Parking, maintenance and budget issues on front burner

Welcome to June. I hope you are all staying well.

Mt. Diablo State Park has reopened its Mitchell Canyon trailhead parking lot. Similarly, Clayton is reopening the lower parking lot at Clayton Community Park and strongly encourages hikers to use these spots instead of parking in nearby neighborhoods. Due to excessive crowds using the Donner Creek trailhead, the Council is researching the idea of adding permit-only parking to the Dana Hills side of the canyon on Mountaire Parkway. We are hopeful the opening of additional parking areas will relieve the impacts on our local neighborhoods. If you are out for a hike, an additional ¼ mile should not be a deterrent in order to respect our neighborhood residents.

On June 1, Clayton initiated Pride month by raising the rainbow flag on City flagpoles with a small, physically distanced ceremony in the City Hall courtyard. Clayton is proud to be a city of inclusion where everyone is welcome and respected.

As the council embarks on budget season this month, we are evaluating the impact of COVID-19 to our bottom line. While still early, it appears the financial impacts may be relatively minimal to our General Fund since we rely on limited sales tax revenue.

The largest impact will be to our local streets and roads maintenance programs through Measure J. Since we banked two years of funds for this year’s street maintenance, even that impact will be limited to future years in its impact.

We are proceeding with our usual repaving program this summer doing the streets most needing repair first. Clayton is fortunate to be tied for the second-best streets condition in the entire Bay Area – a tribute to our long-time staff and prudent management of our limited resources.

While virtually all of our traditional community events are cancelled through year-end, and we know how anxious we all are to get back to whatever our new “normal” will be, I want to thank everyone for doing their best to adhere to the Contra Costa County health orders. We will “open-up” with our county as soon as we can do so safely.

The entire city of Clayton wishes our 2020 graduates, at all levels and all schools, a very Happy Graduation! You are our future and we wish you all the best.

Julie Pierce is mayor of Clayton and chair of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority .She is a past president of the Association of Bay Area Governments and serves on the executive committee where she represents Contra Costa cities. Reach her at 925-673-7320 or Julie.p@ci.clayton.ca.us.