A lifetime dedicated to serving his communityA lifetime dedicated to serving his communityMarch 7, 2003
Every few years, the Oakley Chamber of Commerce gives a special award to someone in the community who has dedicated a large portion of their time and energy to the betterment of Oakley. This Lifetime Achievement Award was first given out in 1991, to Vina Broderick, during the chamber's annual Citizen of the Year dinner. The idea behind it was to honor someone who had dedicated their time and energy to the community, not just for that current year but for a lifetime of work.
At the time, the Citizen of the Year award was still young and there were so many people who had yet to recognized for all of the work they had done in the past. Vina was someone who had done so many things when she was younger with her children. At the time she received the award she was well into her 70s and there was concern that she would not have the opportunity to be recognized. So the chamber created a special award for her.
In 1993, the award was given to Dennis Nunn for all of his service to the community. At the time, Nunn had decided that maybe it was time to take a break from his community activities. He retired from the Oakley Municipal Advisory Council that year as well as gave up his seat as co-chair of the Oakley Incorporating Committee. Because he hadn't yet been nominated as Citizen of the Year, the chamber board decided to give the award again and honored him as a surprise at the dinner.
The award had not been presented since, until this past weekend's Citizen of the Year dinner. This year's recipient was Rico Cinquini. The name will be very familiar to many. He has served on many committees and has been an active voice in the Oakley community.
Cinquini has been an active member of the community since he moved here in 1947 when he opened a Rexall Drug Store. In 1952 he opened a partnership with two other Oakley residents and formed CBC Real Estate, and was responsible for helping to build Far East County’s first subdivision with 38 homes.
In the 1950s, he helped start a Downtown Businessman’s Association and worked to bring sidewalks and street lights downtown. He also helped change the addressing system from rural routes to street numbers. One of his lifetime goals was to establish a community Christmas tree for Oakley, and he picked out an old oak tree and trimmed it with lights. The tree still stands with lights today on Main Street across from the city offices.
Also in the 1950s, Rico served on the volunteer fire department and then became a board member of the fire commission in 1960, where he still serves. While his two daughters attended Oakley schools he served on the PTA. He also served as the president of the first Oakley Lions Club.
In the 1980s, Rico served on the Oakley Boundaries Committee, which worked to keep Oakley from being incorporated into Antioch or Brentwood. Later that committee became the Oakley Municipal Advisory Council, OMAC. He served on OMAC until it disbanded when Oakley became a city in 1997. He was one of the people who worked on Oakley’s original general plan. Cinquini was also a founding member of the East County Regional Planning Commission and the Citizens Land Alliance committee.
For many years he worked on the Oakley Incorporating Committee with the county and the Local Agency Formation Commission to get approval for Oakley to become a city. During the cityhood campaign he walked the neighborhoods and answered questions at the grocery store to inform residents about Oakley's need to become a city. Now that Oakley is a city, he spends much of his time attending council and planning commission meetings.
The chamber awarded Cinquini with the Citizen of the Year award in 1992, but the board felt that his continued support to the community merited additional recognition. At the dinner, Cinquini was surprised with the honor and after hearing the list of his life accomplishments said, "Wow did I do all of that?" That statement marks the true personality of someone deserving of a lifetime achievement award.
Roni Gehlke's column on life in Oakley appears each week in the Brentwood News.
Distributed by the Contra Costa Times