After a consensus of the Ceres City Council decided it doesn’t want to consider a temporary moratorium on new fueling stations and car washes, members of the Ceres Planning Commission on Monday voted to recommend it do so anyway.

Commission Chairman Gary M. Condit expressed frustration that city staff went to the council to get its pulse for the issue and effectively pre-empting the commission from having a chance to formally study the matter. City Attorney Tom Remlinger admitted the issue had been handled in an irregular fashion but said interim City Manager Steve Williams was concerned about spending a lot of staff time and attorney expense if the council was not open to the idea of a moratorium. Among the tasks would be changing land uses in the zoning ordinance.

“You may make the recommendation,” said Remlinger told the commission, “however, that’s not going to come back to the City Council as an agenda item.”

“We need to pay attention more to what the citizens are asking for, and take that into account as well as any findings that we make,” said Commissioner Bob Gobble. “I think it’s important to listen to the citizens of this city on what they want and by the looks of some of these emails that we got today, a majority of them do not want to see any more gas stations and car washes.”

Condit expressed that “it seems like there was some sort of mistake of why this was taken to the City Council before we had the opportunity to actually vote on the item. It makes zero sense to me why that was done, if it was done out of spite to disrupt this whole process. But it’s very unfortunate that that happened.”

He noted how one councilmember expressed fear that a moratorium would end the Maverik project plans to build on Mitchell Road. Presently the project is mired in a legal fight from an existing gas station owner. Condit asked if Maverik would be threatened by a moratorium. Julian Aguirre, the city’s Economic Development Manager, said that if a moratorium were enacted that projects in the application process would not be affected.

The commission listened to several citizens on both sides of the issue. Ceres resident Shirley Rogers said it is foolish to spend money on staff time to present a study and report if the council already decided it’s not open to a moratorium.

Barbara Lutz said she wants to see more sit-down restaurants in Ceres.

Jorge Guerrero, who is planning a council candidacy, expressed support for a moratorium.

Nick Maynard emailed his support for a moratorium noting that Ceres has 17 fuel stations with three more already approved and seven full service car washes and three self-service washes.

“Those numbers should be enough to justify taking a temporary pause and evaluating whether continuing to approve more of the same uses is in the best long-term interest of Ceres,” wrote Maynard.

One woman who did not identify herself and doesn’t live in Ceres, said she was appalled that a moratorium was being considered, calling it a communist like action.

Remlinger reiterated that a commission recommendation would not likely lead to the council taking up the matter.

“I am requesting the city manager be at our next meeting to explain why this process was done backwards and why the item was taken to the city council, and basically sabotage basically this whole process,” said Condit. He called the irregular process a “debacle” and a “circus” that is “just disheartening to see.”

Remlinger replied that the commission’s power is “narrow” and said, “I think you do need to understand at some point that the Planning Commission doesn’t have the authority to have specific staff time allocated to their requests, within reason, of course.”

Condit, however, said seeking consensus first from the City Council pre-empted a public hearing process that allowed residents to weigh in.

“The public, you know, was honestly the loser in this because they didn’t get to participate and now they’re here tonight, giving their opinion,” said Condit. “We had seven emails from members of the public and we’re gonna take action, but it’s going nowhere. It’s embarrassing.”

Condit went through the city’s summary of fueling stations and noted some were overlooked.

“So going off of the data presented in the staff report,” said Condit, “…we have 4.08 fueling station per 10,000 resident. The state average is 2.65 gas stations per 10,000 residents. So with that, we’re almost double. And Modesto, their average is 3.62 gas station per 10,000 residents.”

“The city of Manteca is in the process of doing a similar temporary moratorium, and Ceres is failing in this topic,” said Condit.

Commissioner Dorie Perez stated her preference to see standards rather than a moratorium on new fueling stations, such as providing half their ports for EV charging.

Condit made a motion to recommend the council look into a moratorium which was supported by commissioners Gobble and Francisco Mireles while Perez voted no. R.J. Jammu was not present.