Contra Costa Herald

News Of By and For The People of Contra Costa County, California

Rep. McNerney defends sanctuary cities against DOJ threats to withhold funds

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(Washington, DC) – On Friday, Congressman Jerry McNerney (CA-09), who represents portions of Eastern Contra Costa County, sent a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ), responding to the agency’s threat to withhold federal dollars from the City of Stockton, and several other cities, if local law enforcement does not notify the Department of Homeland Security regarding the detainment of illegal aliens.

In response to DOJ’s initial letter, McNerney issued the following statement:

“The City of Stockton has made significant progress combatting crime, in large part due to its highly capable police department. The Stockton PD is nationally recognized for its innovative and effective approaches to reducing crime, and in order to ensure they can best serve their communities, Stockton police and other local law enforcement must be able to decide on the best strategy to combat crime without federal interference.

“The funds DOJ is threatening to withhold come from the Public Safety Partnership (PSP), which was created to help keep cities and communities safe and to improve relationships between community members and law enforcement. These grants are essential to our local law enforcement and withholding them would be counterproductive to the progress these regions have made.

“I sent a letter to the Department of Justice, underscoring the benefits of this program and its role in the agency’s mission. If the DOJ is truly committed to public safety through federal leadership, they will seek other opportunities to support their local law enforcement counterparts, rather than handicap them.”

Senate committee approves Frazier’s “Jeff Belle Bill” to increase penalties for ballot statement lies

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Jeff Belle, source Contra Costa County Board of Education

Increases maximum fine from $1,000 to $20,500

SACRAMENTO – The Senate Public Safety Committee has unanimously approved a bill by Assemblymember Jim Frazier, D-Discovery Bay, which would impose stiffer financial penalties on candidates who lie on ballot statements when seeking political office. AB 894 would impose a fine of up to $5,000 if a candidate includes knowingly false information on statements they submit for inclusion on election ballots. If an offender is convicted of associated criminal wrongdoing, a formula that multiplies the base fine could result in as much as $20,500 in total financial penalties for those who intentionally lie to voters.

“The penalty for shamelessly lying to voters should be very painful,” Frazier said. “And right now, it’s not painful enough. Often, the only information a voter may have about candidates is what is contained in ballot statements, especially in races for local offices that might not get a lot of press coverage. AB 894 creates a strong deterrent to dishonest candidates who falsify their qualifications in an attempt to mislead voters.”

Frazier authored AB 894 after Jeff Belle, a candidate in East County who was elected to the Contra Costa County Board of Education in 2014, was found to have blatantly lied about his qualifications, background and criminal record in the candidate statement he submitted for inclusion on the ballot. The current maximum fine for intentionally misleading voters on ballot statements is $1,000. However, instead of a punishment, the Contra Costa District Attorney’s office allowed Belle to receive just an entry into a diversion program for offenders, which required he admitted he didn’t have a degree and perform 20 hours of community service. (See related article). 

AB 894 has received unanimous bipartisan support in every committee and floor vote. It has been approved by the Assembly Elections Committee, the full Assembly and the Senate Elections and Public Safety committees without a single “no” vote. The bill’s final vote will be on the Senate Floor after the Legislature returns from recess. If the full Senate approves AB 894, it will go to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.

Congressman DeSaulnier to host Town Hall Meeting in Pittsburg on Monday

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Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11) will host a town hall meeting at Pittsburg Senior Center on Monday, August 14th at 6:30 p.m. Since assuming office in 2015, Mark has hosted 47 town halls and mobile district office hours throughout Contra Costa County.

The congressman invites residents to attend the town hall to listen to a presentation and legislative update. During the town hall constituents will have an opportunity to ask questions, share their opinions on actions taken by the Administration, and discuss issues important to their communities.

Pittsburg Town Hall
Monday, August 14, 2017

6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Pittsburg Senior Center

300 Presidio Lane

Pittsburg, CA 94565

Please RSVP online at www.desaulnier.house.gov/town-hall-rsvp or call 925-933-2660. For more information or to request ADA accommodations contact Congressman DeSaulnier’s office in Walnut Creek or Richmond.

Pittsburg Police find stolen guns in stolen car following alert from Hwy 4 license plate reader

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Stolen guns discovered in stolen car Friday morning, August 11, 2017. Photo courtesy of Pittsburg Police.

At 3:35 AM on Friday, August 11, 2017, Pittsburg Police officers were monitoring Highway 4 following a license plate reader alert for a stolen vehicle. Officers located the vehicle on Loveridge Road in Pittsburg and attempted a traffic stop; however, the suspect vehicle fled and a pursuit ensued.

Officers located the suspect vehicle on the Contra Loma Blvd. onramp in Antioch and the suspect fled on foot from pursuing officers. The suspect was subsequently apprehended by a Pittsburg Police K9. A search of the vehicle revealed multiple firearms, which had been stolen during a burglary in a nearby city.

Supervisors back state funding of Los Vaqueros Reservoir expansion

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Los Vaqueros Reservoir. Photo by Aerial Photographer Dick Jones. Courtesy of CCWater.com

By Daniel Borsuk

The first shovel may not plunge into the ground for the expansion of the Los Vaqueros Reservoir until 2022, but the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors have signed on to back state financing of the Contra Costa Water District’s reservoir project.

With District 2 Supervisor Candace Andersen and District 1 Supervisor John Gioia absent Tuesday, supervisors voted 3-0 as a consent item to send a letter of support for the reservoir to the California Water Commission to tap into 2014 voter approved $2.7 billion of state Proposition 1 funds so that the Contra Costa Water District can enlarge the reservoir’s capacity from 160,000-acre feet to 270,000-acre feet.

The Proposition 1 funding would pay 50 percent, or about $450 million of the estimated $900 million price tag with the CCWD and other participating water agencies and their customers picking up the construction price tag.

Although supervisors did not hear either opposition or support concerning their letter, the supervisors’ letter did acknowledge the reservoir project could present an environmental problem unless the CCWD takes action to address it.

Supervisors expect the CCWD to resolve an issue about a proposed alignment of the Transfer-Bethany Pipeline that could upset the environment to a portion of 13,000 acres to the East Contra Costa County Habitat Conservation Plan, a state funded part of the Natural Community Conservation Plan.  Contra Costa County and the cities of Brentwood, Clayton, Oakley and Pittsburg adopted the ECCC habitat conservation plan in 2007.

“Nothing has been decided on the pipeline’s alignment, “said CCWD Public Affairs Director Jennifer Allen. “We still have a lot of steps to go through including the pipeline alignment.”

“With this being a big rain year, I think this is a great thing to move forward on,” said Supervisor Diane Burgis of Brentwood, whose District 3 encompasses much of Los Vaqueros Reservoir.  “If we’re going to spend this kind of money, it’s better to build something that stores water during the rainy years.”

“This is an opportunity to invest against future droughts by adding to our water storage,” said board chair Federal Glover.

Supervisors Adopt New Cardroom License Ordinance

Supervisors also approved a cardroom ordinance that lays out a procedure to ensure that business operations are not interrupted following “an unforeseen event” including the death of the current licensee.

Under the new ordinance, the Sheriff’s Office is designated as the department responsible for licensing gambling establishments locally, is to be notified of the event within 10 days of the event occurrence and identify the appropriate party that should obtain a license. The successor party is required to obtain a license within 30 days of the event.

In Contra Costa County, the California Grand Casino at 5988 Pacheco Blvd. in Pacheco and the 19th Hole Casino and Lounge at 2746 W. Tregallas Road in Antioch are the only licensed cardrooms, according to the State Attorney General’s Office.

In other business, supervisors gave the green light for the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff to 21 Lehr Automated License Plate Readers for $225,000 for use in unincorporated Alamo to help curb property crimes.

Automated License Plate Readers

Installation of the Lehr ALPRs will begin at the end of August and should be completed in September, said Sheriff Lt. Jason Haynes of the Alamo Sheriff Office.  The ALPRs will be installed at seven intersections.

Sheriff David Livingston said while a review of crime statistics in the Alamo area does not show a significant increase in reported crime over the last several years, “there was an increase in property crime and residential burglaries specifically in the Contra Costa central 680 corridor.”

The county will not pick a dime on the acquisition of the ALRs because the funds are donated through three private sources.  One unnamed contributor donated $95,000.  Members of the Alamo Police Services Advisory Committee are providing $50,000 and P-6 Alamo-Las Trampas has contributed $80,500.

Alamo will join Danville, Orinda, Lafayette, Clayton and Pittsburg that have Lehr ALPRs installed on city street intersections, Lt. Haynes said.

Lt. Haynes said the license plate readers have proven to work effectively in solving especially property crimes.  He said the Sheriff’s Department has made 25 arrests in connection with Danville stolen vehicle heists over a 12-month period.

Traffic detour on Balfour Road in Brentwood beginning Monday, July 31

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Phase I of the Balfour Road Shoulder Widening Project is underway. Phase I includes widening the pavement for wider lane and shoulders from Byron Highway to Bixler Road. Eastbound traffic will be detoured via local streets. Westbound traffic will stay on Balfour Road.

The detour will be in effect from Monday July 31st through mid-September. Drivers can expect traffic delays due to construction. The contractor will start Phase II after Phase I work is completed. The project is funded by the Discovery Bay West Traffic Mitigation funds.

For project updates visit the Public Works website at: http://www.cccounty.us/pwdmap.

Commentary: Government’s job is to fund essential public safety services

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By Bryan Scott

The East Contra Costa Fire Protection District (ECCFPD) provides an essential government service, responding to the best of its ability to calls for help.

The state of California describes these services as “critical to the public peace, health, and safety of the state.”   (Health & Safety Code Section 13801)

Unfortunately, the district is unable to adequately provide these services.

They can’t, for the simple reason that the funding rate for the ECCFPD was set nearly four decades ago.  It has not changed, even though the area’s population has gone from 8,000 to over 110,000 people.

Assemblymember Jim Frazier recognizes the dire situation, perhaps better than any other state politician, as he has served on the Board of the ECCFPD as well as the Oakley City Council.

“Please know I will do all I can to investigate solutions that do not involve raising taxes so we can properly fund our fire district and protect lives and property by reopening closed fire stations,” he said in a press release broadcast on July 7.

Funding the fire district with new taxes has repeatedly failed, as three tax measures proposed since 2012 have all lost.  Voluntary reallocation of property taxes has been discussed, but local governments refuse to give up future revenue increases.

Assembly Bill 898, proposed by Assembly Member Frazier earlier this year, involuntarily reallocates $10.5 million from the East Bay Regional Parks District.  It was withdrawn from discussion at the Assembly’s Committee on Local Government on April 17, 2017.

So as of today, no funding solution is moving forward.

All possible solutions need to be examined.  One unexplored solution is an Emergency Services Additional Revenue District (ESARD), created by the state legislature for the fire district.

An ESARD could correct the fire district’s underfunding by providing money borrowed from the state in combination with a portion of the 1% ad valorem property tax revenues generated in unincorporated county areas.

An East Contra Costa Fire Protection District ESARD would be a distinct legal entity, and would be authorized to receive a declining share of unincorporated community areas’ property tax growth increment, borrow and repay money from the state treasury, and determine the adequate and necessary funding level for the fire district.

The ESARD Board would be appointed with elected and community stakeholders, reflecting both local and state-level oversight.  Limited administrative costs and a local administrator may be needed to organize and operate the board until the ECCFPD administrative staff can take over these duties.

A comprehensive and fully acceptable financial model could be developed to illustrate that tax dollars would eventually exceed loan payments, and show that upon dissolution the ESARD would distribute excess ad valorem increments to tax receiving agencies.  This publically interactive model would be available on both the ESARD and ECCFPD websites.

The ESARD would operate in a fashion similar to a redevelopment agency.  This type of government entity dates back to the 1945 Community Redevelopment Act.  Subsequent laws established “tax-increment financing” as a viable method of government funding.

The advantage of establishing a fire district ESARD is that the amount of additional funding would be flexible, established by its Board.

An “adequate and necessary” ECCFPD funding level, which might be six fire stations instead of the district’s current three, could be provided with the help of loaned money from the state.

The ESARD would eventually sunset out of business, once the amount of property tax increments being collected is sufficient to repay the state treasury money that had been borrowed, plus interest.  The property tax increments will then be assigned to the ECCFPD to maintain adequate and necessary service levels, with surplus increments being returned to their source government entities.

California redevelopment agencies accomplished a great deal until 2012, when they were disbanded.  Using the same principles in East Contra Costa could solve the public safety funding emergency.

Bryan Scott is a Brentwood resident and Co-Chair of East County Voters for Equal Protection, a non-partisan citizens action committee whose aim is to improve funding for the ECCFPD.  He can be reached at scott.bryan@comcast.net, or 925-418-4428.  The group’s Facebook page is  https://www.facebook.com/EastCountyVoters/.  

Frazier: Delta tunnels project must not proceed

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SACRAMENTO – Assemblymember Jim Frazier (D–Discovery Bay), co-chairman of the California Legislative Delta Caucus, released the following statement Friday, July 21 after reports Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has given the green light to the proposed Delta tunnels project.

“I represent more of the Delta than any other member of the Assembly, and I will do everything in my power to stop this ill-conceived and destructive project,” Frazier stated. “The truth is, ultimately the disaster of an idea called the Delta tunnels would disrupt the Delta economy and significantly burden agricultural production, recreational activities, the natural migratory paths of endangered fish species and legacy communities.  The governor needs to explore real options that communities throughout the Delta can support to achieve the co-equal goals of restoring and protecting the Delta’s habitat, and providing clean and reliable water to Californians.  He must not green light the tunnels plan.”

Antioch teen suspect in Pittsburg homicide turns himself in on Sunday

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Larry Neal, Jr. Photo from Pittsburg PD

On July 19, 2017 at 3:00 p.m., Pittsburg Police Officers investigated a homicide that occurred in front of the Baskin Robbins on Century Blvd. During the investigation police detectives quickly identified 19-year-old Antioch resident Larry Neal, Jr. as the shooter.

Detectives later obtained a warrant for Neal’s arrest and officers served a search warrant at his residence. At the time of the warrant service Neal was not at home. Detectives were able to speak with Neal on the telephone; however, they were unable to determine his location. Neal refused to cooperate with detectives and an extensive search to locate him was unsuccessful.

On Sunday, July 23 near midnight, Pittsburg detectives were informed Neal had turned himself in to the Martinez Detention Facility, where he was booked for the outstanding warrant for his arrest.

Antioch, Pittsburg residents earn MBA degrees from WGU

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SALT LAKE CITY (Grassroots Newswire) July 24, 2017 – The following local residents have received their degree from Western Governors University (WGU). The university held its 33rd semi-annual commencement ceremony at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City on July 15 and celebrated the graduation of more than 10,000 graduates.

  • Manjit Sooch of Antioch (94531) has received her MBA in IT Management
  • Ritche Martija of Pittsburg (94565) has received his MBA in IT Management

At the commencement, the online, nonprofit university recognized 6,348 undergraduates and 4,140 graduates who have completed their degrees in business, information technology, K-12 teacher education, and healthcare, including nursing. Clayton M. Christensen, the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Founder of The Christensen Institute, delivered the commencement address, and joined President Scott D. Pulsipher in honoring the more than 1,000 new alumni participating in the ceremony. Students who were not able to attend the ceremony in person were able to watch the event via live video stream on WGU’s website.

WGU has made convenient and affordable higher education available to busy adults. Demand for its competency-based programs can be seen in the year-over-year growth of WGU’s national impact.

Forty percent of this year’s graduates represent the first generation in their family to complete college. The average time to graduation for bachelor’s degrees was two years, three months and the average time to graduation for graduate programs was one year, eight months.

Since WGU’s founding in 1997, the online, competency-based university has awarded more than 87,000 degrees; 20,000 of them in just the past year. Designed to meet the needs of working adults, WGU’s competency-based learning model makes it possible for students to fit studying into their busy lives. Students complete courses as soon as they demonstrate that they have mastered the subject matter, enabling them to move quickly through material they already know and spend more time on focusing on what they still need to learn. As a result, many students are able to accelerate their studies, finishing faster and saving money.

About WGU

Established in 1997 by 19 U.S. governors with a mission to expand access to high-quality, affordable higher education, online, nonprofit WGU now serves 82,000 students and 87,000 graduates in all 50 states. Driving innovation as the nation’s leading competency-based university, WGU has been recognized by the White House, state leaders, employers, and students as a model that works in postsecondary education. In just 20 years, the university has become a leading force in changing lives of through education. WGU is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, has been featured on NPR, NBC Nightly News, CNN, and in The New York Times. Learn more at www.wgu.edu.