East Bay Regional Parks Activity Guide
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IT’S YOUR PAPER www.concordpioneer.com
From the desk of...
June 23, 2017
Coolest place in town
LAuRA HoffMeISTeR
MAYOR
Services hard hit by president’s budget
Last month I wrote about the president’s proposed budget and its elimination of Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) and the devastating impact it would have on Meals on Wheels Senior Outreach Services (MOWSOS) and the CC Café senior lunch program at our Concord Senior Center. The proposed budget is before
See Mayor, page 6
Tamara Steiner
SUMMER ARRIVED EARLY LAST FRIDAY WITH TEMPERATURES BREAKING INTO TRIPLE DIGITS, and dozens of Concord kids and their parents sought relief in the cool waters of the Meadow Homes Spray Park. The city-owned park on Detroit Ave. is open during the summer from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., 7 days a week. A $385,000 playground approved by the city in 2016 is nearing completion and due to open by the end of June. The park is a popular gathering place for picnics, parties and rallies.
St. Bonaventure’s Mangini to retire
Concord native, Richard Mangini, will spend the first three months of retirement Italy, where family and friends will visit him in his rented farmhouse outside of Lucca.
become a priest. This summer, he is retiring from the priesthood at St. Bonaventure A young boy of five sat in a Catholic Church in Concord pew with his older cousin, after 21 years.. looking up with wide eyes at CONCORD NATIVE the altar in Queen of All Saints Born in Concord in 1940, Church in Concord. It was Mangini spent his early years 1945, and the Catholic mass living with his parents and sibwas still celebrated in Latin. lings in downtown Concord, Though the small boy did not understand the words the visiting his grandmother at the priest was speaking, he was fas- Mangini Ranch on the weekcinated by the liturgy, and ends. “I would say I had a very looked forward to mass every quintessential old-town kind of growing up,” says Mangini. He Sunday. It was here, at the age of portrays his childhood envifive, that Father Richard ronment as happy and simple. Mangini knew he wanted to “We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich. We seemed to have had all that we needed.” Mangini’s family has lived in Concord for generations. Inside “Our roots are very deep here, Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . .11 and I feel very much at home,” Community . . . . . . . . . . .2 he says. “One of the things I enjoy about being a priest in From the desk of . . . . . .6 the community so many years Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 later is still serving many of Performing Arts . . . . . .10 the same families with whom I grew up.” CARINA ROMANO Pioneer Staff Intern
Catholicism has always been a part of his life, and he never wavered in the decision he made at 5-years-old to become a priest. “I always had this sense that this is what I was called to be and to do,” says Mangini. When he was to begin high school, he chose to attend St. Joseph’s College, a high school and college seminary program in Mountain View. His parents wanted him to wait, feeling he was too young to go away to school. “It was like going to boarding school,” Mangini says “But I prevailed upon it. It was what I really wanted to do.” He describes life at St. Joseph’s as very strict and regimented, but he enjoyed it. Though many of his classmates ended up leaving seminary school, he never once questioned his calling. By the time his class graduated, only 13 of the original 53 students remained to move on to St. Patrick’s Seminary and University to complete their education. After graduating from St. Patrick’s at the age of 26, Mangini was ordained a priest at Most Precious Blood Church in Concord on May 17, 1967. As a newly ordained priest at Church of the Assumption in San Leandro, Fr. Richard was full of new ideas, most of which the pastor, Father Thomas Browne, turned down with a terminal, “Over my dead body.” “But I never let that prevent me from being a priest,” Mangini emphasizes, “and doing what I felt needed to be done for people’s spiritual welfare.”
BUILDING COMMUNITY In 1972, Fr. Richard returned to school, obtaining a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley in order to take over as head editor of the Catholic Voice, the Oakland diocese’s official newspaper. He was editor of the publication until 1980, but it wasn’t until 1996 that he returned to his hometown of Concord as pastor of St. Bonaventure Catholic Church. Anthony and Christine Romano, parishioners of St.
Bonaventure since the mid1960s, both agree that their first impression of Mangini was a good one. “He was going to add some more life to the parish,” says Christine Romano. “He was very outgoing and he expressed an interest in the parishioners that he talked with,” Tony Romano agrees. Mangini’s own impression of St. Bonaventure was just as good. “My reflection in
See Mangini, page 8
925.672.0500
Peterson controversy stuns local leaders PEGGY SPEAR Concord Pioneer
Local political leaders reacted with sadness and disbelief after District Attorney Mark Peterson — a longtime Concord City Council member and mayor — resigned amidst an embezzlement scandal. Peterson resigned June 14 after being charged with 13 felony counts related to his admitted misuse of campaign funds. He pled no contest to the charges that he illegally spent more than $66,000 in campaign contributions for his personal use. Last month, a county grand jury formally accused him of willful misconduct and urged he be removed as D.A.
MARK PETERSON
“I’m very disappointed,” said Concord Mayor Laura Hoffmeister. “It’s unfortunate he made mistakes — it’s disappointing to me personally, and to the community.
See Peterson, page 8
Plucky organization offers help to people beginning life again PEGGY SPEAR Concord Pioneer
Sarah Martin* can now see her children. That may not seem like a big deal for most people, but for Martin, it’s a major achievement. After stints in jail and an addiction rehab program, there were times when Martin thought she would never see her family again. But that all changed, thanks to a small but spunky grassroots organization called Support4Recovery, a local organization that helps recovering alcoholics and addicts get back on their feet after leaving rehab. “I was stressed out,” Martin said. “I was five days away
Contributed photo
TOM ASWAD, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT of the grassroots program Support4Recovery, helps recovering alcoholics and addicts make the transition to life outside of rehab’s doors.
from graduating from my The group provided the program — clean and sober resources to help Martin find — and I had nowhere to go. the sober living community Support4Recovery changed all that.” See Rehab, page 8