By Robbie Pierce

The students of Deer Valley High School, faculty, friends and family packed into Wolverine Stadium on the hot, humid evening of Thursday, June 8 for a graduation and commencement ceremony filled with themes of both congratulations and opportunities for their accomplishments.

Deer Valley teacher Robert Hubbard oversaw the event as Master of Ceremonies, and music was provided by the school band conducted by Larry Widener and the school Divine Voices choir led by Teacher of the Year Michelle Stark. After the students walked onto the field to the tune of the traditional graduation march and stood for the Presentation of Colors by Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps J.M. Jones and national anthem sung by the choir, Salutatorian Michelle Yin seated the class.

Principal Kenneth Gardner welcomed the class and audience to the ceremony, stating “there’s no other place I’d rather be in the world” than Deer Valley for the graduation.

“This class has been an amazing class… the knowledge that they’ve learned in academies and in classes will serve the rest of their life,” said Gardner.

Gardner, who retired this year, cried with joy during his speech. “It’s been an amazing ride,” he said.

Antioch Unified School District Board President Gary Hack gave the opening remarks, heartily congratulating the students but also urging them to “go upstream against the heard” and “do what you think is right, important and proper,” reminding them that while their graduation is no small feat, it marks the start of their life’s journey, not the end. Board Vice President Crystal Sawyer-White, trustees Debra Vinson and Diane Gibson-Gray, Superintendent Stephanie Anello and several District and City Officials were also in attendance as “Distinguished Guests.”

The commencement speakers for the class were Senior Class President TiaErykah Gregory and Valedictorian Rameez Mughal.

“Personally, I’d like to congratulate each and every one of you,” Gregory beamed. Throughout her speech, she stressed that students take every opportunity ahead of them whether their next step is college, career, military or a gap year and encouraging them to find their “passion.”

“Everyone has one,” said Gregory. “The only one that can keep you from a new experience of memory, is you.”

She also, somberly acknowledged that the assembled students would probably never be together again as a single unit, but celebrated the fact that before they all go their separate ways, they could be together “one last time” for their commencement.

“Congratulations, class of 2018,” she said. “We did it.”

For his speech, Mughal took a second to thank the faculty for “making our education possible,” giving special note to the retiring Gardner. He also offered encouragement to his peers while admiring the “effort” he had seen over the past four years and pushing everyone to seek out new opportunities.

“Wherever life takes you, I hope you bring that same effort with you,” Mughal said.”

Mughal also, in what he humorously referred to as “meta commentary,” discussed his initial inability to find an interesting anecdote to finish off his speech with, but how that led to a philosophic revelation for him and advising the class, “if you lack a story, write your own.”

After a musical performance of “A Blessing,” Gardner formally presented the Class of 2018 to Superintendent Anello, who accepted the class and formally certified that all present had passed graduation requirements. “Imagine” by John Lennon was performed before diplomas were presented at long last to the eager graduates by the AUSD Governing Board and DVHS faculty members Maria McClain and Allison Weihe.

The commencement lasted around an hour and a half and completed with Gregory leading the class in a traditional tassel turning ceremony, the presentation of a tassel to Gardner as a retirement gift, a few brief closing remarks by Hubbard and a recessional by the band as students and their families slowly filed out of the stadium and into the next chapters of their lives.

 

 

 

By Lieutenant D. Bittner #3252, Antioch Police Investigations Division

On February 21, 2018 at approximately 7:59 pm, Antioch Police Department officers were dispatched to the 900 block of W. 3rd Street on the report of a shooting. Upon arrival officers located two gunshot victims. One victim was an adult male who was critically wounded and passed away at the scene. The second victim was an adult female who was also critically wounded. The female victim was transported from the scene to a local hospital and is still in critical condition. The case is currently under investigation.

After an extensive investigation, Antioch Police Department investigators identified two individuals responsible for the February 21st shooting homicide of thirty-two-year-old Alvin Crane. Twenty-nine-year-old Felton Clifton of Concord was identified as the shooter and was arrested for murder by Antioch Police Department investigators on May 31, 2018 in the city of Concord. Forty-two-year-old Kelly Corbitt of Richmond was arrested for murder on June 6, 2018 in the city of Emeryville. The Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office has filed murder charges against both Clifton and Corbitt. Anybody with information regarding the murder is encouraged to call Detective Gonzalez at (925) 779-6923.

By Sergeant James Stenger 3604 Field Services Bureau

On June 6, 2018 at approximately 8:14 AM, Antioch Patrol and Traffic Officers responded to E. 18th Street near Viera Avenue for a three-car vehicle collision. It was determined that a 27-year-old Oakley man was travelling at a high rate of speed eastbound on E. 18th Street and rear ended an SUV that had just pulled from northbound Viera Avenue onto eastbound E. 18th Street. This caused the SUV to overturn several times.

A third vehicle was struck by the SUV as it was overturning. A 52-year-old female and 30-year-old female, both from Antioch in the SUV were transported to a local hospital for complaint of pain. A five-year-old Antioch boy from the third vehicle was transported via a Reach Helicopter to an area children’s hospital for precautionary measures. The 32-year-old female guardian of the five-year-old, also of Antioch was transported to the hospital with the child with complaint of pain. The 27-year-old male was suspected of driving under the influence of an alcoholic beverage. He was transported to a local hospital for precautionary measures and will be arrested for DUI after being medically cleared.

This preliminary information is made available by the Field Services Bureau. There will be no further information released regarding this case at this time.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Antioch Police Department non-emergency line at (925) 778-2441. You may also text-a-tip to 274637 (CRIMES) using the key word ANTIOCH.

All incumbents won or placed first, $3 bridge toll increase passing, battles continue in D.A.’s, Superintendent’s races

By Allen Payton

Following is a recap of the election results in Contra Costa County from Tuesday night which saw a dismal 20.74% voter turnout in the county and only 21.9% statewide*. The County Elections office has 30 days to certify the elections and while their website shows 100% of the precincts have been counted, they will continue to count mail-in ballots turned in at the polling places on Tuesday and provide updates each Friday until completed.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: According to County Clerk-Registrar of Voters Joe Canciamilla, “The Contra Costa Elections Division estimates that based upon Vote-By-Mail ballot returns from our polling places on Election Day, drop-off locations and those that have been received in the mail as of Wednesday afternoon, there are about 70,000 Vote-By-Mail ballots left to be prepared and counted for the June 5th Primary Election. We also estimate that we received about 10,000 Provisional Ballots at our polling places that will be processed. We will be posting another results update on Friday afternoon.”

County Races

The highest profile race in the county was for District Attorney. The top two candidates, appointed interim D.A. Diana Becton and Supervising Assistant D.A. Paul Graves, will face a run-off in November. At the current count she’s less than 450 votes shy of winning outright. Attorney Lawrence Strauss who placed third was eliminated.

The other battle in the county was the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Lynn Mackey placed first and will face second-place finisher Cheryl Hansen. Ron Leone was eliminated having placed third.

Auditor/Controller Bob Campbell was easily re-elected, besting his same opponent for a second time, Ayore Riaunda.

In the race for County Supervisor in District 1, John Gioia had no opponent and was reelected. In District 4 incumbent Karen Mitchoff easily beat her opponent, Harmesh Kumar by a three-to-one margin.

Sheriff David Livingston, County Clerk Joe Canciamilla, Treasurer/Tax Collector Russell Watts and Assessor Gus Kramer were all re-elected without opposition.

U.S. House of Representatives

In the Congressional races, in District 5 Democrat incumbent Mike Thompson will face in the November election independent Nils Palsson who edged out another independent, Anthony Mills by just 137 votes.

District 9 – Republican Marla Livengood who beat Mike Tsarnas, who dropped out of the race earlier, this year, for the right to race Democrat incumbent Jerry McNerney.

In District 11, Democrat incumbent Mark DeSaulnier will face Republican John Fitzgerald, who the state party denounced and from whom they withdrew their automatic endorsement, last week, for his anti-Semitic comments and views. They both handily beat Democrat Dennis Lytton and independent Chris Wood.

In District 15, Democrat incumbent Eric Swalwell will face Republican Rudy Peters, Jr. in the November election. Independent Brendan St. John placed a distant third in the primary.

State Assembly

In the Assembly races, District 11 Democrat incumbent Jim Frazier will face Republican Lisa Romero in November, after Democrat Diane Stewart placed a distant third.

In District 14 Democrat incumbent Tim Grayson will face fellow Democrat Aasim Yahya in November. But, Grayson easily bested his opponent with 83.02% of the vote to 15.72%.

In District 15, in a wide-open race incumbent Tony Thurmond opting to run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction instead of reelection, since Contra Costa’s own Tom Torlakson was termed out. Democrat Buffy Wicks beat out 10 fellow Democrats and one Republican for the top spot. She will face second-place finisher Democrat Jovanka Beckles in November.

In District 16, Republican incumbent Catharine Baker will again face her only opponent in the primary, Democrat Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, whom she beat 58.34% to 41.6%.

Bridge Toll Increase

Although a majority of Contra Costa voters opposed the $3 bridge toll increase Regional Measure 3, it appears to be passing with 54% of the vote. That’s because seven of the other eight Bay Area counties voted in favor of the measure which only required a majority vote to pass. According to a KTVU Channel 2 News report, Solano County was the only other county to vote against it, with only 30% voting yes. However, not all votes have been counted, yet. As of this morning only 30 to 50 percent of the ballots from precincts in San Francisco, Santa Clara and Solano counties had been counted.

Statewide Races

Clayton resident Mark Meuser, a Constitution and election law attorney, placed second in the California Secretary of State’s race, and will face the incumbent Alex Padilla in the November election. (NOTE: This writer serves as his campaign manager).

* The statewide voter turnout figure is skewed since 11 counties, including Los Angeles and San Diego counties, have over 100% voter registration due to people on the rolls who shouldn’t be, such as those who have died, moved out of state, are registered more than once or are foreign residents.

For more details on the election results in Contra Costa County click here.

First numbers will be available shortly after 8:00 pm

You won’t have to wait long to get updated election results from Contra Costa County Elections Division on Tuesday night.

Results of vote-by-mail ballots for the Statewide Primary General Election that are returned through last Friday will be available shortly after the polls close at 8:00 pm on Election Night.

Meanwhile, with results being collected from precincts throughout the County, the first update can be expected at about 9:30 pm, with results updated about every 30 minutes until all precincts report.

The availability of updated reports will be communicated via Twitter and Facebook, using the hashtag #cocovote.  Changes to the reporting schedule, if any, will also be communicated on these social media sites.

The Contra Costa Elections Division social media pages are:

https://www.Twitter.com/CoCoElections

https://www.facebook.com/EngageContraCosta/

https://www.facebook.com/ContraCostaElections/

Election results will be posted to the Elections website, www.cocovote.us, throughout the night and will be updated by 5:00 pm on Friday, June 8th and then every Friday until the election is certified.

The county has until July 5th to certify all items on the ballot.

Local election results will also be available throughout Election Night on Contra Costa Television (CCTV) beginning at 9:00 pm on Comcast channel 27, Astound channel 32 and AT&T U-Verse channel 99.

An argument in favor of Travis Allen for Governor

By Brenda Higgins

This commentary originally appeared on OCPolitical.com on June 2, 2018. Republished at the author’s request.

Polls are not hard to understand.  The science of polling, even with the basic college level understanding of how the math behind it works, is also easily understood to be not just subjective, but fully within the manipulation of the pollster.

It doesn’t take a scientific poll to see and comprehend what has happened in elections in the U.S. and around the world in the past three U.S. election cycles.  People with a real power to vote, have done so. And, they have done so in outright rebellion to those in power who have told them what to do and how to vote.  In spite of the effort of this ruling class of politicians and pollsters and pundits, people have rejected their group-think advisements to vote as they are being told to vote, and they are voting, with a level of enthusiasm and fervor, that we have not seen in our lifetime.

People have, in massive numbers, rejected what they have been told, and voted for candidates that experts said could not win.  My opinion is based upon my own very unscientific polling. I knocked on people’s doors and talked to them about things like health insurance and abortion. I called them on the phone and talked to them about unions and school bonds.  I knocked on their doors to remind them to vote or show up to their caucus. I have done this many thousands of times in the past few election cycles.

They want to talk about things that aren’t in the polls.  In 2014 in Arkansas, people expressed angry reflexive passion to vote for any candidate with an “R” by their name. In 2015 there was fury over more special elections and efforts to create more special taxes to fix things they thought were already paying taxes for.  In Nevada in 2016 they only wanted to talk about Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders and had no interest in hearing anything else.  In 2018, as I talk to people on phones and at their front door, about the down-ticket, they want to talk about Travis Allen.

The politicians and pollsters and pundits, have told people in the past three election cycles that whatever they are feeling or thinking as an individual, sitting in their living room in front of their TV or behind their computer screen, the way that they should think because a lot of people think that way, and this is who you should vote for because all the other people are going to vote that way.  The American public has rejected that instruction out of hand and have become inherently distrustful of the media and of ‘establishment’ politicians.  Funny thing it, the media is now telling them that this has happened because of Donald Trump. The media misses it again. The rebellion is not ‘because’ of Donald Trump. Donald Trump is because of the rebellion.

So, it is in 2018, California.

Here’s a poll.  How many Democrat governors have we had in California since 1959?  That is more than a half century.  Think about that, because in the past three election cycles, Democrats, Republicans, pollsters and media pundits, continue to tell Californians that they can only have a Democrat governor.

In the past 59 years, we have had three Democrat Governors.  Brown, Brown, Davis, and Brown again.  Three. And one, Grey Davis, was kicked out of office by the rulers of California, the California people.  In the same time period, we have had four Republicans, Schwarzenegger, Wilson, Deukmejian, and Reagan.

Reagan’s two terms were after the two terms of Edmund G. Brown. and before two terms of his son, Jerry Brown.  Jerry Brown had ANOTHER two terms, after Schwartzenegger ousted Grey Davis. The last time we had a one term Governor was Culbert Olson in 1938. He was a Democrat. Before Culbert Olson, sequential Republicans held the office for nearly 50 years. You have to look back to 1894 to find another Democrat Governor.  My point is, there is not a long or strong history of support for Democrat Governors in this state, and in the last three election cycles, voters in every other state have rejected Democrat governors by wide margins.  Republicans are Governors in 33 states.  In 32 states, Republicans control BOTH houses of the legislature.  In 2010, Republicans controlled ONLY FOURTEEN STATES.  14, in 2010.

The tide has changed, and California citizens are missing the benefit of conservative ideals.

In the past three election cycles, the pollsters and pundits and party leaders (in both parties actually) are telling the voting public to sit down and be quiet, that there may never be a republican Governor in California again.  In keeping with their pearl clutching and hand wringing, over their polls, and research and infinite wisdom, they have given us, Meg Whitman and Neel Kashkari in the past two races for governor.  There was a bizarre victory lap when Neal Kashkari lost by less than expected in 2014.  These two were barely Republicans, they were wealthy people who spent their own money and the party rejoiced in that.  Kashkari, who had never held public office and supported Obama in 2008, was outspent by something like 10 to 1, so he got more votes per dollar than Meg Whitman.  The party leaders bizarrely counted in a victory and called on Tim Donnelly to step down because (by default), Kashkari was the party ‘standard bearer’.

Now we have another non-Californian, rich guy, and they are asking the voters to do the same. Take one for the team, vote this way because we are telling you that everyone else is going to vote this way, and we need to have a candidate at the “top of the ticket”.

Gone is any language about reclaiming the governor’s mansion at any time in the future, the strategy is simply to get someone bland enough, lack luster enough in policies, and rich enough to pay for some TV commercials, but not to win.

There is no strategy to re-take the governor’s mansion or find and promote a conservative candidate for governor in California.

Donald Trump did not have a path to 270.  There is a scientific poll.  The historic fact however, is that he far exceeded that necessary 270.

In 59 years, a member of the Brown family has held the governor’s office for 24 years, six terms.  There are no more members of the Brown dynasty, but the professionals are telling us that it is time for the Newsom/Pelosi dynasty to be coronated.  There is nothing you can do about it, we have given you this proper second place finisher, please just sit down and let us tell you how to vote.  Ruling, establishment, elitism, but in their tone deafness, they miss, that THIS is precisely what the rebellion has been aimed at.

Remember, this is what they told us about Hillary.  It was her turn.  She had the money, the experience, she was the most “qualified” and that Donald Trump was a joke. The coronation of the next ruling member of the Clinton dynasty had arrived.  Sit down Peasants.   The pollsters always leave out one thing.

The ruling class are not rulers, and the people are still in charge, and their not buying this.

Cox is a big government advocate still. No matter what he tries to do to distance himself from his own ideas. His only voting record, is his vote for Pro-Choice, Open Borders, Libertarian, Gary Johnson.  Cox has never won a race.  That makes him a perfect choice for the second place strategy.

Travis Allen has never lost a race and was never expected to be in office.  The pollsters, pundits and ruling class have counted him out, and told him to sit down and wait his turn for the entirety of his political career.

Historically, it is time for the Governor’s Mansion to be turned back to the Republicans.  Someone needs to tell the leadership of the Republican party, they don’t know it yet.   There is no justification for rolling over and paying dead with a second-place candidate.  Californians, just like Americans across the country in the past three elections, have risen up to remind you, who is in charge, and they seem to be pretty tired of Second Place.

Higgins practiced family law for 17 years prior to becoming a pro-life activist. She is currently the Executive Director of Stanton Healthcare SoCal, a non-profit medical center for women who’s mission is to replace Planned Parenthood with life affirming medical care. She writes for both OCPolitical and The127Activist.

Editor’s Note: Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Herald, or it’s publisher and editor.