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WWW.THEPRESS.NET
APRIL 23, 2021
Petco Love invests in Antioch Animal Services Antioch Animal Services announced a $10,000 grant investment from the newly named Petco Love, to support their lifesaving work for animals in Antioch. Petco Love is a nonprofit leading change for pets nationally by harnessing the power of love to make communities and pet families closer, stronger, and healthier. Since their founding in 1999 as the Petco Foundation, they’ve empowered organizations with nearly $300 million invested to date in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. They have helped find loving homes for more than 6.5 million pets in partnership with Petco and more than 4,000 organizations, like ours, nationwide. “Today Petco Love announces an investment in Antioch Animal Services and hundreds of other organizations as part of our commitment to create a
Oakley
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“We went through the great recession and he managed to keep our budget balanced,” Romick said. “We had a very tight budget — we have always had a really tight budget. He’s done a great job managing an ever-growing city, where the income is not always what is needed to keep up with the growth. His leadership will be missed.” Romick said Montgomery has accomplished big things with his small, dedicated staff, many of whom manage
Fireworks
multiple responsibilities. His accomplishments include pulling the town through the recession of 2008, and managing the city as it discontinued its contract for police services with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office and formed its own police department. He built a strong, skilled team to take ideas from inception to reality. With the help of his team, Montgomery completed many community projects during his time with Oakley. Under his leadership, over 2,600 acres were annexed
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cal wildfires, some county residents feel anxious as the Fourth of July approaches and their neighbors begin to celebrate in the time-honored fashion: with fireworks. County Supervisor Diane Burgis is working with local law enforcement and fire agencies on drafting the ordinance, which must go before the county board of supervisors for approval. Johnson said that if it passes, it will help his officers enforce the “no fireworks” rule. Burgis affirmed that she will continue to work to give local agencies the tools they need to enforce the law. “Fireworks are an issue across the Bay Area,” said Burgis. “In many areas, like Discovery Bay and the rest of unincorporated Contra Costa County, the Fourth of July is no longer the typical backyard barbecue with sparklers celebrating Independence Day. It’s become a full-on fireworks show and production, all night long. Not only is it extremely disruptive to neighbors, pets and veterans who suffer from PTSD, but serious safety concerns need to be addressed. As we prepare for another drought year and fire season, we must do all we can to prevent fires.”
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The Press Newspapers are adjudicated in the cities of Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley, and the Delta Judicial District of Contra Costa County. Legal Deree #N02-1273, N03-0477, N06-1617
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to the city. He oversaw the building of City Hall, the police department, Civic Center Park, Oakley Plaza, the recreation center, the senior center, the public works operations building, two fire stations and more than 30 parks. Nearly every major arterial road was widened and improved, and the “You, Me, We = Oakley” program was implemented with great success. The Contra Costa Logistics Center and many other projects and programs currently planned and underway were also implemented
Burgis noted that public outreach will continue, and she hopes to have an ordinance adopted before the summer holidays. She also plans to take the ordinance to the Contra Costa Mayors Conference, in hopes that other local cities will follow suit. Steve Aubert, East Contra Costa Fire Protection District fire marshal, said the new ordinance would pave the way for community involvement in the fight against fireworks. He noted that a citation issued to an unnamed Discovery Bay resident last year for lighting more than 500 fireworks on the Fourth of July resulted in a fine of over $52,000. The individual appealed the citation, bringing it down to $26,325. Neighbors in town then started a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for the fine and to move “forward with plans to work with the fire chief for a legal and safe show the next time we celebrate our freedom.” “For us, with the majority of our area being unincorporated, it’s a huge win,” Aubert said. “Last year, in 2020, despite COVID, we ran 114 calls for service on July Fourth. Twenty-nine of those calls were for
Wastewater
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ing the project by the end of 2023. The anticipated cost for the project is $16 million, including design, construction and inspection. “We had been saving quite a bit of money for this project,” Breitstein noted. “We have been putting funds away, and we are also looking at financing options. The decisions about what portion will be financed and what won’t will be made at a later date with the finance committee. We want to receive the bids, get some real costs, and make some decisions then. It will go before the full board and everything will be publicized.” Bids will be received next month,
future in which no pet is unnecessarily euthanized,” said Susanne Kogut, president of Petco Love. “Our local investments are only one component. This month, we will also launch the first of our national tools to empower all animal lovers to drive lifesaving change right alongside us.” “We have worked diligently to improve the lives of pets in our community and are very excited to receive this grant from Petco Love to help support us in our efforts to return lost pets to their homes, and also help shelter pets find new loving homes,” said George Harding, animal services manager at Antioch Animal Services. For more information about Antioch Animal Services, visit antiochca.gov/police/animal-services, and visit https://petcolove.org/ to learn more about Petco Love.
under Montgomery and his staff. He also led the town through the pandemic while keeping the budget inline. “Bryan has been a strong leader for Oakley and has helped Oakley move from a newly incorporated city to a financially sound, safe city that has a very bright future,” said Oakley Mayor Sue Higgins. “We will always be grateful for the foundation and solid employee team that Bryan helped build, and we know he will continue to be successful in his public service career.”
fire, and that included two burn injuries to a child and a father, with $20,000 in property loss and 125 acres consumed. . . . Previously, we had to actually witness someone lighting off the fireworks before we could do something, but this kind of opens up that door to say we know where they are coming from, and if we know, we can go meet with the property owner, issue the citation and continue to offer deterrents from using illegal fireworks in our county.” Fireworks fines are administration citations in Contra Costa County and fall under the health and safety code. Offenses — that is, fireworks — are fined at approximately $135 each, which is why the aforementioned fine could reach such staggering amounts. “Hopefully it’s an extremely large deterrent for others who choose to go down that same path, and deters other people from lighting off any fireworks in our district and the county,” said Aubert. “No fireworks, whether ‘safe and sane’ or commercial grade, are allowed in Contra Costa. To comment, visit www.thepress.net
and water and wastewater manager Aaron Goldsworthy hopes to see work start soon after. He said the project’s difficulty lies in the fact a new procedure – the denitrification process – will be inserted into the middle of the town’s existing wastewater treatment system. “You are basically tapping into a pipe that already has a treatment process taking place,” he said. “So we are squeezing a process in between two processes, so it’s not something we can put at the beginning or end of the process, we are putting it in the middle.” The wastewater treatment plant currently has two oxidation ditches. The project calls for the construction of a third, as well as three denitrification
stations, where bacteria will “eat” the nitrogen off the molecules in the basin. Once the project is complete, the plant will have redundancy, allowing one section to be taken offline for maintenance if necessary. “It’s a good project and we are going to be discharging a cleaner product,” Goldsworthy said. “I like the process.” The town’s wastewater master plan was last updated in November of 2019. It determines the best technology and approach to achieve the new nitrogen limit and to identify any other deficiencies the town wastewater treatment facilities may have. For more information or to view the plan, visit www.todb. ca.gov or call 925-634-1131.
