Last Dairy to Close Doors

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
March 3, 2002

OAKLEY -- In the land of milk and money, Emerson Dairy has corralled a comfortable share of California's unrivaled dairy market.

The sprawling dairy at the foot of Sellers Avenue includes a herd of about 2,000 producing cows that help milk a profit from a long-running family business.

On-site breeders artificially inseminate the bulky animals, whose production is tracked on laptop computers. Tank trucks arrive three times a day, hauling away thousands of gallons of milk.

But just like the rusted grain storage tower that sits near the dairy office, Emerson, the last dairy farm in Contra Costa County, is fading away.

Stan Emerson, who operates the 614-acre dairy with his older brother, Dale, is negotiating a deal to sell his valuable land. It will shutter a dairy business that began in 1913.

The eventual closure of the farm underscores the swift changes in East Contra Costa, a rural region long identified by its rich agricultural history.

It is a difficult and complex issue with which Stan Emerson has grappled for years.

With few options, he has watched as large subdivisions crept up against his dairy from the west.

"This business has been in continuous dairy operation since 1913, and it's been a wonderful ride," said Emerson, wearing a cowboy hat and a pair of snug denims.

"It's been fun, but it hasn't always been rewarding. Sometimes it's been very difficult, especially when milk prices are depressed. But we've always worked hard to withstand the poor economic conditions and, in that, we've been successful."

Emerson Dairy sits on a prized swath of land in a fast-growing city of 26,000.

Three families -- the Emersons, Gilberts and Burroughs -- own 1,539 acres of Delta land, which they call the "Cypress Corridor." The combined property was once all used for dairy farming.

The families are negotiating to sell about 1,200 acres to CalFed, the state-federal agency whose role includes protecting the Delta and improving water quality statewide.

Before Oakley incorporated in 1999, the landowners entered into a development agreement with Contra Costa County. Now, Oakley city officials are wondering whether they need to renegotiate with the property owners over the more than 300 acres that would remain after a sale to CalFed.

No one knows when or precisely how a deal will be reached.

But Emerson, who was born and raised in the area, understands that the fabric of a family legacy is unraveling.

"As more and more people come, it gets harder to continue," he said, standing in a sun-splashed, dusty lot near his feeding barn.

Oakley, located six miles east of Antioch, has become demographically younger and more affluent in recent years. The evolving suburb is projected to add 6,000 new residents by 2005.

The average age in the city is now 33, suggesting to Emerson that a new generation of residents may lack the historical perspective to appreciate farming.

"A lot of people complain about the odor, and they don't even know where it came from. But it's been here long before they did," said Emerson, the great-great-nephew of Silas Emerson, who settled into Oakley in 1849.

The increasing pressure from developers and new homeowners is difficult to ignore; it's a lingering strain that adds to the tension of operating a 35-employee dairy.

Stan, 66, and Dale, 68, are not getting any younger. They both understand that retirement, however difficult to acknowledge, beckons.

No family members are lining up to take their place. Stan and his wife, Katy, produced three sons, none of whom opted to stay on the farm.

In sum, Stan Emerson has been forced to address tough questions about his future.

"Nowhere in the world is dairy more regulated -- labor, safety or environmental -- than in California. Dairy producers are constantly under pressure to be ahead of the curve, always," said Michael Marsh, executive director of Western United Dairymen in Modesto.

The number of dairy farms statewide has plunged 78 percent since 1960, decreasing from 9,764 to about 2,195 today.

California, however, is the No. 1 milk producer nationwide, churning out a record 33 billion pounds, in 2001, up 3 percent from the previous year.

Fewer dairy farms are producing more cows and milk, which helps show the extent to which consolidation has gripped the $3.7 billion industry in the Golden State.

In Contra Costa, more than half of the county's farmland was lost to development between 1940 and 1970 as growing cities began to unfold across rural fields. As a result, the number of dairy farms dropped from 42 in 1945 to 25 in 1964. By 1992, there were only five.

"(Dairy) production and efficiency are better now," said Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture. "There hasn't been a real drop-off in production."

Most of the state's dairy giants are located in the Central Valley, where deep-pocketed farms triple the size of Emerson Dairy are perennial cash cows.

"The mega-dairies are definitely out there," Emerson said. "And to get bigger, you need more land -- We're just right for our herd size. We couldn't get any bigger."

Five counties -- Tulare, Merced, San Bernardino, Stanislaus and Kings -- collectively account for about 66 percent of all milk cows statewide.

In Contra Costa, Emerson Dairy stands alone, a dusty relic to a bygone era.

The fresh smell of manure lingers in the air at the large dairy, near which Stan and Katy live in a remodeled schoolhouse that dates to 1896.

On a recent day, Emerson watched as one of his employees, Bernardo Tantoja, used a tool that looked like an oil dipstick to artificially inseminate several cows with frozen bull sperm.

Rows of black-and-white cows with yellow tags in their ears poked their heads through iron gates, munching on alfalfa.

"Our goal is to produce as much milk as we can," Emerson said. "Each cow is like a factory, and they have to produce. Our goal is to milk productive cows, and they don't give milk until they produce a calf."

The milking herd, about 1,800 to 2,000 animals, produces about 28,000 pounds of milk a year.

In addition, the farm includes 3,000 "replacement stock," or cows that could replace those that are sick or unable to generate the desired quantity.

The milk is cooled on the farm, but not bottled there. Trucks load up at Emerson three times a day, and, after processing, the milk is sold by local retailers such as Foster Farms or Serrano Cheese.

Later in the morning, Emerson drove his red Chevrolet Silverado across a dirt road on his property. Gulls circled overhead.
He pulled up near a corral, where a cow was giving birth to a calf.

"With the change of times," he said, watching the wet calf tumble to the ground and into the world, "it's become a very nostalgic dairy. Three generations have run this dairy.

"It's always a sad thing to see something stop. But with sad things there are new opportunities. And there has to be a right time and not a right time to do things -- this is approaching the right time."

Postmaster's Loss Leaves Hamlet Bereft

Note: This was one of those stories that had sat around a while. I had combed through the newspaper archives and spotted references to this woman -- but she never granted much of an interview. So I went out there, deep in the Delta, and found her and convinced her to talk to me. This is the story I came up with.

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Jan. 2, 2002

BIRDS LANDING -- For decades, Shirley Paolini holed up inside a tiny post office in front of a wood-burning stove and processed the mail that would be bundled and delivered to a town that time had shrugged off long ago.

The 74-year-old postmaster retired last year after operating one of the smallest post offices in the country for more than 30 years.

But more than a year later, this far-flung farming town buried deep in the green hills of Solano County has been unable to replace her.

Now, the 24 people who live here are grappling with the void left with the closure of its post office, which had been a community fixture since the 1870s.

"It was a sad day when Shirley left," said Alan Wald, a spokesman for the Postal Service. "She was very well-known and respected."

The absence of a rural postmaster here underscores the difficulty in resurrecting a contract station in a remote hamlet with few buildings and limited property space.

Paolini's makeshift postal shack still sits in the front yard of a two-story house that once belonged to John Bird, who founded the town. A cactus plant crawls up the side of the building. Inside, cobwebs hang from the ornate post boxes.

Paolini, a petite woman with a sharp wit and a no-nonsense attitude, had had enough of the sort-and-stamp business.

She locked the door to her 6-by-12-foot post office on Dec. 1, 2000, and walked across the street to run her late husband's tavern, Mel's Bar.

"Life is crazy sometimes," she said while leaning her elbows on the bar, whose floor was dusted with peanut shells. "It felt like getting a divorce. I worked with (postal officials) in every way that you can think of in trying to find a replacement.

"I talked long and hard with the powers that be in Oakland. But there was no way it would be feasible. There was nothing to do."

Postal authorities were interested in finding a dedicated local resident to assume the responsibilities of operating a contract station.

But in a town of 24 residents, the pool from which to draw is a small one.

In addition, there are no available buildings or property on which to operate a post office.

Even the old general store, which was built more than 125 years ago and included postal service until 1968, is empty and unavailable because it is reportedly under renovation.

Most contract stations require one part-time or full-time person and 100 square feet of space, meaning the job could be handled inside one of the nine houses in Birds Landing.

Is anyone interested in running money orders from their dining room table?

"This is a particular case in which we would like to find someone from the community who could serve," Wald said. "We'd work with them."

***
The Postal Service in Oakland sent a letter to every customer on the Birds Landing route on Dec. 14, 2000. Residents were asked whether they were interested in becoming postmaster.

Only one person responded, but never explored the issue further, said Linda Laforet, a retail specialist for the Postal Service.

"If no one replies, it shows that they are not interested," said Laforet, who sent out the solicitation letter. "If there is no interest, you can't force anyone to do anything."

In the interim, a letter carrier from nearby Suisun City makes the daily rounds, stuffing old, roadside mailboxes that sit on wooden planks.

But to mail packages or register letters, area residents travel about 17 miles to Suisun City or 13 miles to Rio Vista.

***
The former post office, longtime local resident Jeanne Anderson said, "brought everyone together. Now, there is a kind of vacuum. No one stops and visits."

Indeed, Birds Landing -- a remote town about 28 miles northwest of Antioch, surrounded by windswept hills -- feels sad and timeless.

The town, which includes nine houses, a bar and a general store, sits at a four-way stop sign at the foot of a two-lane country road punched full of potholes.

A crinkled green-and-white sign, "Birds Landing," leads drivers toward a quiet intersection. The handsome general store, which closed in 1987, is a ghostly presence, filled with a ramshackle assortment of furniture.

Next to it is Mel's Bar, a single-story, pink house with an American flag fluttering near the front porch.

A few houses crowd the narrow roads; puffs of smoke curls from their stove pipes. On a recent day, no one walked outside.

The rural landscape that wraps around Birds Landing is dotted with grazing sheep, old-fashioned windmills and peeling farmhouses.

Paolini moved into town in February 1951, arriving from Arkansas to visit her brother. She never left.

Within a month, she had met Mel Paolini, who lived in a three-story, redwood house behind the town tavern, operated by his father, Fabrizzio. They were married that September.

In 1968, after being appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to become Birds Landing's new postmaster, Paolini learned the trade while working out of the living room of her house for several months.

"I felt like everyone was waiting for me to fall flat on my face," she said. "'How dare this young upstart come in and take this job?' That was the cloud I came in under. And it was three years before that cloud lifted."

Soon, Paolini was working out of a cramped tool shed that her husband had converted into a post office.

She worked 36 hours a week inside the tiny shell, which did not include heat or running water. Space was so tight that, during much of her tenure, she had only three feet in which to move.

"If she had two packages in there, she'd have to stand outside," said longtime resident Lloyd Paulson, 77.

But by the end of her career -- 32 years, 11 months down the road -- she had rented out 67 of 80 postal boxes and had become a town favorite.

In her new role as the community bartender, she remains a key figure whose spirit often lifts a town in reverse.

When her husband -- who died of prostate cancer in 1998 -- ran the bar, Paolini tried to steer clear.

"It was always dark and gloomy and filled with men and cigarette smoke," she said. "I never went in there unless I had to. Now, I'm running the place. Can you believe that?"

Birds Landing, many people said, would not be the same without her, whether she is delivering letters or liquor.

When the post office closed, a loyal group -- farmers, cowboys, hunters, visitors -- followed her across the street to the old tavern.

Anderson, who lives on a ranch between Birds Landing and nearby Collinsville, sighed when asked to describe Paolini.

"She's the heart of the town."

The Can't-Didates

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Oct. 8, 2003

The stampede to replace Gov. Gray Davis catapulted political nobodies into the unruly recall mix, giving the historic election a sense of slapstick.

As the numbers trickled in Tuesday, Republican businessman Bill Simon was in a dead heat with Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine.

Former child star Gary Coleman was trying to fend off Mary "Mary Carey" Cook, star of "Double D Dolls 2," for ninth place.

It was that kind of night, giving outsiders a chance to snicker about California adding to its "Left Coast" rap.

But for most of the "other" candidates, this free-for-all recall promised flash-bulbs of publicity and low expectations. Very low.

Trek Thunder Kelly, a 33-year-old artist in Venice, said he was shooting for 69 votes because he was born in 1969. He more than doubled his goal in the first hour.

"Oh, yeah? Awesome!" he said over a cell phone Tuesday night.

The recall gave performance artists, entrepreneurs and opportunists a chance to flash their credentials _ whether canyon-like cleavage or Ivy League smarts.

This was the California Dream all right, played out in front of a fun-house mirror.

"I was with Trek Thunder Kelly, The Bum Hunter and others considered fringe people the other day. Well, these people are the intelligent ones. We're in here for a specific purpose," said candidate Kelly Kimball, 45. "The others are just creepy."

In August, the secretary of state's office finalized a list that made elections officials gasp: 135 wannabe governors.

The list was long and bizarre. A hard-luck former child star; a bounty hunter; a golf pro; a divorced, fruit-smashing comic; a sumo wrestler; a porn starlet; even a balding electrical engineer named Michael Jackson.

While most knew they had little chance of winning, they set about promoting themselves after gathering 65 signatures and paying a $3,500 filing fee.

They campaigned on Web sites, passed out fliers and eagerly, even shamelessly, pitched themselves.

Kimball and his business partner, Scott Mednick, 47, ran a joint campaign to push their spring-break party brew, ButtMonkey Beer.

Their message? The financial crisis smothering the state is a rather helpless situation. So, "Have a ButtMonkey."

"It's an amazing thing that you can actually run for the big show and say anything you want," said Kimball, who ran as a Democrat. "We can get up there and sell our products."

So can Angelyne, the buxom babe of the billboards who ran to highlight her curves and favorite color, pink. Hot pink.

The self-created model, who plastered her image on Los Angeles billboards in the 1980s, drives a candy-pink Corvette with "Angelyne" vanity plates.

This time, she prowled her Bel-Air neighborhood as a gubernatorial contender.

"Are you going to run my picture? I am pink and visually soothing," she said in a phone interview Tuesday while preparing for a party at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.

In many ways, running for governor was alternately an exercise in personal ambition and moxie in a state known for its tolerance of just about everything.

Georgy Russell, a 26-year-old software engineer in Mountain View, campaigned to clean up elections, the energy industry and the criminal justice system. And, oh, while you're checking out her Web site, how about a $14 "classic thong" or a "Georgy for Governor" T-shirt?

Kelly, the Venice artist, dressed all in blue, sported a cowboy hat and ran a campaign to sell his buttons.

"Still, I wish I had a product to sell like Mary Carey," he said. "I guess any notoriety will help legitimize my art in the long run."

Mary Carey, a 23-year-old adult-film actress, gave the race its, well, curious sex appeal. She promised to tax breast implants and offered personal dinner dates for $5,000 apiece.

Overall, this hodgepodge of political amateurs and serious candidates offered a collective stiff-arm to the leaders in Sacramento.

"I think this election is probably the second greatest example of people expressing their notions and thoughts about the direction of the country since the dumping of tea in Boston," said independent candidate Darryl Mobley, founder of a family magazine in Danville.

"We have a sick state, and it will not get better on its own."

Jewish Organization Proposes Graveyard in Briones Hills

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Dec. 14, 2003

The Briones Hills Agricultural Preserve, a rural oasis of pastoral hills and spectacular oaks, is a serene place that unfolds across 64 square miles.

Its twisting country roads fork past ranch homes, old wooden windmills, horse stables, grazing cattle and signs for "free manure."

"It's a magical place," said Carole Dwinell, a 60-year-old artist who has lived in the area for two decades.

Dwinell and her neighbors, though, are worried about a proposal that they say will disrupt the tranquil nature of the preserve and, possibly, pave the way for urban influence: a cemetery.

A Jewish organization has proposed building a graveyard on roughly 30 acres of lush roadside meadow, open space once used for tomato crops.

The proposal calls for a five-phase development over the next 125 years, turning the colorful meadow at Bear Creek and Hampton roads into a vast burial garden with a tiny chapel.

In response, residents have mobilized into a group called the Briones Hills Preserve Alliance, which has hired an attorney and started a petition drive.

The group, which formed in February, promises to "counter this and future threats to this area's open spaces and agricultural character."

In a recent letter to county planners, an attorney for the group calls the proposed cemetery an "incompatible" use in an area mostly protected and used for "agricultural and grazing purposes."

The attorney, Allan C. Moore, also raised questions about an increase in traffic and the possible loss of "an extremely fragile water supply" in Briones, which uses wells.

Dwinell, who has tirelessly opposed the project, said, "There are long-lasting ramifications of making a wrong decision. This scares me as a resident."

Gan Shalom Inc., composed of various East Bay synagogues, considers the property a lovely place for burials.

"They don't want a cemetery there," said Shalom Eliahu[CJL6], a board member of Gan Shalom Inc. "I live here in Lafayette, adjacent to a cemetery, Queen of Heaven. I am literally a neighbor of that place.

"And I can tell you," he added, "it has the quietest neighbors you can ever have."

The tug-of-war over the proposal _ which would be the first cemetery in the Contra Costa area in 50 years _ occurs as Jewish leaders see a real need for more grave space.

Roughly 300,000 Jews live in the Bay Area, and about 70,000 moved into the region in the 1990s. As the population grows and ages, Jewish sections at area cemeteries are filling up.

"All the Jewish cemeteries are just about out of space," said Susan Lefelstein, associate executive director of Sinai Memorial Chapel in Lafayette, the only Jewish mortuary in the Bay Area.

Five cemeteries in the East Bay contain Jewish sections, she said, including Home of Peace in Oakland, which is Jewish-only. Some burial gardens are down to 10 or 15 plots available.

"There is a real crisis in need," Lefelstein said. "As we have discovered, it takes a long time to get a cemetery started. The crisis is not that we are out of space right now _ but that we will be in a short period of time."

Gan Shalom Inc., which formed in 1996, had been searching for suitable grounds on which to build a cemetery that would serve Jews all over the East Bay.

Two years ago, the organization acquired an 83-acre property in the Briones Hills Agricultural Preserve, created in 1987 by a cooperative compact to fend off urban development.

Eight nearby cities, including Orinda, Pleasant Hill, Martinez and Richmond, signed a joint resolution and agreed to "a policy of non-annexation" of the land.

The area is zoned for agricultural use, and county planners say a cemetery would be permissible under this designation.

"We are not developing more than 35 or 36 acres," said Eliahu, a 76-year-old retired soils engineer. "The rest of it is a hillside, which we are leaving alone.

"We will set back 100 feet from a creek, in a flat area for burials. We are not harming any of the existing conditions."

The graves, he said, would include cement coffins buried 2 feet down, with bronze plaques set in granite lying on the surface. "There will be no tombstones, only flat land."

The first phase, about 5 acres and 150 to 170 burials a year, would be finished in about 25 years, he said.

Opponents say the project would strain an already fragile infrastructure, which includes narrow country roads and a water supply that relies on rainwater to fill its wells. Many residents must haul in outside water for their farms and construction projects.

Traffic and accidents would increase, they say, especially along roads populated by horse riders, hikers and cyclists.

"This is inappropriate for the area," said Lawrence Nunes, whose family first settled in the region in the late 1860s. "We have lived out here so many years, we just know it won't work."

The county's Planning Commission on Tuesday will consider adopting a "negative declaration" for the project, a designation that indicates no significant effect on the environment.

An attorney for the opposition group is calling for a full environmental review, arguing that "significant impacts" on water, traffic, wildlife and open space may occur.

Eliahu, though, said the project would be a nice improvement. "You'll see grass instead of weeds, maybe one nice building. We have a need for it. What do you do?"
meeting

The Contra Costa County Planning Commission will consider a proposal for a new cemetery in the Briones Hills at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The meeting will be held at the McBrien Administration Building, Room 107, Pine and Escobar streets, Martinez.

Murder Conviction Upheld

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Dec. 13, 2003

A state appeals court has upheld the first-degree murder conviction of an alleged Stockton gang member who shot and killed a prominent Contra Costa plastic surgeon during a home-invasion robbery.

In its decision Wednesday, the three-judge panel agreed to uphold Soknoeun Nem's June 2002 conviction, rejecting defense claims that the trial court had misled the jury about the laws of self-defense.

Nem, 25, argued that he had sought to end the escalating violence inside Kim Fang's Alamo house in January 2000, saying he fired only in self-defense.

The justices of the 1st District Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed the argument. Nem's attorney, Stephen Bedrick, did not return a call for comment Friday.

"There is no evidence that the appellant attempted to withdraw before he shot Dr. Kim Fang," the appeals court ruled. "Indeed, when Dr. Fang appeared on the scene, the appellant responded by shooting him twice in the back."

Nem was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by a Contra Costa Superior Court judge in August 2002.

The shootout Jan. 4, 2000, started when Nem and an accomplice invaded Fang's house in an exclusive Alamo neighborhood as the family prepared for dinner.

The men, wearing ski masks, barged in waving handguns in an attempted robbery.

Fang, who was retired and collected guns, shot dead Mesa Kasem while descending a staircase. But Nem shot Fang, who died at a hospital that night.

Wounded in the melee was Fang's wife, Winnie, her brother and the family's nanny. Two children were also at home.

The family subdued Nem by clobbering him with cooking pans, then tied him up until police arrived.

In June 2002, a jury found Nem guilty of murder during an attempted robbery and burglary, a crime for which he became eligible for the death penalty.

Instead, Judge Richard Arnason sentenced him to life without parole.

Benicia's Real Fixer-Upper

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Nov. 24, 2003

BENICIA -- deep lacerations slash the dry hillside, scars of TNT explosive strips. A gaping hole in the earth marks an old demolition pit.

Crews have clawed large chunks out of this old ranch land, sifting through every inch of dirt in an unprecedented hunt for leftover military weapons and hazardous soil.

So far, nearly 800 pieces of ordnance and explosives have been lifted from what is called the Tourtelot property. Every item is being destroyed.

This is unlike any housing construction project in California history.

Capping years of multi-agency wrangling and grave environmental concerns, a developer is turning land once used by the Army to test explosives into the last sizable housing project in the city.

When the Tourtelot project in northeast Benicia is finished in three to five years, it will be called the Waters End subdivision and will include 417 houses. It is the final piece of developable land in a sprawling, 5,000-unit housing project called Southampton Hills, which began in the late 1960s.

The first Tourtelot parcel, about 25 acres, has already been cleaned and approved by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, the lead agency involved.

"We can eat the dirt here, if we wanted to," said Frank Cota, an independent quality control manager at Tourtelot.

On this part of the property, the first four of 81 houses have already been framed.

While carpenters pound nails into the large houses -- measuring up to 3,400 square feet -- a more complex series of jobs unfolds across the remaining 200 acres.

In an area that will be ringed by new houses and spared as city open space, a crew has dug as deep as 28 feet to bedrock. This is where the Army buried its old munitions and blew them up.

"This will all get backfill and re-planted with native plants," said Scott Goldie, senior vice president of Pacific Bay Homes, the developer.

"A year from now," he added, aiming an index finger at the site during a recent tour, "you can come out and it will all look completely pristine."

The U.S. Army leased this 230-acre ranch for nearly two decades, from 1944 to 1960, as part of the Benicia Arsenal. Portions of Tourtelot were used to test howitzer barrels by firing dummy shells into sand-filled concrete tunnels dug into the hillside.

When the arsenal closed in 1964, the Army left behind live grenades, toxic waste and scrap metal. Soon, the Tourtelot property changed hands and a plan eventually called for residential houses.

In 1996, a developer checking the grounds discovered live artillery shells, which sent a clamor of concern through Benicia.
"We're a private company, have this land -- and suddenly have a real issue on our hands," Goldie said.

The Army agreed that it was responsible for the cleanup costs, but the developer did not want to wait until the funds became available.

Pacific Bay Homes, in response, opted to "pre-fund" the cleanup, and has spent "tens of millions" of dollars to date. Goldie declined to be more specific, but said negotiations continue with the Army over reimbursement.

In any case, he called the project "an unprecedented team atmosphere." Indeed, it involves the private sector, the Army Corps of Engineers, city officials and the state.

"We all agreed not only to coordinate a work plan," Goldie said, "but to get it done."

What started out as a field hunt with metal detectors has evolved into a knotty operation in which houses are being erected even as the hunt for explosives continues.

Every day, 40 to 60 workers show up and 120,000 holes have been punched all over the property.

In one area of Tourtelot, called the North Valley, workers sift through soil that runs along a conveyer belt. The soil is reduced to a fine powder, and a magnet identifies any metal items, which are removed and destroyed.

On a productive day, the sifter can go through 1,000 yards of dirt.

More than 1.5 million yards of cleaned dirt will end up on the floor of the North Valley. Piled on top will be fresh soil and, finally, 336 houses.

Also, the project includes what is called the Donovan Blast Chamber, which looks like a Dumpster with a motor. Ordnance items are placed inside the chamber, which immediately cools the blast and minimizes environmental impacts.

"Externally, all you hear is a pop," said Goldie, whose hillside home overlooks the Tourtelot project. "It's sort of anticlimactic."
The cleanup is expected to be finished by June 2004.

Meanwhile, there are about 300 similar defense sites known for the presence of ordnance up and down California, said Jim Austreng, a state ordnance and explosives coordinator.

Some of them, like Tourtelot, will be converted into subdivisions.

"This will be used as a model," Austreng said, "to guide us in that direction."

Race to Live: Girl, 15, Gets New Heart in Month's Time

Note: This was another one of those assignments passed out in the newsroom by a hopeful editor. Fortunately, I was given a name and a number early enough to pull the story together. This ended up running on the front page ... but took a full day of phone calls to reach this girl and her mom, to coordinate with the hospital watching over her and to secure rights for our photographer to take a picture in the room. Whew.

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Aug. 2, 2003

Jayleen Plant had a broken heart.

Now, she has a new one.

After a few whirlwind weeks that saw her careening incredulously toward death, the 15-year-old Martinez girl was spared by a heart transplant.

Only a few months ago, those closest to Jayleen had attributed her fading health to anxiety after the death of her grandmother.

No one had imagined a young heart failing so badly, a national waiting list for a new one, a ghastly surgery _ and a reconfigured life.

It all unfolded so fast.

"It's hard for me to say that my daughter has had a heart transplant. It's crazy," said Daycia Hall, a single mother of five.

Jayleen, a sophomore at Concord High School, is recovering at Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University, where she underwent surgery July 25.

The procedure lasted about six hours. It left a thin, puffy scar that runs from the girl's neck to her belly.

"When I first saw her, when her eyes opened, she gave me the thumbs-up," said Hall, 42. "It was very overwhelming. I could have crumbled."

The transplant has steered Jayleen and her family into a new life shaped by a rigorous series of medical routines. She receives constant monitoring, and 16 pills a day to fight off rejection and prevent infections.

About 85 percent of transplant recipients survive their first year, a figure that slips to 77 percent after three years.

Nationally, 3,687 people are waiting for new hearts, according to United Network Organ Sharing, a nonprofit group that manages transplant waiting lists for the federal government.

More than 500 hopefuls are waiting in California. Many of them will die doing so.

Jayleen was lucky. She waited only 16 days, receiving a donor organ from a Las Vegas woman in her 20s.

"The list goes by medical need. For her to be moved, she was sicker than anyone else," said Mary Wallace, public affairs manager for the California Transplant Donor Network in Oakland.

At the time, Jayleen, tethered to a respirator, had perilously low blood pressure and "looked real, real bad," Hall said. "They said she had about two hours left."

She was suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart cavity enlarges and stretches, making it weak and unable to pump normally.

No one has any idea what brought it on. A bug bite? A lap in a dirty swimming pool? An infection from a recent tongue-ring procedure? Jayleen may never know.

In any case, things started slowly unraveling in March, when Jayleen's 65-year-old grandmother, Marlene, died of emphysema.

"Jayleen didn't cry. I thought that maybe she was going through some kind of anxiety," her mother said. "She said it was hard to breathe, which is how I get when I get anxious."

The teenager, always on-the-go and outgoing, suddenly lost interest and energy.

She went to the mall once with a group of friends who were picking out their graduation outfits. Jayleen just sat on a bench.

In June, a visit to John Muir Medical Center set into motion a frenzy of appointments and tests to figure out what was wrong. An EKG test June 17 revealed Jayleen's enlarged heart.

Two days later, she was rushed to Children's Hospital Oakland in an ambulance, where she underwent four weeks of close scrutiny and blood analysis.

In July, a concerned cardiologist had her transferred to Stanford. She would be on a waiting list for an organ that would save her life.

It's been a jittery ride for family members and Hall's coworkers at Costco in Concord. Many of them pitched in their vacation time to allow a worried mom seven weeks off to care for her daughter.

In a recent hospital visit, Jayleen squeezed her mother's hand. She said, "Mom, take me home."

Locating Weapons of Mass Eruption

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
July 4, 2003

The blazing emblems of American independence will fill the skies in a frenzy of patriotism tonight, when all roads lead to Roman candles, weeping willows and other precisely timed explosions.

America celebrates its 227th birthday today the same way it always has: loud and loaded.

Dozens of Bay Area cities will roll out elaborate fireworks shows tonight, widening eyes with a dazzling assortment of chrysanthemums and peonies.

Wait a minute. Chrysanthemums? Peonies?

After more than two centuries of cranking heads skyward to marvel at fireworks, most people still know little about these "shells" and the people who put them together.

For pyrotechnicians, July Fourth requires months of labor-intensive planning and organizing.

"We get started July 5, ordering fireworks from China and counting leftover inventory," said Chris Souza, a show producer for Pyro Spectaculars, the largest pyrotechnic business in California.

Fireworks are traced to the Chinese, who also invented the key ingredient, gunpowder, about 1,000 years ago. They fuel a $725 million U.S. industry.

It's a growing phenomenon. Fireworks use has nearly tripled over the past decade; more than 190 million pounds burned in 2002.

This rising trend is credited to more innovative technology, improved safety and more flexible state laws.

A surge of post-Sept. 11 patriotism probably didn't hurt things either.

In any case, it allows people like the Souza family to stay in the business of blowing things up legally.

They run Pyro Spectaculars, which handles about 1,500 shows a year. The Rialto-based outfit lights the fuse for cities all over the Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Ramon, Livermore, Martinez and Pittsburg.

A typical show lasts about 20 minutes. It can cost anywhere from $7,500 to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Martinez will spend $8,000 for its 24-minute show on the waterfront, while Richmond spent $21,000 for a 10- to 15-minute show Thursday, one loaded with large shells.

"We get more bang for our buck, and we don't compete with other Fourths," said Diane Harrison-Allums, a community services manager for Richmond.

On a recent day, a crew for Pyro Spectaculars organized mortar tubes by size into wood crates on a rusted barge at Pier 50 in San Francisco.

The tubes, which will be hand-packed with fireworks or "shells," ranged in size from 3- to 12-inches wide. Once a shell is loaded into its tube, a pyrotechnician wires it to a computer network. A single button sets everything off, in a precise order.

This arsenal of fireworks, procured from places all over the world, includes brocade crown chrysanthemums, happy faces, gold palms, spangled flowers, fish shells and popcorn.

"A new one is a multi-shot cake device, or Z-cake. It's like holding a hose and waving it back and forth, shooting pellets out," said Jeff Thomas, a regional show producer.

Nearby at Pier 50, another fireworks display firm, Boom Boom Productions, was setting up its own weapons of mass eruption on a beat-up barge.

This is a smaller outfit, a "'Gilligan's Island' crew," as one worker put it. The group was preparing shells for a show in Richmond on Thursday, followed by a gig in Sausalito tonight.

John Diesso, a cabby and part-time pyro, refused to wax philosophical about the fireworks trade: "We just like blowin' stuff up."

Diesso, whose white hard hat was affixed with a tiny American flag, joined this group headed by Dave DeBella a couple years ago.

It's become a sort of seasonal community, with an attorney, a painter, an electrician, a bartender, a salesman and a registered nurse all working side-by-side setting up explosives.

"I'm an unlicensed pyro -- those guys are licensed," said Diesso, pointing to the others. "I think it's more romantic to be an unlicensed pyro."

DeBella, who manages about five shows a year, has been filling the sky with sparks since the 1970s. He said fireworks colors are richer and brighter than ever before. "Purple is nice now."

This year, he will launch weeping willows, which he said "have a nice hanging gold rain effect" and other specialty effects Boom Boom gets through its special brand in China.

One shell is called "whistles and fish," he said, "with purple pistols and a tail. It weaves in and out and whistles at the same time."

Richmond was in store for some large shells, the 10-inchers, large enough to put your head inside.

Steve Roberts, a lawyer in Burlingame, will be on the barge when the first shots rattle the deck and light up the sky.
"You go, ooh, ahhh -- Wait a minute, burning embers are coming down."

Ridge Building Plan Blasted

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Oct. 5, 2003

MARTINEZ -- Bill Chase stepped out of his attractive, two-story house on Costanza Drive and aimed an index finger at a thirsty hillside above his property.

"If they start pushing soil around, will this hill come down into my back yard?" he said. "Now, when I look up there, I get an uneasy feeling."

So do his neighbors. They are fuming about a plan to build nine single-family homes on a sun-scorched ridge above their houses.

While Chase is mostly worried about a landslide similar to the one in 1988, his neighbors want to preserve a key slice of open space as well as their own privacy.

The Riggs Court proposal, similar to one rejected 15 years ago, has revived a battle over the vacant ridge in a city known for its golden, oak-studded hills.

In this case, the developer in the project not only faces dozens of irate neighbors but also a proposed ridgeline view ordinance by a Martinez councilman.

In it, Councilman Bill Wainwright wants to prohibit any construction "within 100 feet, measured vertically," of the centerline of any ridge.

All of this has left the developer, Jim Busby, defending a 6-acre project still in its design and planning phase.

"It's inevitable when you put housing on a piece of open ground that someone can see it," he said. "It's also a shame today that housing has to apologize for being somewhat visible."

Nothing has ever been visible on the ridge aside from a few bushy oaks.

In 1988, the City Council voted to reject a similar subdivision on this hilltop because of its inconsistency with the general plan.

"Specifically," a council resolution read in 1988, "the proposal would have placed homes on the ridgetop in prominently visible locations," rather than "hidden locations."

The resolution also identified "potential soils stability problems." It directed the land owner, Nelda Riggs, back to the Planning Commission for revisions, including fewer homes.

Now, it is back. Only this time Busby -- who has built about 2,500 houses in Martinez since the early 1960s -- is the developer representing Riggs.

"This property is designated and zoned residential," said Busby, owner of Security Owners Corp. in Martinez. "The immediate owners are unhappy, and I can understand that. No one likes change in the neighborhood."

Busby added that the project could be built without being overly intrusive on neighbors, and that the ridge ordinance was a cheap shot to thwart his plans.

"I have no question in my mind that Wainwright targeted my site," he said. "Obviously, people around the site had lobbied Wainwright, and he triggered this proposal, on a knee-jerk basis."

Wainwright, who was elected in November, said his idea for a ridgeline ordinance was part of his campaign -- it had nothing to do with any specific project.

"In a perfect world, from his perspective, people like Busby can build wherever and whenever they want," he said.

The ordinance, which is similar to one in Danville, is on hold until city staff begins analyzing its ridgetops and determining where development can occur.

The Riggs Court proposal, meanwhile, will be heard before the Planning Commission at a later date. Busby wants to start building houses on the ridge sometime next year.

Chase, the resident on Costanza Drive, has already submitted a seven-page letter to planning commissioners in which he outlines his objections.

"The owner of the property was refused approval about 15 years ago," he said. "Why? What is different now? Nothing. Should another ridgeline be built upon, spoiling the vista for all of us?"

"Auto-Ignited" Matter Cause of June Refinery Fire

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
July 26, 2003

A three-alarm fire at a Benicia refinery that sent clouds of black smoke above the Carquinez Strait last month likely started when a material used to produce asphalt "auto-ignited," according to a report by the city fire marshal.

The four-page report, released Friday, did not fault Valero for anything it could have done to prevent the June 25 blaze.

Instead, it concluded that the material -- known as co-polymer -- ignited by itself while being stored outdoors in rows of cardboard boxes at the refinery's asphalt plant.

Samples are being analyzed at a federal forensic fire lab in Beltsville, Md., to determine how and why the material caught fire.

The incident raises questions about whether the product had been improperly stored during a searing heat wave.

A second fire involving the same material was reported at Valero's asphalt plant July 11. It was quickly put out.

Valero has relocated the product indoors and is no longer using it while tests are pending.

The co-polymer material, wrapped in plastic and stored in four long rows of boxes, had been sitting in a vacant parking lot since January. It was covered with a tarp.

A refinery worker had spotted a column of pitch-black smoke curling from the area June 25. He immediately called for help.
The blaze sent a huge plume of smoke into the sky, sparked a grass fire, snarled afternoon traffic and prompted a shelter-in-place warning.

It was nearly 100 degrees when the fire started, which raises questions about whether the heat played a role in the blaze. No one was hurt.

In response to the pair of fires, refinery workers have relocated the product indoors, and some of it was hauled off to a landfill.

Gene Gantt, the fire marshal, declined to say whether the material had been improperly stored. "It's not what we do. If this were a criminal investigation, we would continue on with it."

His primary job, he said, was to determine the source of the fire and to ensure that a similar incident is not repeated.

"We determined that it auto-ignited. It started itself on fire," Gantt said. "This is preliminary because they have to go through the testing of this product."

Valero Energy Corp., based in San Antonio, is conducting its own investigation into the fires. It plans to carry out a full safety audit of its Benicia asphalt plant, which has the capacity to produce 12,500 barrels a day.

Rich Marcogliese, senior vice president of refinery operations in San Antonio, said he had no indication that co-polymer was capable of igniting itself.

"Our common knowledge with this material was that it was supposed to be benign," he said. "So this caught us quite by surprise."

The company's history with the product, he said, was "all favorable. We had every reason to believe that this product was safe to store outside."

Valero has decided not to use this product, called Europrene Sol T, while it awaits lab tests by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

"We have strong suspicions that there was something wrong with this grade of co-polymer," Marcogliese said.

Co-polymer, or "polymer modified," is a light, Styrofoam material used as a binder in asphalt mixes. It is commonly used in roadway projects to give asphalt better durability.

Valero had stored the material at 3400 East Second St.

But according to the safety data sheet for this product, Europrene Sol T should be kept "in its original packaging in cool, ventilated areas. Keep away from heat sources. Keep covered."

Marcogliese, former general manager of the Benicia refinery, said the material will no longer be stored outdoors. He said that if the product proves to be defective, "we will explore our options for recovery."

Polimeri Europa Americas, which manufactured the product, did not respond to an interview request Friday. A spokesman told the Times that the company would only respond to questions in writing. An e-mail inquiry was not returned.

Dana Dean, a member of a citizens advisory panel that works with Valero, is becoming increasingly concerned about the recent fires at the refinery.

"We were very fortunate that a lethal situation did not come out of the fire June 25," she said. "Now, we have the opportunity to see what went wrong and what we can do differently."

Valero, which bought the Benicia refinery from Exxon in March 2000, operates 14 refineries in North America.

Nudism Takes Off in America

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
July 29, 2003

Life in the raw has its perks.

It is liberating. It builds self-esteem. It eliminates class distinctions, and, for that matter, tan lines.

In other words, advocates say, nudism is no longer just a wacky sideshow in Europe. It is taking off in America.

In September, a 1960s-inspired "Nudestock" festival will be held in Wilton, southeast of Sacramento. Hotel rooms and campsites are already fully booked.

"I think it's a real stress-reliever, to tell you the truth," said Rod Marshall, co-founder of the Diablo Sun Devils Naturist Club in Lafayette.

The travel club, founded by Marshall and his wife, Vera, in 1999, has swelled to about 1,000 members.

"It's a heck of a great time," said Rod Marshall, who plans to attend Nudestock. "We dance naked, go skinny-dipping, jump in the hot tub -- all in a non-sexual atmosphere."

The American Association for Nude Recreation, based in Kissimmee, Fla., boasts nearly 50,000 individual members, a 76 percent surge in 10 years.

This "clothing-optional" lifestyle pushes a $400 million industry, including cruises, flights, train rides and oceanfront resorts.

In May, the first clothing-optional charter flight -- from Miami to Cancun -- had its 170 travelers buckling up very carefully.
Cruises are becoming a wildly popular pastime for those wearing nothing but carefully placed sunscreen. The first nude cruise lured 500 free souls in 1992; this year, seven such ships went to sea.

"The best part of it," says Carolyn Hawkins, spokeswoman for the national association, "is that you travel more and pack less."

City Has Brief Brush with Loftiness

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
July 5, 2003

The towering red-brick building, graced by a pair of spectacular white pillars, is a relic that once housed the center of political life in California.

Alas, the old Benicia capitol's brush with greatness proved to be as short-lived as its rivalry with San Francisco.

The attractive building at First and West G streets has served as a sleepy state park since 1958.

In the early 1850s, though, the 30-foot-tall landmark housed the state Legislature, an illustrious role that lasted about a year. Intense political wrangling inspired lawmakers to pack their saddlebags and head upstream to Sacramento, a fast-growing city near the coveted gold mines.

Benicia, meantime, slipped into the archives as a pleasant city that never quite lived up to its own lofty visions.

Dr. Robert Semple, a lanky, 6-foot-8-inch dentist, is widely known as the city's father. He arrived in what was then Mexican Alta California from Kentucky in 1845, and became smitten with the Carquinez Strait.

In 1846, he moved a prisoner of the Bear Flag Revolt, Mexican Gen. Mariano Vallejo, to Sutter's Fort. Semple learned that Vallejo held title to the Benicia area under a Mexican land grant.

Semple made a deal: He persuaded Vallejo to become partners in a plan to create "a great city of the Pacific" along the Carquinez Strait.

Semple agreed to name the city after Vallejo's wife, divide the land into lots for public sale and operate a ferry service.

"His vision was to make this an inland port, a safe port," said Beverly Phelan, of the Benicia Historical Museum at the Camel Barns.

In 1847, Semple and Vallejo, joined by Thomas Larkin, a land tycoon and California's first millionaire, mapped the new city's layout. Semple, cofounder of the state's first newspaper, the Californian, in Monterey, tirelessly promoted his city-to-be by running ads.

But he had bigger things on his mind, namely turning Benicia into the state capital.

By 1850, the fast-growing waterfront town had been named the Solano County seat and the U.S. Army had established the Benicia Arsenal.

The discovery of gold in 1848, meanwhile, had transformed the state from a rugged colonial outpost into a global destination.
Laws needed to be written, houses built, a Legislature erected and filled.

As California prepared to become the nation's 31st state, towns up and down its coast vied for the prestige and financial windfall of housing the Capitol.

San Jose filled the role, temporarily, by playing host to the first Legislative session in December 1849, during the rainiest winter in memory. Streets turned into rivers of mud. Tents collapsed.

The first meeting, called "the Legislature of a thousand drinks," set out to establish codes and laws and, presumably, incite a few historic hangovers.

In 1850, the Capitol relocated to Vallejo, a nice spot along the river and a direct route to the gold mines. But it had a problem: It was not yet a city.

Benicia, nearby, had a lot more to offer: a deep-water port, colleges and professional schools, churches, hotels, restaurants, and an Army presence.

It had a spectacular red-brick City Hall building, with wooden sidewalks to keep lawmakers' boots free of mud.

"The real intention of this building was to house the state Legislature," said Toshiro Komura, a guide at the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park. "It was built to be adequate for those purposes."

Indeed, it includes two stairways — presumably, to keep the Whigs and Democrats from mixing it up in the same narrow path.

In any case, Benicia was briefly overlooked. After a weeklong move to Sacramento, heavy flooding led lawmakers to reverse course and head back to Vallejo.

On Feb. 4, 1853, Gov. John Bigler signed a bill making Benicia "the permanent capital."

No smoking was allowed inside the wood-floored building, for fear of fire. But each lawmaker's desk came with a brass spittoon for chewing tobacco.

In all, 180 bills were signed into law in Benicia until the capital was relocated to Sacramento in 1854.

"They were probably as productive as anyone could be in that time period," Komura said of the 27 senators and 63 assemblymen.

The laws included establishing an asylum for the insane near Stockton; creating an inspection system for flour, with grading from "superfine" to "bad;" and creating a board of prison commissioners to authorize the construction of San Quentin, with a budget of $153,315.

"The first bill passed was a woman's right to suffrage, the right to vote and own property," Ron Rice, a docent for the Camel museum who leads tours of the old capitol. "But they struck the right to vote until 1919."

In January 1854, after being narrowly re-elected, Bigler called for the removal of the capital in Benicia due to the "insecure condition of the public archives."

Benicia protested, offering to put up a new brick building to protect the records, but Bigler did not budge.

Going, Going, Gone ... For Only $450,000

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
June 26, 2003

The historic baseball that spawned a tawdry tangle in a San Francisco courtroom last year sold Wednesday for $450,000 in an auction televised live on ESPN.

Todd McFarlane, the Spawn comic and toy tycoon, cast the winning bid for Barry Bonds' record 73rd home run ball, freeing the relic after 625 days of legal limbo.

With auction fees, the self-described "sports geek" paid $517,500 for the pearl.

Even so, the figure was likely not enough to satisfy the pair of feuding fans who agreed to sell the souvenir and split the proceeds. Experts had predicted the ball would fetch $1 million or more.

The fans, Alex Popov and Patrick Hayashi, attended the lively auction at the ESPN Zone restaurant in New York, illuminated by hope and flashing cameras.

In the end, though, their steep legal bills, brokerage fees and auction costs left the pair a little wobbled.

"They were stoic, classy, probably disappointed. But it did not come across," said Marty Appel, a spokesman for the auctioneer, Lelands.com.

"It wasn't about money," Popov told the Associated Press. "It was about history. It's not about greed. Patrick and I have become friends. I've got 20 months of joy out of the experience. It was unpredictable. I had no expectations."

McFarlane, 42, said he expected the ball to sell for about $500,000, especially because Bonds is not a "media darling," and the economy swirled down the drain. In other words, a downer for Popov and Hayashi.

"I've been in court before. As a businessman -- I can't fathom that their total is less than $450,000 in lawyer bills," McFarlane said in a phone interview with the Times.

"Someone needs to check to see if these guys are in debt."

The bizarre custody fight over the tiny orb stirred up a national media furor, especially when it took a sharp turn into the legal system.

On Oct. 7, 2001, Bonds whacked his final home run of the year, No. 73, into the right field arcade at Pac Bell Park and into a dogpile of frothing fans. The slugger had set a single-season home run record.

Popov, a Berkeley restaurateur, got his glove on the ball, but lost it in a 60-second scrum. Hayashi, a shy engineer, ended up with the baseball. Then things got nasty. In a first-of-its-kind civil lawsuit, Popov sued Hayashi, claiming that he had been robbed.

While the ball was locked up in a metal box in Milpitas, the men duked it out in court for 13 months. The two-week trial included testimony from a retired umpire and a legal roundtable about the laws of abandoned property.

In the end, Judge Kevin McCarthy ruled that both men had "equal equity" to the relic. Sell it and split the money, he said.
So they did. Amid a lively atmosphere in a crowded sports bar in Times Square, the auction started at $200,000 and lasted only a few minutes.

The sale unfolded in $25,000 increments, with operators furiously taking bids from tiny white phones.

When the bid paused at $325,000, an auctioneer in a bright green jacket stared into the flashing bulbs with disbelief. "Go on, you know you want it," she said.

McFarlane, whose toys are sold in 50 countries, cast the top bid over a phone from a studio in Dallas. He is the same freewheeler who forked over about $3 million for retired slugger Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball in 1999.

His new ball ranks as the second-highest paid baseball in a public auction in U.S. history.

Michael Barnes, the St. Louis consultant hired by the fans to arrange the sale of Bonds' ball, said the relic could have sold for more if it had been done earlier.

Barnes negotiated the record sale of McGwire's 70th homer three months after it was hit. "Unfortunately," he said of the Bonds ball in a phone interview, "we had to wait a year and a half."

Carnie Duo Happy Living Lives ... On the Road

Note: This was one of those story assignments that make reporters wince. "We need you to cover the opening of the County Fair." Um, OK. So I went out there and tried to find the best angle I could. And I think I did. This is what I decided to focus on after making at least three rounds through the dusty fairgrounds, an empty notebook in hand and a photographer growing impatient.

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
May 30, 2003

ANTIOCH -- Rae, the toe ring queen, and Bob, the palm-reading wizard, met three years ago at a fair in Oklahoma.

Life has been a kaleidoscope of midway mirth ever since.

The pair tours the nation in a 19-foot mobile home, ringing toes and reading wrinkled hands at dozens of county fairs.

"We don't get rich -- but we have a hell of a fun time," said Bob Tanenbaum, whose two computerized prophets, Jeannie and Wizard, read palms for $2 a pop.

Thursday, they joined dozens of other bohemian entrepreneurs during the first day of the 68th Contra Costa County Fair. The gates open at 11 a.m. today.

Near others pitching henna tattoos, hats and caps, carved signs ("made in 10 minutes!") and Italian charms, the wizard and the toe ring lady cut an odd twosome.

Rae Middleton, 47, sat in a cozy tent with a carpeted floor, an overhead chandelier and burning incense.

And toe rings. So many toe rings. (They sell for $6 to $60 apiece.)

"I wear 23; I sort of go overboard," said Middleton, a jovial woman with an easy smile.

Three years ago, she had her palm read by Tanenbaum, 58, who was immediately struck by her laughter and bubbly personality.

So they struck a partnership. Each year, Middleton leaves her one-stoplight hometown east of Tulsa, Okla. on Jan. 1 and drives to Las Vegas to hook up with Tanenbaum.

From there, they pile their goods into a mobile home and get lost in the fair circuit for about nine months.

It's a journey that leaves them free to explore the country and its people, free from the grip of corporate America and its cubicled lifestyle.

"I feel like I'm putting toe rings on the world," Middleton said, giggling.

Right next to her kiosk is Tanenbaum's.

He watches over a pair of computerized palm readers he built himself. One is a long-bearded wizard in a flowing purple robe who reads left hands. The other is Jeannie, an expressionless brunette who analyzes right hands.

It's $2 a hand or $3 for both hands. A computerized printout delivers the good or bad news.

"They're 80 to 90 percent accurate," said Tanenbaum, a former dancer whose gnarly beard is similar to his wizard's. "And not only do people get a printout, but also my interpretation."

Once, a girl demanded her money back because she got a speeding ticket while leaving a fair after a palm reading. The reading said, "Rushing will prove to be costly."

Tanenbaum realizes he can make more money in what he described as a "real job." But why?

In order to help fund this lifestyle on the road, he rents out his Las Vegas home for most of the year.

Then, he and the toe ring lady explore the western United States, or, as the wizard put it, "my back yard of 3,000 square miles."

Crime Writer in "The Zone"

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
July 14, 2003

Once the sensational dog-mauling case in San Francisco narrowed its lens into the not-so-ordinary lives of a pair of misguided lawyers, a stranger-than-fiction story unraveled.

The sharp twists included the "adoption" of a reputed prison gang leader and an illegal dog-breeding ring with links to the Mexican mafia and drug cartels.

This is when Aphrodite Jones, a high-heeled sleuth with five true-crime books under her belt, latched on for the ride.

Jones, 44, is a best-selling author whose sixth book, "Red Zone: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the San Francisco Dog Mauling" (William Morrow, $24.95), pulls up the blinds on some of the tawdry details of the case.

By now, the crime and its key players have already been digested by the national press and fed to the public.

Husband-and-wife attorneys Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller were keepers of an exotic breed of vicious dogs that mauled to death St. Mary's lacrosse coach Diane Whipple in January 2001.

Behind bars
After a series of startling public flubs, the pair announced days later that they had adopted as their son Paul "Cornfed" Schneider, a white supremacist gang leader with a rap sheet longer than a roll of toilet paper.

From his cell, the notorious inmate allegedly masterminded an attack-dog-breeding scheme. He owned the two huge canines involved in Whipple's death, Bane and Hera.

Now, Jones' book reveals a case of attorney-client privilege gone bad. Very bad. In it, she suggests a three-way love affair outlined in sordid letters, racy photos, medieval drawings and private interviews.

She writes about a sexual fantasy world in which Schneider pulled the strings in a bizarre relationship with Noel and Knoller. The trio called themselves "The Triad."

Jones said Schneider, an alleged higher-up in the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, manipulated the lawyers in his quest to either be sprung from prison or to carry out his dog-breeding ring.

"Schneider was in control," the author said in a recent interview. "He ensnared Marjorie. -- Noel lived to please Marjorie, who was 17 years younger than him. He played along with her fantasy."

Who's in charge?
This fantasy, Jones writes, began long before the couple picked up their Presa Canario dogs from a farm in rural Hayfork in 2000.

"In early letters, Marjorie would hint at sex acts she wanted to perform on Paul," the author writes. "By the late 1990s, she would be blatant: Robert would perform the sex acts on her, but she would fantasize that it was Paul, not Robert, who was pleasuring her."

In a 1999 sketch by Schneider that did not appear in the book, Knoller is depicted as a medieval princess, sitting in an elaborate chair with her legs apart. She is flanked by a pair of muscular, armor-clad canines.

Schneider, now serving life at a Missouri prison, plays a leading role in the 320-page book, a menace behind bars who ran the show.

Yet Jones did not interview the inmate. Nor did she try.

"I was told by special service agents that it was probably best to keep away from him," she said. "I had no desire to jeopardize my own sense of personal safety."

She also had no interest in communicating with Schneider through the mail. (She did view his cell once during a visit to Pelican Bay State Prison, where he had been held.)

Prison and palms
In any case, Jones' access to previously sealed court records raises questions about how she managed to slip under the yellow police tape for an exclusive peek.

"I have six books, sweetheart," said the Chicago-born writer and TV personality. "I've worked with police from Seattle to New York to Nebraska, Palm Beach -- all over California."

Jones also cozied up to correctional officers, whom she said Hollywood stigmatized as "sick, twisted people."

On a recent day, Jones sat for a booksigning at the Deuel Vocational Institution, a 4,100-inmate prison ringed by palm trees in Tracy. It was the first such event at the 50-year-old prison.

This is where Noel, freshly convicted, spent several months isolated in a 9-by-10-foot cell for 23 hours a day until he was transferred to a facility in Oregon.

Jones was able to interview the husky lawyer nearly two dozen times here in a private booth separated by a Plexiglas wall.
"I sat across from Hannibal Lecter No. 2; Schneider is No. 1," she said.

Treading judiciously
None of the conversations, though, made it into the book because Noel threatened to sue her if they did. (Some of the photos and sketches were left out of the book by William Morrow for the same reason.)

Instead, Jones relied on conversations with Noel recorded while he was being held at a jail in San Francisco.

"It took me a while before I realized that this man was only talking to me so he could sue me," she said, adding that she still expects to be sued.

"But I can cover my tracks. I only quoted what I had verbatim from him."

In one conversation, Jones took pleasure in the fact that she had obtained sealed documents -- something that she said startled Noel. "He turned red, a big tomato head."

Jones, a fit, attractive brunette who talks until her voice turns hoarse, sat in a cramped meeting room at the Tracy prison last week and signed copies of her book for $25 apiece.

Correctional officers straggled in slowly, appearing a little star-struck by the author, who wore a black skirt and high heels.
While she lamented her manic tour schedule, she scribbled in a pair of books for a shy officer.

"What's going to be your next project?" he asked.

"Honey, when I can breathe!" she said.

Devan Hawkes, a special agent with the California Department of Corrections who is a key source in the book, bought 11 copies.

"This man is a genius!" Jones said, pointing at Hawkes. "A genius!"

Getting access
When the author set out to gather records for "Red Zone," not everyone wanted to help her tell the story.

Sharon Smith, Whipple's domestic partner, refused to talk to Jones. So did the first cops who arrived at the scene of the bloody mauling, which is how the book starts.

Nonetheless, Jones won over lead detectives and other key law enforcement officers, whom she always speaks of favorably.
Getting access to sensitive documents, she said, was a testament to her intrepid reporting -- it had nothing to do with her looks or the length of her skirts.

"I have a reputation that precedes me," Jones said, leaning into a book to sign her name. "If you look at the work I've done -- at the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding. At the end of the day, I hold up."

State Wants to Make Way for Segway

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Aug. 22, 2003

It's an odd-looking machine, this swift-moving dolly on a pair of oversized tires.

Some hail it as a slick, innovative tool of the new millennium.

Others dismiss it as a sidewalk-hogging geek magnet.

In any case, the Segway Human Transporter -- a battery-powered superscooter -- is pushing for space on America's sidewalks.

And Pleasant Hill, it turns out, may loan its suburban asphalt for a pilot project to study how the devices fit into a regional transportation puzzle.

In October, the state Department of Transportation wants to introduce a rental test program in the city with wide and "under-utilized" sidewalks.

People would be able to ride a Segway to the BART station in the morning and leave it there for a commuter getting off a train. This process would reverse at night.

BART, though, is still exploring the proposal and has not yet agreed to participate.

Issues of safety, liability and precisely where to allow the self-balancing transporters are also being hashed out.

"We're sort of jazzed about it," said Pleasant Hill City Manager Mike Ramsey. "This technology is fascinating. It introduces a totally new way of getting around."

The Segway HT, introduced by inventor Dean Kamen to flash bulbs of excitement in 2001, is a high-tech scooter that can zip along at 12 mph. It sells for about $5,000.

It uses dozens of individual parts, including gyroscopes and tilt sensors, allowing its upright user to manipulate direction by his or her own movements.

"This was a joyful invention that will open up incredible vistas," said Valerie Cheasty, a disabled lawyer who lives in Albany.
Cheasty, 52, tried one in San Francisco last year. She plans to buy two for her family.

"It feels like an extension of your own body," she said. "I felt coordinated, balanced and able-bodied."

But this chic new toy -- now legal in dozens of states, including California -- also stirs controversy.

Critics say the Segway is a potentially hazardous newcomer to sidewalks, where pedestrians already tangle with skaters and scooters.

America Walks, a national coalition of pedestrian activists, has adopted a tough stance against the transporter: "Nothing that moves faster than walking speed belongs in the space intended for walking."

Gov. Gray Davis signed a law last year allowing the devices on sidewalks -- but cities are still able to ban them or regulate how they are used.

A feasibility study for a pilot program in Pleasant Hill is being carried out by Innovative Mobility Research, affiliated with the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley.

So far, the plan calls for a nine-month test in which pre-screened riders would share their experiences navigating the streets to and from the BART station.

The test of alternative transportation, which would include Segway HTs and possibly electric bikes, would provide data about the economics of alternative transportation, liability, training, safety, pedestrian conflicts and other issues surrounding "low-speed modes."

Such a plan may encourage transit use, reduce short, smog-spewing auto trips and free up more parking. About 15 Segway HT units would be available for an hourly or monthly rental fee.

"It's a very interesting issue to research. In some ways, it's real ground-breaking," said Susan Shaheen, program director of Innovative Mobility Research.

"Some say it's almost like the introduction of a bike. It's a very complicated issue. Granting access to sidewalks is a serious issue that needs to be investigated fully."

Pleasant Hill is considered an attractive test site, with a nearby BART station ringed by residential neighborhoods and businesses.

Ramsey, the city manager, said the city offers "wide sidewalks and a forgiving kind of layout" that could make the program a success.

He added, though, that a lot of questions remain.

"Let's say we take one downtown to a restaurant. Will you be able to take it inside? Do you park it by the table, or leave it at the coat rack? If not, what do you do with it?"

Martinez Club Serves Feasts, Fraternity

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Nov. 16, 2003

When Bill Wainwright, a councilman in Martinez, inquired about joining the coveted Martinez Sportsmen's Club, he was told to be patient.

Someone had to die first.

So he waited. Someone died. Now, he is in.

"It's like the Immortals in France," said Wainwright, 61, referring to the French Academy, an organization of elite intellectuals that formed in 1635.

"As a result, the average age is pretty high."

Even so, eight others are waiting to get in.

The renewed interest in a 77-year-old hunting and fishing club that no longer emphasizes hunting and fishing is a curiosity. But it also suggests the deep-rooted sense of nostalgia and pride in an aging county seat loaded with history.

The club, founded in 1926, includes a mix of graying characters who stir the soul of this former Italian fishing village, birthplace of Joe DiMaggio.

Its 135 members, mostly men, are retired superior court judges, lawyers, refinery workers, hunters, teachers and politicos who wax philosophical about the city's early years. (Politicking, though, is not allowed.)

The roster is a sort of who's who in Martinez, from Albertsen to Zwemmer.

Each member pays $25 in annual dues for, well, a reserved seat at the monthly meals. The dinners are held inside a single-story building along the railroad tracks, where they socialize, tilt paper cups of wine down their throats and engage in a sizable feast.

Members also sponsor a safety program for hunters, contribute to the local Sea Scouts and donate food to the needy. They pledge to "save and faithfully defend from waste the natural resources" of their country.

Otherwise, the club mostly serves laughs, drinks and a lively social atmosphere for those who want to stay linked.

"Whether Sicilians, business merchants, county people or refinery workers, they all liked good food," said attorney Tom Greerty of the early days. "They liked to eat pheasant and duck with wine and pasta.

"They liked to eat down by the water. It's a tradition of this. It still is."

Don Burriston, a 73-year-old retired county appraiser, said the gatherings were more like a "gastronomic club."

He has been an active member since joining in the early 1980s, despite a resume short on hunting trips. "I think I went once."

Chet Nelson, a longtime member who serves drinks during the perpetual "happy hour," said, "The people are fantastic. All walks of life. They're all brothers."

"They're noisy," added his wife, Geri.

When it started, the outfit was known as the Martinez Bass Club. Members -- men only -- would meet on an old ferry boat and fry up the fish they pulled out of the Carquinez Strait. The ferry eventually burned down.

In earlier days, the guys used to have casino nights and go abalone hunting. "Then," said Nelson, a retired firefighter, "we got older."

For the past few decades, members have met in their isolated redwood building on the Embarcadero, a narrow road that runs along the railroad tracks.

It was not until the 1980s that women were allowed to come, which, Greerty said, "made it a better time. And less lying."

Last Wednesday, people strolled in from the darkness for the monthly dinner. They bought raffle tickets, ordered drinks and looked at a chart to figure out where they were to sit.

Tables were arranged in a long, narrow room with bright overhead lights -- a room occasionally used to test firearms. The meal has become the highlight of the club and Danny Pellegrini, its head cook, is among the most popular members.

He cooks up a special prime rib dinner each January, and a huge crab feed later in the year. He calls the Martinez Sportsmen's Club "a belly club."

Asked how long he will patrol the club kitchen, he sighed. Then, in his deep baritone, he said, "Until I die or they throw me out of here. And I don't see anyone trying to get my job."

Kahler Strives for Better Care for County's Mentally Ill

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Nov. 3, 2003

In his most agonizing hours, David Kahler refuses to twist the blinds shut and demand his privacy.

He does not grieve openly; he shields his vulnerabilities. He fights the tears that blur his piercing blue eyes. He can handle anything, he likes to say.

He "stuffs things way down," is how a close friend put it. This is how he deals with pain.

There has been a lot of pain. A few months ago, Kahler's only son jumped to his death from the Golden Gate Bridge.

John Henry Kahler IV, who was mentally ill, immediately became the focus of an investigation into the gruesome slaying of an Antioch mother along the Contra Costa Canal Trail.

When police cars and TV trucks crowded his suburban doorstep, his life, Kahler squared his shoulders. He met this one head-on.

In this case, the Concord widower turned a personal family drama into a heated battle to clear his dead son's name. He managed as well to highlight a larger social issue -- the terrible stigma facing the mentally ill.

"He holds his pain. I don't know anyone else who could in his situation," said Julia Bonacich, a member of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Contra Costa. "I have never met such a warrior in a long time."

This is how Kahler reacted when his wife, Agnes, died of a heart problem two years ago. The couple did not want a funeral. This is how he dealt with a surreal police investigation, which steered into his four-bedroom Concord home and turned his life upside down.

"I believe that God has shaped my father to be an overcomer and to never look backwards," said Elisabeth Espineira, 36. "He has a tremendous inner strength."

This strength has been tested. Concord police had labeled John Kahler, 32, a "person of interest" in the daytime killing of Kathleen Aiello Loreck on May 13, a crime that jolted the region.

The younger Kahler, who had a history of legal and mental problems, committed suicide a day after the slaying. He had been living with his father less than a mile from the crime scene, and his face resembled police sketches of a husky man spotted on the trail that day.

As the story unfolded, Kahler maintained his son's innocence. He ripped police for going public with his son's name before DNA tests were returned. He told detectives that he had been with John at home nearly the entire time that the crime occurred.
He requested a lie-detector test, and passed.

In June, police acknowledged that DNA evidence from the scene and the victim's body did not match a genetic sample taken from the younger Kahler's body. Still, police refused to name or eliminate him as a potential suspect.

In September, DNA evidence found on a cigarette butt at the scene matched that of an Indiana drifter -- a startling break in the 4-month-old case. Last week, prosecutors charged Robert Ward Frazier with rape, murder and sodomy in connection with the trailside beating.

Concord police Lt. Dan Siri declined to talk about Kahler for this story. The department, he said, had nothing to say.

These days, there are no more police interviews, no more newscasters tapping on his door at 6 a.m. Kahler is still trying to sort out why his son killed himself and how deeply the investigation and media coverage had scarred his life.

Still, he pushes ahead as arguably the most active member of NAMI Contra Costa, which has grown to include more than 400 families.

This has become his life passion. He publishes the NAMI newsletter, organizes meetings and events and speaks regularly about the strains of a "dysfunctional" county mental health system.

He was a vocal proponent of a treatment center for the mentally ill in Pleasant Hill. Crestwood opened Oct. 10 after a 15-month fight with worried neighbors.

Kahler, a fit, clean-shaven man who favors polo shirts and loose-fitting khakis, passes out his cell phone number as it if were a business card. He is available, he likes to say, "24-7."

Rev. Chet Watson, president of NAMI California, said he met Kahler after the father joined the Contra Costa chapter in 1995. He likens him to a brother.

"Dave is an unusual guy," Watson said. "On one hand, I love him. On the other, I want to kick him in the shin. He is a typical American entrepreneur; he would not last in a corporation three days. He sees a problem, analyzes it, fixes it or discards it.

"He has very little patience for people who do not want to act on it. Patience is not his greatest virtue. But I will go on the record: I do not know anyone who has done more for (mentally ill) consumers than Dave."

Kahler is intelligent, logical, articulate, passionate, long-winded, feisty, combative and, once he gets going, about as difficult to slow as a speeding BART train.

"Our system is bankrupt," Kahler said over a cup of tea at a downtown Concord restaurant. "Now, if the new governor rescinds the auto tax, that's (more money) swiped from our county. And the system before this was dysfunctional.

"If you are mentally ill without a support network you don't stand a chance."

He credits NAMI for having become his pillar of support, his fix. After his son died, how would he survive without the families of mentally ill people who understood his grief?

Kahler spends a lot of time now focusing on the strained mental health system; he wants to establish a mental health court.

Studies show that about 5 percent of the adult population suffers from a serious and chronic form of mental illness, he said. In other words, 45,000 of Contra Costa County's approximately 900,000 residents are dealing with serious mental health issues.

"But our (health services division) budget is $500 million," Kahler said. "The mental health division works with $87 million. There are 3,000 people in our system at any given time. What happens to the other 42,000 people? They are at home with their parents or hiding under a bridge. But they're here."

Kahler is 70. He grew up in tiny Morris, Minn., where his father, John, ran an 80-room hotel during the Depression.
The Kahler family has a legacy of running hotels in Minnesota dating to 1868.

"Our family life was absolutely idyllic," said Kahler, who described his father as a gentle, apolitical soul who kept his worries to himself.

In the 1940s, the family operated a lakeside resort north of Brainerd, Minn. There, the young Kahler, a thrill-seeker, fell in love with water-skiing. He toured with a professional outfit in 1953, surfing barefoot across the country.

He attended the University of Minnesota, where he learned the skills that would lead to a successful career as a restaurateur and small-business operator.

"He was a wild man," said Kahler's old college roommate, Jeremy Blodgett, who lives in San Rafael and remains a close friend. "He was a person who, in a sense, felt that anything can be done. He was a can-do kind of guy."

Kahler started his business career in California in the early 1960s, when he became a managing partner in a plastics company in San Rafael.

In 1973, he moved to Concord and bought a four-bedroom house on St. Francis Drive, where he lives today with his daughter, Elisabeth, her husband, John, and his 16-year-old grandson, David Espineira.

Life took a sharp twist in the early 1990s. His son, a soft-spoken, gifted transmission mechanic, had started to fall apart.
"We were the typical family, doing its thing, and mental illness comes along -- whammo!" Kahler said. "The sensation is like being in the middle of a hurricane."

John was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or manic depression, in 1994. This serious brain disorder incites wild mood swings and periods of deep lethargy, and occurs in about 1 percent of the adult population.

On Memorial Day 1994, John, distraught over a breakup with a girlfriend, hopped on a freight train and lost himself for two months, rattling across the country. It was a significant breakdown because he had ditched a court-ordered rehab program. He was a fugitive.

In a nearly 10-year struggle, Dave Kahler navigated the mental health system, "a minefield without a map." He fought for services, tried to shield his son from irrational choices and the perpetual tug of temptation.

He used to pin all of his son's erratic behavior on immaturity, drugs or booze. He did not understand the criminal justice system, the health resources available, mental illness and its tight grip on his son's mind.

John, in the meantime, racked up a history of misdemeanor convictions in his early 20s. He had three DUIs, the last of which prompted a judge to put him in a court-ordered rehab program.

"It was a gift; he could have been sent to prison," Kahler said. "But John did not see it this way."

By September 2002, Kahler's son had assaulted him four times in the previous four years. Kahler filed a restraining order that month, reporting that John had "knocked him to the ground and then continued to pummel me for an extended period of time."

Kahler, though, never quit, writing often to judges, pleading for compassion.

He always held out hope that John would learn to manage his illness, curb his manic outbursts, reach a "plateau."
This is why he called the cops, obtained a restraining order, hid the car or its keys. He wanted his son to hold a job, earn some friends, take a critical step to self-confidence.

"Dave would think nothing of driving from here to Los Angeles to pick up his son at a police station," said his friend, Blodgett. "He was the opposite of an absent parent. He saved him, kept him from bottoming out."

In his final days, John Kahler was living in a $500-a-month Concord apartment, paid for by his father. Dave had secured a restraining order against his son in March, but allowed him to sleep on the sofa one night. John seemed surprised.

Elisabeth said the three weeks that followed were "the greatest," as she and her brother watched a lot of Christian TV and read the Bible.

John never left again until the day he pulled on a nice flannel shirt, climbed into his 1991 Nissan Stanza and steered his way to the Golden Gate Bridge.

The restraining order is still posted inside the front door, an awkward family memory. Kahler is not really sure why he has not removed it. It is just there.

Families of Mentally Ill Struggle for Services

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
May 25, 2003

In his final days, John Henry Kahler, a mentally ill man with a history of violence, was meeting with a county psychiatrist for 25 minutes a month -- mostly to review his medications.

"We need so much more, but we're broke," said his father, Dave Kahler.

"Our problem is societal. We do not have the political will to fund this. People are still terrified by mental illness."

Last week, John Kahler dropped to his death from the Golden Gate Bridge a day after a fatal trailside beating in Concord. When police started focusing on the troubled man as a possible link to the May 13 slaying, mental health advocates were particularly disheartened.

Kahler, diagnosed as manic depressive nearly a decade ago, has not been identified as a suspect in the killing of Kathleen Aiello Loreck.

His suicide, though, has raised difficult questions about people like him: mentally ill adults set adrift in a fast-growing county with a critical and costly shortage of services.

He was the product of a "broken system," as his father put it.

"The mental health system is mostly a dysfunctional system," said the Rev. Chet Watson, a board member of the National Association for the Mentally Ill California.

"If we'd had the services a year ago, John may still be alive today."

In Contra Costa County, where the elder Kahler constantly fought for resources, an estimated 45,000 people are mentally ill, a biological brain disorder that touches one in four families.

Yet the county's mental health system grinds along with glaring deficiencies. It's racked by a tight budget, overwhelmed case workers and a limited number of beds for the mentally ill.

Every day, more than 100 Contra Costa patients are sent to contract facilities in other counties up and down the state at a cost of nearly $6 million a year.

That's because there are only 28 county beds available. None offers long-term residential treatment options.

"We have hundreds of people, county residents, who are waiting for a bed today," said Donna Wigand, the county's mental health director.

In addition, the county provides only 16 beds for "dual diagnosis" consumers, or people with a substance abuse problem and mental illness.

Health officials contract for two more dual diagnosis beds with Bonita House Inc., a 15-bed treatment center in Oakland. The waiting list is always long.

Rick Crispino, Bonita's executive director, said about two-thirds of people ensnared in the public mental health system also grapple with substance abuse issues.

"If you do not have programs designed to address both issues simultaneously, you will not have the outcomes you are looking for," Crispino said.

Mental health advocates also argue that recovery is prolonged for ill people who must be separated from their families because of the shortage of local services.

It explains why they have pushed for a proposal calling for an unlocked mental health rehabilitation center in Pleasant Hill, an issue that has galvanized the city.

The proposed 80-bed treatment and recovery center, the first of its kind in the county, would offer three distinct programs in trying to help ill people learn to live independently.

Residents have protested the location and size of the facility in the Poets' Corner neighborhood as experimental and dangerous. They do not trust the operator, Crestwood Behavioral Health Inc., nor its ability to manage its mentally ill clients.

"The pathology of mental illness is complicated," said Cindy Rubin, who is against the facility. "Combine that with an overtaxed mental health system, an experimental treatment facility and a for-profit company -- and you have a recipe for disaster."

Julia Bonacich, of Pleasant Hill would love to see her 26-year-old daughter get treatment inside a place so close to home. Her daughter, whom she wants to remain anonymous, was diagnosed with schizophrenia while in college seven years ago.

It was a "full-blown breakdown," Bonacich said, an incident that jarred the family because it was so unexpected.

Seven years later, the family is dealing with a county case worker they never see and still cannot track down an affordable psychiatrist.

Their daughter, meanwhile, is living independently in an apartment in Pleasant Hill -- but still heavily dependent on the family to schedule appointments and ensure her welfare.

Bonacich, a 56-year-old Realtor, teaches a 12-week course twice a year in Lafayette that teaches people how to help their ill loved ones.

"The trick is you spend years trying to find the services out there. It's not as if there is a book to tell you what to do," she said. "You have to go out and connect."

But for many mentally ill people without a support system and with a brain out of balance, the challenge is overwhelming.

"You lose all of your self-esteem. You eat in soup kitchens, and, if you're lucky, you beg in a church," Bonacich said. "With other illnesses, people raise money for you."

Marie and Floyd Overby of Lafayette share the same frustrations.

Their 28-year-old son, Paul, who double-majored in economics and accounting at Claremont McKenna College, was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder two years after graduating.

Bi-polar, or manic depression, is a serious brain disorder that incites wild mood swings, affecting about 1 percent of the adult population.

"It's a very difficult thing for someone diagnosed. It has been for Paul," Marie Overby said. "It's taken away what he thought he was going to do in life."

Paul Overby spent three months earlier this year at a locked treatment center in Napa County, run by Crestwood. His parents would try to visit once a week, a one-way drive of 90 minutes to two hours.

"The first time I left there, I cried," Marie said. Her son is now at an unlocked facility in Vallejo.

"It was hard having him so far away from his primary care physicians, who had kept care of him."

The push for improved services comes as the state wrestles with a $10.7 billion budget deficit this year. County mental health budgets are especially lean.

In response, parents are often pressed into places they could have never imagined going, trying to navigate their ill loved ones through life with scant mental health resources.

It's what Dave Kahler said he did over and over, becoming his son's own case worker.

It meant dealing with his son's "inexplicable rage" and loss of interest in life. But the possibility of some kind of recovery? That's what kept Dave Kahler going.

"He could have sat in my back yard for the rest of his life," the father said. "And I would have been perfectly happy with it."

The Train That Nearly Couldn't

By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
April 25, 2003

Note: This article idea originated on a tiny piece of crinkled paper from my editor, Andrew. Someone had called in to say that his girlfriend had the worst experience on a train. Ever. I was assigned. This is the story, which ran on the front.

An Amtrak train limped into Oregon early Thursday more than 17 hours behind schedule, with hundreds of miffed passengers who rode out a collision with a crane, a power outage and an overused bathroom.

The embattled Seattle-bound Coast Starlight train was pulled from service in Portland after a trip from Martinez that took twice as long as usual.

None of the 360 passengers was hurt. Just sleep-deprived and peeved.

"It was half Twilight Zone, half train ride from hell," said one rider, Sarah-Grace Rothgery of Concord.

"It was an absolute mess," said Rothgery's boyfriend, Tom Hartnett, who kept tabs from Concord on a cell phone.

An Amtrak spokeswoman said the logistics of the breakdowns prevented them from transferring the passengers onto buses to finish the troubled, 31-hour trip.

The Coast Starlight -- or, as Oregon locals call it, the "Star Late" -- runs daily between Los Angeles and Seattle.
In most cases, it's a picturesque journey shadowing the Pacific coastline, with lava flows, rugged canyons and pine-covered groves coloring its windows.

Train No. 14 left Martinez at 12:38 a.m. Wednesday, already about 90 minutes late.

The first sign of trouble occurred about 7:45 a.m., when the train clipped a small crane that had been leaning into the tracks about 20 minutes south of Dunsmuir, 50 miles north of Redding.

The mishap knocked out power on the train.

Rothgery, a 24-year-old Diablo Valley College student en route to visit relatives in Albany, Ore., was jolted from a nap.
"The brakes were frozen. The engine was spewing noxious fluids. And we couldn't get off the train," she said in a phone interview. "There was no power. One toilet."

Union Pacific, which owns most of the tracks that Amtrak uses in California, accepted blame for the crane accident. A crew had left the equipment in a bad spot. Three crew members are being investigated for drug use, according to a Union Pacific spokesman.

The slow-moving train, meanwhile, made it to Dunsmuir without electricity. Chicken pot pies, salads and other food items aboard spoiled in the outage.

Passengers crawled out of the train and into the wet streets of Dunsmuir, which grew up around a railroad line in the 1880s.

Sarah Swain, an Amtrak spokeswoman, said the area was too remote to reach passengers with alternate transportation. "We contract with bus companies, but it wasn't a good fit in this situation," she said.

"We like to avoid inconvenience. But in this case, it was out of our control."

Rothgery, tired and hungry, "smoked a cigarette and wandered around in the rain" until a fellow passenger bought her a slice of pizza.

Seven hours later, after electricity was restored, the trip began again. At a stop about 5:50 p.m. in Klamath Falls, Ore., another delay struck the slumping Starlight.

Crew members handed out 360 Subway sandwiches to the waiting passengers as federal inspectors tried to figure out whether the train could push on alone.

"They determined that it couldn't," Swain said.

So Union Pacific locomotives helped pull the train to Portland.

About 7 a.m. Thursday, 31 hours after boarding in Martinez, Rothgery climbed off in Albany. Free at last.

"I was near tears, with a horrible headache," she said. "My back hurt. I had two nights sleeping on a train. I'm ready to see my grandparents, who are in their 90s. I lost a day with my family.

"But," she went on, "it's not the worst thing. It's frustrating. I'm angry. I just need some sleep."