The weekend-long event, given reasonable weather, has drawn 80,000 people to Dublin to celebrate Irish heritage. Given the Center for Disease Control’s recommendation about social distancing, the leaders exercised an abundance of caution and cancelled the activities, the vast majority of which were outdoors.
Dublin’s is not the only St. Patrick’s Day celebration to be cancelled. The mayor of Boston cancelled the annual parade there this weekend that draws a crowd of about one million.
And the San Francisco Business Times reported that given San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s declaration of emergency (that can effect gatherings of more than 1,000 people on city-owned land), the PGA of America is exploring alternatives for its annual championship scheduled for May at city-owned TPC Harding Park. PGA Tour Commission Jay Monahan, in his annual press conference at the Players tournament this week in Florida, noted they were planning to play all of their tournaments as scheduled, but were staying in touch with local authorities at each venue.
In contrast to the Golden State Warriors, which played Saturday night at Chase Center and is scheduled for another game this evening, both Cal and Stanford have cancelled in-person classes until the end of the month. Cal’s moved lecture classes online and classes that required face-to-face contact will continue to meet. Meanwhile, Stanford limited attendance at its basketball game to one-third of the capacity of Maples Pavilion.
For Dublin-based Hope Hospice, the leadership decided to postpone its 40th anniversary luncheon that was set for March 26 at the Castlewood Country Club. The new date is October 15 at Castlewood. The six-month delay should allow plenty of time for many questions surrounding the virus to be answered and recommendations for appropriate precautions will be refined.
To folks who live in the Tri-Valley or drive through it on Interstate 580, there’s no surprise that Dublin is again the fastest growing city in California.
Dublin was ranked No. 1 last year and remained on the top of the list compiled by the website HomeSnacks. Since 2010, the population of Dublin has grown 38.7% from 42,657 to 59,172 as it has followed the voter-approved plan for East Dublin. Dublin, unlike neighboring Pleasanton, applies no annual limit to building permits.
When Dublin planners and consultants laid out the plan for East Dublin, it contained the infrastructure and other improvements that would be necessary to accommodate the new development. In many areas, the plan has stood the test of time well.
It missed dramatically on schools, thus the scramble over the past few years to find sites for the second high school as well as two other schools. City officials played key roles in helping the school district find a way forward to handle the student population.
The Dublin approach let the market determine the rate of development. Given the housing crisis and soaring home prices in the Bay Area, that’s the right policy. You might remember that the city issued almost no building permits in 2009 and 2010.
Neighboring San Ramon, which took the same approach, was not on this list. For the record, it grew from 44,722 in 2000 to 82,643 in 2019.
For the record, most of the other top 10 were elsewhere in California. Lathrop, which River Isles now has six neighborhoods under construction after decades in the planning process, is No. 8. It grew from 17,040 in 2010 to 21,393 in 2019.
Brentwood was No. 5, while tiny Emeryville, land-locked along the Bayshore, grew almost 25% to 11,724.
