Growth is a hard pill to swallow for many.

I get it.

I enjoy my part of the world being relatively rural. I like being able to drive through the country and seeing farms and barns and cows grazing. I grew up in Stanislaus County and it’s all that I really am accustomed to.

Change is hard. So when the discussion about Copper Trails came before the Ceres Planning Commission, I felt the pain of those who expressed they don’t to see development encroaching on pasture land and almond orchards.

But I’m also a realist. I know that the world is constantly changing and growing. As long as people keep having babies, we will need to continue building more homes, more subdivisions, more parks and more businesses. With it comes less freedom to move around, more congestion, more noise, more crime, more water problems, etc.

There were more people, however, who came out in support of Copper Trails annexing to the city of Ceres. They include the property owners, many who are aging and done with farming, and desiring some handsome payouts for their land when time comes for development. That’s human nature to want to live comfortably.

I’m surprised that Milt Treiweiler didn’t show up in protest. He has made it habit to show up at local government meetings to urge against “the senseless growth.” Treiweiler doesn’t want subdivisions spreading out and swallowing up valuable farmland. He suggests all future building go up and not out.

It’s not as simple an issue and there are realities at play. Homes need sewer and water and services. Treiweiler wants building to take place east of Oakdale, west of Patterson, along I-5 (it’s already happening along 580 west of Tracy), east of Fairfield, along Highway 12 and in Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico. He’s a voice crying in the wilderness because economic forces are at play where building will continue on fertile Valley soil.

One thing is certain: California is painfully short of houses and apartments and mostly because of the state’s onerous regulations and high costs of development. Some estimates have the state three million to four million housing units short. To not expect Stanislaus County to grow is just wishful thinking. 

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The city recently stepped up efforts to shut down pop-up food vendors showing up alongside Ceres streets and in parking lots and the reaction predictably is divided.

There are two camps when it comes to this subject. Some feel it’s perfectly okay for vendors to serve often cheaper food along the road without permits or health inspections or even pay taxes. They like the food so they are willing to take the risk with health and bend the rules. Since most of the food vendors are of Mexican descent selling Mexican food, most of the defenders are Latino. Robert Garcia opined that vendors shouldn’t be bothered, saying “If they really bother people don’t buy food from them.” He then goes on to suggest that street vendors and food trailers are cleaner than some restaurants.

But others believe in playing by the established rules. Other folks believe that unlicensed vendors could serve not only unsafe food but note that it’s unfair to businesses which go through the proper channels and great red-tape to open a business in a brick and mortar storefront.

On our Facebook posting about the story, opinions were expressed. Andrew Ryan Bringazi wrote that he “thought they passed a law a few years ago that people could sell food without a license?” Not true. What he may be referencing is a state law passed by the Democrat controlled Legislature that forbid cities from banning street vendors who are licensed. They’ve always had to get licenses.

Mathew Texeira said the city’s enforcement actions against food vendors are “about damn time. Now if they can do something about the ones peddling there bicycle carts around ringing their bell and beeping there stupid horns around the neighborhood, sometimes till 9 p.m. Like they’re in a damn third world country.”

Sherry Poe also questions the sanitation of food being served.

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Dr. Phil is known to be a very thoughtful, reasonable individual of great intellect and I enjoyed what he had to say on his March 3 podcast, titled “Analytics: Iran Disinformation: The Truth About Media Spin.”

In it he explains how our mainstream media is feeding us a narrative that is not based in reality. That’s sad because if you are like me you watched Walter Cronkite growing up and knew he was pretty much explaining “that’s the way it is.” Today news outlets like ABC are so biased that it’s embarrassing to most reasoned journalists.

Dr. Phil asks if we’ve been watching or “fed an agenda” designed to brainwash us.

He explains how the United States and Israel took down the leader of “one of the most brutal, oppressive regimes on the planet, a regime that funds terror, chants death to America, arm proxies across the Middle East.”

He speaks truth. Iran tortured and slaughtered dissidents wanting freedom from their oppression. The nation has been terrorizing the world for decades.

Iranians are celebrating the military strikes and so are many Assyrians here in the Valley. But Democrats and media folks are screaming Orange Man bad. It just goes to show you just how off the bubble they are.

Dr. Phil notes: “the media, fueled by progressive political arrogance, would rather attack President Trump than acknowledge this is a war of good versus evil. They don’t want to admit to you or even provide you with information from which you might reasonably conclude that the world is now a safer place. Why? Because they have a political agenda. They are selling a political agenda. They don’t want to admit that sometimes strength is the best option. Why? Because they don’t

want to admit that a president, not their choice, just might be right about something.”

He points out that hundreds of thousands of Iranian women are elated at what President Trump and U.S. military have done. But we’ve got women in America protesting against it. Are they the ones who under the influence of MSNBC types like Rachel Maddow who stated that Trump “apparently started a war with Iran for some reason. Your guess …is as good as any as to why the president of the United States has just started this war.”

Is she some kind of useful idiot? Why take out a regime that has chanted death to America for decades? A country that was on the verge of using nuclear weapons on Israel and likely the United States? Maddow is a clueless soul.

The New York Times ran his headline: “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hardline cleric who made Iran a regional power, is dead at

86.” He was a murderous thug on the world stage.

The media tries to tell us who to condemn, who to contextualize, who deserves outrage instead of presenting facts and letting us come to our own judgments about whether actions are right or wrong. It almost as contrived as the fake AI videos causing us all to second guess what’s true and what’s false these days.

As Dr. Phil states, “We deserve facts, not a predetermined version of a story, one that’s produced to convince you and me to take a position that supports what a political group wants us to believe.”

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Bill O’Reilly also knows how off-the-rails the legacy media have become. Legacy media being ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, etc.

O’Reilly reflected on a CNN poll of 1,004 Americans about their attitudes toward military actions against Iran. First question: “What is your view of the U.S. decision to take military action in Iran?” Approve 41 percent, disapprove 59 percent. Breaking that down, only 18 percent of Democrats approved while 82 percent disapproved. Among Republicans, 77 percent approved and 23 percent disapproved. That’s typical.

Weird results came in answering the question: “Do you think the U.S. military action will make Iran more of a threat to the USA?” Of those polled, 54 percent said “more of a threat” while 28 percent said “less of a threat” while 18 percent said “neither.”

How pray tell can Iran be more of a threat when they already have vocalized wanting to kill all Americans but now we’ve decimated their military capabilities? More of a threat? How?

Do Americans know how to think logically anymore instead of relying on fears and emotions?

And why would 56 percent of Americans oppose trying to overthrow the Iranian government when they are in the business of killing?

Keep in mind that it was President Obama who sent pallets of money ($400 million) to Iran, which was then used in their killing machine. It was President Biden who unfroze $16 billion in assets and handed it over to Iran.

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Will Democrats employ more of their dirty tricks to thwart the will of the people this November?

You may know that it appears that a Voter ID measure will make it to the November ballot. Polls show that nearly three-fourths of Californians want secure election through the method of voter ID. Proponents of the measure just handed in the 1.3 million signatures of registered voters to place this on the ballot. Also handed in were enough signatures to limit politicians on their ability to raise taxes by strengthening Prop 13.

Here come the lies from the Left about how the GOP wants to take away rights to vote. Pure horse crap that you should smell as horse crap!

KCRA’s Ashley Zavala was told by Secretary of State Shirley Weber that placing a competing ballot option is a strategy lawmakers often use when they oppose a proposal. She stated that while her office does not block initiatives, the Legislature can advance its own measure to offer an alternative and guess what? Her daughter is State Senator Akilah Weber, who has  filed placeholder legislation related to voter ID. Presently, her bill contains no substantive language.

Assembly Republicans believe this signals that Democrats will advance a competing proposal, either through legislation or a ballot vehicle, designed to dilute or complicate a straightforward voter ID decision rather than allow voters a clean choice.

Republicans say when popular reforms threaten Democratic priorities, lawmakers have responded with procedural countermeasures rather than a direct vote. They point to efforts to remove the Taxpayer Protection Act from the ballot and to amend Proposition 36 with what Republicans described as “poison pill” provisions that altered the substance of the measure.

The question is not whether Democrats will try to block voter ID – they will. It is how far they are willing to go?

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