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IT’S YOUR PAPER www.claytonpioneer.com
December 12, 2003
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City Council elects new mayor and vice mayor BY TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
The holiday is
Christmas BY TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
It’s beginning to look a lot like— what??? The “politically correct” winds that blow through December seem to have blown the “C” word nearly off the page. The “holiday” that calls up Santa, reindeer, candy canes and shopping is “Christmas.” As in Merry Christmas! On December 25th, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, not the birth of “Holiday.” Regrettably, in an attempt not to offend non-Christians, we substitute the generic word “holiday” for “Christmas,” diluting the importance of this monumental birthday. Regardless of what religious tradition one observes, or not, whether you embrace Jesus as a religious figure, or not, this man came, and he made history. Jesus’ teachings are relevant for all humans, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist or other. We can do a lot worse than to keep in mind a few of his simple words. Love one another. (Luckily, he did not require us all to LIKE each other – that would be hard). Treat the other guy the way you want to be treated. Forgive those who hurt you (now, that one’s REALLY hard). One doesn’t have to look too closely at the world’s religions to find these teachings, in some form, somewhere in all of them. Sadly, while some of the worst butchers in history were religious men who killed other religious men in the name of someone’s god, it doesn’t take much digging into their dogma to find that we are all truly more alike than we are different. Family, freedom, friendship, food, shelter and (just ask any teenager), peace are the basic desires of every human I know. So, as we approach the “holiday” at warp speed, take a moment to remember the man, and the message, that started it all, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all.” (What a concept!)
From all of us at the Pioneer, Merry, Merry Christmas!
At the Dec. 2 meeting of the Clayton city council, the mayor’s gavel passed from Pete Laurence to Julie Pierce with much good natured banter, and a new park for Laurence. Presenting the outgoing mayor with a scale model of the downtown park, complete with cow and gazebo, the new mayor joked, “This is as close to a park as you’re likely to get anytime soon.” The miniature park was created and assembled by assistant to the city manager, Laura Hoffmeister. Clayton city council members are elected by popular vote by those who live within the city limits. Each year in December, the council elects a sitting member to serve as mayor for the coming year, and another to serve as vice mayor. Typically, a council member progresses from vice mayor to mayor. Gregg Manning was elected vice mayor for 2004. Tamara Steiner / Clayton Pioneer Each council member, including the CLAYTON CITY COUNCIL from left, Bill Walcutt, Vice Mayor Gregg Manning, Mayor Julie mayor, receives the same $300 per month Pierce, Pete Laurence and Dave Shuey stipend.
“It’s going to be a difficult year” Julie Pierce moved to Clayton in 1984. She became active in local politics in 1987 when she was appointed to the Planning Commission. She served as mayor in 1995. Pierce also chairs the Contra Costa Transportation Authority and is the city’s delegate to the Shaping Our Future Policy Committee. Pierce chairs this regional committee which is looking at future growth issues and the impact of changing demographics on the area. In an exclusive interview with the Pioneer, Mayor Pierce talks about the budget issues facing the city next year and shares her vision for the city. What do you see as the greatest challenge facing Clayton in 2004? $$$ Money! No question. Everything we have coming up this next year is related to the budget--from the cost of landscape maintenance, to keeping the lights on, to keeping employees employed, to how to build the downtown park that everyone wants and then how to maintain it if we can get it built. It’s going to be a very difficult year. Just how difficult will depend on whether the state takes even more money away. If the state takes more money away, we will be cutting into the structure of our organization—to the bone. Ten years ago, we cut fat, this past two years, we cut muscle. The next revenue cuts go to the bone, and that cripples the patient. We can’t make those cuts without real
injury to the city. Clayton has an annual General Fund budget of $3.48M. This year we cut 19% from our budget to accommodate the state take-aways. If the state continues to hold the backfill from the Vehicle License Fees (VLF) for the past two quarters, we’ll lose $443K of the funds we have budgeted to pay for city services this year. That’s another 14% of our budget. If the state compounds that by taking away the VLF (a constitutionally protected local revenue source) we stand to lose $662K next year. That’s a 22% hit. Nobody’s budget can survive a 22% hit on top of a 19% cut without a lot of pain. So, right now, we don’t have answers. We have labor negotiations coming up with all of our employees this year. We all would like to have more police
officers and more public works folks. All of our employees deserve to be well compensated they are tremendous! But the reality is that our General Fund is stretched very thin now, and we cannot take Tamara Steiner / Clayton Pioneer ongoing operCLAYT0N’S NEW MAYOR, Julie Pierce ating costs out of reserves. It’s a balancing act. See Pierce, page 6
Three is NOT a lucky number for CVHS Eagles BY JAY BEDECARRE Clayton Pioneer
Sports is all about numbers. You keep score with numbers. The players have numbers on their uniforms. Competition sites have numbers demarcating the playing field. Records, streaks and milestones are all measured in numbers. For Clayton Valley High School, and the Eagles 2003 football team in particular, “three” was definitely not their number. It wasn’t “third time’s the charm” but rather “bad news comes in threes” when it came to assessing 2003 Clayton Valley Eagles football THE AGONY OF DEFEAT.Clayton Valley High football coach Herc Pardi consoles linemen Ryan Cassity (55) and Elliott Jaggers (66) after they lost the NCS championship game in three overtimes. Photo by Jay Bedecarre/Clayton Pioneer
and their final game, the North Coast Section 3A football championship last Friday at Diablo Valley College before over 3000 spectators. The record books forever will record the final score as Las Lomas of Walnut Creek 37, Clayton Valley 36 with the Knights winning their second straight NCS football title. Some listings of the result will have a notation that the game included three overtimes and that’s where that number raises its ugly head for the first, or perhaps last, time in regards the CVHS football team of ‘03. Three shows up everywhere in reviewing the Eagles’ season and that final game...and it’s almost always in a negative light. Three—number of games Clayton Valley lost in 2003 football season (against a school record-tying 10 wins). Three—number of NCS football championship games Clayton Valley has played in (and lost). Three—NCS major team championship games CVHS teams have played in during past 19 months, including two NCS baseball games at Oakland Coliseum and last week’s NCS football title decider at DVC (all losses for the Eagles). Three—turnovers Eagles suffered from the end
of the first half through the early part of third quarter against Las Lomas that stifled any chance of the Eagles from scoring while placing the defense back on its heels. Three—number of times LL successfully ran essentially the same slip screen pass play in the left flat during overtime to score two touchdowns and setup a third. Three—number of overtime periods in the CVLL championship game, with the Eagles losing despite scoring a touchdown in all three periods. Three—number of points CVHS was short of a perfect 2003 season after losing a heartbreaker 7-6 to Antioch in the final minutes due to a missed extra point and then two overtime losses to Pittsburg and Las Lomas after tying those games in regulation time. It was over 12 months ago, after Clayton Valley finished its second straight disappointing season with a three-win (that lousy number again!), seven-loss record, that this season’s senior players (then juniors) came to coach Herc Pardi of Clayton and vowed 2003 would be different. The players immediately began preparing for this season with hard work in off-season conditioning and See CVHS, page 8