New mayor reflects on Clayton’s small town feeling

I hope you are already off to a good new year. I’ve started an exciting new year myself.

After serving as Clayton’s vice mayor last year, I have the honor and privilege to serve as Clayton’s mayor for 2018. As a result, I have the opportunity to share information about Clayton area activities and items of interest in this monthly column.

I will include descriptions of various clubs and groups in town, how their volunteer services benefit our community and how you can get involved in those activities. In addition, I will try to clarify how the city is organized and operates. This will include describing the role and actions of the City Council and council members, the Planning Commission and the Trails and Landscape Commission, as well as city staff.

In early December, I enjoyed attending the annual Clayton Tree Lighting along with many area residents in Clayton’s Grove Park. The park, as well as Clayton’s Main Street, was decorated for the holiday season – thanks again to the Clayton Business and Community Association (CBCA), a local volunteer organization that purchases and puts up the decorations every year.

The tree lighting and the decorations on Main Street reminded me of a traditional small-town setting, reinforcing what a treasure Clayton is and how lucky we are to live here. Even as Clayton has grown and evolved, it has retained a sense of its history.

My first memory of Clayton was driving down the hill into Clayton in 1984, when Clayton Road turned to the right as it approached Clayton’s small downtown area and came down the hill to the current location of Main Street. I remember seeing the Pioneer Inn and the Clayton Museum on the left and Skipolini’s Pizza, the Clayton Club and a big grove of eucalyptus trees on the right. I immediately felt like I was driving through a small town out in the country, away from the big city feel of the Bay Area – but really not that far from the cosmopolitan city of San Francisco.

We bought a home in Clayton within two weeks and still marvel at how lucky we were to discover Clayton, still a hidden gem in the Bay Area. When you walk south out of the tunnel under the Clayton Road bypass and see the west end of our quaint Main Street, it seems like you are stepping back in time: with the Ipsen Family Bocce Park, Skipolini’s Pizza, the Clayton Club, the Village Market and the city’s relatively new Grove Park on the right and the Pioneer Inn’s historic building, the Clayton Museum, Moresi’s Chop House and the Bradburn Dentistry practice in a historic-looking home on the left.

This current Main Street scene reinforces the sense shared by many Clayton residents that Clayton retains a comfortable, small-town atmosphere – especially during downtown events like our 4th of July parade – while offering all the world-class benefits of the Bay Area.

This “best of both worlds” feeling helps explain Clayton’s continuing appeal and is consistent with the Town Center Specific Plan, which the City Council adopted to ensure that future downtown development protects the historic nature of Main Street.

I look forward to sharing more information about Clayton items and activities with you in coming months.

Feel free to send comments to me at khaydon@ci.clayton.ca.us.