The city of Ceres last Thursday held the first of what’s expected to be quarterly Town Hall meetings, with an audience of about 40 persons hearing about the status of police and fire services, the city budget, plans to pursue grants to upgrade the Ceres American Legion Memorial Building and Measure P on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Interim City Manager Steve Williams said as a city employee he could not advocate for the passage of Measure P or any council candidates but could convey information about the proposed one-cent sales tax increase. A simple majority vote of 50 percent plus one is required for passage as the tax is for general purposes with a lion’s share pledged to go toward police and fire services. Had the city crafted a dedicated tax purpose of public safety the threshold for passage would have increased to 66.6 percent.

Ceres Police Chief Trenton Johnson talked about the need for five additional officers and promised to form a Street Crimes Unit if Measure P passes to infuse an estimated $9.4 million annually into city coffers.

“If those positions were available, my plan would be to build our Street Crimes team,” said Chief Johnson. “It’s a promise that has been made to this community forever. I’ll do it if I can have those five officers. The team would focus on gangs, narcotics, repeat offenders, wanted persons, probable locations, and emerging crime trends. We’d also need a crime analyst in order to effectively do that. Instead of waiting for something to happen, they respond to it and be proactive. A dedicated street crimes team would allow us to do the work without routinely pulling officers off of the beat.”

Johnson provided statistics about the department, saying in August, Ceres Police handled 4,258 incidents. Officers conducted 957 traffic stops, wrote 786 tickets, investigated 47 vehicle collisions, and made 214 arrests.

“Those numbers give you an idea of the amount of work being handled by our personnel in just one month,” said Johnson. “And that’s pretty typical every month.”

Johnson said historically Ceres Police have had one sergeant and two full-time traffic officers but today that’s one sergeant, one full-time officer and two reserve officers.

“Not having that second full-time officer drastically cuts our enforcement capabilities. Despite that reduction, our department, with the patrol’s help, still did 957 traffic stops and wrote 786 citations. We are 40 percent in our DUI arrest, which, again, that affects everybody.”

The department has also reduced its canine program from four to two which affects how often that they can respond to incidents, Chief Johnson noted.

Ceres Police has specialized units like SWAT, drug, hostage negotiation and the drone teams but noted “these aren’t people that we just have sitting around the office, waiting for this call out, or they’re drone deployment. It’s a collateral assignment, so they have a regular assignment, whatever it is in the department, and they do this on top of that.”

The city’s crime analyst position was also eliminated due to budget shortfalls.

Noting the importance of the dispatch center, Chief Johnson said that his department had three frozen dispatcher positions.

“In August our dispatchers worked 390 hours of overtime, and our reserve dispatchers worked another 152 hours. We are still relying heavily on additional personnel to maintain basic dispatch operations.“

Currently there are not enough personnel to “continuously moderate cameras, license plate readers, or other real-time information. One of our long term goals is a true real time crime center. I can tell you, we are way behind the curve. Other agencies have done a much better job.”

A real-time crime center allows police to use surveillance video, license plate readers, crime information, and other technology together, he said, “to get useful information to our officers while an incident is actually happening. We already have pieces of that technology. One limitation right now is having the personnel available to actively monitor it.”

Ceres Police is also short on Community Service Officers which handle lower priority issues that don’t necessarily require a sworn officer. The number of CSOs has dropped from four to one. That matters, Johnson said, because the burden of handling lower level issues “mainly lands back from patrol offices, which limits their time to conduct private enforcement.”

Also gone are a juvenile diversion officer and training coordinator.

The records division, property and evidence, Code Enforcement and the Abandoned Vehicle Abatement unit also find themselves in increased workloads.

In its highest staffing level between 2011 and 2014, Ceres Police was authorized to have 54 sworn positions.

“Today, we’re on 47. That’s seven fewer sworn positions and approximately 13 percent reduction from our historical high.

The department has had to keep up with the continuous loss of officers leaving for better paying departments. Between 2023 and 2025, Ceres Police hired 25 sworn employees but also lost 23 officers to work at other law enforcement agencies.

“At the end of 2024, we were down to approximately 36 sworn officers. At the end of 2025, we’re at 37. I’m very, very happy to announce that we are back to full staffing of a lot of positions at 47. It did not happen by accident. It took a tremendous amount of recruiting, background investigations, hiring academy training, field training, and work by people throughout our organization.”

He also touted the department being able to whittle down on overtime costs which can blow out a budget. In August 2025, Ceres’ sworn personnel worked approximately 1,283 hours of overtime but this past August of that number fell to 899, a reduction of about 30 percent. Dispatcher overtime also fell from 446 hours in August 2025 to 390 hours last August. But reliance on reserve dispatchers caused their overtime to climb from 72 hours to 152 hours.

In summary, Johnson said ultimately Measure P will come down to residents answering: “What level of police service do you want to provide to this community?”

Fire chief provides details

Modesto Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Andrew Hunter also shared a lot of information about services offered in Ceres. Starting in 2021, the city of Ceres contracts with Modesto Fire.

Hunter said his department responded to 58,000 calls in Ceres during 2025, about 16 per day. Of that, 42,000 were for medical emergencies.

Modesto Fire staffs three fire stations in Ceres.

A benefit to contracting with Modesto is the availability of advanced life support, four-person staffing on the Quint engine, dedicated fire inspector, and access to other technical support.

“By partnering with multiple fire departments coming together, they’re able to have the depth and capacity to better respond to types of emergencies that we’re seeing today,” said Chief Hunter, “and ensure that the residents receive the best possible error as quickly as possible as incidents develop and grow.

“We’ve got a well-trained staff that’s highly capable. They can only be as good as the resources and tools that they have available. And a part of that is that big red fire engine that they drive down the road.”

He noted that the cost of fire apparatus has gone up dramatically.

“It wasn’t that long ago that when I started a fire engine was about $300,000 and that was about 20 years ago. Today, a fire engine that we’re responding on is about $1.1 million.”

Fire engines must be custom ordered based on local need and orders can take three to five years for delivery, he said.

“That number is coming down but that’s something that’s a challenge that we have to work,” said Hunter.

Some of the engines date back to 2006 and some 2018 engines have anywhere between 40,000 and 86,000 miles.

“Generally, we’re trying to keep our fire apparatus at a 10-year lifespan in front line with 15 in years of reserve. We have some apparatus that are going and operating today that are over 25 years old.”

Modesto Fire is in discussions with the city in how to budget for these high priced purchases.

City manager talks on city budget

After lauding the quality of both police and fire departments, Williams addressed the budget. While the city has about 70 restricted funds that may only be spent for specific purposes, the city talks mostly about the General Fund.

“It’s complete discretionary money,” he said. But about 78 percent of the $28 million in revenue is committed to police and fire costs with the rest going to all other city departments.

Measure H, the half-cent sales tax measure passed in 2008, is expected to produce $4,884,100 in revenue with $1.9 million to fire and $2.9 million to police.

American Legion Hall

Williams next talked about the city’s pursuit of two grants, one being a federal $2.4 million Community Project grant to upgrade the HVAC, floors, roof, and remodeled interior of the Ceres American Legion Memorial Building at Ninth and Lawrence streets. Williams is confident the city will be awarded the federal grant.

A California state grant would allow the city to use the hall as a Community Resilience Center for things like natural disasters or hot or cold weather housing needs and offer services. The grant is for up to $10 million.

Williams is asking the community to share what services Ceres could use at the Legion Hall that are not presently offered.

“We would not propose to interfere with any of the current activities that go on there,” said Williams. “We know that the American Legion, the VFW, meet in that hall.”

Ceres American Legion Post Past Commander Steve Whitney said his members are “somewhat concerned of the possibility of using the hall for the homeless.

“If we provide homeless facilities, it changes a lot of what the police department can and can’t do currently. And it also would definitely interfere with the contractual agreement we have with the city for our meetings, both with the VFW and the American Legion. Not to say that the homeless is not a problem; it is everywhere. But I’m not sure that this facility that needs to be involved in that.”

He said use as a cooling or warming center is more appropriate.

Ceres American Legion Post Past Commander Pete Samaniego called attention to a problem of homeless camping out on the east side the building

Williams said the public can email him with suggestions prior to Sept. 30 at steve.williams@ceres.gov

Measure P

Williams said he could only provide information about Measure P because as a city employee he is forbidden from campaigning for its passage on Nov. 3. But he noted the following language of the ballot measure:

“Measure P is a proposed locally controlled one-cent sales tax, one penny per dollar that would provide an estimated $9.4 million annually to maintain essential city services. If enacted, local funding from Measure P can be utilized to maintain 911 emergency response times and assist the city in having enough local first-responders to provide fast and effective life-saving emergency services, maintain neighborhood police officer patrols, prevent gang activity coming from nearby cities and keep public areas safe and clean by addressing homelessness among other services. Measure P funds are subject to accountability requirements, including annual financial and performance audits, public spending disclosure, and citizen’s oversight. By law, no Measure P money can be taken by Sacramento. “

Williams shared that due to U.S. Postal Service operational changes, voters are encouraged to vote early, and if returning a ballot by mail, ideally, by Oct. 28. A complete list of voting methods, locations and other information is available at www.standvote.com.

If it passes, Ceres will have a sales tax rate of 9.375 percent, the highest in Stanislaus County.

Ceres resident Gene Yeakley indicated he is not supporting Measure P.

“I think personally we’re just feeding a monster that’s never been fixed,” said Yeakley. “This is just going to be another way for this city to spend the money.”

He quoted former City Councilwoman Linda Ryno who often cited the fact that household budgets have to be balanced unlike the city.

Dave Pratt noted how Ceres is two years behind on being accountable for the spending of Measure L transportation tax dollars. Williams acknowledged that prior management allowed audits of Measure L to lag but he is taking care of the situation.

At least two audience members shared they remain unsure how they plan to vote on Measure P.

“I love this city, we have the best police and fire department there is around but I’m at a loss, I don’t know,” said Brenda Scudder Herbert. She noted that her husband Harry Herbert walked away from his city treasurer position because he “could never get the Finance Department or anybody to tell him exactly what was going on. However, his name was being rubber stamped on everything that went out, and it got to be a concern again because he knew if something happened, he was the one liable for it.”

John Warren said while a one-cent sales tax increase doesn’t seem like a lot, folks may not be aware that it would cause a jump in the cost of cars regardless of where they are purchased.

“When you buy a $70,000 automobile, that adds $700 to your cost,” said Warren. “A lot of folks don’t realize this until they sit down in the city of Gilroy to buy a car when they live here in Ceres. Your zip code follows you everywhere you go in life. And that’s what the sales tax keeps off of is your zip code.

“I’m not telling you which way to vote and I haven’t made up my mind, but I do know when I vote, it’s gonna cost a lot of folks money that they may not be able to afford,” said Warren.

During the event council candidate Jorge Guerrero gave kudos to the city manager for his job performance since coming aboard five months ago and asked if he plans to seek the permanent city manager role. Williams said he preferred to focus on public safety and the American Legion Hall but said he has enjoyed serving in Ceres “and if an opportunity presents itself at some point in the future, I would love to consider that opportunity. Right now, I’m the interim, I’m the temporary. I am doing the best job that I can.”