More than $2,000 raised

By Walter Ruehlig

A community’s educational positioning is like a three legged stool; it balances by taking the support of students, teachers and parents/community. More so than ever, we can’t do it alone.

Before even contemplating the academic No Child Left Behind challenge let’s start with the financial dilemma facing the Antioch Unified School District and its AUSD has suffered a staggering $74 million in state cuts over the last four years, with no end in sight to the crippling attack.

It’s a heady challenge; needing to train a globally competitive workforce while in the societal throes of an endemic breakdown of the family and simultaneously adapting to the radical transition of youth’s attention to a wired world; all the while addressing tumultuous change with far scanter resources.

The recent arson and vandalism incidents that shut down the Diablo Vista Elementary School kitchen and decimated the playground at Lone Tree Elementary were low blows, then, to an already tottering budget and besieged morale. As if money was free and easy, the tab for some thug’s mindlessness is now running upwards of two hundred thousand dollars.

Monday evening January 8th Take Back Antioch, led by Brittney Gougeon and the Lone Tree Elementary PTA, led by Patty Ward, said no to victimhood mentality. They demonstrated a fighting, proactive community spirit by holding a spaghetti dinner and raffle at the Red Caboose Restaurant to raise funds for the damaged schools,
particularly for enhanced security measures.

Lone Tree Principal Melanie Jones, Diablo Vista Principal Wanda Appell and School Board Trustee Walter Ruehlig addressed a packed crowd that included Mayor Jim Davis, Mayor Pro Tem Wade Harper, Councilman Gary Agopian and School Board President Diane Gibson Gray.

Good company, good food, good cause.

To the editor:

On December 6, 2011, the Board of Supervisors adopted election procedures for Prop 218, a new property-related fee which will be imposed throughout Contra Costa County. This is apparently a parcel tax disguised as a “Clean Water Fee.”

A public hearing to discuss the proposed fee has been scheduled for February 7, 2012. Written notices were allegedly mailed in mid-December 2011 to record owners of each identified parcel (or everyone who owns property in Contra Costa County). I own my home in Antioch, but, to date, have not received my notice. Have you?

At the public hearing, the Board will consider all protests against this fee. If written protests are presented by a majority of property owners, then the fee will not be imposed. Otherwise, ballots will be mailed 45 days prior to election close date of April 6, 2012. A majority vote by mail-in voters is sufficient to impose this new fee.

The election process to approve Prop 218 is a farce. It was designed to avoid detection rather than truly give the people a voice. The county has more than 1 million people. How many are property owners? Could the chambers of the Board of Supervisors accommodate all property owners? Why require written protest at a public hearing? Why the urgency and not wait for a regular election? How much more will election by mail cost? Do we really need to burden people struggling to pay their mortgage with a new tax?

Noticeably, District 3 Supervisor Mary Piepho has immediately started her campaign for approval of Prop 218 through her December 7, 2011 article appearing in Contra Costa Times titled “Delta At Risk And Needs Our Help Now.” She has also hit the campaign trail speaking before the Antioch City Council on the urgent needs of the delta without actually mentioning the Board of Supervisors’ plan to tax property owners with a “Clean Water Fee.”

Once imposed, this tax will be with you for ten years. On February 7, 2012, you have a choice; speak up (and write down your protest); or get out your checkbook.

Cynthia Ruehlig

To the editor:

As a neighborly follow-up to your posting wisely alerting people to be wary of opening a door to strangers, we have had kids going through our neighborhood asking to rake leaves. Having mowed lawns and shoveled snow as a youngster, I am never one to impede youthful enterprise.

Leave it to Beaver, though, is no longer the norm in these less than innocent times. Alarmingly, older kids are sometimes not far behind the avowed rakers. Somehow that makes you wonder.

Just like there is no such thing as a stupid question, there is no such thing as a stupid call to the police. Ask our men and women in blue to be vigilant and maybe drive by. This, after all, is a repeat of the common practice of kids ringing your bell collecting for a basketball league or some such extra-curricular activity. Truth be told, I not only habitually get puzzled at the private club they represent as it seems I have never heard of it.

Worse yet, given the burglary climate, I have bigger fears than contributing to a possible sham. It could be legit; it could be a set-up. It’s easy to feel guilty because we don’t want to doubt people asking for help, but preying on guilt can be a practiced art. Consider the studies that show that as much as 70% and upwards of beggars use their panhandled money for drugs.

You owe it to your family. Better safe than sorry.

I must confess that as a former New Yorker I have had to adjust to casual California where the doors rarely have peepholes and police locks (now called door jammers or braces) are uncommon. Those devices are poles, like long car clubs, that stick in the floor propped into the door. It would take a battering ram to force the door open.

New Yorkers take this stuff seriously and, obviously, jammers are far better than the useless door chain. Those decorative bracelets might stop a seven year old but they, and sorry to say, that $30 lock you are so proud of, are laughable to even a mere 130-pound crack addict with two good legs looking for their next fix.

Advice: If you are a woman and answer the door you might wish to yell upstairs, “honey, it’s some kids” -even if no male is home it sends a message you’re not to be messed with.

Incidentally, I met a fellow at the Golden Gate Bell Ringer and Boys Chorus concert last night who said that nine homes on his block had recently been burglarized. Five of them had previously shrugged off joining the local Neighborhood Watch group. Any wonder why they now sing a different tune?

Walter Ruehlig

To the editor:

Ready for this? St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, which has been hit three, yes count ’em, three times, for copper, twice within a week, had another attempted ripoff the other night. Luckily, the thief was frightened off by one of the volunteer parishioners who give up their warm beds to patrol the church grounds nightly.

You must have read how for the second time BART was vandalized, with the thieves going out on the tracks themselves. Here in Antioch, this week Marsh Elementary School got hit for the second time. And the beat goes on and on. If you’ve got copper faucets or copper pennies laying around the house, you better have a guard dog. These people are crazed!

On another note, my neighbor was monitoring their outside video cameras the other afternoon when they saw five male youth approach a neighboring house of folks vacationing in Europe. The suspects then proceeded to kick the door down.

My neighbor called the police, but no patrol car was available because of a fight somewhere in Antioch. Eight minutes later the thieves started leaving the house and my neighbor called the police again.

This time they sent out five cars and were apparently able to catch at least two of the suspects, who were running through back yards and climbing fences, including my mother in law’s around the corner from me. In fact, one of the suspects was filmed taking out a change of clothes from his backpack but didn’t change his flaming red socks. The foolishness of youth!

My best advice: get an alarm (which the broken-into folks didn’t have; try to get a house sitter if you are gone; have a dog; iron gate your door; start a Neighborhood Watch. The police are doing their best, but with a force down well over 30 uniformed cops, the ruling maxim is that God helps those who help themselves.

Walter Ruehlig
Antioch

To the editor:

As expected, Don Freitas is going to run for mayor next election. And he should. He controlled the city council meetings very well. But that’s no reason to re-elect him. Since he left office two years ago, he has not made any appearances at council meetings, never any input on anything.

The same can be said of Arne Simonsen. Never shows at council meetings and little input in the newspaper. But I could vote for Arne if he would make a commitment to run as a full-time mayor and eliminate the position of city manager.

Arne is the only council person to ask questions. I always thought him to be the smartest of them all. He has the time to be full-time mayor and we need him.

Bob Oliver
Antioch

To the editor:

There should be an article about this problem. Honest. Neighbors celebrating the fact the house is getting some much needed love and attention may not know that the company hired to do the cleanuout isn’t always a reliable company.

Antioch is a victim of not so honest people doing foreclosure cleanouts that then illegally dump all the trash on the back roads in Antioch (instead of hauling the trash to the dump and paying like they are supposed to).

The lastest one I had to deal with came from a house on West 6th Street that was then dumped near a water source on McElheney Road. It took 5 people over 3 hours to clean up.

Impossible to track down who did it with the limited resources at hand. When I do get an address, and I usually do, they are, of course, bank-owned. But someone associated with the foreclosed home hired somebody to clean it out and the cleanout crew decided to keep all the money and illegally dump it instead.

I do not have the resources nor does the City to follow up every time this happens I do have pictures of what was recently dumped on McElheney Road by what we believe was one of these trash cleanout companies. Yet another side of foreclosures, unfortunately.

Neighbors need to take notice. If you see a trash cleanup at a foreclosed house, get the license plate number or take a picture or ask for a business card.

R.C. Ferris

To the editor:

Bittersweet, yes, but given the state of affairs, progress. St. Ignatius of Antioch Catholic Church tallied its receipts from the Fall Festival, raffle and gala dinner and exceeded expectations with a net profit of $32,000.

The sad news is that normally that money would have gone towards the ‘Complete the Vision Campaign’ to build an educational center. Due to three copper thefts in a matter of months that stripped air conditioners and perimeter wires, some $26,000 of it is earmarked for a perimeter fence, which is hoped to go in by the end of the year.

The projected fence installation follows in the steps of the Dhyanyoga Center across the street which was also repeatedly vandalized, as was a number of other churches and schools around the city.

In the meantime. a contingent of men, and one brave woman parishioner, are doing three hour shifts through the night watching the church. New security cameras and increased city police patrols add to the security effort. In addition, the church has volunteers patrolling the parking lot during services because of past car break-ins. Anybody with any tips on either variety of thief, please contact the Antioch police.

The church, incidentally, is just shy of a million dollars in pledges, a third of its goal. Parochial Administrator Robert Rien has been tirelessly pursuing foundations and under the leadership of Finance Committee Chair Ron France, the church is pulling out all the stops with recyclable collection, loose change jugs, fish fries, crab feeds, restaurant incentive nights, gourmet coffee and tri-tip sandwich sales and just about any fund-raising enterprise that is legal and wholesome.

The church welcomes ideas if you have any. Seems thieves may come and go, but men and women of good faith and resilience are a constant at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church.

Walter Ruehlig

To the editor:

No mistaking me and Thanksgiving sentiments; I thoroughly admire the holiday’s essence. I find it, though, a telling remark on the vagaries of life that we need a day to remind us to be thankful.

I guess that forgetfulness is due to nature seeking the path of least resistance. As rivers run down, not up, hill, so to moan, to complain, to whine is the more beaten path of the human condition. The less traveled attitude of gratitude seems the direction we need pointers on.

Growing up, my older step sister, who as a child fled the Soviet occupiers of East Germany, oft posed this provocative reminder of relativity. How many of us, she asked, would willingly put all their troubles in a brown paper bag and throw them up in the air with all our neighbors’ bags, randomly collecting what rained down? Our lot is, in truth, often better than what we credit it to be.

I offer, then, my own life ledger:

How generously I note how serious life can be; how stingily I see the ironies, remembering, after all, that since nobody gets out of this Big Tent alive, we may as well just enjoy the show. Grin and bear it.

How generously I disparage our national political strife and intrinsically messy democracy; how stingily I trumpet that we’re not rioting in the streets, blowing each other up, or displaying our bloodied former leaders in refrigerated market stalls.

How generously I wake up decrying an assortment of age-related aches and pains; how stingily I praise the simple miracle of rising vertically and ambulating.

How generously I bemoan diminished reading sight; how stingily I exult not being blind, deaf or mute.

How generously I curse being a working stiff; how stingily I sing the blessings of having a job to report to; a loving family to feed; and a son at college eager to make something of himself.

How generously I sigh over lost home value; how stingily I admit that my abode would be a veritable mansion in Japan or Europe; it’s blessedly not foreclosed; and, unlike 40% of the world’s population, I enjoy indoor plumbing. All of this, no less, nestling in a region without snow storms or humidity stifling misery indexes.

How generously I lament Antioch’s hunger for downtown development matching Brentwood’s and Pittsburg’s; how stingily I toast the Highway 4 expansion, beckoning eBART and ferry, new marina ramp, and A and L Street remakes.

How generously I focus on blight; how stingily I acknowledge that we sit on the Delta, boasting gorgeous parks, a handsome community center and golf course event center, career-themed schools and an hour or so proximity in any direction to world class cities and stunningly gorgeous recreational areas.

How generously I dwell on crime; how stingily I note that America’s crime rate is the lowest since 1968 and that Antioch went down last year 16 percent in violent crime and on all indices except burglary.

Surely, brothers and sisters, we all have our untold presents. Is the arithmetic too hard to take a few of the 86,400 seconds in a day gifted us to count our blessings? Thanksgiving, after all, is not just the last Thursday in November. It is a state of mind.

In the grand scheme of things, Meister Eckhart seemed to have had it right: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

Walter Ruehlig
Antioch