For county DA, sheriff, supervisor, Superior Court judges and other offices, U.S. Senate, Congress, governor and other statewide offices, and State Assembly

By Dawn Kruger, Civic Outreach/Engagement Specialist, Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder-Elections Department

On Monday, February 14, the June 7, 2022, Candidate Filing Period will begin, and nomination papers will be available for candidates running for Statewide Constitutional offices, County offices, Superior Court judges, United States Senator, United States Representative in Congress and Member of the State Assembly. The nomination period runs through 5:00 pm Friday, March 11, 2022.  A list of offices currently up for election can be found here: https://www.cocovote.us/wp-content/uploads/22Jun07_PositionsUpForElection-1.pdf

Papers for offices that are up for election will be available at the Contra Costa Elections Office, 555 Escobar Street, Martinez.

For further information on the primary election and key dates, visit www.cocovote.us.

With COVID-19 still in play, the Contra Costa Elections Division is asking interested candidates to schedule an appointment through email at candidate.services@vote.cccounty.us or by calling 925-335-7800. Walk-ins are accepted, but subject to the availability of staff. Appointments are available on weekdays from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. Filing documents and information will be provided to interested constituents at their appointment. The process takes 20 minutes.

All visitors will be asked to check-in at the Elections lobby and will be required to wear a mask and observe social distancing guidelines.

Another Antioch man is wanted; victims were Pittsburg and San Leandro residents

By Pittsburg Police Department

Early Sunday morning, September 19, 2021, shortly before 6:30 A.M., Pittsburg Police Officers responded to the 7-11 store at 4600 Century Boulevard regarding a shooting. As officers arrived, they located a car parked in front of the business with two women inside. Both women were suffering from gunshot wounds to the upper torso. Unfortunately, 23-year-old San Leandro resident Courtnee Allen and 21-year-old Pittsburg resident Angelique Abercrombie died due to their injuries.

Initially, there was limited information for detectives to work with or identify the responsible in this case. Over the past few months, members of the Investigations Division, including the Pittsburg Police Department VICE Team, worked diligently to identify several subjects involved. After completing numerous interviews and working through a vast amount of evidence, detectives identified 28-year-old Lonnie Stewart of Antioch, 22-year-old Destiny Boyd of Sacramento, and 20-year-old Jordan Pierre Crear of Antioch as being involved in the incident. Crear was identified as the subject who shot and killed Courtney and Angelique. Detectives are continuing to determine the motive for the shooting.

Last week detectives presented the case to the Contra Costa County District Attorney for review. The DA charged all three subjects for Murder with enhancements. Boyd was arrested late last week in Elk Grove and is currently in custody on $3,000,000 bail. Wednesday, Crear was located and arrested at his home in Antioch and remains in custody with a $7,000,000 bail. A $3,000,000 warrant is issued for Stewart, and detectives are working to locate him.

The Pittsburg Police Department would like to thank our citizens and business community for their support during this investigation.

VOTING EXTENDED!

Publisher’s Note: With apologies, we inadvertently published the Back Page of the ballot twice in the February edition of the newspaper. Please see both sides, below. You have until Friday, May 20 to send us your ballot and vote for your favorite Antioch businesses!

Download a copy: 2021 Antioch People’s Choice ballot Front

Download a copy: 2021 Antioch People’s Choice ballot Back

BART System Map. Source: BART.gov

BART’s schedule will change on Monday, February 14, 2022, with significant improvements to Sunday service. With this schedule change, BART will operate midnight service every night of the week representing a full restoration of pre-pandemic service hours.

Highlights include:

• Extend service to midnight on Sundays
• Run 5-line service every day (except for single-tracking Sundays) until about 9pm
• Consistent 3-line service every day after 9pm
• 4 trains an hour at SFO station on Sundays until 9pm
• 15-minute even headways on the Yellow line as far as Pittsburg Bay Point on Saturdays until about 8pm
• New transfer opportunity at Bay Fair for Dublin to Berryessa transfers every day
• Improved connections with Caltrain at Millbrae on Sundays before 9pm
• 12 single-tracking Sundays in 2022 when 3-line service will be provided

Some departure times will shift slightly. All riders are encouraged to look up their specific trips.

Sunday Service Improvements

Since the pandemic began BART has been closing at 9pm on Sundays to help accelerate infrastructure rebuilding projects. Beginning Sunday, February 20th, BART will extend Sunday service to midnight. Sunday service hours will be 8am-midight.

Starting Sunday, February 20, 2022, for the first time in history, BART will operate 5-line service on Sundays (except on 12 single-tracking Sundays when power cable replacement work takes place in San Francisco. 3-line service will run on single tracking Sundays). It is important to note the frequency of Sunday single tracking days that will remain as 3-line service with single tracking. March will have two Sundays of 5-line service. Some months will offer 5-line service on Sundays every other week. We’ve listed the 2022 Sunday single tracking days here.

Providing 5-line service on Sundays reduces the need to transfer for most riders and provides more frequency through the busiest core areas of our system. From 8am until evening (about 9pm), the Red line (Richmond to Millbrae + SFO) and Green line (Berryessa to Daly City) will run.

Running 5-Line service on Sundays provides more equitable service to Richmond and Berryessa line riders who previously had to transfer to complete their transbay trip-while other lines provided direct service. Based on ridership data 97% of Sunday riders will get to their destination without the need to transfer, up from 82%. Of those passengers who benefit from this change, about twice as many will ride the Red line than the Green line.

3-line service (Yellow, Blue and Orange lines) will operate every evening after around 9pm and on 12 select single-tracking Sundays. During 3-line service, the Yellow and Blue line will continue to run very close together through San Francisco to enable singling track through work zones. BART plans to improve this service pattern and run Yellow and Blue line trains more evenly spaced apart in the September 2022 schedule change.

Trains will continue to run on 30-minute headways on Sundays with some 15-minute levels of service due to running the Red and Green line. While some outlying areas will see 2 trains per hour on Sunday, most BART stations will see 4, 6, or 8 trains per hour.

New Transfer Opportunity at Bay Fair

More riders are coming in from the Dublin line and heading towards Berryessa. The schedule change includes a new transfer opportunity at Bay Fair every day during all service hours. Riders from Dublin on the Blue line will see a Green or Orange line train across the platform. This transfer has a tight window but the September 2022 schedule change will increase the window to allow for more flexibility to make the meet if there are delays.

Improved Connections with Other Transit Agencies

Most agencies operate the same schedule on Saturday and Sunday, making it difficult for them to design ideal transfers when BART schedules are different on Saturday and Sunday.  Starting in February, the seven night 3-Line service that begins about 9:00 pm is matched all seven days which allows partner agencies to match their schedules with BART more successfully.  The final trains of the night, all seven days in the week, share the same times.

We’ve updated the BART and Caltrain transfer timetable to outline the wait times of each connecting train. Offering 5-line service on Sundays reduces some wait times by 8 or 11 minutes. While weekdays and Saturday connections are very similar to what they were before, there are small improvements of 1-3 minutes shorter wait. For example, a 12-17 minute connection, becomes 9-14 minute connection.

Saturday Service

Saturday service hours will remain unchanged (6am-midnight). Trains will continue to run at 30-minute frequency with added trains on the Yellow line as far as Pittsburg/Bay Point until 8pm. This schedule change improves the Yellow line frequency with more even spaced 15 minute headways as far as Pittsburg/Bay Point compared to what was being offered before.

Weekday Service

Weekday service remains unchanged though some departure times have slightly shifted. Service hours continue to be 5am-midnight.

Pictured above is the system map showing 5-line service every day of the week for Sundays we are not single tracking.

More events will be held throughout the year as part of the City of Antioch Sesquicentennial celebration and others sponsored by Celebrate Antioch Foundation. See list, here.

Matching state’s order one day prior; order comes one day after Contra Costa Supervisors appoint new county health officer; state continues to require masking in K-12 school settings

In alignment with the State, the Bay Area counties of Contra Costa, Alameda, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano, Sonoma, the City of Berkeley, and Santa Cruz County will lift universal mask requirements for vaccinated individuals in most indoor public settings beginning Wednesday, February 16. The change comes one day after Contra Costa Supervisors appointed Dr. Orli Tzvieli as the county’s new health officer. (See related article)

The change aligns with the California Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) decision to let expire the statewide indoor mask requirement, which was instated on December 15 during the latest COVID-19 surge, in spite of scientific evidence masks don’t work in preventing the spread of the virus. That’s because the size of the COVID molecule is much smaller than the gaps in the fabric of most if not all masks being used. In addition, a 2021 study (that has not yet been peer-reviewed), conducted using data from the CDC covering multiple seasons, reports that “mask mandates and use are not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states.” That study also shows “case growth was not significantly different between mandate and non-mandate states at low or high transmission rates, and surges were equivocal.”

Yet, unvaccinated individuals over age 2 will continue to be required to wear masks in all indoor public settings. Businesses, venue operators and hosts may determine their own paths forward to protect staff and patrons and may choose to require all patrons to wear masks.

Plus, indoor masking is still required by the State for everyone, regardless of vaccination status, in public transportation; health care settings; congregate settings like correctional facilities and homeless shelters; long term care facilities; and in K-12 schools and childcare settings.

Bay Area health officers, in alignment with CDPH, continue to strongly recommend masks be used as an effective tool to prevent the spread of the virus especially when case rates are high, or when additional personal protection is needed. Continuing to mask in indoor public settings, especially crowded or poorly ventilated spaces, remains the safest choice for an individual and protects those who are medically vulnerable or are not able to get vaccinated, like our youngest children. As evidence continues to show, vaccinations and boosters remain the best defense against the virus.

The highly contagious Omicron variant brought on a new stage of the pandemic with a high number of new infections, but significantly fewer cases of life-threatening illnesses, especially for those who are vaccinated and boosted. While relaxing indoor masking requirements is part of a population-level shift toward a “new normal” of living with the disease, the Health Officers recognize that essential workers and communities of color continue to be highly impacted by COVID-19 and will need additional support to limit widening health disparities. Changes to health orders and recommendations may be updated as Health Officers follow the science and the data to evaluate whether additional protective measures may be needed as the virus evolves and if future surges occur.

People should continue to choose layered prevention strategies, such as wearing well-fitted masks (N95 or double layer cloth over surgical are best); staying home and testing when symptomatic; testing before gatherings; and improving indoor ventilation in situations where these strategies can add protection for themselves and others. Staying “up to date” on vaccinations, meaning primary series and boosters when eligible, remains the most important way to prevent severe illness, hospitalization, and death.

After reaching a high on January 9 of 2,835 new cases per day, Contra Costa’s case rates have rapidly declined to a 7-day average of 958 on February 1 and continue to drop. Meanwhile, hospitalizations, a lagging indicator of disease, have begun to drop and never exceeded local capacity during this latest surge because of the county’s overall high rates of vaccinations (80%) and boosters (49% of those eligible). Contra Costa’s universal mask mandate has been in place since August 2 when cases began climbing from the Delta variant.

A combination of preventative strategies, along with the community’s cooperation helped get the Bay Area through this last surge together as a stronger community.

“We are able to take this next major step of removing the universal indoor mask requirement because we have laid a strong foundation in good public health protections…and know we can reduce severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths,” said Dr. Ori Tzvieli, health officer for Contra Costa County.

By aligning with the state masking rules, the participating Bay Area counties will not need to meet previously established criteria for lifting local masking orders, which were devised at a different point in the pandemic.

CDPH continues to require masking in K-12 school settings but has indicated adjustments to the state’s policies will be shared in the coming weeks. In the meantime, there is work to be done in closing the remaining gaps in vaccinations and boosters among children with a particular focus on equity gaps within the most highly impacted communities.

For early education programs, such as preschool and childcare settings, CDPH continues to require masking for children older than age two. Vaccinations for children under 5 are currently undergoing federal review. Workplaces will continue to follow the COVID-19 prevention standards set by CalOSHA.

Some people may understandably feel anxious about these changes to masking requirements in the county. People can continue to choose to wear face coverings around others whether it’s mandated or not and should respect people’s choices around their health. Community members who are vaccinated and choose not to mask should respect the choices of those who continue to mask. Officials ask residents and visitors to be kind and respectful as people evaluate their risks and make choices to protect themselves and those around them.

Allen D. Payton contributed to this report.