This popular dog-friendly restaurant in downtown Benicia was gracious enough to host us in their beer garden, giving 15% of all proceeds for the afternoon to Humane Society of the North Bay, the shelter where I volunteer as Treasurer with so many wonderful folks. Our President, Brenda Mooney, is at the microphone. We had a 50-50 raffle and an auction while taking donations also.
This is Ronaldo nka Rico when he was HSNB’s Pet of the Week! I love that he has ear-flop!
William and Carlos live right near us and found out that we were fostering a dog from the HSNB.org shelter that Shando and I volunteer with. We are so happy that Rico found a permanent home with them, especially since we’ll periodically get to watch young Rico grow with their family. This is what we call a foster success (because a foster “fail” is when we end up adopting a dog ourselves)!
Rico is an extra special case. The shelter was told after having a hard time reaching Rico’s guardians to remind them that he was due for a vaccine, that he had been struck and killed by a car. Then we got a call from the shelter in Sacramento when his microchip showed up! He came back to our shelter and I found out about it and asked to be an emergency foster.
What’s more, is that HSNB’s Cuddle Cub had Rico go around Vallejo to various senior living facilities and he was a hit. Not only that, he was at an adoption event that Shando and I attended this past February as you can see documented here on this website, and that is when we originally met him. So other volunteers at the shelter and I already had an established relationship with this little guy.
City Park, Vallejo HSNB Birthday event!
Happy to help where I can with this cause! Brian Davis of LGBTQ Minus Tobacco and I tabled in Concord where they had a nice pride event. It’s nice that I was recognized by a few folks despite this being over the water from where I live and still pretty far from where I lived when I was in the East Bay all those years. I did work nearby in Walnut Creek/Pleasant Hill area for six years, but this is an important cause and there is momentum with the Tobacco Retail License here that the City of Concord has in the works. I hope I was able to bring some awareness to the locals.
As President of the Glen Cove Community Association, I spoke on behalf of the organization of volunteers for 3,000 households in Glen Cove, Vallejo. Residents pay about $1,000,000 a year for our Landscape Maintenance District (LMD) and City of Vallejo resources to inspect the contractor’s work. That’s $30,000 a MONTH, but for many months there is no work done! GCCA was told that sometimes the contractor doesn’t find enough people to work for some months. However, THEY STILL GET PAID.
You can hear the audible gasps from the audience!
[Sarcasm on] Great work if you can get it! [Sarcasm off]
That is absurd. I asked for accountability and it sounded like the Mayor and City Council listened. Hopefully, these comments will not only help foster more accountability for our neighborhood but also for the rest of the LMD’s throughout Vallejo. Enjoy!
Group photos of attendees taken with a drone!
My friend Tom Bilbo gave me a chance to talk about the activism I’m doing with LGBTQ Minus Tobacco and a coalition of other organizations at today’s picnic. The microphone was faulty, but it was a great opportunity to also talk about the Tobacco Retail License we’re working on with the City Council in Vallejo and our accomplishment last year with the Smokefree Multi-Unit Housing ordinance that passed unanimously with City Council.
UPDATE: There was an article that mentioned us in the Vallejo Times Herald on Monday, June 13. Check it out here.
Glen Cove Lodge Adoption Event for HSNB
As President of Glen Cove Community Association, my Vice-President and I toured the aftermath of a fire at Newt Creek among the incendiary eucalyptus trees. We hiked the site after it had been partially cleared because soon we will meet with the City of Vallejo’s City Manager and others to mitigate the risk of a future fire in this area. The difficulty of access for the Fire Department is a challenge in this particular area, despite our association’s activism to ensure that Fire Station 26 would re-open for better response time. The depth of this ravine made it unwieldy for the firefighters to fight the fire that started at night It’s a scary thought how close residents’ homes are right up each side. The City is looking at numerous options.
Video of proclamation reading:
This was my first time at the Solano County Fairgrounds and I was impressed with the site. LGBTQMinusTobacco had a booth there that day. We saw lots of incredible art and enjoyed the part of the fairgrounds that we got to see.
