MONTCLARION NEWSPAPER – May 1, 2009

MONTCLAIR MAY NOT BE MAYBERRY, but it sure can be sweet. Take the Lion’s Club Restaurant Walk last week. On a balmy spring evening, the town turned out for its first-ever progressive dinner.

Local restaurants offered food and drink, the Boy Scouts kept the streets tidy and acted as guides and the moms, dads and kids at Montera Middle School provided the music. When the evening was over, the Lions Club earned about $10,000 for charity.

But more importantly, the town came together at a time when there hasn’t been all that much to celebrate. For a few fleeting hours, there was innocence in Oakland — a goodness derived from working and playing together for a common goal.

Thank you to everyone who worked on this event. You did more than you realize to boost our spirits.

E-MAIL BAG: The fur has been flying in the wake of last week’s column on unruly dogs and leash laws.

Reader Barry Ress says he’s been avoiding the Shepherd Canyon trail because it’s turned into a dog run. “Jean Quan’s office promised to get the signs updated over a year ago,” he writes, “but nothing happens.”

Reader Murray Schlussel and his wife walk the path to the Sunday farmers market and back. He makes a mental note of the number of dogs in violation of the leash laws, and it’s upward of 75 percent. “I will not assume that these owners never finished enough schoolin

to be able to interpret the words on the prominent signs on both ends of the path that dogs must be on leashes,” he writes.Several more disgruntled readers have suggested the City help balance the budget by enforcing the dog laws in Montclair. Yet Oakland can hardly process its parking tickets, let alone dog leash fines.

METER MADNESS: And speaking of parking tickets, lots of folks weighed in on my interview with Oakland’s parking enforcement chief, Noel Pinto. But Satoko and Jeff Davidson stood out with their story of how not once, but twice they received parking tickets on cars they’d had stolen.

“One of the cars was an almost brand new luxury sedan worth a considerable amount of money,” Davidson writes, saying it was completely vandalized with two broken windows but was never reported by the PEO. “I know it is ‘not their job,’ but couldn’t they at least be good citizens?” Davidson asks?

ABOUT TOWN: Welcome to the new little fruit and veggie shop that’s opened across from 7-Eleven in Montclair. Eat Well is the third attempt at a produce shop in this Thornhill Road location. Neighbors hope this family owned business will thrive so they don’t have to run to the supermarket every time they need fresh greens.