No surprise but unfortunate: Sufism Reoriented project approved

The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors Wednesday approved Sufism Reoriented's plans to build a large, white multi-domed sanctuary in the Saranap neighborhood of unincorporated Walnut Creek, reports the Contra Costa Times. 

Four of the five supervisors cast yes votes for the worship center, to be built on 3.12 acres off Boulevard Way.. Supervisor Gayle Uilkema, whose district is near the proposed sanctuary, listened to the meeting by phone Wednesday but did not vote.

Elisabeth Nardi will be updating her story later, and Walnut Creek Patch Editor Lance Howland tweeted that the supevisors had added a list of conditions for the 66,000-square-foot project. 

The approval comes following an all-day special public hearing last Tuesday at the Lesher Center for the Arts and several hours of testimony Wednesday. 





 

Kids, arts and fun in downtown Walnut Creek Saturday

Some 8,000 kids, and their adult companions, took over the Lesher Center for the Arts and a block of Locust Street Saturday. The occasion was the 5th annual Chevron Family Theatre Festival.

I was there in my new job, promoting events and theater, music, dance and visual arts at the Lesher Center. As some of you know, I left being editor of Walnut Creek Patch to pursue other writing opportunities. Those opportunities includewriting about arts, one of my passions. For Walnut Creek Patch and for this blog, I'll write about other things, including my other passion--crime. No, not committing crimes but writing about crime ...

Enough about all that. So, I tailed photographer Ben Krantz around as he caught kids and their parents and grandparents having a pretty spectacular time, engaging in kid-friendly fun. Dressing up in Wizard of Oz costumes (courtesy of Diablo Theatre Company); parading around with actors dressed up as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and other favorite fairy tale characters; doing a TV-style quiz show with pirates, and watching Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom host Peter Gros display raptors, lemurs and some very long and glistening snakes.

My "tough-guy" middle school-aged son has outgrown this sort of thing, but I'm not sure I have. No, I wasn't tempted to get my face painted but I envied the kids constructing their own puppets, became excited by the bold, athletic thumping of the San Jose Taiko drummers show, and was charmed by the engaging interactive puppet and storytelling performance put on by Sesame Street's Leslie Carrara-Rudolph (who hails from Pleasant Hill).

Families came from as far away as Sacramento for what has become one of Walnut Creek's signature events.

"It's just seems like a fun, wonderful opportunity for our daughters to enjoy all the characters they have come to know so well from fairy tales and children's books," said Rachel Diaz, whose daughters, Graciela, 6, and Gioia, 4, donned ballerina skirts and tiaras. "They like all kinds of arts. They love music, dancing theater and books."

Vested interest alert... and more on arts and cops in these tough budget times

Vested interests.

I've written about this concept before: whether it's right or wrong for people to have "vested interests" when it comes to how they position themselves on public issues. Readers used this term in debates about the Neiman Marcus controversy. Now, it’s popping up again in debates about the city budget and in discussions about the decision to go forward with building the library. Actually, the term “conflict of interest” is also showing up in comments.

To me,  “conflict of interest” applies to very specific, legal circumstances, and it suggests a public official who is doing something illegal. He or she is voting on a project, for instance, that would lead to direct personal financial gain.  

Just so you know, I checked in with City Attorney Paul Valle-Riestra in regards to one city council member, Cindy Silva. Someone in the comments raised the question: When she voted to approve funding for construction of the library in January 2007, did she have a conflict of interest? 

Given that she had been a paid, part-time consultant for the Walnut Creek Library Foundation and a volunteer campaigner for a library bond measure in 2005?

Valle-Riestra says no. He says she resigned from her consulting job with the foundation as soon as she was elected to the City Council in November 2006. She didn’t stand to gain financially from her yes vote on the library a few months later, and personal financial gain is the standard for a conflict-of-interest allegation, Valle-Riestra said.

As for her voting when she had a history of advocacy for this project, Valle-Riestra said that politicians vote on issues all the time in which they have a personal interest or bias.  We might be uncomfortable with that sometimes, but there is nothing illegal about it. 

“People have sued politicians for voting in favor of projects for which they campaign during elections, and show a strong bias,” he said. “The courts have said that politicians are supposed to have strongly held views of issues during campaigns. If they kept silent about their biases, we wouldn’t have much of a democracy.”

Now that we’re talking about this council person’s bias and work and volunteer history with regard to this major downtown project, I might as well reveal a potential bias of my own as I continue to blog about the city budget.

Up until recently, I edited Diablo Arts, the magazine that is distributed to patrons at the Lesher Center. As that magazine's editor, I talked regularly to Lesher Center and Diablo Regional Arts Association staff, and to people involved with local performing arts groups.

And, just so you know,I was a big drama geek in high school. So, I like the theater, and I like artsy people.

The talent, creativity and drive of some of Walnut Creek's arts folks added to my sense that it is really cool to live and work in this town. Maybe you could say I drank the arts Kool-Aid, but I do see arts and culture as an asset to the city. Now, and in the long term. 

For example, the city made a huge investment back in the 1980s to build the Lesher Center, which opened in 1990. It transformed the downtown, for good or for bad, depending on your position.

Walnut Creek’s happening night life sure keeps the police busy on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. I witnessed that first hand when I went out with the police on a ride along last weekend. And, I didn't even go out on the very busy shift last Saturday night/Sunday morning when the officers rounded up 10 drunks and three drunk drivers and carted them off to County Jail in their new special van for just this purpose. 

Through this blog, and more recently, I've had the pleasure of meeting officers and administrators in the police department. As it is with those artsy people, I have come away from my contacts with Walnut Creek police with the sense that it is really cool to live and work in this town. 

Oh, some more disclosure in terms of my background. Besides being an arts geek, I am also a cop/crime geek. For much of my career as a daily newspaper reporter, I had the police beat, including in Richmond--at a time when there were up to three murders in a single week. (I might still have a trashy crime novel or a few true-crime exposes in my future.) As a police reporter, I came to respect the job that everyone in a police department--from patrol officers to the detectives to the chief--does. 

I understand the position of some people that when times get tough, public entities have to make difficult choices about programs to eliminate. I agree that public safety is one of those investments that shouldn’t be shortchanged.  I also believe, though, that Walnut Creek needs to keep up its investment in arts and culture.  These programs are crucial to the town’s identity and, ultimately, to its economic vitality.

Maybe, as these very difficult budget negotiations continue, I will need to become a parks and recreation geek and a public services geek. 

County Connection to introduce new hybrid buses at Heather Farm Park Saturday

The County Connection is honoring Earth Day this year by unveiling nine new hybrid electric buses that are joining the transportation system' fleet. 

The unveiling will take place at Heather Farm Park in Walnut Creek, Diablo magazine reports.The celebration will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and participants are invited to enjoy a free test drive before the buses take route on Monday.

According to Diablo, these buses are super-energy efficient, providing a fuel savings of up to 20 percent with a comparable reduction in CO2 emissions.

The promotional bus tour will travel between Heather Farm Park and the Walnut Creek BART, making a stop at the Lesher Center for the Arts for those interested in traveling between Heather Farm Park and the Pacific Fine Arts Festival in downtown Walnut Creek. For more information on County Connection’s Earth Day event, call 676-7500 or visit cccta.org

Another Walnut Creek parking inconsistency? North Locust Garage fees

In going to a play at the Lesher Center last night, I parked in the the North Locust Garage, right next door to the center.

As on pretty much most Friday and Saturday nights, when the Lesher Center is staging one or more productions, the garage was charging a Special Event parking fee.

That fee is $5. (Wasn't it not long that ago that it was $3? I know, I know, the city is facing tough budget times...)

The reason for this special charge, according to the city's website, is that the garage uses special event staffing when there are large events at the Lesher Center. Actually, I agree with the city using this strategy on these special event nights. It makes entering and leaving the garage much easier, when you are likely to have hundreds of people, leaving a show and trying to get out of the garage all at once.

However, I was struck by what to me seems to be a contradiction in the garage's fee policy. So, I pay $5 for the Special Event parking, but the maximum All Day fee that you can be charged is $3. This is according to the city's Parking website and signs posted at the two entrances to the garage.

How can the city charge $5, when the maximum you would be required to pay daily is $3? Sure, in the grand scheme of things to get bothered about in life, I'll admit this one rates pretty low, but I'm still scratching my head over it.