Happy Mother’s Day IT’S YOUR PAPER
Assisted living center and retail proposed for Main Street lot
www.claytonpioneer.com
May 11, 2018
925.672.0500
TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
KeiTH Haydon
MAYOR’S CORNER
May events beckon you to get outside
Welcome to one of my favorite times of the year in the Clayton area, because of the increased opportunity for outdoor activities. The rains have greened up our picturesque valley and hills, and the warming weather entices us to get outside. It’s a great time to enjoy our yards, gardens, parks, trails and sports like walking, biking, soccer and loads of baseball – with Little League, Clayton Valley Charter High School, the Giants and A’s. With our busy, sometimes stressful lives, it’s good to remember we have the relaxing, stress-reducing, low-cost exercise option of walking in our beautiful area. Clayton has been rated one of the top walking communities in the country due to our citywide trail system that connects neighborhoods with the downtown. It also extends to our two neighboring protected areas, Mt. Diablo State Park and Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve. I encourage you to walk, run or bike our trails, discovering new areas of interest. Trail maps available for $2 at City Hall provide descriptions of many of the area’s trails, as well as city information and a street map of Clayton. If you walk with your dog, please remember that Clayton’s leash law applies to dogs on the trails too. And help us keep our trails clean and natural by picking up after your dog, disposing of doggie bags in trash cans. A number of community activities will give you even more reasons to get outside, starting with the first Concert in The Grove on Saturday, May 12, followed by our second concert on Saturday, May 26. These free concerts are held at The Grove
See Mayor,
Rendering courtesy of Fulcrum development
Grand oaks, a 95-unit assisted living and memory care facility is proposed for the city-owned 1.66-acre parcel at the west end of Main Street. The entrance to Grand oaks will be off of oak Street just before Main St. an additional 5,000 square feet of retail space will front Main.
10 a.m. VFW Traditional service at the Flagpole, west end of Main Street.
What’s Inside
Around Town . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Community Calendar . . . . .17 Directory of Advertisers . . . .7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
See Grand Oaks, page 9
Art Expo wows onlookers and inspires greatness BRENDEN JIN & JOEY PHUNG Special to the Pioneer
Clayton Valley Charter High School held its 8th annual Art Expo on April 12, showcasing work that students created throughout the year. This successful event had more than 500 submissions. Katie Nolan, the art design and AP art history/AP studio teacher, said it was the highest amount of entries to date with “a lot more student participation.” Visual arts teacher Evan Hughes said the Art Expo also included a few pieces from other schools, such as Pine Hollow and Diablo View middle schools. Work falls into several categories, such as drawings, paintings, sculptures, digital page 3 art (graphic design, motion pictures, animation, video productions) and photography. In order to prevent bias, there were no parent or
Memorial Day May 28
A Sausalito real estate developer is proposing an assisted living and memory care facility for the cityowned parcel at the west end of town. The project will include 5,000 square feet of retail space fronting Main Street. David Ford of Fulcrum Development and Jason Reyes, owner of three Cornerstone Living Centers, and Transamerica Real Estate broker Ed Del Bacarro met with about two dozen Clayton residents at an informational meeting on April 4. While Claytonians have long hoped for a Trader Joe’s on the downtown site, it isn’t going to happen, Del Bacarro said. There simply aren’t enough people to support the grocery retailer. “Trader Joe’s wouldn’t even
teacher judges. The 17 judges were either professional artists or others within the art world. One of the judges was an animator for the new Scooby Doo movie. The Michelangelo D’Onofrio Arts Foundation and the Clayton Valley/Concord Rotary Club co-sponsored event with The Foundation awarding cash prices to 33 students who demonstrated outstanding skills in the visual and digital arts. The first-place winners from each category received $100, with $50 for second and $25 for third. Students get to keep their creations after showing them off at the Art Expo. However, one student sold his work and made a couple hundred dollars in addition to his prize money. The main reason for the Art Expo is to show off how students have improved and to highlight the skills they have been learning and practicing throughout the school
year. “It definitely benefits the student by showing the work that they are producing throughout the year,” noted Kelsey Thomas, the digital graphic arts and computer graphics teacher. It can also be beneficial for the students to have others admire and judge their work. ¨Every year we do this, there is a minimum of 10-15 teachers who come up to me and say, ‘I didn’t know so and so was so talented.’ So this is clearly a great way to showcase our students talent in a way that many other student artist may not be able to,” Hughes said. Before students could submit their art, they had to speak to one of the art teachers at Clayton Valley. Then they signed a form giving the school permission to display their creations. The works had to be completed and submitted to the teachers by the
See Art Expo, page 9
Tamara Steiner/Clayton Pioneer
Huy Trans submitted a haunting mood piece that took first prize in the painting category.
Celebrating 15 years, and we’re ready for the future TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
Happy Birthday to us! This month, we begin our 16th year as Clayton’s (and now Concord’s) community newspaper, and it’s impossible not to crow just a bit. Our first issue was May 9, 2003 and the cover story was Art and Wine. There were three of us—me, Kim Rutledge and Jill Bedecarré—in a tiny office in Pleasant Hill. When the truck carrying Each of us knew a different 5,000 copies of that first piece of the newspaper busiissue rolled up in front of the ness and together we knew post office, Jill and I happy enough. danced down the middle of
Center St. “It feels like we just gave birth to the same baby,” Jill said. Now, 360 issues, 8,000 pages and more than 9,000,000 words later, we are still here—but different. At the end of that first year, Kim went on to an editor’s spot with the Oakland Tribune, then to graduate school and Sacramento. In 2007 Jill died of breast cancer. And I still miss her every day. Today our staff includes sports editor Jay Bedecarré, who jumped in to help right after Jill died. Pete Cruz took
over as graphic designer in 2003. Pamela Wiesendanger, our client support guru and calendar editor joined us in 2010. Our copy editor and staff writer, Bev Britton has been with us for more than five years. And we are lucky enough to have some of the best freelance journalists in the business always ready to help us out. Me? I put it all together twice a month and in between I sell the advertising that pays the bills. And it’s been (mostly) fun and always rewarding. The Pioneer has been called
everything from the “glue” of the community to a “dirty, commie liberal rag” (that was an honor). We’ve celebrated births and mourned deaths. We’ve covered the sad and the glorious. Now, after a week or so reflecting on the past, we’ve turned our faces to the future. We’re ready. For a look-back at the most important stories of the last 15 years, turn to pages 10-11
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