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At the town’s 40th annual Community Service Awards on Tuesday, Danville councilmembers honored local standout residents ahead of appointing Vice Mayor Newell Arnerich as the town’s new mayor for the upcoming year.
Outgoing Mayor Renee Morgan also celebrated the end of a difficult year driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, the state housing crisis and the need to confront local mental health challenges amid the fallout of two high-profile, fatal police shootings.
“We had incidents that happened in our community that were tragic, and we had to find a pathway forward,” Arnerich said during the outgoing mayor’s recognition. “Renee was our spokesperson for that. She was the person that represented Danville, to create reassurance, to show how we could pivot in our community.”
In Danville, the mayor is chosen among the councilmembers to serve a one-year term starting on the first Tuesday in December – marked for the past 40 years by the annual installation and community awards ceremony.
During Morgan’s one-year term, the pandemic has continued as new variants emerged, as the state continues to grapple with its housing crisis, and as Danville gained the national spotlight during the trial of Andrew Hall, a sheriff’s deputy assigned to the Danville Police Department who was convicted of assault with a firearm but cleared of manslaughter with a deadlocked jury in October for the 2018 shooting death of Laudemer Arboleda.
Arboleda, and another man who was fatally shot by Hall on duty in Danville in March this year, Tyrell Wilson, both had histories of mental health troubles that advocates and surviving family members say should have been addressed through other community services long before Arboleda and Wilson lost their lives.
“Our village is strong,” Morgan said in her outgoing speech as mayor. “It takes a village, and we are strong. There is no denying our love of Danville. I am, and have been, proud to be your mayor and a part of this team. My journey continues beyond today, and I will continue to strive to make what is good great.”
“Thank you for the challenging, inspirational, sometimes frustrating, yet extremely productive year,” Morgan added. “We are all in this together.”
Arnerich, who served as vice mayor for the past year, was nominated as the next mayor by Councilmember Robert Storer, and elected by the Town Council in a unanimous vote, with no other nominees.
Councilmember Karen Stepper, who was the town’s mayor prior to Morgan’s term, proceeded to nominate Storer as the town’s new vice mayor, once again with no other nominations, and a unanimous vote by the council.
“He always prioritizes balanced budgets, our strong police presence, which is right up there with — we have our veterans, our police, our fire, all of our first responders, we’re the safest city in California,” Stepper said.
Arnerich said that during his year as mayor, mental health would continue to be a top priority, and that his goal was to “make Danville the safest — and the happiest — community on the planet.”
“COVID has shown one thing … that mental health in our community is much, much more of a problem than we ever thought,” Arnerich said. “Particularly in a community, this is a wealthy community, but its pain and suffering is more complicated — we have counselors at every single school and we have to even do more.”
As steps in the right direction, Arnerich pointed to the Community Service Award winners in the town, and in particular, Kathy Chiverton, the executive director of the Discovery Counseling Center and recipient of the Danville Award in that night’s ceremony.
In addition to work in Danville, Chiverton was recognized for her work on the county’s Measure X Community Advisory Committee, in advocating for mental health services as a top priority for funding from the sales tax measure passed by county voters last year.
Arnerich also emphasized that the town would continue to be challenged by state legislation aimed at addressing California’s housing shortfall, and its impacts locally.
“There’s one challenge you’re going to hear a lot about, and it’s not going to be an easy conversation,” Arnerich said. “The state of California is hellbent on coming after cities, and particularly nice communities like ours. They think they’re helping us; they’re destroying our communities and they’re making all the decisions in Sacramento that we have no choice in.”
In addition to recognizing Chiverton with the Danville Award, the council granted the Michael K. Shimansky Community Service Award to Ronit Batra, student trustee for the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, for his work as founder and president of the organization Help SOAR.
Awards of Merit went to Meals on Wheels-Diablo Region, Elizabeth Szczesny, Lorrie Sammons, Marc Silveira and Walt Welti, Save Mount Diablo, Kay Wang and Karin O’Connell.
Full video of the 40th annual Mayor’s Installation and Community Service Awards ceremony is available here.
