An example of throwing city staff under the bus?

Is Mayor Javier Lopez is posturing himself to make city staffers look like the baddies.

A Ceres resident who put up an illegal carport (with no permit and not allowed under city zoning laws) and now complaining about the city citing to have it removed, lauded Lopez for his apparent siding with the violators.

The gentleman praised Lopez for previously stating that the council didn’t vote on citing people for having the illegal structures. Lopez didn’t say anything but thanks. Nothing like standing in support of your own laws, huh, Mayor?

Of course the council doesn’t “vote” to enforce laws but they do make the laws that are supposed to be enforced! In this case, for decades the Ceres Municipal Code has forbidden these carports yet a bunch of residents in east Ceres put up metal ones anyway in the years when Code Enforcement was in short supply. One of them at Lunar and Fowler has an appalling sliding door right next to the sidewalk in an attempt to partially mask the RV behind it. It blocks his neighbor’s view when they back their cars out onto Fowler. It’s tall and unsightly and could cause a wreck.

For the mayor to essentially shift the blame to city staff for enforcing the law shows his a lack of spine. Ceres finally has a superb Community Development Director in Lea Simvoulakis – perhaps the most professional acting on city staff – and she’s only enforcing laws on the books. Privately she must be seething at such council cowardice.

The council shouldn’t even offer to take up the issue of retooling the ordinance and allow Ceres to get more of these unsightly and potentially dangerous structures.

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One of our local reporters, who had an obvious affection for Adam Gray as evidenced by how he covered the race, kept making an issue about how close the 2022 race was between him and John Duarte. While it’s true that that election was very close and had Duarte winning only by 564 votes, it meant absolutely nothing. That’s because in the March primary this year, Duarte received 46,219 votes to Gray’s 38,754 – a 7,465 vote lead, or in terms of percentages, 54.9 percent to 45.1 percent. So why anyone thought Gray could pull it off was wishful thinking.

In the Nov. 5 election, Duarte pulled it off again, with a 2,281-vote lead.

And thankfully Republican state Assemblyman Juan Alanis knocked it out of the park once again by defeating Jessica Self, a progressive Democrat in a 56.5 percent to 43.5 percent outcome. 

The county-by-county vote map of Nov. 5 highlights that geographically speaking California is a red state. Stanislaus County shows as light red, and San Joaquin County is powder blue. Areas along the coast are either blue or purple. The mountain counties (Tuolumne, Mariposa, Calaveras, etc.) are a darker red than our county and the reddest counties appear to be Modoc, Lassen, Tehama and Glenn in northern California. The darkest blue counties are Alameda and Los Angeles.

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It’s apparent that city bureaucrats don’t have much interest in exploring the idea of restoring the Ceres water tower. You know, that rusty piece of ironwork jutting 80 something feet into the sky and seen by hundreds of thousands of Highway 99 motorists passing by just blocks away. The city council is all concerned about blight in neighborhoods yet the highest profile owned by the city is the real eyesore that conveniently is ignored year after year.

Years ago we heard one city official suggest there was no reason to fix up the tower and said it had no redeeming value anymore and should come down.

Other cities take pride in their towers, like Hughson which painted its tower over two decades ago and it still looks freshly painted. And then there’s Kingsburg which turned their tower into a Swedish tea pot that draws double-takes from curiosity seekers. Ceres, nah, we’re fine with the rusty tin can on a pedestal. You know what they say about first impressions but after a while you see something in your hometown so much that you fail to see it anymore. I wonder what the guests who do see it think about Ceres.

Councilwoman Rosalinda Vierra asked for a council agenda item back in January and it’s been mum ever since.

When Councilman James Casey expressed interest in using some of the last remaining ARPA funds of $624,424 on the tower, all he got was, hey, it’s too late at this point. The city had all year and to be honest they made the gazebo project such a priority that it happened pretty fast. That gazebo cost Bret Silveira the election, I am sure but hey, Ceres will have a gazebo that looks pretty much like the old one as more rust forms on the tower.

City Manager Doug Dunford mentioned the old $589,000 quote obtained by Toby Wells to rehab the water tower and that with inflation it would cost more today – but getting a new estimate and analysis of costs would take longer than the Dec. 31 deadline for ARPA funds to be committed.

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It appears that as long as man has been driving cars, people have complained about speeding.

I’ve seen many people show up at city council meetings through the years complaining about speeding and the age old warning that “something needs to be done before someone is killed.”

Speeding has always been a problem apparently. I came across a June 22, 1977 Ceres Courier article headlined, “Tenth Street speeding draws the ire of residents.” In that article, Tom Keylon complained the council: “The problem keeps growing worse. I came to the city for help several years ago. I am not demanding anything but I’m telling you that something has to be done.”

Councilman John Eberle said he lived on Tenth Street and “it’s like living on the Indianapolis Speedway.”

The problem continues with the case of characters changing, now it’s the Gene Yeakley, John Warren and occasionally Lee Brant who bring their concerns.

While folks do need to slow down and drive more courteously, there will always be the lead-footed drivers who push the limits – probably because they know that in this day and age of police officer shortages, they probably won’t get caught.

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I like to walk in the evenings to offset all the sitting I have to do in any given day. At least two of my neighbors have employed those obnoxious seeing eye systems that play a recording of: “Hi, you are currently recorded.” Now mind you, I am on the sidewalk, not in anybody’s yard.

I understand that people are afraid of their houses being broken into because it happened to me about a decade ago and it is the most horrible thing to see your house ransacked and to know that some drugged out dirt-bag rifled through your possessions, stealing what belongs to you. It leaves indelible scars and fears of it happening again. But to this a mechanized system telling you that it’s recording you walking down the public sidewalks is irritating. It’s a technological cold shoulder that irks me.

Only a fraction of low life humans would ever think of breaking into someone’s house. So I’m not sure of the point of telling the 99.9 percent of pedestrians that the owner is super paranoid to set up such a stupid system. Besides, don’t most burglars wear hoodies and masks so what will a video show?

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I don’t know what the deal is with all these car crashes that seem to blow up Stanislaus County social media every day and weekend but it’s apparent that many don’t know how to drive defensively.

Maybe the number of crashes has remained static all these decades and we just hear about them now because everybody with a cell phone is now the empowered little Facebook reporter posting photos.

I found it interesting to come across a Stanislaus Historical Quarterly issued in the summer of 2015 that had newspaper excerpts of early-day automobile crashes in the Ceres area. They show us that careless drivers have been behind the wheel for over a century.

From The Turlock Journal of November 27, 1913 came this report of a hit-and-run, “Auto Damaged Two Buggies”:

“The driver of a small run-about automobile was responsible for the complete demolition of two buggies and severe injury to the occupants about 8 o’clock on the state highway between Modesto and Ceres. In both cases the reckless driver crashed into the rear of the rigs, and extricating himself and his machine from the wreckage of the vehicles, drove away hastily without offering any assistance.

“In one buggy were Mrs. M. Mustoe and little daughter of Waterford and Mrs. H. Tyre of Ceres, and the other Ad Giller of Modesto. The reckless driver was headed toward Ceres, and the local officers in adjoining communities and cities are on the lookout so an arrest can be made.”

In the August 27, 1914 Turlock Journal came this report about a careless driver in “Ceres Man Hurt in Auto Wreck”: “O.H. Sparks of Ceres was brought to the Modesto Sanitarium last night suffering from a broken knee and two broken ribs, the result of an automobile accident on the state highway near Esmar just south of Ceres yesterday. Mr. Sparks was driving his new car south from Ceres, when he turned around to wave to a neighbor whom he had just met on the road. In doing so, he lost control of the wheel for a moment, the machine swerved to one side, and crashed into a concrete siphon. He was thrown to the pavement with ribs and knee broken and the machine was badly wrecked.”

Even teen drivers were careless and died. The Turlock Journal reported on Sept. 3, 1914 about the fatal crash of a motorcyclist named Raymond Harwick. In the article, “Modesto Cyclist Seriously Hurt” it was reported that “Raymond Harwick, an employee of the G.P. Schafer Company, is lying at the Evans Hospital in critical condition with a concussion of the brain from a collision of his motorcycle with a buggy last night at 12 o’clock on the state highway south of Modesto. The occupants of the buggy were uninjured. Harwick, on his machine, was turning out to go around the buggy driven by Robert Beebe, but failed to turn far enough to miss the rig. His machine caught the rear wheel with such force as to tear it from the rig and he was thrown heavily to the pavement. He has been unconscious since the accident, and there is little hope for his recovery. The motorcycle was a complete wreck.”

Harwick died the next day and was 16 or 17.

This report is scary because a lightning bolt hit a car! Reporting on Sept. 8, 1915 was this story, “Lightening Causes Auto Accident”: “Blinded by the vivid flashes of lightning, which visited this section Tuesday night, Carl Lamble of Newman drove his auto head-on into a hay wagon driven by James Miller of Keyes, as the latter was returning from Modesto, says the Ceres Courier. The accident happened about a mile from Ceres. One of the horses was killed outright and the other badly injured. In the machine with Lamble were his brother and Mr. and Mrs. A.J. Fray, all of Newman. Mrs. Fray suffered a slight concussion of the brain and her husband a severe cut under the arm. The injured parties were picked up by a Mr. Beasley of Coalinga and hurried to Evans Hospital in Modesto where they received medical attention.”

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Last time I booked a flight, I was asked to check if I was male or female.

This gender thing is not complicated, folks.

Southwest Airlines apparently doesn’t believe there are other genders. Neither does basic biology.

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I have long and often expressed concerns about windows tinted so dark that they are a true hazard. When you come to a four-way stop, you should be able to look at the other driver to see if they see you. Do you know how many times a car pulls up next to me and I can’t see the driver or any occupants? It makes you wonder why they feel the need to wear a cloak of invisibility while driving down the road. And with the gangs that could roll up, you might not even see the shot coming.

Well, on Nov. 8 in Fresno County a man was injured when a vehicle with excessively dark window tinting rammed his truck off the road on Highway 180 near 99. Apparently the man with the illegal tint couldn’t even see him next to him and changed lanes toward him and he swerved off the road and hit a tree. Meanwhile, the law-breaking moron goes off on his merry way.

With the amount of too-dark-for-the-law tinting I see on the road, I’m very sure that police are not making citations a priority in Stanislaus County.

Hey, Assemblyman Juan Alanis, how about making it illegal for these window tinting shops to go that dark for customers and heavy fines when he get caught doing the service?

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They waited until after the election to cram through another tax increase on gasoline. I’m convinced that progressives in Sacramento are conspiring to make the cost of gassing up a car so high that you will submit to their environmental worship and force you to buy electric vehicles (EVs) – or ride public transit.

The tax hike will hit in 2026 and raise the cost of gas by an estimated 65 cents to $2 per gallon!

Three days after the election, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) enacted sweeping regulations that will jack up the cost of gas. According to the AP, gas prices could increase by as high as 85 cents per gallon by 2030 and $1.50 per gallon by 2035 under the proposal to make significant updates to the low carbon fuel standard (LCFS), which requires the state to reduce the environmental impact of gas and other transportation fuels by incentivizing producers to cut emissions.

Newsom took steps that will cause refineries to close in California by his forcing them to set aside reserves. And don’t forget how the Attorneys General Xavier Becerra and Rob Bonta have bragged about shaking down the oil industry by fining the living crap out of them as when they issued a massive fine to Valero oil company: nearly $82 million penalty “to address significant air pollution violations by Valero Refining Co. at its Benicia refinery.”

The Bay area refineries are also under assault by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. In February, the Air District announced a $20 million penalty against the Chevron refinery in Richmond, and earlier this month the Air District announced a $5 million penalty against the Marathon refinery in Martinez.

How will the stolen $64 million in oil money be spent? To finance projects aimed at reducing air pollution exposure, mitigating air pollution impacts and improving public health in areas surrounding the refinery. In other words, fleecing oil companies to appease the Democrat voting base. 

You voted for this California. When do you blue voters wake up?

This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation.  How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com