Tri-Valley City Serve on the move in 2020

City Serve of the Tri-Valley is anticipating major upgrades to its services this year.

CEO Christine Beitsch-Bahmani, who came on board last summer, outlined her plans when speaking to the Tri-Valley Prayer Breakfast last year.

One major move will be relocating the office from a single room above a Pleasanton coffee shop to three offices in a storefront in Livermore’s multi-service center. That will allow private conversations where currently all 10 staffers are in one room. It also will offer the chance to build a broader volunteer base to complement the organization’s service to people experiencing homelessness and those at risk of it. And, it will provide a site where staff members can meet clients.

City Serve took a major step forward when the three Alameda County cities contributed to a grant to allow them to bring case managers on the team. When Christine ran a similar organization in Fremont, the case management element was missing and she said they saw the same people many times because there was no coordinated plan to move them forward.

Christine’s next step is to recruit and train a group of volunteers to work with clients side-by-side with case managers. The one-on-one advocacy and care for the client is designed to help them re-integrate into the valley and provide regular support.

She’s also interested in launching an internship program for people considering a career as case managers. That also would increase capacity to serve more people.

City Serve was started by local churches with a desire to serve their communities. As it has evolved, it has focused its efforts on people in crisis as well as coordinating volunteer efforts between churches, non-profits, business and government.

My friend Dan Ashton turned 95 in 2019. We swapped emails this week when he invited me to speak about the Tri-Valley economy and the innovative companies headquartered here. He arranges many of the speakers for the Stoneridge Creek community. He missed one date and wrote back to apologize. In passing, he noted that he’d just renewed his driver’s license—it will be good until he’s 101. Way to go Dan.

The leak from former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s upcoming book demonstrates just what’s wrong with the media today and how former standards are meaningless. The information was leaked to the New York Times, presumably from someone on the National Security Council reviewing the draft for potential security issues. The Times’ reporter has not seen the book and did not quote from the manuscript.

Yet coverage following it in many outlets, including the Times’ Tuesday highlights, flat out stated that Bolton’s account corroborates the first impeachment charge. No couching it by mentioning anonymous sources, no first-hand viewing, etc. Shows just how far the media has fallen.