron Koellsted, “meat, produce, dairy and all the org anic products .” The amount of the loss had not been determined at press time. Despite sev eral outag es in Clayton, Diamond T errace Retirement Comm unity w as mercifully spared, said Assistant Administrator Gw en LewisPhillips. “We had family members calling on Saturda y w orried. We told them there was no need, everyone was in the living room ha ving a par ty,” she laughed. Because Diamond Terrace is not an assisted li ving facility, they are not required to have a g enerator. A power outage during a major heat w ave would require evacuation of the
See Heat, page A9
Tamara Steiner/Clayton Pioneer
CLAYTON STATION SAFEWAY WAS HIT HARD recently during the PG&E outages losing all the store’s perishables.
DAVE SHUEY
MAYOR’S CORNER Like a good neighbor, Mike Bell is ther e. Good neighbors are hard to find (just ask m y neighbors – and you can take that either way you w ant), and so it is important to recognize neighbors that go out of their w ay on y our behalf. So I w ant to gi ve a big shout out to Mik e Bell and George Allen at the Cemex quarry on Mitc hell Cany on Road for being great neighbors. Recently, our police disco vered that cars had to dri ve through a maze of tar and gravel that had spilled after business hours. Since our city personnel were gone for the da y, our own resourceful police Sgt. Tim O’Hara drove up to the quar ry, where Bell w as just lea ving to go home to his family. However, when informed of the situation and the impact on
See Mayor, page A7