Browsed by
Category: Volume 1 – Number 4

EDITORIAL: LOCAL CONTROL IS VITAL

EDITORIAL: LOCAL CONTROL IS VITAL

Comments 0 Comment

Doomed may be the best way to describe local control in Orinda and other California cities. For years, government forces in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. have been usurping power from local communities. Local control in Orinda is in such jeopardy that city-council member (and the city’s mayor for most of 2016) Victoria Smith, on May 26, 2016, wrote two members of the California State Legislature stating:  “The City of Orinda opposes the recently-released proposal by the Governor [Jerry Brown] to…

Read More Read More

ORINDA IS FOR SALE; HIGH SCHOOL IS OVERCROWDED

ORINDA IS FOR SALE; HIGH SCHOOL IS OVERCROWDED

Comments 0 Comment

Piece by piece, the Orinda City Council has been approving the selling off of valuable land in the city. Powerful vested interests, using large sums of money, are destroying the semi-rural, village-like environment of Orinda’s cherished environment. New development is contributing to school overcrowding. Miramonte High School in Orinda is experiencing excessive enrollment.  The current school year has forced Miramonte teachers to share classrooms.  The Mirador, the school’s newspaper, reported on September 30, 2016, that ” . . . the…

Read More Read More

BIG MONEY AND ORINDA’S CITY-COUNCIL RACE; POSSIBLE CONFLICT OF INTEREST EMERGES

BIG MONEY AND ORINDA’S CITY-COUNCIL RACE; POSSIBLE CONFLICT OF INTEREST EMERGES

Comments 0 Comment

Relatively huge amounts of money were spent by the winners of Orinda’s city-council race. The winners, Darlene Gee and Inga Miller, spent, according to September 2016 and October 2016 reports released by the Orinda City Clerk’s office, more than twice as much as their opponents:  Bruce London and Linda Delehunt. Total candidate spending between the beginning Jan. 1, 2016, to Oct. 22, 2016, was $37,965, In percentage terms, 69 percent of the total city-council monetary contributions went to Miller and…

Read More Read More

CELEBRATE THE BRAIN

CELEBRATE THE BRAIN

Comments 0 Comment

Thanksgiving and the many holidays that follow are joyful times to be with family and friends.  Holiday cheer, a positive emotion, can also provide the brain with healthful hormones and neurochemicals that improve brain function. Family traditions boost enjoyment of holiday gatherings.  In a recent series of studies in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, subjects described the customs they followed — along with those of their families — during holidays.  These activities were rated as enjoyable, personal…

Read More Read More