Last week I sat down with Sheriff Jeff Dirkse and his staff for a two-and-a-half hour meeting regarding the future of 911 dispatching in Stanislaus County. The only other media representative was Joe Cortez who writes for the Courier and the Turlock Journal.
The sheriff stated his case succinctly that going with the cloud based Oracle system and not server based CentralSquare will produce greater efficiencies and cost savings. Dirkse wants to exit the current dispatch center run by Stanislaus Regional 911, or SR 911 and go with Ceres Police. SR 911 has chosen to stay with CentralSquare, which Dirkse vehomently opposes. Since two different CAD systems cannot operate out of the same center, Dirkse found a willing partner in Ceres to innovate and use Oracle.
The issue is complex but to simplify, Dirkse feels the best way to manage the tons of information used in law enforcement is to use a system that works better and faster than the current computer aided dispatch system was adopted 25 years ago. In the old days you called 911 and got police, fire or ambulance delivered to your door. Not only has society changed but so has technology and things are ever evolving.
Oracle will give deputies and dispatchers an “easy and efficient to understand picture ... in real time.”
Tori Hughes, the Sheriff’s patrol operations captain, noted how society has sadly changed in the past 25 years with more calls for 5150 (mental) cases, more violent individuals and people resisting deputies and engaging in high-speed chases. The more information a deputy or officer has before arriving, the safer things go for all.
Sheriff’s Lt. Brock Condit said the current CAD system is outdated and that deputies use over 25 different software platforms for immediate investigations – all requiring different user names and passwords. Oracle would simplify everything.
The new system would also allow dispatchers to see the exact real time location of the officer once he or she leaves the patrol car, such as during a foot pursuit.
Hughes said the SR 911 JPA is dysfunctional and uses dispatchers are non-criminal justice center employees with little or no access to law enforcement telecommunications data, such as DMV and FBI. That impedes the flow of information from dispatchers. Ceres dispatchers are law enforcement employees with immediate access to such records.
For example, currently if a deputy pulls over a driver with an out-of-county warrant, they must call into the Records Division which has to call the jurisdiction which issued the warrant. Once the warrant is confirmed, it goes first back to Records and then to dispatchers who then relay the details to the deputy. This delay can tie up a deputy for minutes. It would go much faster with Ceres dispatchers who have access.
Oracle would also greatly aid in managing the tons of data involved in law enforcement and in managing jail records.
Cerina Otero, who recently was elected to the Ceres City Council, is also the Sheriff’s Department’s records manager. She endorses Oracle as the best way to manage the vast amounts of information used in investigations, crimes and jailing as well as every new dictate about burdensome records keeping passed down by the Legislature.
Captain Frank Martinez oversees jail operations where at any given day there are 1,400 to 1,500 jailed individuals. Our county is using the same technology system used since 2003. He highlighted how he must click on four or five screens before he can release an inmate. The same kinds of inefficiencies happen during booking. Martinez said only one county can be found using CentralSquare for their jail management system and that is a small jail.
Lt. Condit said that when the county did a live test run of Oracle in Ceres on Dec. 3, there was a seamless flow of information.
So what about this claim that dispatchers tried Oracle and didn’t like it? SR 911 didn’t want to make the change to Oracle and wanted it to fail so took it for a test drive before things were entirely configured. Oracle didn’t want the dispatch system tried out for that reason. Captain Hughes said: “the poor dispatchers were not being told the truth as to what was going on so they thought, oh, this thing doesn’t work.”
Dirkse’s preliminary numbers – which supervisors suggested needed to be vetted – show Oracle saving the county $11.6 million in 10 years with most of those savings in the first five years since the county won’t have to pay a dime for use of the program in that time.
By the end of the presentation, my thought was “this is a no-brainer.”
Supervisors Channce Condit, Mani Grewal and Terry Withrow deserve praise for being open to Oracle instead of shutting down like Buck Condit and Vito Chiesa.
Unless I’m missing something, it seems like some supervisors have trouble trusting the professionals who run the Sheriff’s Department who are absolutely frustrated over their resistance to change.
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Reform California, a conservative political group in California, filed the California Voters ID Initiative for the 2026 election.
Carl DeMaio of Reform California and was recently elected to represent the 75th District in the California State Assembly. He points out that the state of California does not verify that someone is a citizen of the United States when they register to vote. As he puts it “it is simply the pinky swear, the honor system. All you have to do is say you are a citizen. No check is done. That is a fact.”
If the measure makes the ballot and majority of voters’ approval, starting with the 2026 election, this law would require a government-issued ID to vote, strengthens citizenship verification of voter registrations, requires audits of voter lists to ensure they are properly maintained, imposes penalties on counties that fail to count ballots on time, and enhances signature reviews on ballots.
Because California hands out drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants, the ID would have to be citizenship verified to vote.
DeMaio also asserts that voter rolls are not properly maintained, pointing out that the voter rolls contain the names of persons who left California years ago. We know that to be the case when we pointed out years ago that Lee Brandt of Ceres had received “orphan” ballots for his son and daughter who left Ceres a long time previously. Only until the Elections Division was notified were the two non residents removed from the rolls.
DeMaio also wants to see an end to ballot harvesting and the tardy verification of vote counts. Ceres area voters know this all too well when the 13th Congressional District results were finalized about a month after the election. Of course, we wouldn’t have that problem if we returned to the days when voters had to actually show up at the polls to vote.
Voters must have confidence in the election system. Securing them with voter ID makes sense and would restore faith in election outcomes.
If you want to learn more about the initiative effort, visit Voteridpetition.org
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I watched President Trump’s conference with Los Angeles County officials, Mayor Karen Bass and congressmen from the area and was impressed with how CEQA came to light as a problem. Rep. Kevin Kiley also spoke about the stifling regulations from the California Coastal Commission making it nearly impossible to build anything near the Pacific. The discussion touched on how it takes 18 months to get a building permit. Trump, the grownup in the room, said that was ridiculous. She made more excuses about hazmat cleanup, which is another way government delays building.
I’ve been saying for years that CEQA, which stands for the California Environmental Quality Act, has been a major impediment to building more in California. Our housing shortages have led to exorbitant mortgages and rents and it doesn’t have to be this way.
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I take exception to a statement read by Ceres Economic Development Manager Julian Aguirre at last week’s council meeting. He cited a Ceres population figure of around 49,302, “reflecting a steady growth since 2021 according to the latest U.S. Census data.”
That was a 2020 figure and Ceres has since shrunk. As it stands now, Ceres’ official population is at 48,397 – 885 residents fewer than it was in 2020. Ceres shrunk in population, not experienced “steady growth.” The loss of population here is due to people leaving California as a whole. And with only two single-family residential building permits issued in 2024, don’t look for Ceres to hit the magic mark of 50,000 any time soon.
Meanwhile, Manteca issued 1,306 new home permits last year! Hughson and Modesto are building hundreds of new homes. Which begs the question, why what is exactly the problem in Ceres?
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Last week I observed a disheveled man who was obviously homeless judging by the belongings in his possession. He was holding a sign that read, “Anything helps.” My first reaction was to ignore him. Then I thought if I were him, would I want everyone to pass me by without so much as a glance? Let’s face it, we tend to ignore people like him.
As I made my way to my car, I remembered the $10 bill in my wallet that’s been there for over a week. I don’t usually have cash on me because I use my card for just about everything. This ten dollars would buy me less than 10 sodas but could mean much more to him. I’m sure he needed something to eat since dinner time was approaching.
I approached him and he must have thought I was a cop in plain clothes because he started saying something about he did nothing wrong. It took me seconds to glance down and see a piece of aluminum foil and a burned substance in it. I didn’t need to see evidence of drug abuse to figure out that he was acting a bit animated.
I quizzed Kevin, hoping he would shed light on how he ended up on the streets. I was about to get a brief $10 lesson on homelessness. Originally from the Bay area, he explained that he moved to Modesto with his mother decades ago. When she died he was emotionally devastated. He’s been homeless for four years, finding places “here and there” to sleep for the night. I received no further details but I suspect mom was his meal ticket that just got punched for the last time and here he is.
Kevin had no idea that I had a $10 bill in my pocket and was ready to give it to him. “You need money, I see,” I prodded. He spilled out a brutally honest answer: “I’m going to be honest. If you gave me $10 I’d use half of it for food and the other for this,” pointing to the ground where the foil was.
I’m not a religious kook but I reminded him that Jesus loves him. He said he knew that and began to recount the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life after his sister approached him, so he was definitely familiar with scripture. He was getting emotional recalling how after his mother passed he went to his pastor’s house with tears streaming down his face.
I shared how I lost my mother too and I reminded him that one day we would see them again. He nodded. I handed him the money and said, “I’d rather you spend all of this on food because you need that more.” He gave me a head nod as if acknowledge that I was right. But I also understand the power of drug addiction too.
Kevin has no business being on the streets. Nor do the multitude of others digging caves in the banks of the river or huddled under the doorways of businesses. We have failed in California in a horrible way but I am encouraged by the CARE Court system. But as you read in last week’s Courier, there have been limited referrals of individuals into the mental health court program.
Stanislaus was one of seven counties to launch the new program in October 2023. The new civil division oversees petitions to get people with untreated schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders into county-funded treatment programs. While participation in CARE Court is voluntary, after entering the program those who cannot come to a CARE Agreement with the court on treatment direction – which can include housing, medication and other mental health services – will be put in CARE Plans which are court ordered and more strictly monitored.
Family members and roommates, law enforcement and first responders and mental health and medical professionals can file petitions with the court on people they believe need the services.
We need more this program to succeed!
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
