VALENTINE’S DAY MONDAY FEB. 14
Because I Love You
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CASTRO VALLEY FORUM A COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SERVING CASTRO VALLEY SINCE 1989
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2022
YEAR 34 INSIDE YOUR
Ruby Meadow Housing Passed By Supervisors
A POP OF COLOR
FORUM NEWS
CASTRO VALLEY FORUM
Installations at Hayward Library in celebration of Black History Month
Page 2 NEWS
The Arts are Back
Page 5 NEWS
writing, a feasibility analysis, and planning approvals, which have now been completed, The Alameda County Board according to county housing of Supervisors has appropristaff members at the meeting. ated just over $10 million to The money is the county’s build affordable housing at share of costs of building the Ruby Meadow over the oppo- project and utilizes funds from sition of several community the Measure A1 housing bond groups. The vote was 5-0 on passed by voters in 2016. Jan. 25. The supervisors did not The supervisors had voted discuss the measure at the on Feb. 4, 2022, to build the meeting, other than to ask 72 units of housing planned by county staff if there were any Eden Housing, a nonprofit that remaining blockages to the has built affordable housing project. Housing staff and nearby and throughout north- the county counsel said there ern California but had not yet were not, with one housing voted any funding for it. The staffer saying that the project apartments vary in size from fit the general plan and had studios to three bedrooms. received necessary approvals The vote on the money had long ago. been awaiting funding undersee RUBY on back page By Mike McGuire
Black History
Broadway star David Burnham coming to the CV Center for the Arts
NO. 6
PHOTO BY LARRY ROSA
A mural being painted by BAMP volunteers at Dig Deep Farm at 2700 Fairmont Dr. San Leandro on Sunday February 6, 2022. BAMP is a nonprofit organization of local artists dedicated to facilitating and creating public art. Their vision is to turn bare, blighted walls into artistic gateways into the community’s surrounding environment. More photos at: mycvforum.com
The Show Goes On at The Chabot Theatre From the Heart Create a nature-inspired valentine for someone with the help of EB Parks
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By Michael Singer CASTRO VALLEY FORUM
The story of The Chabot movie theatre over the last two years could have been ripped from a Hollywood film script: a smalltown operation with big dreams is faced with impossible odds only to turn to their friends for help, think outside the box, and stage a successful comeback. “We’re movie nerds, so this type of adversity is what we see all the time,” said Chabot’s Director of Programming. Jared Callahan. “The Chabot is the only remaining single-screen theater that is doing first-run movies in the Bay Area. Thankfully, we allowed ourselves to dream about how to serve the community and this is why we do what we do.”
In the winter of 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Callahan and The Chabot’s Program Coordinator, Alex Largusa, said they were excited about having a really great year in ticket sales. That the revenues would put them in the black for the first time since acquiring the theatre from the previous owner. “We were showing Disney’s “Frozen 2,” and the new Star Wars “Rise of Skywalker” film and we looked at each other and thought that it might work that our holiday season would help us show a profit,” said Largusa. “We had just picked up the rights to show Pixar’s “Onward”—and that’s when the COVID guidelines came out.” What happened next was a rollercoaster of hope for a
quick recovery from COVID protocols to a series of disappointing drops when the lockdowns for indoor businesses extended past the summer movie season. “The rest of 2020 we talked about, ‘When are we going to reopen? Will we reopen?’” Largusa told the Forum. “Just to make extra money, we even sold popcorn in front of the building for a bit. Things looked bad.” Origin of the Live Riff Along With the extra downtime, the theater invested in updating some of the technology such as the speakers and the bulbs in the projectors. The building was already converted to PHOTO BY MICHAEL SINGER support a digital film format known as DCP or digital The Chabot has experienced a resurgence despite see CHABOT on page 4 the odds faced over the past two years.