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The Pioneer • www.pioneerpublishers.com
August 18, 2023
F r om the desk o f . . .
Food waste recycling starts Sept. 4 A new state law, SB1383, makes it mandatory for all residents to recycle their organics (food waste) weekly. All cities have been working with their collection haulers to implement this new state mandate. Starting Sept. 4, singlefamily Concord residents will be able to place food waste into their “yard waste” green carts, which will then be called “organics carts.” These carts will still be used for yard waste but also allow food waste. Place the cart out weekly on your scheduled collection day. To help with food waste recycling, Mt. Diablo Resources Recovery (MDRR), our collection service provider, has started delivering two-gallon bright green food scrap pails to all customers – with delivery completion by Oct. 1. You can use it to store kitchen food scraps and food-soiled paper, then empty the contents into your large green yard waste cart. If you don’t have your pail by Sept 4, or you have it and don’t want to use it, you may also use a paper bag or directly place food
boxes and coffee filters. • Green waste: Brush, branches (less than 4 feet in length and 3 inches in diameter), lawn and plant clippings, shrubbery, twigs, weeds and wood chips. (No dirt.) • You can place newspapers or paper bags to line the food waste bucket. • You cannot put biodegradable plastics, BPI certified or plastic bags in the food waste. Also, no pet waste.
Currently, more than 50% of our landfill is comprised of organic waste, including food, green waste and food-soiled paper. Food scraps create methane when they are buried in landfills, because methane-producing microbes become active beneath the soil. But when food scraps are exposed to oxygen during the process of creating LAURA HOFFMEISTER compost, these microbes are not active. CONCORD MAYOR We can all do our part to The initial delivery of these help, and recycling our food scraps into your yard waste cart pails will be for traditional sinwaste is one of the simplest starting Sept 4. gle-family residential, followed ways to reduce the amount of When your green cart is by apartments and townmaterial that goes into the landpicked up each week, MDRR homes/condos with homeown- fill and cut methane emissions, will divert this material to a which are a “super pollutant” compost facility where it is con- ers associations. Commercial that is more than 84 times more verted into soil-enriching com- businesses have already been potent than carbon dioxide. post instead of being buried in started. This state law was created to All MDRR customers will the landfill. You may be wondering – as reduce methane gas emissions, receive more information about I was – what goes in the organ- decrease the amount of materi- this program in an upcoming ics pail and cart? Here’s a short al taken to landfills and improve customer bill/newsletter. If you environmental sustainability. have questions, please visit guide: Certain practices, such as www.mdrr.com. • Food: Bones, shells and raw, dumping food scraps in the cooked or spoiled food landfill, lead to higher levels of Direct your questions and comscraps of any variety. methane, which harms the ments to the mayor at 925-671• Food-soiled paper: Napkins, earth’s ozone layer and adverse- 3158 or Laura.Hoffmeister@citypaper towels, paper-based ly impacts climate change. ofconcord.org. take-out containers, pizza
A successful Night Out in Clayton
JEFF WAN
CLAYTON MAYOR I hope everyone is having a great summer and finding ways to stay cool. While the City Council has canceled some of
our summer meetings, as is our practice, I wanted to share a few updates around town. First, thank you to everyone who came out to National Night Out at Clayton Community Park. The event, organized by the Clayton Police Department, was a perfect opportunity to bring people together. The goal is to continue fostering the positive relationship between the police and the community. With food trucks, music and weather that cooperated, it was a great way to bring back this event in Clayton. It was also a showcase for the new playground equipment, which
was recently installed as a result of grants and a generous donation from the Clayton Valley/Concord Sunrise Rotary. Our police put on a wonderful event, and I look forward to next year. Clayton will be hosting the monthly Contra Costa County Mayor’s conference on Sept. 7 at Oakhurst Country Club. All are welcome to the 6:30 p.m. business meeting, where there will be a presentation by Climatec and their work with the city of Clayton on energy resiliency. This event brings together mayors from each of the cities
in Contra Costa County. For more information, see www.ccmayors.org. School is starting and with it means busy times on our streets during pick up and drop off times, and with new student drivers. Please be aware, watch your speed and give yourself extra time as you drive. Our summer Concerts in the Grove series will be wrapping up soon. Performances are every other Saturday through Sept. 16. See the city of Clayton’s website to learn more or go to https://claytonca.gov/fc/Concerts-In-The-Grove-2023.pdf.
Pitch in for Pleasant Hill’s service day Lion’s Club. This is also where our volunteers will pick up their complimentary T-shirts. After breakfast, crews of volunteers will head to the various project sites until noon. A DAY TO HELP For those unable to be THE COMMUNITY there on the day, there are If you’re looking for a way other ways you can help out. to give back to your commuIf you have a used bike nity, Community Service Day you can part with, drop it off is the event for you. at the Pleasant Hill Police Each year, hundreds of Department before Sept. 22 Pleasant Hill residents turn for use in the Bike Build-Aout to help with community Thon project. Crews will clean service projects around the and refurbish the bikes, which city. The projects include are then donated to needy creek, school and park families. cleanups, refurbishing used In addition, there will be bicycles for donation and food collection sites around helping White Pony Express the city. The food collection is prepare for food deliveries. being done in partnership This year, Community with the Food Bank of Contra Service Day is set for Sept. 23. Costa/Solano County. Sites The event starts at 7:30 a.m. for this year will be listed on with a free breakfast at Pleas- the city’s website at ant Hill Park, courtesy of the www.pleasanthillca.org/csd
I have three items to share with you this month that are representative of why Pleasant Hill is a great place to live, work, play and raise a family.
later this month. We will begin volunteer signups after Aug. 15. Residents will be able to sign up for specific projects in advance through a signup genius. You can also sign up the day of the event by coming to the park. STRIPING AND BIKE LANES NEAR VALHALLA With the school year getting started, we want to make drivers, pedestrians and cyclists aware of some work that’s been going on near Valhalla Elementary School. If you’ve traveled on Kiki Drive near Valhalla recently, you may have noticed the striping and signage changes completed as part of the citywide repaving project. Many of these changes are intended to make it safer for students to travel to and from school
P.O. Box 1246 6160 Center Street, Suite F, Clayton, CA 94517 TAMARA AND R OBERT S TEINER , Publishers TAMARA S TEINER , Editor P ETE C RUZ , Graphic Design, Website, Social Media B EV B RITTON , Copy Editor, Calendar Editor J AY B EDECARRÉ, Sports Editor, Schools Editor S TAFF W RITERS : Jay Bedecarré C ORRESPONDENTS : Bev Britton, Karen Jenkins, Kara Navolio,
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calendar@pioneerpublishers.com The Pioneer is a monthly publication delivered free to homes and businesses in 94517, 94518, 94519 and 94521. ZIP code 94520 is currently served by drop site distribution. The papers are published by Clayton Pioneer, Inc., Tamara and Robert Steiner, PO 1246, Clayton, CA 94517. The offices are located at 6160 Center St. Suite F, Clayton, CA 94517 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The Pioneer welcomes letters from our readers. As a general rule, letters should be 175 words or less and submitted at least one
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Directory of Advertisers All phone numbers 925 area code unless otherwise noted Financial, Insurance and Legal Services State-Farm, Tim McGallian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .672-2300 Home and Garden Diablo Lawnscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .381-3757 Marius Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .510.566.0285 R&M Pool, Patio, Gifts & Gardens . . . . . . . . . .672-0207 Skim ‘n’ Dip – Pool Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .348-5609 Whit’s Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .429-2669 Real Estate, Housing and Mortgage Services Donovan, Heather – Compass . . . . . . . . . . . . .765-3822 Klock, Leigh – Coldwell Banker . . . . . . . . . . . . .212-5593 McDougall, Kelly – Compass . . . . . . . . . . . . . .787-0448 Moore, Wendy – Berkshire Hathaway . . . . . . . .570-5187 Stojanovich, Jennifer – Better Homes Realty . .567-6170 Restaurants , Theater and Events Back Forty Texas BBQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .935-1440 Concord Music & Market . . . . . . . . . . .CityofConcord.org Solo Opera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .685-4945 Vinnie's Bar and Grill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .685-9515
TIM FLAHERTY
PLEASANT HILL MAYOR by foot or bicycle. Enhancements include new crosswalk striping and signs, shoulder striping, a reduced school zone speed limit, and a buffered bike lane on the north side of Kiki Dr along the school frontage
See Flaherty, page 7
Senior Services & Hospice Care Clayton Valley Village . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .626-0411 Hope Hospice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .HopeHospice.com TreVista Senior Living . . . . . . . .trevistaseniorliving.com Services, Other Alex's Pet Sitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .510.566.0285 Computers USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . .682-9113 Net Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .672-6029 On the Bit, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .515-1009 Studio Dawnatella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .890-2293 Shopping Harvest House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .676-2305 Therapy/ Counseling Montijo, Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .775-9981
Keeping vaccinations current protects us all way we can protect ourselves and our community is to stay up to date on vaccines. Vaccines can be administered at different points in life. As children and parents are preparing for the school year, KEN CARLSON it’s a great time to make sure everyone is up to date and fully COUNTY protected. Contra Costa Health SUPERVISOR recommends vaccines including measles, tetanus, hepatitis and Earlier this year, I encourpolio. aged all of us to prepare our Older community members homes and property for fire who had chickenpox when they season to help protect ourselves were younger can be at greater and our community. Another
risk of getting shingles, which can be incredibly painful. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends everyone 50 and older get the shingles vaccine to help prevent shingles or reduce its severity. There are seasonal viruses that you can get vaccinated for annually, like the flu vaccine. The flu virus can change over time so last season’s vaccine may not protect from this year’s flu season. November through March is when the flu virus is
most likely to spread in this area, so it’s important to get vaccinated before then. An updated version of the flu vaccine is made each year and usually becomes available around September and October. Along with the updated flu vaccine, an updated booster shot for the latest COVID-19 variant is expected to become available soon. Even though the pandemic has ended, the virus continues to circulate and change. A vaccine cannot prevent
every single person from getting infected, but vaccination helps prevent potentially harmful diseases from causing hospitalizations or even death. They can also prevent children from missing important days at school and adults from missing work. For more information about what vaccines are recommended for you or your loved ones, Contra Costa Health provides a vaccine information page at http://cchealth.org/immunizati on. This page includes places to
get vaccines, school and childcare vaccine guidance, and even vaccine travel information. Whether you’re preparing to return to school or embark on a vacation, it’s always a good idea to be up to date with vaccines. Let’s work together to make everyone safer and healthier. Ken Carlson is Contra Costa County District IV supervisor. Email questions or comments to Carlson at SupervisorCarlson@bos.cccounty.us or call his office at 925-655-2350.
