Child Center Saved

Opinion

All Hail Jac Asher

and

Brian Carver

Last Thursday's stunning council vote to save the Child Development Center couldn't have happened without the organizing skills and plucky persistence of wife and husband team, Emeryville parents Jac Asher and Brian Carver.

City Hall is legendary in it's ability to fight off resident's concerns, however over the last five months City Manager Pat O'Keeffe and his staff withered under the barrage laid down by the parental onslaught brought by Ms Asher and Mr Carver. They did not shy away from this fight and our kids are the beneficiaries.

Some have noted the fact that the Child Center still faces deep cuts and that the quality of the program will surely suffer and there is truth in this, but the weight of what has been accomplished should not be diminished. Indeed, such a spectacle is rare in Emeryville. Only the superb job done by private citizen John Fricke, battling the staff's insistence that bikes not be permitted on the proposed pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks at Bay Street, has equalled the performance by this wife/husband team. Mr Fricke's popularity rose to such an extent over that fight, he was able to win his subsequent council bid in a landslide.

One wonders in happy anticipation, what else Ms Asher and Mr Carver might have in store for us. We hope they continue to use their formidable organizing skills and admirable dogged persistence to the betterment of our town. We are lucky to count them as fellow residents.