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Transcript of Discovery Bay Press 05.20.16
MAY 20, 2016 THEPRESS.NET | 3A
COMMUNITYNEIGHBORHOOD NEWS & EVENTS
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Local archery team shoots for the starsThe Excelsior Middle School (EMS) archery team, con-
sisting of 17 students, spent last weekend shooting their hearts out at the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) Tournament, in Louisville, Kentucky.
Sherri Hyden, of Discovery Bay, coaches the team as a parent volunteer and is proud of the students’ progress.
“The kids have been working hard for this,” Hyden said. “It’s good to see them realize their goals.”
The EMS archery program originally began under the auspices of the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s offi ce in 2011, when it was called Project Straight Arrow. Community Ser-vice Deputy David Allain took on coaching responsibilities for the fi rst few years. Now, the program is run solely through the school.
“David got the program off to start,” Hyden said. “I took my coaching skills from him. I was there helping him while he coached, then I got certifi ed and have been coaching for two years now.”
Hyden enjoys the time she spends practicing with the students, including her own children. Under her guiding eye, EMS placed fi rst in the NASP California State Tournament for the fourth year in a row, qualifying the team for nation-
als, where they ranked 195 out of 206. The team also helped break the NASP’s world record from last year’s national com-petition, which saw 12,045 students shoot. This year, more than 14,000 students competed, setting a new record.
Michelle Grgurevic’s son, Aiden, is a sixth grader at EMS, and he attended the competition in Louisville with Hyden. Grgurevic said Aiden is very happy to have found ar-
chery through the NASP program at his school. “He practices about three hours a week,” Grgurevic said.
“If we lived on a large plot of land, he would practice daily! He was super excited when he learned he was able to go to nationals - he had a large smile from ear to ear, and plans on being there next year.”
Grgurevic added that an important aspect of the team is the camaraderie with Hyden and the other coaches. Kim Bas-magian, EMS Principal, attributes the popularity and success of the team to this hard-working mother.
“The archery team is an integral part of the campus,” Basmagian stated. “ Coach and leader Sherry Hyden has been instrumental in keeping this program going with integrity. Sherry is always trying to make the program exceptional, and when she talks about the students, she lights up with a smile. Excelsior is lucky to have an archery program where students can be part of a team.”
According to its website, the NASP program was launched in Kentucky in 2001, with the goal to teach target archery skills to 24,000 students a year. It has since surpassed that goal and expanded to 48 states and provinces. Its curricu-lum was developed by education and target experts to enable the organization to offer core content to its participants.
For more information, visit www.naspschools.org.To comment, visit www.thepress.net.
Members of the EMS Archery team line up in front of their targets, placed 10 and 15 meters away.
Photo courtesy of Sherri Hyden
by Dawnmarie FehrCorrespondent
14A | THEPRESS.NET COMMUNITY MAY 20, 2016
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(*applies to most models) For years, the Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program has encouraged children to engage their imaginations all summer long and earn a free book by completing a reading journal about the books they read.
This year, the annual, free, book give-away is currently underway, and young read-ers can earn a free book by reading three books and answering questions in their sum-mer reading journal by Sept. 6. Addition-ally, in celebration of the 20th anniversary, Barnes & Noble is launching a special Sum-mer Reading Triathlon, which kicks off with a special opening ceremony on Saturday, June 4, at 11 a.m., at all stores nationwide.
The new triathlon will allow young readers to vote for their favorite heroes and places from a selection of contenders that will be displayed at stores nationwide. Vot-ing runs from June 4 through Aug. 21, with the local and national winners announced at a special closing ceremony on Aug. 27.
At the opening ceremony, kids will fi nd out who the medal contenders are, and they will be able to vote for their favorite heroes and places from books. Kids can complete a voting ballot by choosing their favorite gold-, silver- and bronze-medaled nominees in each group. They will then deposit their ballots in the voting ballot box located near the entrance or directly outside the children’s department of their local store and vote as
many times as they’d like to move their fa-vorites to the top of their local Barnes & Noble’s leader board in the race to the fi n-ish line. Kids are encouraged to come back regularly to their local store and check the leader board to see how their nominees are doing.
On Saturday, Aug. 27, at 11 a.m., kids are offi cially invited back to their lo-cal Barnes & Noble store to fi nd out which favorite hero and favorite place took home the gold, at a special closing ceremony where they will receive a gold medal of their own, while supplies last. The books featuring the heroes and places that took home the gold, silver and bronze medals, locally and nation-ally, will be featured on a special display at the store through September.
As always, kids can participate in the regular summer-reading program to earn a free book from a selection of books for grades one through six. All they have to do is read three books and visit their local Barnes & Noble store or BN.com/Summer-Reading to answer three of the four ques-tions on the back of the Summer Reading Triathlon Journal. They can then bring their completed journal to their local Barnes & Noble storenow through Sept. 6 ,to get their free book.
For more information, stop by your lo-cal store or visit BN.com/SummerReading.
Reading program kicks off at B&N
MAY 20, 2016 COMMUNITY THEPRESS.NET | 15A
Myles Youngblood, a senior at Heritage High School, has been named the recipient of the 2016 Darnell Turner Memorial Scholarship from the East County NAACP. Youngblood was excited to receive the
scholarship, as well as congressional recognition from Rep. Mark DeSaulnier and county recognition from Supervisor Federal Glover, at the East County NAACP awards night, held at the Lone Tree Golf Center, on Saturday, April 23. The East County NAACP was impressed with Youngblood’s essay, “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” in which he showcased the importance of every person exercising their hard-earned right to vote.
Local student honored with NAACP scholarship
Photo courtesy of Cassandra Youngblood
MAY 20, 2016 COMMUNITY THEPRESS.NET | 17A
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MOB celebrates moms, communityLocal community women’s organi-
zation, Mothers of Brentwood (MOB), held their 11th-annual Mother’s Day Brunch, on May 15, to enhance their community outreach and fundraising efforts.
The event, held at Club Los Me-ganos, at Trilogy at the Vineyards, and attended by more than 75 Brentwood mothers, raises money through do-nated raffle and live-auction items. The money gets funneled back into the community in various ways through the MOB Community Outreach Pro-gram.
“In an effort to streamline fund-raising for three of our yearly commu-nity-outreach efforts, the MOB decid-ed early on to start holding this annual brunch,” said President Lisa Rich-mond. “Not only do we get to recog-nize and honor the moms in the area, but we can also give back to families and children in need.”
Moms were first treated to an array of delicious brunch and dessert items, then they purchased raffle tickets and participated in a live auction for a chance to win more than 160 prizes donated by 110 businesses throughout the Bay Area. All the proceeds benefit the Community Outreach Program, which provides approximately 144
backpacks filled with school supplies and 71 Thanksgiving dinners to stu-dents and families in need throughout Brentwood.
In addition, MOB also provides Christmas gifts to eight families.
“Community outreach is the heart of the Mothers of Brentwood group,” said the program’s co-director Melissa Van Ruiten. “As moms, (we) believe that helping others is inherent, so to have such a great group of women who
are willing to donate their time and money for events like our Backpack Drive, Turkey Drive, and Adopt-A-Family, is an awesome, amazing thing.”
This year’s brunch raised more than $5,700 for these events.
Ron Nunn Elementary School’s Principal Amy Wallace echoes Van Ruiten’s sentiments. The brunch’s fea-tured speaker and mother of three, Wallace has seen firsthand how the MOB’s community outreach efforts ef-fect the children it helps.
“As a mom, you want your child to feel confident when they’re going to school,” said Wallace. “I’ve been a part of distributing more than 100 back-packs to students, so I’ve seen how it’s really impacted the lives of kids.”
MOB was founded in 2005, as an independently run and member-driv-en organization striving to meet the diverse and changing needs of moth-ers in the Brentwood community. The group provides support to all mothers throughout all walks of life, whether they stay at home, work full or part time, are trying to conceive or are ex-pecting. They offer a variety of activi-ties for children of all ages, moms, and their families. Activities include play-groups, Bunco, book clubs and more.
For more information or to be-come a member, visit www.mothersof-brentwood.com.
To comment, visit www.thepress.net.
Brunch attendees enter their tickets into raffl e drawings for various prizes benefi ting the MOB Community Outreach Program.
Photo by Melissa van Ruiten Photography
by Megan FolkmanCorrespondent
26A | THEPRESS.NET COMMUNITY MAY 20, 2016
there as they please. If they feel uncom-fortable going into the bathroom they identify with, then we make other ar-rangements.”
Although they invoke the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimi-nation based on sex, the DOJ guidelines
do not carry the enforcement of actual law that AB 1266 does. Because only Congress can authorize that, the DOJ guidelines instead threaten lawsuits and a withholding of federal funds from any of the roughly 100,000 public schools in the U.S. that do not comply. The battle has become protracted as several states, most notably North Carolina, push back against the emboldened transgender movement on several fronts, including outside school districts.
Even in California, a divergence be-tween parents and offi cials from the state and school levels has become apparent. Tameka Bluebaugh, the mother of two Oakley school children and a PTA board member at Laurel Elementary School, is one example. She sees the unfolding transgender debate as nothing more than federal recognition of an already way-ward state policy catering to a small mi-nority at the expense of the vast majority.
“It’s getting ridiculous … we are conforming to situations that will ulti-mately cause more problems, especially when you have children involved,” she said. “This is much larger than a trans-
gender student using a bathroom of their choice. It is about the part of the policy where there are no questions asked and it is simply based on what a child ‘identifi es’ with or ‘relates’ to. Kids are kids, (but) there are responsible kids, and then there are some that will break a rule or push the limits just because they can.”
Bluebaugh added that she believes that AB 1266 came into the picture under quieter circumstances. The current situa-tion that is taking social media by storm might push schools to advertise the issue even more, especially with talk of dis-crimination lawsuits at the hands of the DOJ.
“This is where the real chaos will be-gin,” she said.
However, school offi cials stress that things have been going well, as they do everything they can to foster an environ-ment of tolerance and safety. Greg Het-rick, director of student support services for the Brentwood Union School Dis-trict, which serves students from the pre-kindergarten to eighth-grade level, want-ed to assure parents and the community that his district takes the well-being of all
students very seriously.“We’re aware of our students, and it
would stand out pretty quickly if some-one was just pulling a prank,” he said. “It varies from person to person as to what they want to do regarding their identity … that’s what we’re trying to protect, what we want to support.”
Moreover, like Volta, Hetrick point-ed out that he is unaware of any seri-ous disturbance arising to date. He also stated that if a situation should come up where a student took advantage of the regulations for the purpose of a joke or for entertainment it would have to be dealt with, though he did not specify how the district would do so.
For Bluebaugh, she doesn’t think the process should be complicated or that it’s in need of any serious remedies.
“There is one thing in this whole controversy that can’t be changed and that is your birth certifi cate,” she said. “If you are a boy … then you are to use the boy’s bathroom. If you are a girl … you use the girl’s bathroom. It’s as simple as that. We have (it this way) for a reason.”
To comment, visit www.thepress.net.
Transgender from page 1A
LEGAL NOTICESFICTITIOUS BUSINESS
NAME STATEMENT
File No. F-0002620-00 The name of the business (es): Rancho Co-Op Located at: 5685 Main Street In: Oakley, CA 94561, is hereby registered by the following owner(s): Vicky Smith. This business is conducted by: An Individual. The registrant commenced to transact business under the fi ctitious business name or names listed above on 1/23/16. Signature of registrant: Vicky Smith. This statement was fi led with the County Clerk of Contra Costa County on: April 22, 2016 by Deputy Veronica Loredo Expires 4/22/2021 Oakley Press No. 03-0477/69989 Publish dates: May 20, 27, June 3, 10, 2016
asked if I would write a letter that she could take, and I said yes. From there, I had the idea for the petition. Maybe there are other parents who can’t make the meeting, so if I get signatures from other parents that want the same thing for their children, it can all be presented.”
Luark’s two children attend Discov-ery Bay Elementary, and she originally wrote the petition with just that school in mind. But after speaking to other con-cerned parents whose children attended Timber Point, she expanded the petition to include both elementary schools. The petition calls for each class to be in the
range of 20 to 25 students, rather than the 30 or more students that currently popu-late existing classes.
Luark is asking for lower student-to-teacher ratios to improve the learning environment. Some parents who signed the petition left comments echoing these sentiments.
“My child has been in kindergarten and fi rst grade with 30 (or more) chil-dren in her class each year,” said Jacquie Ganem of Discovery Bay. “It’s time for change in class size. Class size reduction seems like a start in the right direction!”
Other parents agreed.“A larger class size does not benefi t
anyone,” said Angela Williams of Dis-covery Bay. “If our school would like to continue its high ratings and test scores, I would think about reducing class sizes.
Our school could face declining scores on tests and that’s not good for students or our school.”
The California Department of Edu-cation set limits on class sizes in its educa-tion code in 1964. According to these lim-its, California schools cannot have classes larger than 32 students in fi rst through third grade, without infl icting penalties on themselves.
BUSD Superintendent Debbie Gold said she was not aware of the petition and had no comment on class sizes in the district.
To view the petition, visit https://goo.gl/eh1RcA.
To comment, visit www.thepress.net.
Petition from page 1A
City offi cials are objecting to a se-ries of proposed agricultural and open-space preservation policies they feel will stifl e local control.
The policies, put fourth by the Lo-cal Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), a state agency that encour-ages orderly growth and boundaries, discourages urban sprawl and preserves agriculture and open space, set a series of policies and guidelines that could govern future growth proposals, im-pacting agricultural and open-space lands. The agency must approve all fu-ture growth of the city when it involves annexing land or impacting areas out-side its borders.
“We are trying to do this as a part-nership,” said LAFCO Commissioner Don Tatzin. “The goal of this policy is to provide information, so people can make intelligent decisions. We un-derstand there is going to be growth
and some of that will occur in existing boundaries and some will occur out-side.”
Tatzin said that the plan aims in part to discourage urban sprawl, pre-serve agricultural and open-space lands and guide development toward urban vacant land - away from agricultural and open space. LAFCO began working on the guidelines in March and plans to bring them back to the full board in June.
Just some of the proposed guide-lines include prioritizing the develop-ment of vacant land within urban areas, over annexation of agricultural land for nonagricultural purposes; generally dis-couraging urban development in agri-cultural areas; and prioritizing annexa-tion of nonprime farmland over prime farmland.
“We realize that LAFCO’s goal is to balance orderly growth with a desire to preserve agricultural land,” Tatzin said.
City leaders, who saw the plan for the first time last week, believe it will
interfere with their local control, sty-mie economic-development opportuni-ties and ignore the city’s agricultural-mitigation polices that are already in place.
The guidelines were dropped in the city’s lap as it works on a community build-out plan involving several pieces of land LAFCO would need to weigh in on, including 180 acres along Marsh Creek Road; unincorporated lands outside of Brentwood south of Oakley; and an area along the west side of Sell-ers Road south of the Delta. That plan, which started in the fall, is slated to take 18 months to complete.
“(The LAFCO policies) come off pretty strongly that (the city is) not go-ing to develop anything out here,” said City Councilman Gene Clare.
Mayor Bob Taylor said that the guidelines are not needed, because the city already strives to preserve agricul-tural lands, as is evidenced by the agri-cultural easements put on 980 acres of land. Vice Mayor Joel Bryant pointed
out that the long-term preservation of agricultural lands hinge on new eco-nomic-development ideas, such as com-munity kitchens in agricultural areas that don’t infringe on the land, but ex-pand on their ability to survive.
Clare added that the policies could infringe upon the infrastructure chang-es the city needs to make as it grows.
“We want to create a partnership, since the city wants to preserve agricul-tural lands, but maybe not in the areas that LAFCO dictates,” said Clare.
City leaders plan to formally craft a letter to LAFCO stating their concerns about the proposed guidelines prior to June when the full LAFCO board will discuss the plan.
Taylor warned the city plans to fi ght the regulations if they are put in place.
“If you put handcuffs on us, it will be a fi ght and a bitter fi ght until the very end,” he said.
To view the complete proposed guidelines, visit bit.ly/1YA33vm.
To comment, visit www.thepress.net.
LAFCO policies worry Brentwood officialsby Kyle Szymanski
Staff Writer
“ It’s time for a change in class size. Class size reduction seems like a start in the right direction.
”Angela Williams
Discovery Bay
