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IT’S YOUR PAPER www.claytonpioneer.com
February 25, 2005
925.672.0500
Teachers and district at impasse
Council approves Dog Park partnership
GREGG MANNING
TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
CITY’S TRAIL MAP We received great news this week. The Clayton Trail Map is here and ready for sale. This is a project many people have worked on over a number of years. No one has done more to get the finished product to the public than Councilman Pete Laurence. He did the final proof of the map and now it is available at City Hall for two dollars. People will not only have an up-to-date magnificent map of the City’s trail system but also its sale will allow the City to recover costs and get additional revenue for periodic updates. In a future column I will talk more about this new map but today I want to address City revenue. I will specifically address the issue of the Clayton business license revenue.
A small but dedicated group of dog loving Claytonians have raised enough money to bring running water to the City’s dog park, and the City has agreed to pay the $50-$100 a year water bill. And a resourceful and talented Eagle Scout will build a redwood arbor to shade the picnic table and rest area. The K-9 Coalition has been raising money for improvements to the Dog Park since 1999. The original intent was to install a drinking fountain, irrigation lines and shade trees, but at an estimated $145,000$185,000, these improvements were out of reach. Instead, in 2003 the Coalition installed a water meter at a cost of $15,200. They have raised an additional $5,500 to install a water spigot and hose bib connection, and they have contributed $500 toward the cost of materials to build the arbor.
MAYOR’S CORNER
BUSINESS LICENSE TAX In 1978 under Ordinance 181, the City of Clayton added Chapter 5.04 (Business Licenses and Taxes Generally) to the Clayton Municipal Code. Except for changes in fees due to their automatic adjustment based on the Consumer Price Index, with current fees noted on the application, little has been changed in this provision of the Municipal Code. In July 2003, 345 businesses were licensed with the City including 125 (36 percent) located outside our City. In June of 2003 the City received a letter from Municipal Auditing Services (MAS) extolling their abilities to increase revenue for the City through an audit of the City’s Business license activity. Our city’s small but dedicated staff had been unable to audit the licenses from the beginning since there always seemed to be more pressing matters The city manager researched the issue and followed up with the company to determine what their reputation was with other cities. All of the due diligence feedback was positive and on Aug. 21, the City entered into a contract with MAS. It was after this item was discussed at a city council meeting, noted in the papers, specifically the Clayton Pioneer, that MAS set about auditing the City’s business licenses. Everything seemed to be going well until the early summer of 2004 when the city received complaints about the tone of some of the letters that businesses were receiving. While the city council does not micro-manage a process when it hires outside professionals, the series of letters MAS used in other client cities were reviewed and approved by the city manager and Mayor Pierce before MAS continued its audit. There remained questions about the process addressed
See Mayor, page 7
Tamara Steiner/Clayton Pioneer
Teachers from DVMS, MDES and Pine Hollow Middle School are angry at the district over low wages. JILL BEDECARRÉ Clayton Pioneer
Last week more than a dozen Mt. Diablo Unified School District (MDUSD teachers took their protest to the streets of Concord to bring more attention to the current impasse between the school district and the Mount Diablo Education Association (MDEA), teacher’s union. They held signs that read “Kids and Teachers Come First” and “Fair Wages Now” on the corner of Clayton and Ygnacio Valley roads in an effort to publicly state their objection to the current salary negotiations. According to MDEA President Mike Noce, the impasse was declared last month and mediation is set to begin in March. The main issues for the union and the teachers are salary and compensation, explains Noce. “I hope that we
are going to come to a settlement. Teachers would rather be teaching,” he added. “There’s no hidden pot of money. They (the district) just have to change their priorities,” Noce says. According to Noce, the district has offered teachers a two percent mid-year increase, which amounts to a one percent raise for the entire year. He explains that no salary increases have been budgeted for the next two years. The teachers responded to the district proposal with a demand for a 5.25 percent salary increase. They want teachers to get the 3.99 percent increase in state funds per student for the 2004-05 year. The district says that money has to offset general fund expenses since there’s been a steady decline in enrollment and income has fallen short of expenses in the past few years. About five years ago, the
teachers opted to accept a $3,882 stipend in exchange for district-provided health benefits, which the teachers say saved the district several million dollars. However, those monies have not kept up with rising medical costs and the teachers are asking for a 1.26 percent increase in their annual stipend. Teachers who are covered by the Kaiser family medical plan (the least expensive medical coverage available through the district) claim that they pay the insurance company $10,500 out of their annual salary. They also argue that a first-year teacher on that plan in the district takes home only $29,193 a year. One teacher picketing last week carried a sign that read “I’m a Mt. Diablo teacher, I qualify for low income housing.” “We are in a budget-cutting mode,” says Sue Berg, spokesperson for the District. “We don’t have that money,”
she added referring to the District’s $2.7 million deficit in 2004-05. “This is a stressful situation, everyone agrees,” she said. She explains that the health cost stipend, which has increased slightly to about $4,000 might be something to negotiate. Teachers also say that although they haven’t had a raise in three years, the school board has given the superintendent a 13.57 percent pay increase during that time period. Not so, says Berg. She points out that the superintendent’s raise reflects a longevity increase that he negotiated when he was hired four years ago. The agreement included a two percent increase per year, providing that he remain on the job for four years. The 13.57 per cent also includes the superintendent’s request to transfer his mileage,
See Teachers, page 6
Thirsty dogs will soon have water at the Dog Park
“This is yet one more example of how volunteers make things better in our community,” said Councilwoman Julie Pierce at the City Council meeting Feb. 15. “It’s really nice to see the community provide some of the services the city just can’t afford,” added Councilman Bill Walcutt. The dog park is located on Marsh Creek Road across from Diablo View Middle School.
Clayton weather gets KTVU broadcast time Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, Sailors take warning. When the wind is from the south The rain’s in its mouth. Wind from the east fish bite least, Wind from the west fish bite best. Bees do not swarm before a storm When the rooster goes crowing to bed, He will rise with a watery head. TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
There are probably as many ways to forecast the weather as there are words that rhyme with “rain.” Man has been holding a finger to the wind since the first caveman stuck his head out of his cave and peered at the sky. But, while an early morning red sky or a crowing rooster
may sometimes give an accurate prediction of the weather, if you really want to know whether to count on sunshine for the weekend, your best bet is to ask your friendly, neighborhood meteorologist. And, for Clayton weather, there are no friendlier or more neighborly sources for weather conditions than KTVU’s Steve Paulson and Clayton’s own, Jason Massey. Other Bay Area stations will typically have weather conditions and forecasts for Concord and Walnut Creek, but not for Clayton. There are frequently significant variations between our weather and what is happening over the hill in Walnut Creek or closer to the Bay in Concord. If you want up-tothe-minute weather information for Clayton, KTVU has it beginning at 5 a.m. every weekday. And just how did our tiny burg
find its way to the StormTracker screen? Paulson, whose spends his off camera time at his girlfriend’s home in Clayton, and Massey, a self described weather “buff ” with an assortment of scientific weather instruments at his home in Oakhurst, met while playing tennis at Oakhurst. It was (pardon our pun) a match. Paulson collects weather data for his reports from a variety of sources, and all it took was a shortcut on his desktop to jasonmassey.com for Paulson to access real time weather conditions in Clayton for his morning reports. Massey’s intense interest in the weather grew out of his passion for aviation. “There is no better education for weather than aviation training,” explains Massey. “Aviation weather is about being precise.” And preci-
Tamara Steiner/Clayton Pioneer
KTVU METEOROLOGIST Steve Paulson sion is what you will find on his personal Web site. Massey’s sophisticated instruments monitor temperatures, humidity, dew point, rainfall, wind speeds and direction and wind chill. If you want to
know whether to play golf this afternoon, just visit jasonmassey.com. “Weather predictions within a 24 hour period are extremely accurate,” he says.
See Weather, page 5