YOUR HOMETOWN WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ward Winning News al A pa
Vol. 11, No. 39
Including Surrounding Communities
www.thepress.net
Mistrust Extreme fundraising remains W regarding Delta plan by Dave Roberts Staff Writer Local advocates for the Delta are wary of a plan whose purpose is to save the Delta, based on the questions and concerns voiced by many of the hundred people in the Brentwood Senior Center Saturday morning for a workshop on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). Among the plan’s chief critics is a group called Restore the Delta (RTD). Oakley City Councilman Bruce Connelley and RTD Board Member Roger Mammon stood outside of the center passing out a flier that argues that the BDCP is “a tool for ensuring reliable water supplies for export … (and) a tool for the Schwarzenegger peripheral canal strategy.” Among its many recommendations, the BDCP calls for the construction of a canal along
ater skiing’s most renowned athletes, including the world’s fastest female barefoot skier, Teresa Wallace; six-time national barefoot skiing champion Jerry Kanawyer; and Discovery Bay’s own world record holder for tandem speed barefoot skiing, Mike Temby, showed off their best skills during the Extreme Water and Air Show Photo by Stacey Chance at Orwood Resort last Saturday. Visit the Multimedia page on our Web site, thepress.net, for video highlights of the event, which raised money for Royal Family Kids’ Camps.
the eastern edge of the Delta to convey fresh water from the Sacramento River and ship it south, bypassing much of the rest of the Delta. Local advocates are concerned that this would result in decreased water quality in the southwest Delta where East County is located. The flier criticizes the representation on
the BDCP steering committee, arguing that the membership is skewed toward those favoring the canal plan. And it slams the BDCP workshops (the meeting in Brentwood was the first of four scheduled over 10 days in Delta communities), see Delta page 21A
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September 25, 2009
THIS WEEK
Home and Garden
If you’ve got a home or a garden or hope to have a home or a garden or just like to read about them, this is your lucky day.
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Harvest Fest welcomes fall Autumn came early to downtown Brentwood last week.
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Lions eat Cardinals
More woes for family of ailing child by Ruth Roberts Staff Writer
Sleep is not Elizabeth Tanner’s friend these days, which is understandable given the grave illness of her four-year-old son Aaron. But even before it was determined that Aaron would need a rare heart and kidney transplant, the Brentwood resident was lying awake nights worrying about something else – the mortgage. “It was stressful, we’re like a lot of homeowners (with upside down loans), and it caused a lot of sleepless nights,” said Tanner. “It was a worry.” But when she and her husband Mark were approved for a loan modification last October, Tanner was hopeful she would soon be getting a better night’s sleep. And for a while she did. “Once we got the loan redone, we thought, ‘now we can afford to make our payments, and we’ll be OK,’” said Tanner. “Unfortunately that ended up not being the case.” According to Tanner, when the
AARON TANNER loan was redone last year – through Bank of America –unbeknownst to them, their property taxes were factored into the monthly payments along with the mortgage. But because the first payments were rolled into the initial loan remodification and not due again for another six months, the Tanners were unaware of the situation and continued to just pay their monthly mortgage payment of $2,900. “We were told the taxes wouldn’t be included in the monthly payment, and we would have been fine with it if they were, but we were specifically told that wasn’t
going to be the case,” said Tanner. So by the time the Tanners were notified by the bank in June that their account was in arrears, they already owed thousands of dollars in back taxes. Today that number – which includes late fees, insurance and back taxes – is up to nearly $20,000, and without some kind of reprieve, the Tanners may very well lose their home. “We have basically been in arrears of $4,000 a month, according to the bank,” said Tanner, “We recently received a letter saying that unless we pay up in full, they will begin foreclosure proceedings. Even though we’ve continued to pay our mortgage every month, they (the bank) have said that unless we can pay it all, don’t bother paying anything.” Tanner said the bank has refused to modify the loan again, and told her that leniency can only be granted if one of the signatories on the loan, not one of their children, is ill. “They (the bank) say they are sorry but there is nothing they can
do,” said Tanner. “And it’s frustrating because I get a different person every time I call. At this point we’re running out of options, and we have other things we are worrying about (Aaron’s illness).” But help may be on the way. Oakley City Councilman Jim Frazier and his wife Janet met the Tanners a few weeks ago when they dropped off some gift bags from their organization The Network of Care, which provides food to families of hospitalized children. “We spoke for quite awhile about their son and their (financial) situation, and said we would try to help any way we could,” said Frazier. “So I referred their case to the guys with the horsepower.” The horsepower turned out to be California State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan. Susanna Schlendorf, district representative for Buchanan’s office, said they are trying to help. “We are doing everything we see Woes page 21A
Lion fans left Ohmstede Field happy as Liberty won its homecoming game against the visiting Lowell Cardinals from San Francisco last Friday.
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INSIDE Calendar ..........................27B Classifieds ........................19B Education ..........................8A Entertainment ................16B Food .................................14B Health & Beauty .............10B Home & Garden ............... 1B Milestones ......................... 9B Opinion ...........................14A Sports ...............................17A
FOR MOVIE TIMES SEE PAGE 5A