On Friday, Oct. 4 with heavy smoke in the air, the Piedmont High School (PHS) Football games were canceled. They have been rescheduled to Saturday, October 5. Both the JV game and Varsity game will be played at Witter Field. (Piedmont High School)

The JV game will begin at 4 pm and the Varsity Game will begin at 7 pm.

– Piedmont Police and Fire Department sent out the following advisory:

The City of Piedmont has received multiple phone calls reporting smoke and ashes in the air. This is the result of an 8 alarm brush fire in the area of Suisun City. Please call 911 ONLY if you see active flames or rising smoke in your area.  (10/4/2013 5:26:56 PM EST)

The Piedmont Police Department has produced flyers “Keeping Piedmont Safe: 10 Tips to Better Crime Prevention at Home.” Advice is offered about locks, landscaping, lighting, and alarm systems. Emphasis is placed on cooperating with neighbors to increase safety.

Video surveillance systems are recommended focused on approaches to the residence as well as interior vulnerable points. These systems can assist the Police Department in crime investigation following an incident in the neighborhood.

When no one is home, a radio, television or simulated barking dog can create the impression that occupants are present. When children are alone at home, they should not give that information to anyone at the door or on the phone.

The “Keeping Piedmont Safe: 10 Tips to Better Crime Prevention at Home” flyers are available at the Police Department.

– Not too late to participate in Piedmont educational discussion and strategic planning workshop on Saturday, October 5 –

All who want to attend the public workshop may do so.   It is not too late to attend and participate simply by arriving for the meeting.  All School Board Members are expected to be present. The School District has announced the meeting as an important opportunity for Piedmont Unified School District educators and the community to explore Piedmont’s educational themes for 2013 and beyond.

The workshop will be held in the Piedmont Middle School Multi-Purpose Room Saturday, October 5, 2013, from 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

– The Piedmont Public Safety Committee will meet Thursday, October 3, at 5:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 120 Vista Avenue.  The Committee’s agenda includes:

2. Update on Neighborhood Watch Meetings

3. Code Red Implementation Status Report (new emergency notification)

4. Update on ALPR Installation (license plate readers)

5. Update on Piedmont School District Outreach (collaboration on safety)

6. Harvest Festival Event Recap (results of Committee’s participation)

7. Discussion on Distribution of PSC/Boy Scouting For Food Flyer

8. Discussion on Co-Sponsored PSC/Fire Department Disaster Preparedness Forum/Town Hall/Fire House Event ( proposed Town Hall meeting on disaster preparedness)

9. Update on Disaster Preparedness Training & Curriculum

The public is welcome to attend and participate in the meeting.  There has been no announcement regarding public broadcast of the meeting.

– Flu shots can be conveniently obtained in Piedmont. –

The Sutter Visiting Nurses Association and Piedmont Appreciating Diversity Committee (PADC) will offer three flu clinics in October at the Ellen Driscoll Playhouse, 325 Highland Avenue. You can walk over with friends, family or colleagues and get everyone inoculated before flu season begins. Two clinics are offered after school and one during a professional development day when students are not in school. Dates and times are as follows:

– What qualities would you want in a new City Administrator ? –

At 7:30 p.m. on Monday, October 7, 2013, the Piedmont City Council will take public testimony on the experience, education, and qualities desired in the new City Administrator. This meeting will provide an opportunity to give input to the City Council on the traits you would like to see in a new City Administrator. This meeting will be held in the City Council Chambers, 120 Vista Avenue, Piedmont.

City Administrator Geoffrey L. Grote announced in August that he will retire in February 2014 after 25 years in his position. The City issued a Request For Proposals for executive search firms in August and received proposals from five firms. After reviewing the proposals, at its meeting of September 16th, the City Council engaged the services of the firm of Peckham and McKenney to recruit a new City Administrator. The process of recruiting a new City Administrator, expected to take several months, begins with this upcoming meeting.

You are invited to attend this meeting to express your thoughts on the experience, education, and qualities desired in the new City Administrator. The Council also encourages those who cannot attend the meeting to submit comments via email or in writing.

You may send email to jtulloch@ci.piedmont.ca.us or via U.S. Mail to the Piedmont City Council, c/o City Clerk, 120 Vista Avenue, Piedmont, CA 94611.

The staff report for this matter will be available on the City web site Friday, October 4, 2013.

This meeting will be televised live on KCOM-TV, Channel 27, the City’s government TV station and will be available through streaming video on the City’s web site www.ci.piedmont.ca.us.

For further information, please contact City Clerk John O. Tulloch at 420-3040.

John O. Tulloch, City Clerk
Posted on October 2, 2013

– Negotiations proceed with new proposals as time winds down for an agreement. –

New union proposals and charges against BART’s negotiation costs have headlined the ongoing struggle in reaching new contracts.  BART has recently released plans to partially accommodate the public, if the unions call for a strike on October 11.

In an effort to head off future BART strikes, Orinda City Councilmember Stephen Glazer began a “Keep Our Economy Moving” petition campaign. Glazer, a Democrat seeking election to the State Assemby, is focusing attention on the impacts of the possible strike in an effort to motivate the State to pass legislation prohibiting another BART strike.   Glazer states, “The Bay Area can’t afford a BART strike.” Despite Governor Jerry Brown previous opposition, Republican lawmakers have asked the Governor to call a legislative special session. They want to outlaw a BART strike and force the unions to continue negotiating.

In her letter Assembly Member Connie Conway, R-Tulare, said, “We call upon the governor to take swift action to ensure this labor dispute does not create a transportation nightmare.”

BART management continues to meet primarily with –Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  Reportedly, the sides remain more than $100 million apart as the October 10 end of the 60-day cooling-off period is fast approaching. Friday, October 11 is the earliest day a BART strike could occur.

– The Alameda County public is invited to meetings about a proposed fee for hazardous waste.- 

Stopwaste is holding four public meetings throughout the county to provide an opportunity for citizen input on hazardous waste services and fees. The household hazardous waste fee would be $$9.55 per year for each house and each multi-family building. The annual fee would appear on the property tax bill.

The meeting location nearest to Piedmont is Berkeley at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Avenue, at 7 pm on Tuesday, October 15. Other meetings will occur in Livermore, Castro Valley and Fremont.  Comments can be sent via email (hhwproject@stopwaste.org) or via phone (510-891-6500) More information on hazardous waste can be found at www.Household-Hazwaste.org.

Click for more information on Stopwaste and the proposal.  Stopwaste is an Alameda County organization setting policy on waste issues within the county. Piedmont has a voting member on Stopwaste, who is currently Piedmont City Council member Garrett Keating. 

The Free Law Project, announced on September 24, will enable citizens and community groups to do legal research. It can be very difficult for the public to get access to the text of legal decisions, and, even statutes. Just knowing the statute may not be enough. It is also important to have access to the interpretations and applications of a statute over years or even decades. The new Free Law Project may fill the gap.

Free Law Project was created by Michael Lissner and UC Berkeley School of Information assistant professor Brian Carver, who researches and teaches about intellectual property law and cyberlaw. The pair previously created CourtListener, a repository of a million legal opinions from 331 jurisdictions, along with advanced tools for searching and analyzing the documents.

The goals of the co-founders for the new project are:

• To provide free, public, and permanent access to primary legal materials on the Internet for educational, charitable, and scientific purposes;
• To develop, implement, and provide public access to technologies useful for legal research;
• To create an open ecosystem for legal research and materials; and
• To support academic research on related technologies, corpora, and legal systems.

Case law is technically in the public domain. However, legal decisions may be  in proprietary systems accessible only at exorbitant fees. Even those in open source Internet sites are often under unknown names or too scattered for ease of location by interested citizens. Free Law Project intends to overcome these barriers and make all legal materials easily and freely available to all.