Over the years, I’ve had pleasure to meet hundreds of people in my association with the Ceres Courier and especially with city business since I cover city events and meetings. It is with sadness to see Ann Montgomery parting the city after 14 1/2 years of service.
I don’t think I’ve met anybody quite as effervescent, fun, cheerful and hopeful as Ann. As some of you may know, last year Ann lost her son at the age of 34. Such a loss would devastate most people, but Ann’s incredible faith in God and Jesus have allowed her to be sustained in the hope and knowledge that she will be reunited with him one day. She has been an incredible asset to the city of Ceres and we wish her all the best.
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It’s an unfortunate situation that California has mollycoddled criminals and I mean the illegal alien variety. The recent Florida crash caused by Stockton driver Harjinder Singh – an undocumented immigrant from India – has shocked the world. This man was given a license in California to drive a big-rig and while in Florida he committed the insane and unthinkable maneuver of a U-turn on a busy highway and he ended up killing three people.
In July 2024 California DMV issued Singh a limited term non-domiciled license despite the fact that he obviously did not know how to safely operate a large tractor-trailer rig.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy responded to the crash, saying: “Non-enforcement and radical immigration policies have turned the trucking industry into a lawless frontier, resulting in unqualified foreign drivers improperly acquiring licenses to operate 40-ton vehicles.”
Probably lesser known of the transgressions California officials have foisted upon a neighbor to the east, New Mexico, was the deadly Feb. 4, 2021 shooting of a State Police Officer Darian Jarrott by a dangerous drug dealer named Omar Cueva-Felix during a traffic stop.
The thug who committed the murder found a revolving door in California jails and prisons. In 1994 Cueva-Felix was convicted of vandalism. He had possession of controlled substances arrests in 2000 and 2001. Then in 2002 he was busted for importation of a controlled substance; in 2004, importation of cocaine; in 2006, burglary and passing a fraudulent check; in 2007, violation of his probation; in 2008, back to importing more controlled substances; and in 2010, possession of meth with intent to sell. He was released in 2020 after serving 10 years in prison. Cuevas apparently learned nothing in his decade behind bars and went right back to dealing drugs.
After he murdered Officer Jarrott, officers weren’t about to let this human debris get away and chased him 40 miles where he went down fighting and his life’s blood leaked into the New Mexico asphalt.
California did not deal with Cuevas harshly enough and Officer Jarrott paid with his life.
While liberals think that counseling is the way to reform hardened criminals, conservatives know that longer timeouts, and in some cases, the death penalty is what’s needed to curb crime and wanton violence in our country. While some people respond well to second chances, others are so hardened and evil that they should never be allowed in society again. Cuevas fit the bill.
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How do you end the ruination of the country as far as drugs are concerned? How about death penalties for drug dealers? They sell substances that are killing people so is death for dealers “cruel and unusual”? Not in my book.
Why not dispense the ultimate consequence for people who put higher value on the dollar than people’s lives? How can anyone in good conscience sell something they know will destroy a person?
Recently a Turlock man named Salvador Vega Rendon Jr., 33, was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison for possessing fentanyl and methamphetamine with intent to distribute, and for carrying firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
On Nov. 29, 2020, Rendon crashed his vehicle into a parked car in our county while he was drunk. Witnesses saw him remove an ice chest and several bags from the vehicle and place them next to a nearby property. What was in his car and ice chest? More than 10 kilograms of methamphetamine, approximately 7,000 fentanyl-laced pills, cocaine, heroin, LSD, marijuana, firearms and body armor. He had four firearms.
Hundreds, maybe thousands just like this loser, are out peddling pills and powder that are rotting people to the core, turning them into addicts, the homeless, the destroyed. That is one of the worst crimes that deserves the worst consequence.
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Friday marks by 38th year at the Courier and if you would’ve told me in 1987 that I would still be in this position 38 years later I would have said: “Gee, I hope not.” But here I am. Perhaps I just got too comfortable in this role. I could have worked at prestigious newspapers instead of being the “rinky-dink town newspaper guy” that someone once termed me.
As social media usurps legitimate journalism, at times I feel like I’ve outlasted my usefulness. Don’t get me wrong, I feel like I’ve contributed much to the education of Ceres residents producing well over 2,300 editions over the past nearly four decades. But when I see where society is going and about how few people really care to learn the issues and critically think about life and politics and yes, even religion I feel dis-spirited. When I keep seeing the state of California make really unwise decisions as to who occupies state office as well as our U.S. Senate seats I cringe. The leadership is failing us miserably and to think that some people like Gavin Newsom want a promotion is disheartening. Especially disheartening that so many people would give him a promotion when he needs to be ousted to the Island of Misfit Politicians.
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Some very dire predictions are being made about what you and I will be paying for gasoline at the pumps very soon.
On Monday state Assemblyman Stan Ellis, a Bakersfield Republican, held a virtual media availability with industry expert Ted Cordova, to warn of an impending gas price crisis that could see California pump prices soar to $8 to $10 per gallon within the next six months.
Assemblyman Ellis, a quantum physics expert with 50 years of experience in drilling engineering and chemical processing, warns of a perfect storm that could cripple California’s economy and threaten national security—more refinery closures, the risk of underutilized pipelines, and dependence on dirtier foreign oil. He revealed why Governor Newsom’s proposals don’t go far enough to prevent this economic disaster for California and demands urgent action to expand Kern County and statewide oil production.
You voted for this, California. Now you may face the consequences. It’s just too bad that those of us who voted against Newsom and party have to face the same consequences.
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The city of Lodi is done with Newsom’s hijinks. The City Council voted to approve a resolution opposing Newsom’s gerrymandering and redistricting plan. Mayor Cameron Bregman said “As a state, we are better than this. Under the proposed changes, Lodi would be divided into three separate congressional districts. While we are a community of just 70,000 residents, we refuse to be treated as political cannon fodder for any party or to see our representation diminished. I urge the residents of our city to continue fighting, with determination and persistence, for fair and equitable representation. Your voice matters — and together, we will make it heard.”
Newsom and company is cranking out the TV commercials trying to make it appear that he is stopping Adolf Trump and the Third Reich (tongue in cheek) from world domination and explaining why he needs Prop. 50 to pass. Please, folks, don’t fall for his swill. We voted to take out of the politicians’ hands the ability to draw state and congressional boundaries because they were drawing them in such a way to make easier for them to win elections. How? They carved out populations were folks mostly are not of their party and included their own. So we the voters said, hey, stop it and we passed a proposition in 2016 that put boundary drawing in the hands of a nonpartisan commission. Newsom doesn’t like that and is now trying to tie his efforts of another power grab to Trump, knowing under half the country thinks he’s Satan. The real Satan is the one who is trying to steal democracy from the voters. You know, the “you must wear a mask while I dine without one” governor. You know, the governor who wanted you to pay for the healthcare of illegal aliens. You know, the governor who bent over backwards to see that women can still kill their babies in the womb. You know, the governor who waged war with “Big Oil” and caused most of our oil refineries to shut down and drive up the cost of gas at the pump. You know, the governor who said he favored the death penalty when running for governor but when elected enacted a moratorium on the gas chamber because he felt it was inhumane. You know, the governor who was sleeping with his best friend’s wife as mayor of San Francisco.
There’s more but it makes me ill thinking of the ways this slimy snake has made his way into power and now wants to infect the rest of the country.
Did you hear about the closure of the Whole Foods store in Cupertino for over three months? It closed because of a serious rodent infestation that resulted of the Democrats in Sacramento passing a state law that banned the sale of the very poisons that would have killed these unwanted pests.
As of Jan. 1, the so-called Poison-Free Wildlife Act (AB 2552) banned the sale and use of rat poisons, namely anticoagulants chlorophacinone, diphacinone, warfarin and second generation brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum and difahialone. The lawmakers felt the rat killing compounds caused the unintended poisoning of numerous wildlife species, children and companion animals. Environmentalist, of course, supported it.
When we get a rodent epidemic that affects people, what will the lawmakers do?
Believe it or not, rodents were a big political issue in the California governor’s race of 1902. George Pardee, who was a doctor, became governor in January 1903 and may have never been elected governor if not for the politics of the Bubonic Plague epidemic that struck Chinatown in 1900 due to a rat infestation. Despite the fact that health officials recommended quarantine, Gov. Henry Gage denied there was a plague outbreak because admitting so, he felt, would affect exports of produce as well as curb tourism. He refused to introduce measures to halt the outbreak and waged a war of words against the public health doctors. By 1902 when the existence of an epidemic was more certain, Gage lost all credibility and the powerful Southern Pacific Railroad abandoned Gage to endorse Pardee. As governor, Pardee worked quietly with Public Health to control the epidemic. He also signed a bill to eradicate the rats in Chinatown. The plague ended in 1904 just two years before another problem emerged – the 1906 earthquake.
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Alma Velazquez is not happy with the city of Ceres and it has to do with a failing sewer connection to her Fifth Street home which has cost her $30,000.
Velazquez’s home is connected to the sewer main line that runs beneath the alley between Fourth and Fifth streets. Her lateral line on her property became clogged (likely due to the failure of the aging clay pipes or some root intrusion). She was told she’s responsible for the cost since the line is on her property. And because her lateral runs into it, the alley had to be dug up so the alley repair and asphalt repaving is on her too, the city says. But she insists the “saddle” was already damaged and the city is responsible for its repair.
She spoke to me and said: “My concern is if citizens of Ceres don’t realize what they’re responsible for, they could get in a lot of trouble. I had to go into all kinds of money to get this $30,000 to repair this for my mother.
The alley was still not repaired when I went by last week.
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
