Salty Dog’ now belongs to Romberg Center

By JEANNE PRICE

Annelies Atchley, widow of Dr. William Atchley of Tiburon, has given the doctor’s 22-foot shallow draft cabin cruiser Salty Dog to San Francisco State University’s Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies (RTC). Dr. Atchley was a member of RTC’s board of directors.

Mrs. Atchley said that at first it was difficult to give the boat away because, “This boat was Bill’s tree house and I felt it embodied his spirit. But when I saw Bill’s fellow boat members and all the students, staff faculty and researchers whose work would be enhanced by the Salty Dog, giving away the boat became a happy occasion.”

\Salty Dog is berthed at Paradise Cay Marina in Tiburon and joins Romberg’s fleet of one other cabin cruiser and four small outboard vessels. “The Salty Dog rounds out our existing fleet perfectly,” said RTC Director Toby Garfield. Katharyn Boyer, assistant professor of biology, recalled that Dr. Atchley often skippered his boat while she and her graduate students did field research along San Francisco Bay’s shoreline. “Dr. Atchley loved being part of science so important to the health of the bay,” she said.

\RTC is San Francisco State University’s marine and estuarine research facility and the only facility of its kind on San Francisco Bay. It is home to research and instruction spanning the disciplines of biology, chemistry and biochemistry, geography, geosciences and human environmental studies. Its instructional programs serves kindergarten through twelfth grade science teachers as well as SF State undergraduate and graduate students.

By HILLARY DON

As an Olympic Games Gold Medal winner, Alex Tarics of Belvedere was invited recently to join other Bay Area Olympians welcoming the Chinese delegation bringing the Olympic Torch to San Francisco. A telephone call on May 8, 2008, told Tarics that the reception would be at the San Francisco Airport at 3 a.m. the next morning. To prevent the unruly receptions given the delegation in France and England, it was planned that the reception be attended by past Olympians only, with no media present.

From a parking area at the airport, the welcoming committee of nine members of Olympians Northern California Alumni Chapter were driven to the SFO tarmac to await the arrival of the plane.
At 3:30 a.m., after security checks, the Chinese delegation was introduced to the welcoming athletes. Professor Jiang Xiaoyu, chairman of the delegation, sought out 95-year-old Tarics, the oldest Olympian in the world. After a friendly conversation in English, Prof. Xiaoyu expressed his happiness and surprise at the joyous tone of the reception.

The same athletes that met the delegation bade farewell to them at 9 p.m. at the airport, again without the presence of newspaper or television personnel.

Deputy Helps Foil Big Bucks Scam

No Room for Error: April 26, 10:42 p.m., a resident of Cecilia Way reported that her roommate was drunk and was scaring her. An officer determined that the pair had been arguing over household duties, and the problem was abated when the roomie agreed to go sleep it off.

Purloined Plant: April 30, 2:59 p.m., a resident of Janet Way reported that someone had stolen an orchid worth $200 from outside her apartment. An officer took a report for petty theft.

Sheriff's Log for the Tiburon Peninsula

Insecurity Issues: April 24, 6:12 p.m., a man complained that a woman was putting children into a minivan without proper car seats, and he wanted a deputy to speak to her. She had left the area, however, so a deputy gave him advice for the future.

By JUDITH WILSON
A Tiburon woman had a close call recently, when a clean-cut, polite young man tried to bilk her out of $20,000 with a sad story.

The man approached her on March 24 in a parking lot in Mill Valley, where she is a regular volunteer at the Discovery Shop, and offered to fix a dent in her car. He quoted a price that was lower than one she had received from the Honda dealership, so she decided to hire him. He and a coworker followed her home in a clean white van. He was professional and did the work well, so she paid him the $300 they had agreed on. “He did a good job. I thought he was a good person,” she said.

Two weeks ago, he appeared at her door with his coworker, whom he sent outside so he could talk to the woman alone. He then started to cry as told her that he had a son who was ill and needed surgery that he could not afford. She offered to give him $500, but he said that wouldn’t be much help. The surgery to save his son would cost $20,000, and he was desperate. So, she agreed to loan him the full amount. “He sold me a tale of woe I fell for,” she said.

Although he had asked the woman to keep the deal a secret, she called her adult daughter to ask for advice about making a stock transfer to obtain the money for the transaction, and the younger woman became concerned. She pointed out that the man’s business card was unprofessional, lacking both a last name and a business license number. The victim realized that she could indeed be the intended target of a scam. Her daughter then called the Marin County Sheriff’s office, and the scheme started to fall apart.

Investigators set up an undercover operation, and when the man arrived to pick up a check on Monday, April 28, a deputy was hiding in the woman’s home. He overheard the whole conversation, as she once again offered $500 to the suspect, and he demanded that she go to the bank and get $20,000.

“A six-foot-three sheriff’s deputy came out of my powder room and nabbed him,” said the woman. “I was almost victimized.”

The deputy arrested the suspect, a 17-year-old youth from Livermore, and booked him into Marin County Juvenile Hall on charges of elder abuse (for attempting to embezzle $20,000 from the victim) and burglary. (In California, if a person enters a residence intending to commit a crime, it is considered burglary.) The Sheriff’s office did not release the name of the suspect because he is a juvenile.