County Supervisors in Contra Costa County are considering a proposal on Tuesday to introduce a measure that would give people over the age of 55 a potentially significant tax break when moving into Contra Costa County.

Proposition 90 is already in place in seven California Counties including Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara. The way it works is that if you are over 55 and you are moving in to a County that supports Proposition 90, you can keep your existing Property Tax base. There are conditions of course. First of all, you can only do this one time, so you had better be sure you don't plan to move again. Also, the home you are moving to needs to be of equal or lesser value than your present one.

Since one of the frequently cited reasons for people staying in their present home rather than moving is the fact that they can't afford the new property taxes, it seems reasonable to think that this could stimulate the housing market, something that everybody agrees is desirable. Critics say that it will cost the county considerable income in potential lost property tax revenues but of course this is only a reality once a given home has been sold.

The reality, in my opinion, is that such a move s unlikely to be a major stimulus to our market, although undoubtedly, every little helps. On a more positive note, anything that can be done to help people nearing retirement have improved benefits should be considered a positive. It will be interesting to see if this proposal goes anywhere.

In these rather tough times it is good to see that Alain Pinel Realtors, the company with which I am affiliated, won the Structures' Real Estate Firm of The Year award for 2007. Alain Pinel Realtors is based in Silicon Valley and this is an award given by the San Jose Business Journal although it relates to the firm as whole.

It is also good to see that the Danville office of Alain Pinel Realtors (that's my office) was ranked as the #2 office by volume for all sales in Contra Costa County for the 12 months ending August 2007. #1 was Village Associates.

Way to go Alain Pinel!

Bernard G

Yes it's open! The new Plaza at Gale Ranch shopping center at the corner of Bollinger Canyon Road and Dougherty is now open to the public.

Anchored by the most impressive, and certainly the largest, Safeway I have ever seen, this shopping center provides residents of Gale Ranch and Windemere with support that they have been crying out for.

Right now (early September) only Safeway is open, including the Safeway discount gas station. Many of the other units have tenants already though including a Peet's coffee shop and Cactus Jack's Bar and Grill. The Safeway store has a Starbuck's in an annex of to one side and also a sit down Sushi Bar as well as numerous food stations of varying kinds, both hot and cold. The success of this sh oping center is assured and the residents of Windemere and Gale Ranch are undoubtedly well pleased.  

I just finished watching a video showing the replacement of a major section of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge over the Labor Day weekend. Charismatic main contractor, C.C. Myers, ecpalined the process and made it sound very easy and straightfoward, which I'm sure it wasn't. Nevertheless, the project was completed 11 hours ahead of schedule, undoubtedly a credit to his project management.

The Bay Bridge closed at 8 pm Friday and re-opened just before 6pm on Monday evening. This is the firsttime the bridge was closed to all traffic since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

According to all reports, numbers of visitors to San Frabcisco from the East Bay were very much the same as on any Labor Day wekend and people adapted well to the closing. BART laid on extra trains and some people just went the long way round using either the Golden Gate ot the San Mateo bridge depending on where they started from.

Now once again, San Francisco is fully connected to the East Bay.