Danville Today News, March 2012

Page 1

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0DUFK 6HUYLQJ 'DQYLOOH Forest Home Farms Keeps the Past Present Feral Kevin By Fran Miller By Jody Morgan

Forest Home Farms Historic Park connects the present with the past through educational programs, special events, and monthly second-Saturday open days. On March 10th, visitors to the property located at 19953 San Ramon Valley Boulevard will be treated to a parade of antique automobiles. The Horseless Carriage Club arrives at 10am piloting vehicles built prior to 1916, remaining on site until noon. The Diablo A’s Model A Ford Club motors up the drive at 10:30, staying until 1pm. The entire park, including the 1850’s hand hewn barn, the 1900 Dutch Colonial Boone House and the 1877 Italianate Victorian Glass House, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historic Resources. The site with its 21 individual structures represents the evolution of agriculture in the San Ramon Valley from the time Costumed docents Celestine Faeth and Kim Crow American settlers first arrived shortly welcome visitors to the Glass House. after California was ceded to the United States by Mexico in 1848. Samuel Russell undoubtedly had no idea how important trees would be in sustaining the property he purchased in 1852 from Jose Maria Amador. But Forest Home Farms, the name he gave his homestead, proved to be prophetic. The Schultis family bought the place in the 1860’s and then sold it to Numa and Minnie Boone in 1899. The 200 yearold olive still standing in the front yard pre-dates the arrival of all of the above owners of the property. But walnuts provided the income that carried the farm out of the depths of the Great Depression. Thanks to Alamo resident Myron Hall’s 1873 marriage through grafting of the valley’s tough-shelled native walnut with an exotic Persian (aka English) species, a cash crop needing no irrigation could easily be grown throughout the region. The new nuts were easy to shell, delightfully flavorful, and totally drought tolerant. Born and raised in San Ramon, Travis Boone was pursuing a profitable career at a Los Angeles tile company when he wedded Hollywood socialite Ruth Quayle on October 5, 1929. Unfortunately, Travis’s father Numa had just taken out a $10,000 mortgage The David and Eliza Glass House opened to the public in 2010. on the farm to purchase more land. When the Crash came, the price of farm products plummeted. In 1930, Travis (always called Bud) and Ruth made what they expected to be a temporary move back to San Ramon. The bank repossessed the new acreage, but Bud managed to help his father hold on to the rest of the property through the Homestead Act. Working off the debt took every penny the farm produced for several years. However, Bud’s inven-

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Long before sustainable food guru Michael Pollan wrote his best seller The Omnivore’s Dilemma, in which he explored the complex subject of the industrialization of our food sources, a young and quixotic Kevin Feinstein was slightly ahead of the curve. As a college student at Florida State, Feinstein privately questioned the same subjects as related to the nation’s commercial food chain. With access to a relatively new information highway – the Internet – Feinstein Googled his way through the complex issues of agribusiness and in-turn, re-programmed how he felt about our food system. Feinstein was a film major excelling in the technical aspects of his field of study. He assumed a career path in film would eventually lead him to California, but it was his transformation of consciousness, and the progressive food movement, which ultimately brought him to the state eleven years ago. Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, Feinstein, who now lives in Walnut Creek, had become accustomed to non-organic ways of eating. Kevin Feinstein, "Feral Kevin," displays a bounty of both “We never had fruit, and I’d edible and toxic mushrooms. His mushroom foraging classes explain how to tell the difference between the two. never seen a fruit tree,� says Feinstein. “Once in college, and with a myriad of information at my fingertips, I started to explore food-source related issues, and it literally changed my life.�

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Clean Water Ballots – What’s This All About? By Sharon Burke Ballots went out in late February to property owners asking for their vote on the Contra Costa Community Clean Water Initiative. The election is required by Prop. 218, the Right to Vote on Taxes Act, passed by California voters in 1996. The countywide initiative was ordered for election by the County Board of Supervisors on February 7 on a 3-1 vote. A majority vote of property owners in the County is necessary to pass the fee. Critics have questioned the mode of election used for this measure, which is required in accordance with Prop. 218, written and championed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Prior to Prop. 218, no vote was required to assess a property related fee. And since property owners felt it unfair for renters and other non-owners to vote on property related fees, Prop. 218 specified that only property owners could vote Volume III - Number 5 in a property related election like the Clean Water 3000F Danville Blvd. #117, Alamo, CA 94507 Initiative. This means the Elections Department, (925) 405-6397 which only tracks registered voters, cannot conduct Fax (925) 406-0547 the election and usually counties and cities hire an Alisa Corstorphine ~ Publisher outside consultant to conduct the election, which editor@ has been done in this case. yourmonthlypaper.com Further criticism has been generated because the county materials sent with the initiative ballot The opinions expressed herein belong to the writers, and do not necessarily are vague and do not contain the usual supporting reflect that of Danville Today News. Danville Today News is not and opposing arguments voters use to make an in- responsible for the content of any of formed choice. Prop. 218 did not specify that argu- the advertising herein, nor does

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