And the Darkness Comprehended It Not The only pain greater than their own is the pain they give the ones who love them. Theirs is a long journey into a wilderness of thorns, each one piercing another heart. Their descent into the smoldering tangle of excuses, evasions, and lies, is like a public burning when the victim will not die. At some point they are unrecognizable. Their flesh scorches, their […]
History
Visions of the Homeless: Part II
What would Jesus do? Get to the Modesto Gospel Mission early enough on a winter morning and you see the overnight “guests” leaving the building. These are the homeless. The rules say they have to be off the property by 7:30, and the rules are strictly enforced. Many of the men who emerge from the building every morning don’t look homeless, maybe because a few actually have jobs, and maybe […]
Visions of the Homeless: Part I
Modesto under siege Summer of 2015 they appeared like an alien fungus, some pale, wan, jaundice-tinged, others large, dark, and gnarly. They plopped down in our parks and along the canals, raising levels of alarm and loathing to dangerous heights. For a long while, their eccentric orbits had been confined to a peripheral loop skirting the edges of downtown Modesto— the Empowerment Center on Olive Avenue to the north west, […]
Still Passing the Buck on Water
For decades now, water woes in the San Joaquin Valley have been blamed on the state and federal government and especially on the “enviros,” those effete coastal dwellers who prefer fish to people. So it was that at last Tuesday’s Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) Board of Director’s meeting when rice farmer Robert Frobose brought up OID’s broken promises about possible impacts from annexing Trinitas Partners, General Manager Steve Knell was […]
Did Trinitas Buy the Irrigation District?
After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Robert Frobose’s great-grandfather rebuilt his grocery store, then sold it and moved to Oakdale, where he began farming. “I was born into the Oakdale Irrigation District (OID),” said Frobose recently. “We still have one of my great grandfather’s ranches.” A rice farmer, Frobose is keenly aware of his crop’s water needs. When he learned this year’s allocation of water for senior OID members would […]
Expect Increases in Modesto Water Rates
Between 1999 and 2003, the public works department repeatedly told the Modesto City Council that the city needn’t worry about water supplies for many years. In fact, water managers worried that if we didn’t use more surface water, we could lose water rights by state edict. Yet, Modesto citizens have been on water rationing since the late 1980’s, with restrictions on landscape watering. Earlier this year, the State of California […]
Hot Night at Knights Ferry Water Meeting
Thursday, June 25, over two hundred people met at the Community Club in Knights Ferry. Sponsored by the Stanislaus Ground Water Alliance Committee, the purpose of the meeting was to provide a forum for large farming operators, the Oakdale Irrigation District (OID), and elected leaders to respond to questions from local residents about problems caused by thousands of acres of new orchards and the ongoing drought. The overflow crowd packed […]
How Trinitas Rolled the Irrigation District
According to General Manager Steve Knell, the Oakdale Irrigation District’s (OID) Board of Directors was preoccupied with the district’s precarious financial position as far back as 2011. And that may be why the Board failed to address its state-mandated requirement to apportion district boundaries based on population. “The board, faced with financial challenges, may have elected not to spend money hiring a consultant to help reapportion, a priority that ‘probably […]
Union Square Modesto?
Former Modesto Mayor Carol Whiteside has proposed using the block currently occupied by the Stanislaus County courthouse and jail as a park in downtown Modesto. The block is bounded by “I” Street on the north, 12th Street on the east, “H” Street on the south and 11th Street on the west. The park would be modeled on San Francisco’s Union Square. At first blush, the idea sounds great. More green open space […]
Route 43: Railroad to Prosperity?
The first leg of the California High Speed Rail project will be located close to a long segment of California State Route 43. A look at the area reveals an interesting history with an uncertain future. Route 43’s north end originates at its junction with State Route 99 in the farm town of Selma, about a dozen miles south of Fresno. Parallel to the Santa Fe Railroad right of way, […]