By Harry Stoll

If everything is hunky dory with your credit cards—paying the balance each month, paying on time, and keeping expenditures below 30% of your available credit, and whatever I’ve been nagging you about—you can get a card charging you 0% interest on purchases for a specified period.

That’s right, 0%. Their motives are not altruistic, what did you expect? They hope you’ll put everything on the card; it’s a cuddly stuffed tiger that could morph into the monster under your bed.

Since I advocate paying credit card debit in full each month, why would I recommend a 0% credit card? Because that classic bumper strip is right, things happen. The roof she is leaking and the rain is coming in, or your car’s oil leak is more than a bother. Or it could be something enjoyable: a vacation or a root canal.

You might see ads about them or go online and enter “0% on purchases” and be inundated. Of course, that’s the easy part. The essential part is figuring out how you’re going to pay the piper because at the end you’re going to dance to his tune.

You should have funds to pay for your purchases immediately from an interest bearing account (You have one, right?). But you can open a 0% on-purchases card and keep funds in the interest bearing account. If you make one big purchase you divide it by the number of months of the 0% and set up automatic payments from your bank account. Or, if you are very sure of yourself you can make the minimum payment until closing time when you have to pay the bar tab.

Eve if you have not yet arrived at the ideal state of paying the balance in full each month, and are still paying interest (but working toward the ideal goal), the 0% balance card can be useful, but with all credit cards, danger lurks.

Sometimes the offer includes a pitch for a balance transfer at 0% interest. The catch is they charge you a one-time fee, typically 3% or 4%, which ends being more because you pay it up front; and then poof! It’s gone and won’t come back even if you pay it off tomorrow. So don’t go there.

I keep seeking interest-bearing accounts. Patelco Credit Union (membership available to anyone who lives, works, goes to school, or worships, in Contra Costa County) offers a money market account of 3% on the first $2,000.

It goes down from there until it reaches the puny amount most banks pay, but for $10,00 the “blended interest” is 1.7 %, which is more than the current inflation rate. Depositors are limited to six withdrawals a month. The deposit is federally insured. it can change it any time, without notifying you.

Or you could get a CD. Bankrate.com lists several with an annual percentage rate of about 1.2%. That could be ideal to stash money for your 0% purchase card. A CD rate can’t change (but there are penalties for early withdrawals).

One Face, One Bright Future: Tomorrow night, 18 year old Erica Wagoner from Pittsburg, and 85 other teens will take the next big step into adulthood, as they graduate from Contra Costa County’s Independent Living Skills Program (ILSP). For Erica, graduation will come with at least $1,500 in scholarships. While she’s not certain about a college major, she is confident, she’ll advocate for foster youth like herself, “You want foster youth to succeed after what they’ve been through”, she says, knowing what that really means.

Erica was 16 when her home life became less than stable, and she moved in with friends. Her brother and sisters went to live in other homes. Nothing was secure in her life; until she started attending the ILSP Program in Martinez. Here she says, she found, “People to trust. Even if you don’t think you need help, they know how to help.”

In its 27th year in Contra Costa County, with funding from the Federal Government and reliant upon community donations; ILSP prepares foster youth for their future, with life and employment skills training, money management and cooking classes, and provides them with the guidance to map their futures by going to college or a job training program.

June 16th, at Centre Concord, $65,000 in scholarships will be awarded; one more way ILSP is living up to its motto, “We deal in futures.”

By Barbara Zivica

“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.” – Sir Francis Bacon

I have been criticized by Realtor Mark Jordan for my article entitled General Law Cities vs. Charter Cities, which I wrote after he asked the city where they would find money to deal with under funded retirement accounts. He suggested the solution was to convert the city into a charter city and significantly increase the transfer fees on real property, which seemed to draw a favorable response from Mayor Harper and Council Member Tiscareno.

Let me respond by explaining a few things:

A transfer tax is a tax on the passing of title to property from one person (or entity) to another, typically imposed when there is a legal requirement for registration of the transfer of real estate, shares or bond. In the U.S. the term transfer tax also refers to estate tax and gift tax. In California only charter cities may impose a real property transfer tax, in addition to the current one, although both general law and charter cities have the power to tax. Currently the property transfer tax is limited to $1.10 per $1,000 with it split 50/50 between the county and city. If Antioch were to become a charter city and increase its property transfer tax the county would get the full $1.10 per $1,000 and the city would keep the amount it sets above $1.10. The amount of revenue received, of course, depends on how many existing and new homes are sold and resold.

I think it’s a bad idea for many reasons. For starters, California residents are overtaxed and over regulated and Antioch residents are feeling the burden from two tax measures: Measure C, the half-cent sales tax increase which was touted by the Mayor to add 22 more police officers to the force and passed by 68.09% of the 11,175 voters who turned out (net zero additional cops, due to attrition) and Measure O, the business license tax which passed with 51.62% of the vote, with 16,926 of the city’s approximately 45,000 registered voters turning out.

On top of that, we’re paying for two new school bond measures., all of this happening during an economic downturn which I attribute again to crushing taxes, over regulation and incompetent legislators. It was the state that was responsible for the under funding of employee retirements accounts, the cities just followed their example. NOTE: Governor Brown recently released a 12-point pension reform plan which will eliminate the opportunity to purchase additional retirement service credits, prohibit pension holidays, prohibit employers from making employee pension contributions, prohibit retroactive pension increases, prohibit pension spiking, impose pension benefit cap, improve retirement board governance, and limit post retirement public employment.

Other reasons I dislike the charter city idea:

Charter cities aren’t bound by the election code and can set their own criteria for city officers, term limits and council members’ salaries, can permit the financing of election campaigns, aren’t required to have competitive bidding for public works contracts over $5,000, aren’t required to pay prevailing wages under state law for local public works funded by local funds, and charter city zoning orders are not required to be consistent with the general plan unless the city adopts a consistence requirement by charter or ordinance.

Last, but not least, is the fact that general law cities are governed by a city council of five members but charter cities can provide for any form of government including the “strong mayor” and city manager forms. This could be disastrous. We’re having trouble enough reining in Mayor Wade Harper.

Dear Editor:

A message to bleeding hearts justifying acts of vandalism or violence in Antioch.

Lack of planning plus lack of imagination equals boredom. Own up. Pick up a book or pick up a ball. Libraries and parks are free. The world is not responsible for your action or your entertainment.

Cynthia Ruehlig, Antioch

NOTE: This was written and submitted in response to a comment about the incident posted on Facebook by Antioch School Board Trustee Debra Vinson, who wrote “Terrible! Boredom is always bad!”

By Allen Payton

New details have emerged in the case of the melee that occurred at the Deer Valley Safeway in Antioch, Friday night, June 12, caused by some of the riders on a party bus from San Francisco. Antioch Police Corporal James McMurry, who was not on duty Friday night, provided information from the “shift highlight” from that night.

Antioch residents discussing the incident on Facebook wanted to know the name of the bus company, where the riders on the bus were from and why they came to Antioch. While that information has not yet been released, one new part of the story was revealed by McMurry.

It appears that some people on the bus were in Antioch to meet up with others in the parking lot.

“Some of the merchandise stolen from Safeway were taken to other vehicles and those vehicles fled,” he stated. “There were at least two other cars in the parking lot that had fled prior to the officers’ arrival.”

In addition, he provided the following information from the highlight:

– No name of the bus company was listed.

– Officers didn’t document the actual name in their report.

– Driver out of the City [San Francisco].

– The majority of people were from S.F. Some were from Vallejo.

– There were 40-50 people on the bus.

– Twelve people were arrested, ages 16-21. Officers didn’t include the names of the adults arrested in their report. Just wrote “too many to list.”

– Five guns were seized that were on the bus.

“We have the guns in evidence,” McMurry said.

– A total of 10 police officers and one CSO responded.

“They were cited and released at the scene with a court date to appear on various dates, based on whether they were adults or juveniles,” he shared. “The court dates are all for Superior Court in Pittsburg, except for juveniles who would most likely have to appear in juvenile court in Martinez.”

– One of the people had an outstanding arrest warrant.

When asked why that person was released, McMurry said, “they would have been released based on instructions in the warrant.”

The Antioch Police Department has a copy of all the citations with all the names of those arrested.

“Those would have been turned in with the police reports,” he added.

A request will be made to the police department on Monday, for the names of the adults arrested and the name of the bus company.

Click here to view the video of the incident that was posted by Casey Downey on his Facebook page. While he was not at Safeway at the time, the video was provided to him by someone who was, but wishes to remain anonymous.

The Night Manager at Safeway, Maria Lazzerini, was not able to speak to the media for this article and instead directed the Herald to speak with Safeway’s Public Affairs department. However, she did provide the following email she sent Antioch Police Chief Allan Cantando on Sunday morning, June 14:

Chief Cantando,

My name is Maria Lazzerini and I am the night manager at the Deer Valley Safeway. I just wanted to take a few minutes to share some feedback from the incident that occurred on Friday June 12th with the party bus that caused a big ordeal.

First off, I commend your 911 dispatcher for her professionalism during the call. I know that it was a stressful situation on our part and she handled it awesome. Second, I want to share that in our time of need, your departments response time was phenomenal. In a time that I know your department is short staffed, your response was fast.

Lastly, I want to personally thank every single officer that came out to the scene. I don’t remember every single one but the following stuck out, Officer D. Hopwood, Officer J. Jeoung, Officer Chang, Officer Meads, your K-9 Officer and all of the other people there. I know that I was definitely stressed and shaken up over the whole situation but the officers were extremely professional and handled the situation the best that they could. Dealing with such a loud and obnoxious crowd of 50 kids was not easy, but they made it seem carefree. They took the time to fully investigate the situation and look at all the video surveillance to help determine all the culprits in this situation. Very time consuming but they never hesitated one bit.

I have worked at this Safeway store for almost 10 years and have had to call your department quite a bit. I have always found your officers to be extremely awesome, very approachable and never hesitant to give that helping hand. In closing, you should be a very proud Chief to have a great group of officers. You may not have the full force you need, but the force you have is a strong and great group of men and women.From myself and my crew at Antioch Safeway, I want to thank you again for everything you guys did the other night.

Sincerely, Maria Lazzerini Night Manager-Safeway #1259

Check back later as more details are made known.

Antioch Herald Writer Luke Johnson contributed to this report.

By Luke Johnson

Antioch and Deer Valley High School, along with Pittsburg High, have joined the three schools from the Liberty Unified High School District to become a part of a unified basketball league. This program, in conjunction with Special Olympics, is the first in Northern California.

Last year, Freedom High (Oakley) Athletic Director Steve Amaro helped develop a unified basketball league for the LUHSD, and the in-game atmosphere was electric and exceeded expectations.

“It was a full gym,” Amaro said about the first game of last season. “It was amazing… It became more of an event than I ever expected.”

Amaro invited Antioch High Athletic Director Ferris Anthony to a game and he immediately fell in love with it, and was on board for incorporating it on to his campus.

“I came back to the athletic directors‘ meeting and said, ‘Count Antioch in!’” Anthony exclaimed. “They were all looking at me like, ‘What? What?’ I said, ‘We’re in, man. This is something we wanna do. This is a great thing.”

Team rosters are formed by unifying life skills students with regular education students. What this does, is make life-skills students feel they are apart of the school and creates bonds with regular education students.

“They see me around school and say, ‘Hey, whats up?’ And that makes me feel real good, because they see we are also people in life, so we can also do what they do, but differently,” Deer Valley unified basketball player Jesus Guerra said to MaxPreps.

This program is currently growing, and has already caught the attention of the Mount Diablo Unified School District along with middle schools in Brentwood. Unified sports in the Bay Valley Athletic League has already expanded to include bowling in the fall and will have an undetermined athletic competition in the winter. This, like many other incredible things, is expected to catch on like wildfire.

“It felt real good. I never thought I was going to do this in my life,” Guerra said after a game against Pittsburg.

Collected money without keeping proper records; never formed committee, opened bank account or filed state paperwork

By Allen Payton

In a recent Herald article about the failure of the second recall attempt against him, Harper stated “Now that the recall attempt has ended, I am asking Mr. Buongiorno to please cancel the ‘Committee to elect Wade Harper,’ it is misleading, dishonest and it is not a committee to elect me.” That has opened up other issues regarding how the recall was handled.

Harper was referring to what appeared in an ad the recall organizers ran in the East County Times print edition and online in April.

“The misleading committee was listed within an ad posted on Contra Costa Times,” Harper stated via email.

According to Buongiorno, he was told by one of the remaining recall organizers in April, the day the ad ran, that there was a type-o in the ad. He informed the organizers that it was a violation of state elections law to use a committee name that wasn’t theirs or hadn’t been filed.

By that time, Buongiorno had resigned from the effort, as he was undergoing a kidney transplant.

Times takes responsibility for “typo”

In an email to Harper, Times’ reporter Rowena Coatsee explained what happened:

“I had looked into the bizarre wording of the ad when it first appeared and at that point contacted the account manager. I’m forwarding you her response, although I’m not sure whether it was she or someone else who actually made the typo.

She explained to me that political ads are required to identify who paid for them and as such they usually contain the wording ‘Paid for by the committee to ELECT (fill in the blank).’ But in this case, unfortunately, whoever keyed in the information didn’t carefully read the heading of the ad ‘Recall Antioch Mayor Wade Harper’ and so he/she wrote the standard verbiage.

She went on to say that yes, we can run a corrected version of the ad, but also pointed out that it might create confusion now that the recall is over — i.e., people might think there’s going to be yet another attempt (there won’t), etc.

But it’s up to you — please let me know what you’d like to do ….”

Harper responded:

“You have stated that this was a “typo.” I reject the idea that this was a “typo” as my name is spelled correctly. In my opinion this was an error in judgment that does harm and discourages any fundraising by the subject of the recall (me). This is my request, 1) refund the cost of the ad to the customer(s), 2) print a retraction stating that this ad was not paid for by Committee To Elect Wade Harper and that this was printed in error. This was a BIG mistake by Bay Area News Group and should never have happened. Thanks.”

“It was someone’s poor judgment,” he added.

When asked who approved the ad, and if all ads require approval before the Times runs them, Coatsee responded:

“I’m afraid I have no idea…Rich indicated (and the updated story will reflect this) that a couple of members of a splinter group went ‘rogue’ and took it upon themselves to place the ad. He says he knew nothing about the wrong wording until someone alerted him — categorically denies authorizing it.

When he saw the wording at the bottom of the ad, he told me he thought it was a typo.

But yes, you’re right — any ad that we run is approved by the person/group that pays for it (obviously) and then goes through a vetting process on our end.

As for our internal processes, I have nothing to do with ads, as you know. Editorial and advertising here are two different departments that almost never intersect (for good reason). So who creates the ads we run, who signs off on them — I wouldn’t know.”

Multi Media Account Manager Karen Cortez, who handled the ad for the Times, was asked who approved it and she responded via email:

“The error in the ad was not the clients fault it was ours. I can simply give the name of the committee. There (sic) contact information was in the ad.”

The ad was run both in the print edition of the newspaper and on their website, she added. “We are publishing a correction statement in the East County Times on Sat. [June 13, 2015].”

Organizers never created formal committee

The Times may have used an incorrect committee name in the ad, the organizers never formed a committee, although they were required to do so, in their effort to recall Harper, according to the Secretary of State’s Political Reform Division, if they raised or spent at least $1,000.

When Buongiorno was asked when the recall committee formed, he responded, “It is required only if you have expenses that exceed $1,000.”

Buongiorno explained what happened after he resigned from the effort, in March, due to undergoing a kidney transplant. He said he passed on the responsibility to a committee of five people who were all agreed to keep the recall going, including Antioch residents Jani Fletcher, Lisa Lacy, Paula Knight, Anabelle Gudilano Donato and Laura Allen Stewart.

“They were given the information, they were given the forms and they were supposed to have done that, but they didn’t,” Buongiorno stated. “I told them I already had a name, of ‘Reclaiming Antioch’ that I was going to put on the form.”

When Paula Knight was asked about forming a committee, she responded, “No we were never informed of that by Rich. We were asked to form a committee, because he was going in for transplant surgery. But, we were never told it had to be done by law. Lie. Never happened.”

“I’ve talked to Jani and Lisa and they don’t know anything about that,” she shared. “All we were told on the recall Harper page. ‘I just got a call by UCSF and I gotta go. You guys have to form a committee.’”

“We only had about five or six people step up, out of 300, to lead the effort,” Knight continued. “We all donated the money for the ad to be placed in the Contra Costa Times. We were never informed we had to file any forms.”

Knight and Buongiorno were the original organizers of the recall.

“Rich handled the first one,” she stated. “We started the second one and Rich, again, got all the information he needed. Never was there a request that we file any forms. Because if he did tell us, it would have been done.”

They paid $500 for the ad in the Times.

When asked if a bank account had been opened, Knight responded, “I think there might have been an account. Anabelle, she set up the ad to go in. She or someone in her family did the graphics.”

“When we started the second recall, some of us donated money for the other expenses,” she explained. “I gave cash to Rich. I remember Rich saying form a committee and open up a bank account, but I don’t know if that was done.”

We put our heart and soul into this, the five or six people who stepped forward. We went door-to-door, set up tables at stores.”

She was sympathetic and understood that Buongiorno needed to back off because of his transplant.

“But, he was home within three days and he was in contact with us, constantly,” Knight added. “Now he’s throwing us under the bus.”

No one is sure if $1,000 threshold was reached, no bank account was opened

“We never had a bank account, because I was the only one spending money, me personally, on my credit card,” Buongiorno said. “That’s it.”

A total of $250 came in through a PayPal account in Buongiorno’s name. That is until the ad was paid for.

“I made sure I had receipts for everything,” he said. “I would say at the most people gave was an additional $50.”

Other than Buongiorno, no one else contributed more than $100, he said.

“Maybe Paula didn’t know,” he offered. “But, the other two did. Lisa and Jani were the ones heading things up. I told one or the other, I don’t remember, because they’re sisters and always together, that they had to form a committee once they reached $1,000.”

“I was told by Arne we had to use Form 460 to report the finances,” Buongiorno stated. “That asks who everyone is and it also says ‘once you reach $1,000.’ Then once you do you have to report it. You can do it earlier, but you have to do it once you’ve hit $1,000.”

Lisa Lacy, Annabelle Donato and Laura Stewart did not respond to multiple attempts to contact them for this report.

However, when a phone number for Lisa Lacy was called, a man who would only identify himself as “one of the proponents,” but later identified as Roger Hudson, answered questions.

“The stuff he [Buongiorno] got he didn’t write down and all we did was collect signatures and get money for the ad,” Hudson said. “We got the truth on our side.”

When asked how much money was raised, he responded, “We got $500. Half of that came from us” referring to the group of individuals helping to pay for the ad. “Nobody contributed $100 or more to us.”

When asked about what Buongiorno said that they had to form a committee and open a bank account, Hudson responded, “He’s lying…to you. He had the committee.”

When Jani Fletcher was reached for comment, she shared about her part in the recall effort.

“I took up the $500,” she stated. “It was all cash. People would give $5, $10. I don’t think a committee was ever formed.”

“It was Amy Landry, Susan Williams and Marie Crandell, that’s who we thought was the committee,” Fletcher stated. “But they dropped out of sight. I didn’t know about forming committees. I was just trying to get signatures. He [Buongiorno] never mentioned nothing about a committee.”

“Rich jumped all over me because I was taking down people’s names and amounts they gave, because I wanted to be honest about it,” she stated. “He said he had no idea how much people had given. I said, ‘Are you kidding? Because this is serious.’”

When told that Buongiorno said no one had contributed more than $100 Fletcher responded, “That’s crap, because I gave him money after money. He collected money at a bar, one time, and at a park.”

“I know some people with a fancy car contributed. That had to be more than $100,” she added.

In response to Fletcher’s accusation, Landry provided the following statement via email:

“Based on my experience during the first recall attempt, Rich was very detailed with information about how and why a committee needed to be formed. Rich provided the information time and time again regarding fundraising and the formation of a committee during both attempts to recall.

I was a tentative member of the committee during the first recall attempt. Before we could even raise any money and finalize the formation of the committee, the first recall attempt ended abruptly (“missed” deadline). It was at that point that personal matters pulled my attention away from the recall. When the second attempt began, I signed the Intent document with the other proponents and donated money (to someone other than Rich) through my PayPal account.

The reason why this matters to me is because the comments made about the original committee are inaccurate and imply that there was some type of dishonesty or wrong doing. I assure you that the lot of us (including Rich) wanted every little aspect to go perfectly because we all knew that one little error could mean the end of all our hard work.”

State requirements for political committees

By law any political effort becomes a committee and organizers must file the required reporting forms, once the $1,000 threshold is reached, according to California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) spokesman Jay Weirenga, stated.

Candidates and other campaign committees are required to file papers with the California Secretary of State’s office and then obtain an FPPC identification number.

Regarding the committee name listed in the newspaper ad David Hoang, Program Technician II of the Secretary of State’s Political Reform Division said “We have no record of a committee with that name.”

“The ad should have also included the Fair Political Practices Commission number,” he added. “You can talk to them about what legal action they can take.”

He said the information on all political committees in California could be found on the Cal-Access website, which lists only two committees with the name Wade Harper included. Those are for both Harper’s 2012 and 2016 campaign committees for Mayor. That information can be viewed, here.

Organizers may face up to a $5,000 fine

“When we would receive a complaint or notice something in a media report, that would raise our attention, we would investigate,” the FPPC’s Weirenga stated. “We don’t do any criminal action, here,” If the DA wants to pursue this, they can use our law.”

“Violations of the political reform act can be fined up to $5,000, based on how complex the case is and how cooperative those involved are, and how egregious and how much harm it can cause the public,” he added. “Those are the kinds of things that are taken into consideration. There are penalties and there are rules to be followed in proper reporting of committee activities.”

UPDATE 6/13/15 9:45 PM: Harper considered filing complaint, but won’t

Harper had said he was considering filing a complaint against both the Times and the organizers of the recall for the misleading committee name.

“I will definitely be looking into possibly filing a complaint,” Harper stated, earlier this week.

However, in an email to the Herald on Saturday, June 13, 2015, Harper wrote “After prayerful consideration I have decided not to file a complaint against the recall proponents (specifically Mr. Buongiorno). I know he has had health challenges. I wish him good health as he recovers.”