By the Antioch Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors

The Antioch Chamber of Commerce is hosting our Annual Inaugural Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony on Friday, March 9, 2012 at the Lone Tree Golf Course Event Center. During our evening, we award and recognize our Citizen of the Year, Business of the Year, Youth of the Year and inaugurate our 2012 Chamber Board.

Annual Inaugural Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony
Date: Friday, March 9, 2012
Time: 6pm Social Hour, 7pm Dinner
Where: Lone Tree Golf Course and Estates
4800 Lone Tree Way
Antioch CA 94509

As Chamber Members and non-members, we would like to request your participation in this exciting event by doing five important things:

1. Donate an item to our auction.
The funds raised by the auction go towards supporting business education and advocacy efforts for the Antioch business community. In addition, you will be promoting your company to approximately 200 people at the event and even more through our website! Download a donation form here.

2. Nominate a Business for the Business of the Year Award.
The Antioch Chamber of Commerce, through its “Business of the Year” Award, honors a company’s contributions in developing the social and economic well being of Antioch. The Award will be presented at the Annual Inaugural Gala on Friday, March 9, 2012.

3. Nominate a citizen for the Citizen of the Year Award.
The Antioch Chamber of Commerce, through its “Citizen of the Year” Award, honors an individual for his/her contributions in developing the social and economic well being of Antioch. There are two categories: Lifetime Achievement Award (this category looks at the entire body of work over many years) and Most Impact for the Year (This category looks only at accomplishments in the year of 2011, although the nominee may have worked in the community in other years). These Awards will be revealed and presented at the Annual Inaugural Gala on Friday, March 9, 2012.

4. Nominate a youth for the Youth of the Year Award.
The Antioch Chamber of Commerce, through its “Youth of the Year” Award, honors a youth for his/her contributions to the community of Antioch.The Award will be presented at the Annual Inaugural Gala on Friday, March 9, 2012.

5. Purchase your ticket or table and secure your spot at the event!
We invite you to join us in this celebration and enjoy the festivities as we recognize those that have made an impact in our community. Tickets are on sale at $70 per person and $575 for a table of 8. No tickets will be sold at the door. Enjoy a premier event with a red carpet and local dignitaries recognizing the best of our community.

We know you’d support us anyway, but as a thank you…
Upon receipt of your donation, we will place a link to your website from our award winning website www.antiochchamber.com. You will be recognized in press releases, our event program and we will be happy to distribute any information you send us.

On our website you will find a link to download a forms for donations and nominations. Please complete these forms and fax to 925.757.5286. Or mail it to: The Antioch Chamber of Commerce, 101 H Street, Unit 4, Antioch Ca 94531 so we can properly recognize you. If needed, we would be more than happy to arrange for a pick-up of your donation.

Should you have any questions, we can be reached at (925) 757-1800. We hope you will take this opportunity to share your business with the community and your fellow Chamber members! Contact us for our tax ID. Visit us at www.antiochchamber.com

“Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics once gave a speech and it started with “Do not be afraid.” This was the jumping off point for Guy McIntyre’s keynote speech this morning at Dow’s Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King.

McIntyre, a former offensive lineman with the San Francisco 49ers was on hand to address the community and Dow employees about Dr. King – and he did through his experience as a pro athlete.

Though sports stories were only part of his twenty-minute address (citing the difficulties faced by Jackie Robinson and others), growing as human beings took center stage. He spoke about fear, courage, love and faith, saying, “The only way to master fear is with love … perfect love,” and ending with an old English proverb, “When fear knocked on the door, love answered and there was no one there.” No doubt, his words came from experience.

But just as inpiring was the essay read by Pittsburg High School sophomore, Bianka Machado, who took first place in Dow’s annual essay contest. The contest this year focused on civility, a value that the County Office of Education is working to restore in our schools.

Specifically, the question asked of students was “How has modern technology (cell phones, social media and the Internet) impacted civility?” Machado weaved Dr. King – and his era of no cell phones, no reality television shows and no Facebook – into an expose of how we have lost sight of civility.

“Modern technology has changed civility because we’ve inherited a shyness and timidity to meet people, so we add them on Facebook,” she writes. “Dr. King would go out and meet people to understand how they felt and reach a level of formality and kindness towards each other. We demolished that with new modern day technology.”

Also part of the packed program was noted jazz saxophonist Kevin Moore, who played two selections from his new CD “The Prayer Closet.”

Dow honored Silvester Henderson, Chair of the Music Department at Los Medanos College and a professor at UC Berkeley, with Dow’s MLK Community Award, for his decades of work using gospel to unite the community. Dow also presented the Dow MLK Employee Award to employee Jamie Polan, an engineer who has been a champion of diversity in the workplace and has promoted unity not only among her colleagues but across the entire site. As her supervisor, Paul Caizzi, said, “She inpires me to not only be a better employee but a better person.”

All attendees left with a gift – a journal. On the cover of the journal was the winning artwork from Deer Valley High School senior, Karla Rosales. Her art was chosen over more than 50 submissions in Dow’s first Poster Contest, asking students to illustrate one aspect of civility.

This was Dow’s 12th annual Celebration of Dr. King and is indicative of the company’s commitment to all Dr. King espoused – respect for others, tolerance, love, acceptance, diversity and equality.

Pittsburg: The City of Pittsburg has just put out to bid a Central Harbor Dock Replacement project, Engineer’s estimate $1,900,000 – with the city hoping that, due to the current poor economy, the bids will come in lower than estimated.

The bid specifies, “The work of the project consists in general of removal of old wooden docks and pilings, manufacturing and installing new berthing system including all new docks, all necessary utilities, and construction of a new floating restroom, all complete in place and ready for use including all related incidentals and other items of work as specified.”

Antioch: The City of Antioch is finally getting around to building a new four-lane boat launch at the city marina six years after receiving $3.7 million state grant from the California Dept. of Boating and Waterways. By the time city leaders got around to approving the $3.2 million dollar boat launch facility project in June 2010, they found themselves short about $376,000 in funding, necessitating limiting the launch to 3 lanes and no public restrooms.

Fortunately for boaters, the state Dept. of Boating and Waterways stepped forward again and gave the city additional grant funds to complete the project based on the original plans.

Incidentally, the Antioch Marina project includes the paving over of Barbara Price park for parking purposes. Frankly, the park was misnamed from the get go. Former Councilwoman Barbara Price was supposed to oversee the original Waterfront Commission of which I was a member. She never attended one of our meetings.

She was also on the council’s subcommittee studying solid waste issues and was questioned by fellow councilman Frank Stone regarding the propriety of her going on an Austrian junket as the guest of California Co-Composting Systems Inc. She was also criticized for allegedly receiving a job offer to do community relations work for the Marina Del Rey-based firm.

By Amy Claire

Lynda Sifford, Director of Classified Human Resources for the Antioch Unified School District, delivered the 2010 – 2011 Personnel Commission Annual Report at the January 11 meeting of the school board. “The mission of the Personnel Commission is to provide the best qualified candidates for employment in a timely and efficient manner to support the District’s goal to advance student achievement,” Sifford said.

The report revealed an increase in the number of applicants for classified positions in the district – 1,201, compared to 713 in the 2009-2010 school year. The commission filled 117 positions during the year, including limited term appointments and re-employments of previously laid-off employees. The commission also established eligibility lists of qualified applicants for future positions ranging from bus drivers to administrative assistants. There were 129 employees who ended their employment with the district during the year, for reasons including retirement and continued education.

Sifford drew special attention to the fact that there were no appeals or challenges made regarding the hiring process over the last two years. “Every i was dotted and every t was crossed,” she said. She also reported fewer employee absences and more service awards given out to employees who have worked in the district for multiples of five years.

Finally, she recognized the District’s Classified Employee of the Year, Kellie Cavallaro, and noted that another employee, Mike Casey, was nominated as a School Classified Employee of the Year at the County level in the category of Maintenance, Operations and Facilities.

Superintendent Donald Gill wished everyone a Happy New Year and announced that January is Board Appreciation Month. In honor of that, the board members were presented with business card holders embossed with their names. Dr. Gill thanked them for all of the time and effort they put into their jobs. “This is the hardest-working board I’ve ever seen.”

Board President Diane Gibson-Gray summed up the board members’ gratitude for the gesture: “Let the record reflect happiness and joy from the board.”

The next school board meeting will be held on January 18 at 7:00 pm at 510 G. Street in Antioch.

By Lou Davis

Apparently, if it’s left up to President Obama and a confused group calling itself the Occupy Wall Street protest movement, this country could very well be headed farther downhill, amid an already deepening recession.

These ragtag “occupy” groups, fanned out across the nation, claim to represent 99 percent of poor and/or disadvantaged Americans. Most are well supported by ultra-rich anti-capitalists, who supply them with expensive cell phones and other high tech gadgets. After all, they want to be assured that protesters can maintain contact with the likes of film maker Michael Moore and other organizers.

These front line occupiers are also well supported and advised by a variety of union labor leaders, who in many cases are paying them to demonstrate.

Yes, you read right, much of the reason why the protesters are able to exist is because of President Obama’s supportive position on their activities. On several occasions the President has stated that protesters are only airing out their frustrations. Not one time has the President suggested that he is against their actions, even though many are very costly, destructive, and oftentimes they are quite violent.

Only a few of our elected officials have spoken out about the harm that protesters are causing, and the money it is costing financially strapped cities like Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Millions of dollars are being spent to pay for cleanup and overtime pay for police.

The exceptions to speaking out against protesters comes from Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York. Governor Jerry Brown of California certainly needs to address the problem.

In Oakland apparently no one has pointed out that blockading port operations is clearly a violation of Interstate Commerce laws. And the Department of Homeland Security is certainly shirking its duties by not controlling this form of internal terrorism.

By Rosa Koire

On Monday night, January 9th, about 50 citizen activists turned a ONE BAY AREA public Delphi meeting in Santa Rosa, CA upside down. WE REFUSED TO BE GOOD GERMANS.

What happened? We spoke out, video’d, entered the meeting without signing in, refused to be railroaded, continually corrected the government/consultant lies and called them out, did not participate in the phony ‘voting’, did not give our names to the establishment press, brought in cameras and signs, flyered warning the organizers not to violate the open meeting laws, and did not get arrested although police were called. We exercised our rights as Americans.

Who are we? A coalition of independent citizens from all over the SF Bay Area, Democrats, Property Rights Advocates, Tea Party members, Republicans, Libertarians, non-affiliated Independents – brave Americans standing together to resist tyranny.

What is ONE BAY AREA? A regional plan to direct federal and state transportation dollars over the next 25 years to specific cities that have agreed to ONLY approve smart growth and ONLY approve it in limited pre-designated areas of just a few towns in the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Using ridiculously inflated population projections, ONE BAY AREA states that future housing must designed in one of their ‘approved’ smart growth models and developed in a Priority Development Area.

What is that? A Priority Development Area (PDA) is a so-called transportation corridor—usually a busy street
with a bus line or near a proposed train station. This PDA can be as small as a half-block or as large as a square mile. All of the projected new population for the next 25 years will be accomodated by housing within this designated area.

No other housing developments will be approved for the next 25 years—or the city will not get their piece of the transportation funding. We’re talking about 200 Billion dollars of federal and state transportation dollars for the SF Bay Area over the 25 year term.

Do you see what this will do to property values outside of the specific PDA’s? It will destroy them. Do you see what this does to individual cities? It destroys their sovereignty. ONE BAY AREA is a regional plan that breaks down boundaries and pushes UN Agenda 21.

Northern California is one of 11 Mega Regions in the US. It includes 31 counties, 48,000 square miles, 15 million people, and part of TWO STATES–California and NEVADA. Do you see how this happens? We thought we had 50 states, but now we have ELEVEN MEGA REGIONS. Using transportation dollars, grants, legislation (SB 375 & AB 32 in
California), and pressure, your government is destroying your ability to be self-determining.

www.DemocratsAgainstUNAgenda21.com will have the video on this site and YouTube later today or tomorrow. Watch it and USE IT. We guarantee you that you’ll have a chance real soon.

Rosa Koire, ASA
Executive Director
Post Sustainability Institute
www.PostSustainabilityInstitute.org
www.DemocratsAgainstUNAgenda21.com
www.SantaRosaNeighborhoodCoalition.com

NEXT POST: HOW WE PREPARED FOR THE ONE BAY AREA DELPHI MEETING

I thought you might like to see what we did here in Santa Rosa, CA, to block UN Agenda 21. ONE BAY AREA is a plan (they’re calling it YOUR Plan!) to regionalize the SF Bay Area and dissolve the city, county, and state boundaries. The consultant is holding Delphi meetings all over the Bay Area to get buy-in for the plan. We were there with our partners in freedom: Heather Gass and the East Bay Tea Party, Orlean Koehle and her crew, the Santa Rosa Neighborhood Coalition, Democrats Against UN Agenda 21, property rights activists, and many others.

Here are our flyers:
NOTICE
YOU ARE BEING DELPHI’D
This meeting is designed to manipulate and direct public opinion to approve the One Bay Area Plan

The Delphi Method is being used to create the illusion that this is your plan and that you have some part in crafting the outcome. This is a technique developed by the RAND Corporation in the 1960’s which is used by meeting facilitators to block opposition and discard opinions that do not support their plan. This propaganda method uses peer pressure to shame and silence you.

ONE BAY AREA is being used to regionalize the SF Bay Area and erase the city, county, and ultimately, State boundaries. Your transportation tax dollars will be used to build apartments and condos in designated areas of your city—and nowhere else. Your money will directed to favored developers building stack and pack housing.

You are losing the ability to direct your elected officials through this plan to destroy local representation. This is happening across the US. There are now 11 Mega Regions designed to replace States. Northern California is one of the Mega Regions (it includes part of Nevada), with over 48,000 square miles and 15 million residents.

ONE BAY AREA is UN Agenda 21
Reverse side of flyer:
NOTICE
YOU CANNOT BE DENIED ACCESS TO THIS MEETING
OPEN MEETING LAWS IN CALIFORNIA:
THE BROWN ACT
Meetings of public bodies must be ‘open and public,’ actions may not be secret, and action taken in violation of open meeting laws may be voided. (Section 54953(a), 54953(c), 54960.1(d)

WHO IS COVERED?
· Local agencies, including counties, cities, school and special districts (Section 54951)
· Legislative bodies of each agency—the agency’s governing body plus ‘covered boards,’ that is any board, commission, committee, task force, or other advisory body created by the agency, whether permanent
or temporary (Section 54952(b))

WHAT MUST HAPPEN?
Under the Brown Act an agency must:
· Post notice and an agenda
· Notify the media
· Hold meetings in the jurisdiction of the agency in places accessible to all, with no fee (Section 54961(a))
· Not require a ‘sign-in’ or registration for anyone
· Allow non-disruptive recording of the meeting
· Allow the public to address the covered board
—
Rosa Koire, ASA is Executive Director of the Post Sustainability Institute
www.PostSustainabilityInstitute.org
www.DemocratsAgainstUNAgenda21.com
www.SantaRosaNeighborhoodCoalition.com

Restore the Delta is challenging the accuracy and value of the Public Policy Institute’s recent report on the Delta: Transitions for the Delta Economy. Executive Director Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla says, “It is disheartening that a report, now funded by a public university, fails to fully and properly analyze Delta water quality, current project proposals, and the real Delta economy.”

The PPIC report assumes that the new dual conveyance system, more commonly known to Californians at the peripheral canal/tunnel, will only divert 4.9 million acre feet of Delta water, despite the reality that water contractors will have difficulty justifying the sale of billions of dollars in new revenue bonds to finance the project if they are going to receive a significant smaller share of Delta water.

Conner Everts with the Southern California Watershed Alliance says, “Southern California rate payers cannot afford to pay more and more to Metropolitan Water District for an unsustainable water supply. Regional self sufficiency, which can be achieved through conservation, storm water and reuse projects, is a much more affordable way to make more water for Southern California water users.”

Restore the Delta policy analyst Jane Wagner-Tyack explains, “The report is so out of touch with reality that it actually places the new Stockton water supply project under water because the authors have decided that the way to fix the Delta is to permanently flood it. By depriving Stockton of a water supply, it seems that someone has made a decision to relocate the Delta’s largest urban population of 300,000 residents somewhere else.”

Despite multiple attempts by Delta water agency representatives, Delta engineers, levee experts trained at other renowned universities, economists, and Delta advocates, the authors of the PPIC reports on the Delta have rebuffed attempts to incorporate local input into their research.

In closing, Barrigan-Parrilla adds, “The PPIC models regarding salinity changes in the Delta and how such changes would alter our economy are flawed. If people in California want to know the real value of the Delta economy presently and how exporting water could destroy it, they should read the Economic Sustainability Plan recently published by the Delta Protection Commission – a rigorously reviewed document produced by experts who know the Delta best.”

The City of Antioch and Antioch Unified School District, along with community partners and sponsors, will present the 4th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Birthday Celebration at Antioch High School Beede Auditorium on January 16th, from 1-3 PM.

The event, which grew from Antioch City Council Member Reggie Moore’s desire to celebrate Dr. King’s historical contributions, along with creating a scholarship program for high school and middle school students, began in 2009. Mayor Pro Tem, Wade Harper, will continue the celebration with the support of business and community leaders. The celebration will include local community member Keith Archuletta’s tribute to Dr. King, performances by the Delta School for the Performing Arts, DVHS Divine Voices, DVHS Show Choir. Dr. Donald Gill, AUSD Superintendent will announce the 2012 Scholarship program.

The event is sponsored by the City of Antioch, Antioch Unified School District, CCC Supervisor Federal Glover, Arts & Cultural Foundation of the City of Antioch, and Parents Connected.

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BLACK HISTORY MONTH EXHBIT AT THE LYNN HOUSE GALLERY

The Black History Month Exhibit at Lynn House Gallery begins on January 21st – February 11th, and is open Wednesdays & Saturdays from 1-4 PM. The exhibit will feature past and present individuals who have contributed significantly to African American history and to American culture. The artifacts will illustrate some of their contributions. The free artist reception will be held January 21st, 2-4 PM. Admission to the gallery is free.

The Lynn House Gallery is located at 809 W. 1st Street in Antioch (across from the Amtrak Train Station) and is open Wednesdays and Saturdays, during exhibits from 1-4 PM. For more information, visit www.art4antioch.org or contact Diane Gibson-Gray at the Arts & Cultural Foundation at 925.325.9897 or e-mail Diane@art4antioch.org. Hosted by The African American Village Collaborative: Ruah Community Outreach Ministries, Inc., Parent Partners Providing for the Education of Young Children Family Solutions, Inc.