Category: Oakland Tribune / Argus

Area Teens Create Their Own Societies, Surrogate Families

(Note: This is the sidebar to my larger story about runaways for The Argus, in the Bay Area. See the full story. It was published on April 7, 2001.)

Kim shivers and sucks Easy Cheese from a can.

Sitting in her home – a shed near the Union City BART station – the 17-year-old Fremont runaway says she’s lived on the streets for four years.

The shed – lit with a single light bulb – contains a bed, a table, a stereo and a cabinet where some canned food is stored. A 40-ounce bottle of beer rests on the table, and a Confederate flag hangs on the wall above it. Kim and her three friends – another 17 year-old girl and two men in their 20s – smoke cigarettes.

Kim says she snorts crystal meth every other day with friends, a habit that has caused her to drop from about 105 to 90 pounds and her gums to bleed, her mother says. Her mother also says Kim’s been pregnant twice – one fetus was aborted and the other miscarried, she says.

“I depend on myself,” Kim says. “I don’t trust anybody. And I’m doing OK. I’m still breathing; I’m still healthy.”

Kim’s not alone. Scenes like this are familiar for many teens in Fremont, Newark and Union City.

Beneath the sterile surface of the middle- and upper-class suburbs that have become a part of the Silicon Valley exists a network of homeless teens and adults who stick together, forming a kind of surrogate family.

The network isn’t news to parents of runaways or to local police. But knowing about the network and having the ability to reach out to those who are part of it can be two different things.

To reach out, one must speak their language.

The Language

Kevin Gribble of Newark says he knows this language because he’s been there, and still is there, in a sense. Gribble recalls riding with the Aryan Brotherhood in Los Angeles until the police arrested him for armed robbery. He went to prison for seven years and has been out for six. Now, Gribble says he’s a new man.

A short, stocky 39-year-old with tattoos on his forearm, Gribble wants to give back to those who are aimless, and says he has the street skills to do it.

After serving his time, Gribble started a trucking company. He employs runaways and derelicts to load the trucks and handle the paperwork.

He also stays in touch with area runaways. Often, he and an assistant, a 17-year-old runaway named Samantha, check up on more than 25 young homeless people who congregate at about six sites in Fremont, Newark and Union City, he says. Though they belong to no organization – most runaways don’t trust those who do, Gribble says – the two provide runaways with food, blankets, cigarettes and, most importantly, a chance to engage in small talk.

Gribble knows Kim and some of her friends well. He also says he knows Mark Jenket, a 17-year-old runaway from Union City whose parents have hired private investigators to find him and bring him home. (Click here to read the story about Jenket.)

Gribble and Samantha say Kim and Mark traipse in a circuit of young transients from the area. Investigators, police and parents can search all they want, they say, but only runaways know the whereabouts of other runaways.

“(Runaways) don’t want to get caught,” says Samantha, who dropped out of a Fremont high school a year ago. “We get into this little group, and it’s all we can trust. So when we say someone’s at 7-Eleven, they might actually be all the way across town.

A Nightly Stop

One of the regular stops on the circuit for Gribble and Samantha is the shed by the Union City BART station. About 8 p.m. on a Wednesday night, Gribble and Samantha head to the shed.

As he approaches the shed, Gribble explains that he gives most of the teen runaways he visits a gold-colored bracelet.

“The only thing I ask of them is that they don’t sell it,” he says.

The bracelet is more than a simple gift. It is a thermometer that tells Gribble when he needs to intervene. If a teen runaway sells the bracelet, the logical conclusion is that it was sold to obtain money for drugs.

Gribble and Samantha approach the fence surrounding the back yard in which the shed is located. The door is open and the light is on. He calls Kim’s name through the fence.

A girl’s voice shrieks. Another giggles. Gribble and Samantha, who have found Kim and another girl with two men, cover their eyes and shake their heads.

“They’re naked,” Gribble explains. The girls dress while a man named Jesse approaches the gate, fully clothed and carrying a beer.

“Hey Kevin, what’s up?” says Jesse, a tattoo artist who’s missing a front tooth.

Now fully clothed, Kim, who has been seeing Jesse for about two months, gives Gribble a bear hug when he enters the shed. She thanks Gribble for the electric heater he gave her for Christmas.

“You were purple when I came here the first time,” Gribble says. “By the way, can you get that bracelet? I want to see it.”

Kim says she’ll get it in a while.

Then, to quell the awkward silence that has befallen the room, Gribble explains the presence of a news reporter. Kim and the other girl, who refers to herself as “Spaz,” give short answers to questions about Mark Jenket, but they talk openly about themselves and runaways in general.

“I see (Jenket) all the time,” Kim says, twisting her braided hair with both hands. “All the runaways hang out with each other. If you’re friends with one, you’re friends with all – it’s like a big family.”

Kim says the network includes 20 to 30 people.

They hang out wherever there is a room, Samantha adds. Sometimes, that means sleeping during the day in the home of a working parent or a friend – or at a local motel with others, they say. Kim says she has slept in the parking lot of a local restaurant.

Despite their poverty, the girls always have money for crystal meth, or crank.

Spaz, 17, earned her nickname by snorting vast quantities of it. Crank, she says, makes her smarter.

“I don’t smoke weed. I don’t drink alcohol,” she says. “I just do crank. It makes you able to communicate.”

Both of the girls get money through seasonal jobs and “spanging,” slang for soliciting spare change.

“You’re like, ‘OK, get away, bye,’” Kim says. “On the right day, you can make $150.”

Their reasons for running are as diverse as each runaway’s personality, the teen transients say. Spaz, for instance, ran away just to fit in.

“Most of my friends have no place to live, so I felt like I was missing out,” says Spaz, also a high school dropout. A 25-year-old man named Fie sits in a chair behind her, periodically tilting Spaz’s chair back to kiss her neck as she talks.

Samantha, on the other hand, says she ran away because she doesn’t get along with her family.

“I come back for the holidays and some weekends,” she says. “But it’s only a matter of time before I gotta get out of there.”

Kim, like Samantha, says she can’t get along with her mom, but certain people – such as Gribble – have given her the support she needs.

“I’ve known Kevin for a while,” she says. “He lets me help unload boxes (for money at his trucking business). If I need cigarettes, he will help me out – he brings me money, and something to eat.”

Gribble, while flattered, seems bothered by something.

“Kim, can you please get me that bracelet?” he says. “I have to get going.”

Kim leaves the shed to go look for it and returns, empty-handed. She shrugs her shoulders.

“I don’t know what happened,” she says. “I can’t find it.”

Girl, Father Badly Hurt in Newark: Police Consider Blaze at Hair Salon Possible Homicide-Suicide Attempt

NEWARK — A day after a fire at a hair salon severely injured a man and his 7-year-old daughter, police are investigating the possibility that the 51-year-old man set the fire intentionally in an attempt to kill them both.

“Talk about ghoulish and hideous,” Newark police Capt. Lance Morrison said Wednesday. “Right around Christmastime. It just doesn’t add up. All the officers at the scene were shaking their heads.”

Ching Chi, a Fremont resident with a significant criminal record, suffered second- and third-degree burns to about 80 percent of his body, police said. He was listed in critical condition Wednesday.

His daughter also suffered burns and from smoke inhalation. She was transferred to intensive care at Shriners Hospital in Sacramento and was reported in critical condition. Her condition Wednesday was unavailable.

“The percentage of her body damaged by the fire wasn’t as high as the father’s, but the burns she did sustain were very significant,” Morrison
said.

About 1:50 a.m. Tuesday, Newark police and fire personnel responded to alarms from the businesses flanking World Hair Design in a shopping center near Highway 84 anchored by a Raley’s grocery store.

Three fire engines, almost a dozen firefighters and two ambulances responded to the blaze, fire officials said.

When they arrived, plumes of smoke were billowing from the hair salon, at 6263 Jarvis Ave. Two neighboring businesses, Sweet Zone and Venus Bakery, also sustained damage and were closed Wednesday.

Friends and nearby merchants say Chi once co-owned the hair salon with 34- year-old Kyung Choi, the mother of their 7-year-old daughter. Choi still owns the business. A friend of Choi’s said the couple broke up more than a year ago.

By 1999, they had been together for more than 10 years and were living together in Union City, according to court records. Choi now lives in Newark.

It is unclear whether they ever were formally married, police said. The couple shared custody of the daughter, who was staying with her father Monday night, police said.

The couple’s relationship was troubled.

In November 2002, Chi was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon and spousal abuse — both felonies — after attacking Choi with a hammer in the salon, Morrison said. She suffered traumatic injuries. A friend of Choi’s said he wrapped the hammer in a towel and bludgeoned her several times, leaving defensive bruises on her arm and elsewhere.

In July 1999, Chi was placed on three years’ probation for possessing two unlicensed, loaded handguns, according to court records.

On Wednesday, friends of the former couple said Chi was trying to get back at his ex-girlfriend for breaking up with him and taking control of the business by destroying himself, their daughter and the store.

“I can definitely say that that’s one of the things we are looking at,” Morrison said, though he added, “There’s a myriad of potential
circumstances.”

Police said a petroleum-based substance was found in the building after the fire was extinguished but had no more details.

Glass shards litter the floor of the scorched store, its windows covered with newspapers. Sheetrock was sheared off at least one of the bowed-out walls, a fire official said.

Board President Abruptly Quits: McDonald cites family reasons; she faced conflict-of-interest questions from
fellow trustees

NEWARK — School board President Eileen McDonald announced her resignation Tuesday, abruptly ending 13 years of service to the district.

McDonald’s resignation, effective July 1, came almost three months after some of her colleagues on the board raised conflict-of-interest questions regarding the district and the travel agency she owns. The board has no more meetings scheduled in June.

For years, the school district has been a customer of the Travel Store and has paid the business $66,379 during the past four years, according to an Argus investigation in May.

McDonald said Tuesday night that their misgivings only partially influenced her decision to leave.

“It’s time to spend some time with my family,” she said, adding that she will be spending a lot of time in Los Angeles visiting relatives.

McDonald, 53, chose to resign effective July 1 to help the board avoid spending money for a special election.

If she had waited until August, the district would not have been able to fill the vacancy by putting an election on the less-expensive November ballot.

“You try to go out with a little class,” she said.

In March, Trustee Janice Schaefer mentioned concerns — shared by other board members — about the Travel Store at a meeting, but refrained from discussing the issue in public afterward. Sources say this was to avoid impugning the entire district before residents voted on a June 3 parcel tax, which lost by a wide margin.

McDonald has seen some pivotal moments at the district, including the voters’ passage of a $66 million facilities bond in 1997. She has worked with three superintendents — Ruben Petersen, Jerry Trout and Ken Sherer, who will retire June 30.

After her announcement at the beginning of the meeting, McDonald sat in the audience for a while before leaving in the middle of the meeting.

Trustee Ray Rodriguez offered kind words.

“I appreciate the years you’ve given to the community,” he said. “We’re better off because of you.”

None of the other trustees followed suit.

Just before McDonald left the building, Carol Viegelmann, who retired after this year as principal of Kennedy Elementary School, told McDonald the announcement surprised her.

But Sherer said he had known that McDonald’s “commitment to her family” would cause her to resign soon.

“She is a bubbly person,” he said. “She always brought life to a meeting.”

McDonald said it is time for her to move out of the public arena.

“No matter what you do, there is always something people can question,” she said. “The more you are out in the public eye, the more of you there is to show.

“I cried during the pledge, because I knew it was my last time,” she said. “I said ‘I pledge allegiance,’ and then I cried for the rest.”

Board Probes Conflict Issue: In past 4 years, district has paid $66,379 to board President Eileen McDonald’s Travel Store
NEWARK — School board trustees are questioning the district’s longtime practice of doing business with board President Eileen McDonald’s travel agency, about a week after The Argus began investigating the issue.

In a 2-2 vote, with McDonald abstaining, the board Tuesday failed to pass a normally routine bill warrant that included a $92 check to the Travel Store, an agency owned and operated by McDonald. Passage requires a majority vote.

The board then voted to approve the rest of the items on the warrant, a monthly mass of checks that requires board approval.

Trustees also agreed to seek legal counsel and schedule a workshop on the matter.

During the past four years, the district has paid $66,379 to the Travel Store, according to documents obtained by The Argus. District staff members said attaining information from previous years is difficult because the district changed its financial software four years ago.

McDonald on Tuesday cited several reasons why she feels there is no conflict of interest. For example, she does not profit on the transactions, she said. For years, airlines have been cutting travel-agent commissions, and most airlines eliminated commissions altogether after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Still, some of her colleagues are questioning whether doing business with McDonald’s agency is appropriate.

“As a matter of record, I have misgivings about this,” Trustee Janice Schaefer said. “This looks as if there is an impropriety.”

Schaefer and Trustee Charlie Mensinger voted against approving the original warrant. Trustees Ray Rodriguez and Nancy Thomas voted for it.

In 1995, attorneys opined that the arrangement “does not appear to be a legal conflict of interest,” but it “may result in the appearance of impropriety.”

However, McDonald — who has served on the board since 1990 — must “abstain from votes regarding the payment of her warrants,” according to the attorneys, Gregory Dannis and Claudia Madrigal. According to district minutes, McDonald has not always abstained.

On Aug. 20, 2002, for instance, all five board members approved a bill warrant that included two checks to the Travel Store totalling $2,417,
according to the minutes.

One check paid for a trip to Santa Barbara, taken by then-high school principal Patty Christa, administrator Mike Pittner and teachers James Proffitt and Tanh Huynh.

The other check paid for a flight from Denver for renowned author and literacy expert Ellin Keene, who came to the district to train literacy
coordinators and teachers, a literacy coordinator said.

California law stipulates that elected officials “shall not be financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity.”

Wes Stewart, assistant superintendent of business, said because the district never signed a contract with McDonald, there doesn’t appear to be a legal conflict of interest.

“But I’m not a lawyer,” he added.

Government code 1090 also stipulates that elected officials shall not “be purchasers at any sale or vendors at any purchase made by them in their official capacity.”

In statements of economic interests — forms that elected officials are required to file — McDonald has checked the “no reportable interests” box in both 1999 and 2003. District staff members could not locate other forms.

Officials at the Fair Political Practices Commission would not comment about the specifics of the case.

McDonald could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but an employee at the Travel Store relayed a message from her:

“She didn’t understand the concerns the other (board) members had since there has been a legal opinion on file for years stating that there was no conflict of interest,” she said. “Maybe (board members) who had concerns about conflict of interest could have checked with the superintendent’s office about that or talked to her directly. But no one talked to her about it.”

On Tuesday, Schaefer pulled the item off the consent calendar — a cluster of items passed simultaneously — so the board could discuss the matter. McDonald said at the meeting she intended to pull the item herself.

The board then voted to seek legal counsel and schedule a workshop on the matter. A workshop date has not been set.

“The governmental codes are very complicated, and it is critical that we have constant workshops on the interpretation of those codes,” Superintendent Ken Sherer said Wednesday. “Board members as well as most educators are here to serve kids and we do not have a lot of training in the legal areas. … (Workshops) keep us out of emotional conflict.”

McDonald said she has stopped doing business with the district because the district sometimes does not reimburse her in a timely fashion.

The check in question had to do with a $92 charge to change the name of a ticket holder. McDonald told the board she used a credit card to pay the fee months ago, but was not reimbursed. After she called Stewart to ask where her check was, he agreed to process the check and put it on the bill warrant, he said.

Somehow, though, the check was issued twice. One check was canceled and the other went before the board for authorization Tuesday. McDonald said she was doing a favor for the district, because most travel agencies insist on payment before a trip is taken.

But that did not convince several trustees.

Thomas requested the board seek advice from legal counsel, which staff members have agreed to do. McDonald then stated, “We have a legal document already,” referring to the attorney’s letter.

“My understanding is that’s about eight years’ old,” Thomas said.

“But the law hasn’t changed,” McDonald replied.

Rodriguez later made a motion to approve the original bill warrants, but trustees were hesitant to second it.

When business manager Stewart offered the opinion that the board would be abiding by the spirit of the law so long as McDonald recused herself, Thomas seconded the motion.

“I would never, never vote on an issue because of monetary gain,” McDonald said. “I say that from my heart.”

Copley to be arraigned in embezzlement case on Monday

NEWARK — John Copley, the former head of the Chamber of Commerce who resigned under pressure in September, was arrested Friday on suspicion of grand theft and embezzlement from the chamber, police said.

Copley, 39, who was arrested after a nearly four-month investigation, was being held at Santa Rita county jail. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday afternoon, a jail official said.

Although police would not say how much money is involved, one official said it could be between $15,000 and $50,000.

“The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office will review the investigation to determine the appropriate charges to be filed,” police Lt. Tom Milner said.

Bail was set at $50,000, Milner said.

Copley, who police say has been living in San Jose, had not been released as of 7 p.m. Friday, a jail official said.

Copley surrendered voluntarily at the Newark Police Station, where he was arrested at noon, Milner said.

Police began investigating the finances of the chamber in October 2002 when chamber officials realized there was a money shortage.

The chamber — which, according to a balance sheet obtained by ANG Newspapers had $144,000 in cash assets in May 2000 — was more than $4,000 in debt as of last month, said then-chairwoman Gwen Helbush. In addition, the organization owes at least two years’ worth of federal and state taxes, she said.

Copley’s arrest can start the healing process at the chamber, said police Capt. Mark Yokoyama, who has been appointed to serve as the chamber’s temporary spokesman.

“It allows us to put closure to a very sad part of chamber history,” he said. “And it now allows us to move in and bring back the chamber to the higher status it deserves to be at.”

The arrest, he added, may allow the chamber to reclaim some of the funds it has lost.

“Hopefully, through the court process, there will be some sort of restitution offered,” he said.

Another chamber member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “I’m told (police) were so careful because they wanted to make this thing stick. … I’m ecstatic.”

Copley could not be reached for comment. Two days before his resignation, he said he had not done anything illegal.

“If I was doing something wrong or illegal with all this coming up, I would have been out of here and gone,” he said.

Shortly after Copley started working at the chamber on April 1, 2000, he changed his title from executive director to president and chief executive officer. The bylaws were rewritten, listing the president/CEO — Copley — as the treasurer.

In June 2002, disgruntled chamber members began sending mass e-mails containing concerns about various issues, including money, Copley’s title as treasurer and his successful drive to change the name of the chamber to the North Silicon Valley Newark Chamber of Commerce.

On Jan. 15, members voted to change the name back to the Newark Chamber of Commerce. They also passed a new set of bylaws that create a separate treasurer position.

The next day, the chamber accepted the city’s offer of up to $30,000, plus a year of free rent of a city-owned building — amounting to more than$25,000 — on several conditions, including the resignation of its six executive board members.

Copley has been working for two months at the Billy DeFrank Lesbian and Gay Community Center in San Jose.