Community advocate and Organizational and Systems Coach Kate Trompetter was ten years old when her mother gifted her with one of the more important lessons she could ever receive. “I’ve shared this story many times, but it continues to inform my life,” Ms. Trompetter recently recalled. “I had read this story in the newspaper of a child who had been born HIV-positive and this child’s family needed money. So I […]
History
Is Economic Success in Stanislaus County Unattainable? Part II
Perhaps the best economic news for Stanislaus County in the past 20 years has been the present supply chain problems and product shortages experienced nationwide. Given that educational levels in the county in general are well suited for manufacturing jobs, plus the realization by industrialists that the best business model may be a shorter supply chain, manufacturing might return to the San Joaquin Valley and provide new jobs. The number […]
Stanislaus 2030: Booming Economy or Unattainable Dream?
About every ten years, there is a significant turnover of leaders in Stanislaus County. Each newly elected group lacks the institutional memory of departing incumbents. High staff turnover within city and county government makes understanding what the departing group planned difficult. City managers come and go like shoppers through a revolving door. New leaders often choose to change direction. With the loss of institutional memory, new officeholders tend to make the […]
Homeless: Your (Regressive) Tax Dollars at Work
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves in their separate, and individual capacities. Abraham Lincoln As homeless numbers continue to rise along the West Coast, more and more voters are beginning to realize that the failure of political leaders is among the chief reasons the problem is […]
Homeless: The (almost) Unbearable Burden of Shelters
“Almost all emergency shelters of today are over their heads,” said Major Harold Laubach at Modesto’s Salvation Army Shelter on November 19. “But for people with mental health issues, we are probably the best alternative. Forty percent of our residents deal with mental health challenges and another 40 percent deal with substance abuse challenges.” Laubach was responding to a growing litany of complaints from residents of Stanislaus County’s low barrier shelter that rules […]
Death Among the Homeless
When death takes a homeless person, there are cold facts. If they die walking home from a store alone, the coroner will eventually pick them up and take the remains to the morgue. The deceased may have friends, but they often do not have any next of kin to claim them. They usually have a tent and possessions somewhere, even friends, or a spouse. No one in an official capacity […]
RIP Edward “Popeye” Peacock
“You don’t retire from the Angels,” said Edward “Popeye” Peacock, “you just go inactive.” Popeye’s tales of riding with the Hells Angels may have been his way of warning people not to underestimate the prowess of a man just a bit over five feet tall and a few degrees north of one-hundred pounds. The stories may or may not have been true; he did appear to know quite a bit […]
Homeless: The Wonderful Alchemy of Work
In the end, it wasn’t the beatings, the sexual abuse, the hunger or the ugly words that broke Carrie Turnquist; it was the indifference of others. After she was badly beaten when a passenger in a passing car jumped out, pulled her hair back and began punching her in the face and head, she lay on the sidewalk while people watched and did nothing. “I felt like a dog that […]
Homeless by Any Other Name
“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happenth to them all.” After a woman died from an apparent suicide in Modesto, a report in the local newspaper said that, “The Coroner’s Office […]
Was Carol Whiteside the Last of Her Kind?
Sunday, October 17, at Modesto’s Graceada Park during a Celebration of Life for Carol Whiteside, Modesto Mayor Sue Zwahlen and Stanislaus County Supervisor Mani Grewal brought proclamations citing Whiteside’s impact and lasting contributions to the region, especially with regard to her terms as Mayor of Modesto and Director of the Great Valley Center. A moderate Republican before the species went extinct, Whiteside was elected Mayor of Modesto in 1987, after […]