Participating Diablo Valley locations.

Antioch, SaveMart, Contra Loma Blvd
Anticoh, SaveMart, East 18th St
Antioch, Lucky, Lonetree Way
Concord, Lucky, Clayton Rd
Danville, Lucky, Sam Ramon Vlly Rd
Livermore, Lucky, Portola Ave
Livermore, Lucky Holmes St
Martinez, Lucky, Arnold Dr
Oakley, Lucky, 2545 Main Street
Pleasant Hill, Lucky, Crescent Plaza
Pleasanton, Lucky, W. Loas Positas
San Ramon, Lucky, Crow Cyn Commons
San Ramon, Lucky, San Ramon Blvd

The mailer touts Glover’s “ability” to “deliver,” whatever that means; maybe it’s some sort of “pork barrel politics” for County Supervisors? Anyways the mailer touts teeachers backing Glover, not Agopian, who is a Antioch School Board member.

Agopian’s campaign asked, “One has to wonder why the big oil companies are spending close to four-hundred thousand dollars to elect their candidate. What are they expecting in return?

“The Glover campaign with the latest hit piece has stepped right in the middle of negotiations for teachers’ salaries and work related issues in Antioch. We worked for four years and made the tough choices to balance our budget and protect our children’s future. Now we have to contend with Supervisor Glover getting in the middle of this non-county issue and linking up with those who have their own agenda. It is deplorable.

“We don’t have the money that Glover has and can’t respond to his hit pieces, but he should be ashamed of himself. Things are difficult enough without him trying to make it a political issue.”

According to Agopian, “all of the people mentioned in Glover’s hit piece are members of the teachers’ negotiating team or on the executive board of the bargaining unit and do not reflect the opinion of over 900 other teachers regarding Gary Agopian.”

Payton also proposed new rules for the program, including a lower dollar amounts per voucher; and to increase number of children from one to two, causing families to look for bigger, newer 5-BR single family homes instead of more affordable condos.

A new rule Payton is proposing is only one Section 8 unit per investor in Antioch.

“If investors want to buy a home and make money off of it in Antioch, fine. But, they need to do so without causing problems for their neighbors,” Payton said. “Not only should we expect the Section 8 tenants to be on their best behavior and not be more of a burden to their neighbors, we should expect the property owner to not negatively impact the neighbors.”

This is not the first time Payton has gone up against the Section 8 bureacracy. In 1995, as a member of the Antioch City Council, in response to citizen complaints, Payton traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with the top civil service official at H.U.D. to get the rules changed. At that time Antioch had 2,200 Section 8 housing units, some recipients of which were causing problems in their neighborhoods. The rules were changed from recipients being able to trash three homes up to $10,000 in damage before being kicked out of the program, to now only being able to trash one home.(!)

“We changed the rules before, we can do it again,” Payton added.

At the same time, Payton wants to assist those who are Section 8 recipients and want to get off public support, by helping them obtain the job training and skills to become financially self-sufficient. He has proposed new program entitled ACES for Antioch Career Entrepreneurial & Employment Services to help with job placement, serve as a temporary employment agency, to provide entrepreneurial training and microloans to help people start businesses, and work with Antioch-based Opportunity Junction for job skills training/retraining to help people back into the work force.

“We must help them break the cycle of dependency on government programs,” he stated.

Republican Mayor of San Ramon, Abram Wilson, who also is running for the Assembly 15 seat has recently announced a host of purportedly influential endorsements from the Contra Costa Times and the Stockton Record. Wilson also announced support from San Joaquin County Supervisors, Livermore Democrats, and bipartisan support of the San Ramon City Council and leaders throughout the Diablo Valley, Brentwood, Oakley, Pleasant Hill, and Walnut Creek.

Meanwhile, Allen Payton’s campaign for Mayor of Antioch, announced the support of two-term Assemblyman Guy Houston (AD15).

Property tax assessments for the 2008-2009 fiscal year reinforce the bleak picture that has been painted over the past 12 months of declining home prices caused by the mortgage meltdown, loan defaults and foreclosures.

Supervisor Glover is asking the policing agencies in the 5th Supervisorial District to be on the look out for these vandals and to investigate the stealing of his signs.

Supervisor Glover asked that local website newspapers alert residents to be on the look out for vandals who obviously have a political motive behind their efforts. These signs cost thousands of dollars and have dozens of person-power hours in their posting. If you should have further questions, please contact Mary Jo Rossi at 925-768-7207.