The Planning Commission has been mostly dormant for most of 2024 but the meeting last week was a whopper.

There was considerable discussion about the proposed Maverik gas station project with some vocal objections from those whose businesses have already been approved. The commission wisely approved it.

Here is what Harshraj Singh Ghai had to say on Facebook: “I’m the owner and developer of the 76 Gas Station on Mitchell Rd that just opened yesterday. On the same day we opened, a new truck stop has been approved on Mitchell & Service Rd operated by the national company Maverik. Maverik truck stops include laundry and showers and usually need several acres to be built on (think Buc-Ees but smaller). The planning department approved this development even though there are severe traffic implications onto Mitchell. This will undoubtedly affect our business and that of the other stations on Mitchell. Just as background, we also opened the Popeyes there. The land developer was already building the gas station and we decided to take the opportunity to jump in.”

He continued: “This Maverik will be a traffic nuisance and hurt local business owners. We will be filing and appeal.”

Playing devil’s advocate, why was it okay for all parties in the Ceres Gateway Center – including Ghai’s businesses – to impact traffic on Mitchell Road? Why does he feel he has exclusive rights to develop two businesses on highway commercial property in Ceres while denying his neighbor that same right?

Ghai needs to be corrected in statements he made about Maverik. This will not be a truck stop since there will be no overnight parking and no shower accommodations. Most of the gas pumps (14) will be for passenger cars while 10 pumps for trucks.

Not everyone was sympathetic to the man threatened by competition, which is the age old premise of the free enterprise system. Brian Forest posted this response: “Honestly, Maverick gas stations are amazing. That’s all I stop at in Nevada, they also have the best chips. I own a diesel engine Colorado and will never use a 76 renewable diesel mixture since it will potentially void my trucks warranty if anything happens as I can use diesel #2 up to b20 (20% biomass). Any appeal on this would absolutely be viewed as stifling competition and absolutely should not be blocked. Let the free market decide which stations are operated better than the others. May the odds be in your favor.”

Tori Frank commented: “So you are upset over the competition, then exaggerated and said it’s a truck stop when it actually isn’t and it’s a refueling station? What’s that say about you as a business owner to blow that out of proportion? There is nothing wrong with some healthy competition. There are enough vehicles and drivers to go around. Hell, your station wasn’t necessary because there is already an AM/PM and a Chevron/7-Eleven there yet you are opening a gas station. Instead of just accepting the new competition, you go and make this post trying to get people riled up by giving the wrong information. It’s not a truck stop at all and won’t offer those services. I listened to that meeting.”

Sherrie Fisher Richardson called the Maverik proposal an “absolutely terrible idea” and commented: “Put it somewhere else. This is not the place for it. As a resident that lives nearby this will decrease the value of my property and ruin all of the great businesses recently built nearby.”

I don’t know where she lives (since there’s no homes on Mitchell Road) but generally commercial development does not decrease residential property values.

Richardson went on: “The planning committee needs to reach out to other business and do their job at recruiting better businesses. Terrible that they are willing to risk the quality of our city just trying to generate revenue so the city staff can get a raise. What a shame!”

Sherrie is misinformed. It isn’t the commission’s job to “recruit better businesses” or any businesses. Their job is to help with zoning and evaluate applications for conditional use permits. If the zoning fits, you really can’t dismiss. Business recruitment is done by city staff.

Richardson also referenced a remark made by City Engineer Michael Beltran about Mitchell Road being closed off in new designs for the interchange. She said that doesn’t make sense. It wouldn’t make sense to a person who hasn’t seen the new design being proposed for the freeway interchanges for Mitchell and Service Road.

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For the first time in California history, voters said no to another minimum-wage hike. They rejected Proposition 32 that would have raised the statewide minimum wage to $18 an hour, by a margin of 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent.

Rebekah Paxton, research director at the Employment Policies Institute, said “Voters saw the devastating economic fallout of the $20 fast-food minimum-wage law, and …voted against a statewide minimum-wage hike.”

Voters know that when you force the owners of fast-food to pay higher than market rates for labor, adverse things happen. Costs of food has to be raised, which ends up making customers walk which causes layoffs or reduce employee hours or turn to automation.

* * * * *

Attorney General Rob Bonta, the liberal weasel that he is, was rebuked by California Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas. On Nov. 15 the judge upheld Huntington Beach’s voter ID law, rejecting a tendentious challenge from Bonta who claimed the law would disenfranchise minorities.

In March the voters of the predominantly Republican city passed a voter ID law with 53.4 percent in favor. It allows local officials to require that voters show ID at the polls and also increases polling locations and authorizes greater monitoring of drop boxes. The law is scheduled to take effect in two years.

The voters of that city are the adults in the room while the juvenile state leaders are unwilling to move toward verifying that only legal citizens vote.

Bonta claimed that “Imposing unnecessary obstacles to voter participation disproportionately burdens low-income voters, voters of color, young or elderly voters, and people with disabilities.”

It’s reprehensible for Democrats to insist that voters of color or those of low income are too stupid to get an ID. It’s an unvalid objection.

* * * * *

It’s a frustrating exercise for a reporter to keep up with the ever-changing vote counts. For example, we go to press on Tuesday nights, which is the time the county elections office releases its newest count. I have had to make at least five changes to vote counts that come drip, drip, drip. And in the case of close elections, the wait is agonizingly slow.

Thank Newsom for California’s vote counting delays. He signed a bill that gives counties until Dec. 3 to certify – a whole month! Other states has certified election results long ago.

As of Friday, John Duarte could have no assurances that he will return to Congress. His vote lead has been evaporating as time goes on. It went from 2,004 votes head to last week, shaved off by 351 votes, and on Friday his lead slipped to 207 votes.

I’ve done a bit of head scratching because in the March primary, Duarte received 47,219 votes to Adam Gray’s 38,754 votes, a difference of 8,465 votes. And now the Nov. 5 vote is 102,653 Duarte votes to 102,446 Adam Gray votes?

I understand that many of the November voters were too lazy and apathetic to vote in March but apparently more Democrats were asleep in March and thus Duarte had such a massive lead.

Also, with the advent of voting by mail, there is now the mollycoddling of the folks who can’t figure out how to follow simple instructions to have their ballot counted. We now have to “cure” ballots.

You have to wonder about the lack of intelligence among some in the general population. Now some groups (like labor unions) are getting volunteers to do what’s called “vote curing,” coming along the side of voter who didn’t sign the outside of the envelope per the instructions.

If folks can’t follow basic instructions, they probably have no business voting because they probably can’t figure out what the candidates stand for and what each proposition entails.

I’m still of the opinion that it’s probably best that some people don’t vote because they vote on the basis of gender or skin color and not the quality of the candidate and his or her positions.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a partisan Democrat, said the reason California is so slow in counting – when states like Florida have been done a while now – is because “we respect every vote that comes in.”

That and you forced us all to vote by mail, which must be opened individually, validated and processed — so they can take longer to tabulate than ballots cast in person that are then fed into a scanner at a neighborhood polling place. Add to that mix how voters wait until the last day to drop off their ballots in the mail or in person and create a bottleneck; and later mail ballot deadlines. Initially, the law said ballots that arrived within three days of the election would be considered cast in time. This year, ballots could arrive up to a week after Election Day, so California doesn’t know how many ballots have been cast until Nov. 12. This deadline means a further delay in counting ballots.

Assemblyman Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, hit the nail on the head when he said: “It’s really important to note that the longer this goes on, whether it’s true or not, it sows distrust in the system, and we need more confidence in our elections system.”

I might add greater distrust when a candidate who has a big lead can see things slowly tighten as counting drags on.

* * * * *

The whole controversy and legal fight between Chad Condit and former boss, state Senator Marie Alvarado Gil is both befuddling and embarrassing.

One thing is for sure: Someone is lying.

But I know where I’d put my money.

Condit, who ran for Congress and lost in 2012 and state Assembly in 2022 and lost, was fired by the senator at the end of 2023. To hear him tell it, she was forcing him to do some kinky things and acted purely unprofessional toward him and he was this abused employee who was powerlessly intimidated. He claims the things he did to her inside the confined space of a car in contorted position caused his back and hip problems.

He alleged that one such incident happened in the car during a potty stop on their way to an event in Inyo County. Ask yourself if a female legislator with a recognizable face would risk her career to a car sex scandal when, such activity could occur in the privacy of the hotel they’d be staying at that night.

Alvarado Gil asserts that Condit’s back injury occurred on his March 2023 family trip to Disneyland.

She has counter sued, saying Condit was a man spiraling out of control, who had a growing drinking problem and alleged that he was abusing drugs and was being evicted from his home. She claims she was scared of Condit because of his angry outbursts and that he carried a gun. Her suit alleges that Condit “engaged in a pattern of being inexplicably absent from the office, including from pre-scheduled meetings and legislative briefings, coming to work inebriated from alcohol, painkillers, or both, slurring his speech, exhibiting a stumbling gait, and driving unsafely.”

She also claims that Condit’s alleged behavior was reported to the California State Senate’s Human Resources department in June 2023 but she felt sorry for him and gave him chances to shape up.

Things got even stranger in recent weeks when Alvarado Gil filed a countersuit, alleging that Condit stole $50,000 from her campaign through using an electronic signature. She also boldly claims that Condit may have been “personally involved” in Chandra Levy’s 2001 disappearance, since he warned the senator that he knew “how to make people disappear.” Condit allegedly told her more than once that if she was a man he would “kick [her] a- -.”

Condit alleged that he was demeaned by being forced to wear a Santa Claus suit at a Christmas Party. The senator, however, said Condit requested the suit to be at the party but since he was on medical leave she didn’t expect him to show up – but he did. The senator claims Condit became fall-down drunk and demanded that he wear the Santa Claus costume and “ended up in the bathroom with his pants down, yelling loudly.”

It’s going to be interesting to see how these suits ends.

* * * * *

License plate reader technology helped to net the arrest of a 59-year-old man who shot and killed 18-year-old Jose Tamayo-Morales of Modesto. The shooting, which happened in Turlock recently, followed an altercation but there’s no indication if this was self-defense or outright murder.

LPRs are an awesome tool for police to catch the evil people around us. Ceres has them now at the key intersections. As technology progresses, police will have a much better time capturing suspects.

Now if we could just start executing people who commit such heinous acts.

 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