On Saturday, the community came together to assist a veteran in need after he received a letter from the City of Brentwood Code Enforcement regarding trees that needed to be removed.
Once made aware of the code enforcement notice, Brentwood City Councilwoman Karen Rarey worked with the city on a resolution.
According to Rarey, the man was a retired Navy Veteran who has had medical issues over the past few years and was out of work—including being in a coma for a month, was in the hospital for six-weeks. She also added that in 2017, he had a stroke and had to relearn how to walk while being out of work for year.
“He has had a lot of difficulties, so I reached out to the city and asked what we could do to help this family with their code violation and we waived the fees,” said Rarey. “I reached out to VFW Post Commander Steve Lopez Todd and he jumped into action.”
According to Steve Todd, they took out six trees as part of the community service to help the veteran out.
Volunteers Saturday included members of the community, Brentwood Rotary, East Contra Costa Fire Protection District Firefighters, Cal North Construction, and Archie’s S&Q Smoked and BBQ Meats who provided a barbecue for the volunteers.
3 comments
Thank you Mike and East County Today for coming out to cover this volunteer effort – we greatly appreciate it!
Hi Karen,
This is great, but I’d you really want to help lower response times for ECCFPD. JUST A THOUGHT??♂️.
Help support” The Emergency Response for All Initiative “.
Public safety funding initiative
meeting set for Friday, Oct. 11
Members of Brentwood’s active adult 55+ populations, residents of the 2,013-home Summerset Communities, are at increased risk because of local government’s under-
funding of public safety services.
An informational meeting to talk about the “Emergency Response for All Initiative” plan will be held at 3 pm on Friday, October 11, in the Summerset I Clubhouse, 1675 Crispin Drive in Brentwood. Residents of all four Summerset communities are invited to attend.
The “Emergency Response for All Initiative” is part of a voter initiative strategy to increase public safety services funding in East Contra Costa County, with NO NEW TAXES.
Summerset resident Gib Souza and Bryan Scott of East County Voters for Equal Protection are organizing the meeting.
The meeting will discuss the practical steps necessary to improve public safety services funding in East Contra Costa County using the initiative process.
When compared to other Contra Costa County areas, the East County region is experiencing a $13 million annual public safety services funding deficit.
This results in emergency response times that exceed national and local goals by 2-3 orders of magnitude, and a fire district that is unable to respond to emergency calls for more than one day per-quarter (2018 average). The fire district is unable to fight any structure fire without significant support from other fire districts, and is unable to comply with county Emergency Medical Services contracts.
An informative and entertaining video on the initiative process in California can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xBh6PxIxtE&t=40s
For those interested in an authoritative white paper on local initiatives, the Public Policy Institute of California has published “The Local Initiative in California,” available online at https://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_904TGR.pdf
Contact Bryan Scott at 925-418-4428 or [email protected] for more information.
# # #
“East County Voters for Equal Protection” is a non-partisan grass roots citizens’ action committee formed to address the issue of unequal funding of fire and emergency medical services existing in 249 square miles of Eastern Contra Costa County. About 120,000 residents, as well as those who work and play in Eastern Contra Costa, have services funded at a level one-fourth to one-third of those levels in other parts of Contra Costa County. For more information contact committee Chair Bryan Scott [email protected]. The group’s Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/EastCountyVoters/ FPPC – 147914
East County Voters for Equal Protection
1300 Crescent Dr.
Brentwood, CA 94513
925-418-4428
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Thank you Karen…you are awesome.
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