Unsung hero Fran Gibson will never forget the Oakland Hills fire in October 1991 that destroyed thousands of houses and trapped and killed 25 people, and how close she came to being one of them. “I heard the rotors on the helicopter and someone yelling, ‘Evacuate! Evacuate!’ I knew it was time when the palm trees across the street started exploding...

A massive firefighting effort was launched after a hillside behind Rockledge Lane, Entry 8, caught fire June 19 at about 8:20 a.m. The fire burned about one acre and was very visible in Rossmoor. Residents received periodic Nixle alerts about the status of firefighting efforts. The fire started about halfway up a steep, weed-covered hillside and sp...

Consultants detail plan for Board After learning that the best place in Rossmoor for a $10 million, 3,000-squarefoot water reclamation plant is at the gateway to the community, GRF Board members had questions about location, cost and odor. This first in-person meeting of the GRF Board in 15 months on June 24 brought smiles from directors, but it wa...

The dominoes are all fal l ing in place for Ro s smo o r Mut u a l Board Services Coordinator Kelly Maki. She will leave behind the San Francisco Bay Area and its 7.1 million people to move to a log cabin on eight acres in the woods in the Medford, Oregon, metropolitan area, population 208,545. Her last day on the job is June 30. “It’s for a better...

In her first six days on the job, Christine Conti attended board meetings for five Mutuals. That’s in addition to handling requests from directors and other residents. Conti started her job as a Mutual boards services coordinator on June 1. She brings to Rossmoor years of property management work with homeowner associations (HOAs). She’s also been ...

GRF Board of Directors and its committee meetings return to in-person at their scheduled locations. The decision to resume in-person meetings was made after California reopened businesses and dropped many COVID-related restrictions on June 15. Because attendance was high during the pandemic for the Board meetings on Zoom, the directors have decided...

Residents’ input to help with master plan More places to walk and bike, more dining options, food truck nights, more things for the grandkids to do, better parking and perhaps even Rossmoor’s own “town square.” These were some of the most oft-mentioned wish-list items at a June 15 community workshop at the Event Center. The workshop, which drew abo...

Kathy Anderson would l i ke to ma ke some changes to her First Mutual manor. “It would be nice to remodel my bathroom, do some work in the kitchen,” Anderson said. “But I can’t afford it. “If I had extra (money), I could do a lot more, and that would bring the value of my manor up,” she added. Anderson would like to take out a reverse mortgage loan...

Kairi’s Kitchen will not be reopening its dining service inside the Redwood Room at Gateway, but fans of chef Michael Parham can still look forward to his offerings at special events. In a June 5 letter to GRF officials, Parham said Kairi’s Kitchen would not return to operate or manage the Redwood Room Café, which has been closed since the pandemic...

It could be a year or more before four manors damaged in a June 3 fire are habitable again, a Golden Rain Foundation official said last week. Two upstairs units in a multi-unit co-op building at 2925 Golden Rain Road were damaged by a fire that Contra Costa County Fire Protection District spokesman Steve Hill said is believed to have started in an ...