YOUR HOMETOWN WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
Vol. 17, No. 33
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Corridor Lifting up veterans project J ramps up by Kyle Szymanski Staff Writer
Long-awaited development along the Laurel Road corridor in Oakley could be underway by the end of the year, according to city officials. Indications are that an undisclosed regional grocery chain could submit a development application for the northeast corner of Laurel Road and O’Hara Avenue by the end of the year, noted Nancy Marquez-Suarez, assistant to the city manager. Safeway purchased the property in 2002 and entitled a shopping center on the property in 2006, although the project was put on hold due to the recession, said Wendy Gutshall, Safeway’s director of public and government see Corridor page 30A
Living The Good Life
esus Amaya Jr. was one of nearly 400 veterans who participated in the Stand Down on the Delta event at the Contra Costa County Fairgrounds in Antioch last weekend. The biannual event is designed to provide critical services to homeless and at-risk veterans, including food, shelter, legal services, addiction counseling and hygiene services, as well as medical, dental and vision care. Veterans were also provided the opportunity to connect with the local veteran’s community during the four-day encampment. For more information or to volunteer, visit www. deltaveteransgroup.org.
Experience the best life has to offer by staying fit, healthy and energetic after 50. Page 1B
Art, Wine & Jazz Returns
Photo by Tony Kukulich
Press founder, former publisher dies by Ruth Roberts Staff Writer
James ‘Jimmy’ Chamoures, 58, founder and publisher emeritus of the Brentwood Press & Publishing Company, passed away Saturday, Aug. 5, in his Rancho Mirage home. An energetic, upbeat and savvy individual, Chamoures built a publishing empire that began with the development of his Yellow Pages publications – first in Milpitas and later in East Contra Costa County. The Connecticut native attended the University of Arizona, where he took on his first phone-book project as a college assignment and later parlayed that success into a business that garnered him financial independence in his early 30s. But the publishing world would continue to call, and it was Milpitas where Chamoures landed to help reinvent the Milpitas Post in the 1990s under the guidance and partnership of his friend and mentor Mort Levine.
PRESS FOUNDER JIMMY CHAMOURES
“I had been asked to revive the Milpitas paper that I had founded in 1955, and I went back to Milpitas to have a look around, and someone said to me, ‘Hey, you should do something with the Yellow Pages guy; he’s a
live wire,’” said Levine. “So I managed to get together with him, and within three months, the paper was thriving. He had a good sense of community and what made a project work. He had a magical touch.” Chamoures took that magic and went on to create East County’s local Yellow Pages in 1997, targeting advertisers in Brentwood, Oakley and Discovery Bay. But a meeting with a young newspaper columnist and reporter named Rick Lemyre led to the launch of the award-winning Press newspapers – first the Brentwood Press in 1999, followed by the Discovery Bay Press in 2000 and the Oakley Press in 2001. “Jimmy was already publishing the local Yellow Pages in 1999 when I contacted him about a possible weekly newspaper,” said Lemyre, who went on to become the paper’s founding managing editor. “I had been a newspaper columnist and reporter for only a couple of years, but despite my lack of expe-
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August 18, 2017
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see Publisher page 30A
Soil Health
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State of California offers grants to farmers to help them improve overall soil health.
Local favorite Art, Wine & Jazz Festival returns to downtown Brentwood. Page 10A
Saving Lives On The Field
Freedom football players and coaches learn how to use AEDs to save lives. Page 21A Breaking News..................19A Calendar.............................32A Classifieds..........................27A Cop Logs.............................31A Entertainment..................11A Food.....................................10A Milestones.........................13A Opinion...............................20A Pets......................................15A Sports..................................21A
Animal Services
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Community rallies behind calls for county shelter to be audited and reformed.