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IT’S YOUR PAPER www.claytonpioneer.com
October 22, 2004
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City Council candidates address the critical issues Completing our housing element requirements.
TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
On Nov. 2, voters will decide, not only who will sit in the White House for the next four years, but also who will sit on the Clayton City Council for the next four years. While our local issues are insignificant compared to the War in Iraq and the domestic economy, they are important to those of us who live in Clayton, drive its streets and wait for downtown revitalization. There are four candidates running for three seats on the City Council—Manning, Pierce and Walcutt are incumbents and Diaz is not. In an election where campaigning is limited, at best, how do the local voters find out where each candidate stands on the issues and what he or she
JIM DIAZ
GREG MANNING
JULIE PIERCE
BILL WALCUTT
sees for our city’s future? The Clayton Pioneer asked each candidate to submit three questions for all candidates to answer. We compiled these questions, combining duplications and adding a couple of
our own, into a questionnaire and sent it to the candidates. We asked them to limit their response to 1000 words. Here are the questions and their answers. We ask you to read them carefully and cast your
informed vote on November 2.
DIAZ: 1) Maintaining our quality of life; 2) Completing our “historic” downtown; 3) Addressing our traffic management issues; 4) Providing adequate landscape and maintenance services; and 5)
W
hat are the most important issues facing Clayton in the next four years?
MANNING: The largest issue is revenue and the State takeaways. We need to urge the State to give back the money they’ve taken from the cities. Proposition 1A is a move in this direction, but we must continue vigilance. Something the State will be looking at is our redevelopment money. Since the State feels that all monies are theirs and city budgets are just extensions of state expenses that can be cut, we need also to maintain our low expense level and not add additional services. PIERCE: The most important issues facing Clayton in the
See Candidates, page 7
Clayton welcomes new cop TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
Tamara Steiner/Clayton Pioneer
Eagles christen new field with a win As nightime settled on the homecoming game pitting the Clayton Valley High School football team against Liberty, it certainly didn’t darken the Eagles spirits. They defeated Liberty 24-15 in the first game played on the new artificial field turf in Gonsalves Stadium. The multi-million dollar facility took only about 15 months to complete thanks to hard work, major sponsors, generous
donations and a great community effort. The new stadium will be dedicated to Steve and Debra Gonsalves on October 29 when the Eagles take on the Antioch Panthers. A special ceremony will be held at halftime with food, raffle and other festivities. See Around Town, page 2, for more Homecoming photos.
GPS survey maps Diablo Creek and details habitat TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
DEE MUNK
AND
Tamara Steiner/Clayton Pioneer JOHN MILLAR take GPS readings in Diablo Creek.
Sean Patrick McNamara is new on the job, but already knows he likes it. The newest face on the Clayton Police Force will smile big when you ask him what he likes about Clayton. "It's a beautiful environment…just the right size, not huge, but it's big enough when there's only one cop on duty," he says. The 31-year-old officer graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in Psychology. He went to work in database management for Chevron Products. It didn't take long for him to discover that he
Did you know that there are actually fish in Diablo Creek? Tiny little mosquito fish, less than two inches long, and they can eat up to 200 mosquito larvae every day. These dinky little pest controllers share their creek with crawdads and turtles and thousands of cheerful, noisy frogs. All these little critters belong in the creek. It’s their natural habitat. But, there are some things in the creek that don’t belong there—like invasive plants, soap scum and garbage.
The Friends of Diablo Creek want to protect what belongs in the creek and get rid of what doesn’t. Earlier this month volunteers concerned with the preservation of the creek spent a Saturday morning mapping and documenting its condition. Clayton residents, Dee Munk and John Millar, both members of Friends of Diablo Creek, worked with Aspen Madrone of the Contra Costa Citizen Monitoring Program to map a quarter mile section. According to Madrone, the point of the study is to link the creek’s physical characteristics
to an exact location to determine what needs to be done to restore the creek to its natural state. Using a global positioning system and observation to document the flora and habitat in detail along the stretch between the library and the end of the golf course, the team stood in the middle of the creek, took the GPS readings and carefully detailed everything they saw. According to Lisa Anich, founding member of Friends, “We found several invasive plants – Trees of Heaven, English Ivy (migrating from
See Creek, page 20
SEAN PATRICK MCNAMARA
was not cut out for a desk job. "I was a Law Enforcement Explorer in high school, and always liked it," he said. So, he applied to the Hayward PD, was hired and trained at the Alameda County Sheriff's Office Academy. As an officer in Hayward, he found the pace just too busy. "It was constant crime," he said, “you'd no sooner finish one case than they'd send you out on another. In Clayton, we actually have time to patrol around and look for bad guys on our own." With a name like McNamara, it's not surprising that there's law enforcement in the DNA. His great, great, great grandfather was a beat cop in Dublin, Ireland, and his brother, Bryan, is a federal officer at the Lawrence Radiation Lab in Livermore. McNamara lives in Tracy with his wife Sarah.The couple is expecting their first child, Caitlin Quinn, in January.