Sometimes I am happy to know that there are some really bad criminals out there that get caught for doing stupid stuff. Bad enough if you're a crook but if you're a crook with warrants, you had better be a little more careful and don't be "That guy" that gets arrested in the bathroom. Credit: Automotive Blogger A man was jailed over the weekend after trying to break into a car that had been reported stolen, police said. The suspect was seen by residents trying to pry open the door of a Mazda sedan in the 5400 block of Concord Boulevard about 10:45 a.m. Saturday, said police Cpl. Kerry Cerletti. Responding officers found the man nearby, and when he saw police, he took off running, Cerletti said. Officers followed to a shopping center on Kirker Pass Road and Clayton Road. After witnesses pointed them to a Safeway store, officers found the suspect hiding in a restroom. Chris Verzani, 24, of Concord, was arrested on suspicion of the attempted burglary, resisting arrest and on two outstanding felony warrants, Cerletti said. The car that he tried to break had been reported stolen in Martinez in September and contained items that had been taken in other burglaries, including ...

Reacting to a gaping $11.2 billion hole in the California state budget he signed just six weeks ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced a proposal to raise the state sales tax by 1.5 cent. In addition, he proposed implementing a brand new tax on services, such as those offered by veterinary clinics, auto repair and golfing fees. He also plans to implement a tax on producers that extract oil from California ground, and increase alcohol excise taxes by five cents a drink His tax package would bring $4.7 billion new revenue. Most of the rest of the budget shortfall would come in the form of cuts to education, prisons, public safety, Medi-Cal and social services. The increase would bring Contra Costa County Sales Tax to 9.75%. I can't believe that the State is in such a financial mess. I mean I have been hearing about this for a while but why can't they fix this without making us pay more taxes on everything. This State should be able to bring in revenue without raising all of these taxes. When does it stop?

There is no question that a website can become a call to action. Blogs have been used as a personal soapbox since their creation. Everything from people supporting a cause to people just wanting to share their lives. Blogging is a form of expression that allows for anyone to post their thoughts and opinions even anonymously. Technorati currently watches 112.8 million blogs. As for Concord, there are only a handful but even a handful of blogs are more than enough for people to pay attention to. Like most people I have a busy life. Between work, school, kids and grocery shopping, we have to find ways to get educated on matters that affect our lives especially when it comes to elections. Besides reading leaflets and seeing lawn signs we look of ways to understand what other peoples thoughts are as well. Sometimes that's talking to a friend in the area to see who they favor. Sometimes it's looking online to see what is being written outside the mainstream news agencies. The local blogs in Concord all rallied behind one accomplished group and it paid off. I'm a blogger and I didn't know much about the local politics until I started this site. ...

Most people are concern about the environment. The National Green Machine is gaining steam and people on a local level are trying to inflict change. Some support Green initiatives by recycling more others by promoting alternative energies. The Divas over at MuseGreen take it a few steps further by running a blog sharing and discussing all things GREEN. MuseGreen was started by five ladies that wanted to do more than just talk about ways to make the Earth a better place. MuseGreen is based out of Walnut Creek Ca. and uses the power of the internet and social media tools like Twitter to put a little bit of green all over the world. Green Games Play games on the site to have trees planted for real. Sow much for the planet! Warm up those brain cells and do something great for the planet at the same time! For every 10 questions you answer correctly, we’ll plant a tree on your behalf. Login and we’ll keep your all time score! Green Shopping MuseGreen’s green shopping experience donates 2% of all proceeds to our hand-chosen environmental causes. Now, of course, they’d love everybody to choose from their selection of eco-friendly, organic products, but we also know that life’s ...

As the votes come in, it seems apparent that Gary Eberhart and Sherry Whitmarsh are going to get the seats on the MDUSD School Board. All the votes are not in but with a lead like this, their contenders better have a whole ballot box stuffed with their names in it to win. UPDATE: They won! Not that there was any question at 10PM last night when I posted this originally. I didn't need to stay up to 2AM to figure out these two had all the votes they needed to make a difference in the MDUSD.

The next President of the United States of America has been declared. Did you vote for him? Over 65% of Contra Costa County voted for Barack Obama.

Great day for an election. I went to my local polling place and put in my ballots, voting for what I felt strongly about. You don't care who I voted for as President. I will say that I didn't write myself in this time.

More exciting than a Million dollar lottery ticket, tomorrows elections are all the buzz. Some East Bay Counties have been recording lines of up to an hour, just for early voters. I can only imagine what it's going to be like tomorrow at the Contra Costa Polls. I'll be keeping track on the election results through a few different methods. Twitter will be my live chat with other people around America discussing the elections. My TV will be on and I'll be watching live election results online. Getting National and local election results live will be something I have never done online. TV was my main source for results but technology is awesome! Claycord set up a nifty website that will show election results for the area. Looks like he setup an HTML page that pulls information right from the Contra Costa County Elections Division. That's a great idea that StrangeLaw and Claycord came up with. So we can see the election results on their site or you can go directly to the Contra Costa County Elections Division website and display all the results there.

I was asked by a reader that has never voted before (don't worry, your not alone!) where in Contra Costa County are polling stations open. You should have your General Election pamphlet which will tell you where you should vote in your specific area but for a complete listing of places in Concord where you can vote, you can go to smartvoter.org.

The purpose of every blog is to get readers. Maybe it's a select group of readers like your friends and family or maybe you want your readership to get mass coverage. When I started the Mayor of Concord dot Com I really wanted to get the attention of the local community but was also open to seeing if anyone outside the Bay Area would want to read the articles. Getting noticed by other media is not an easy task. Some will find your site through word of mouth, others through basic research. One of the quickest paths to getting tapped into a mass audience is to use available tools to spread the word about your blog to as many other sites like yours like a type of blog marketing.It is a long process and there are no guarantees that anyone else wants to read your site but if it pays off, it could allow you to touch a much larger base of readers than you initially intended. That was the case with this. Chicago Sun Times hosts Mayor of Concord News Not exactly the Contra Costa Times or other Bay Area newspaper but it's a start. The Chicago Sun Times - Courier ...

Fall is around us and the cold weather and rain are here. But you had better go to Walmart and get some more sweaters if you want to stay warm. You can't use a wood burning fireplace anymore. So it looks like you will be paying a larger heating bill this winter. Do to new laws and some of the toughest fines in California, when it's cold in Concord, using wood will get you fined up to 'thousands of dollars' depending on the situations. Effective today with the start of the burn season, the new Bay Area rule bars people from burning wood fires in fireplaces and wood stoves on bad air nights. The rule also bars excessive smoke from indoors fires any time of year. How will the city know if you burn wood? The offenders will be tattled on by their neighbors. Yes, your neighbors with all of the neighborly love are going to call the police or the Bay Area Air Quality Management District on you for using your fireplace. The exact amount will be determined on a case-by-case assessment of several criteria set out in the state health and safety code. Those include the severity of the smoke, the impact on ...

I was catching up on some news over at Halfway to Concord and I saw this poll. I cast my vote and was surprised at the results. I knew that Gary and Sherry were the popular candidates but I had no idea that April Treece and Jeff Adams were so disliked. Not that I car, Eberhart and Whitmash have my vote. Up till recently, I had no idea who these other people were. They needed to get in front of more people or if they did, they didn't leave much of an impression. It will be interesting to see the actual election results to see if these numbers carry over.

In celebration of the Great Pumpkin, I wanted to wish everyone in Concord a fun and safe Halloween. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays next to Christmas and St. Patrick's day (Green beer is a weakness). I clearly remember the year that I became too old for trick or treating. Well, it was made clear to me by the first 5 houses I went to. I guess at the age of 30 it's no longer acceptable to beg for candy. Now that I am all grown up, I can't go door to door asking for treats but I have a lot of fun answering the door to the kids all dressed up. Carving pumpkins is also a fun thing to do and my neighbors would think it was odd is I had a carved pumpkin outside my house the other 11  months a year. Here are some pictures of some great carved pumpkins.