If you’re like me, the persistent gray overcast which was plagued the valley for quite some time has had a depressing effect. Just for the record if you were to travel up to the hills you’d find Sonora area bathing in sunshine while we have been sitting under a blanket of fog for weeks.
I believe our overcast first appeared on Sunday, Nov. 23 with only slight breaks in the fog only twice just before darkness settling in.
More depressing was been the amount of horrible news which has been adding to the miasma such as the horrific shooting in Stockton which killed four people – one of whom was a former Ceres Jr. Bulldogs football player.
On Thursday came word that a drive-by shooting took out the young lady who made headlines in July 2017 when she was live streaming the DUI crash that killed her 14-year-old sister Jacqueline Sanchez in north of Los Banos. The woman was 26-year-old Obdulia Sanchez. She was sentenced to six years and four months in prison for gross vehicular manslaughter, DUI and child endangerment.
One tragic story compounding on another.
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It appears Manteca is dealing with a similar issue of Ceres – that of the growing feeling that the cities need no new gas stations.
Ceres went through a similar deal but things seem to have settled down a bit as far as a call for a moratorium.
Manteca Mayor Gary Singh said that it’s time for the talk about a moratorium on gas stations. The council gave its consensus for a discussion of a potential mortarium at an upcoming meeting on whether the city should do just that. If Manteca bans new gas stations, it would be the first city in the Central Valley to do so. Petaluma in 2021 was the first city in the nation to adopt an outright ban on new gas stations.
Sacramento, of course, has adopted a policy that bans new gas stations, or expansions of existing ones, if they don’t include electric vehicle charging stations.
Other Northern San Francisco Bay cities — Sebastopol, Rohnert Park, Cotati, Santa Rosa, and Windsor followed suit – as did Sonoma County for all unincorporated areas.
Pinole has a temporary ban in place to, as they claimed, address climate change.
Singh made it clear his proposal would not impact gas stations that have already been approved to be built or projects already submitted and are in the city approval process.
Singh said it wouldn’t be fair to stop such projects from going forward given they bought land that had zoning for gas station projects.
Who knows what the future holds for our modes of transportation and the future of oil. We all know California politicians have waged war on oil even though they ride to the capitol in gas drinking SUVs and the governor crisscrosses the skies on his way to other countries on planes that burn jet fuel at a rate of 300 gallons per hour. Hypocrisy at its finest. If only Newsom stayed home to take care of his only job.
They don’t care that their policies could result in all of us paying $8 per gallon. Their goal is to crucify those of us in the dark ages who think gas engines are the only way we’ll go. It’s their attempt to make it so painful we’ll submit to their Climate God.
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I chuckle at Eric Swalwell (I prefer Swill-well) who thinks he is California’s great hope. After all, wasn’t Gavin Newsom who had all the answers and was going to take care of our issues like homelessness?
According to congressman now turned gubernatorial candidate Swalwell, Newsom has been a failure. You must conclude that’s what he was saying when you read a statement that his campaign issued about hiring Rep. Jimmy Gomez as his campaign chairman. The press release states: “Jimmy understands the urgency of this moment — from rising prices to holding an unchecked president accountable — and like me, he believes California deserves a fighter and protector who delivers results. His leadership, his roots in labor and the immigrant rights community, and his commitment to a fairer, more affordable California will be invaluable as we build a movement toward a California that benefits everyone.”
Rising prices is mostly a California government problem. Democrats in Sacramento have blocked attempts to lower gas taxes. And now Newsom is adding a payroll tax which will further drive up prices and hamper job creation.
An “unchecked” president? I can’t take this guy serious when over 100 federal judges appointed by Democrats have done their damnedest to block his every move in the past 11 months. So much for “unchecked.”
Am I supposed to feel warm and fuzzy that Rep. Gomez has roots the “immigrant rights community”? Immigrants already have the same rights as citizens if they are legal. They should have no rights if they are in the USA illegally!
We received a second press release from Swalwell noting that Rep. Mike Thompson endorsed him, saying: “Whether it’s gun violence prevention or protecting families from the consequences of this Administration, Eric is ready to bring that fight home. He will be an excellent Governor of California.”
An excellent governor like Newsom?
Darn those guns anyway for being violent. But too bad you have yet to solve the problem of those violent folks who pull those triggers.
Swill-well fighting against Trump, who was elected by the majority, seems like a divisive way to want to run state government, which is plagued with billions in debt. Certainly not the talk of a uniter.
Count me out. Besides, endorsements mean nothingm especially from members of one party endorsing members of another party. But read some more into this endorsement of Swill-well from Rep. Kevin Mullin who said “the next Governor needs the vision and leadership to bring the state together and fix our most pressing challenges.” Again, another ringing endorsement for the fact that Democrat governors since 2011 have presided over the state and problems have gotten far worse (deficit spending, homelessness, cost of living, crumbling infrastructure) but hey we’re now buying black voters and Latino voters under the guise of reparations and welfare benefits to illegal residents, respectively. Schwarzenegger wasn’t great either as a moderate Kennedy Democrat.
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The national media is populated by leftist ideologues who offer screwy slants in reporting news.
Recently the AP’s Adrian Sanchez wrote about the successful crackdown on crime in Memphis, a city plagued by nearly 300 homicides occurred last year and nearly 400 in 2023.
The focus of the article was not about how dangerous felons are being taken off the streets. Oh no, no, no. Can’t focus on that but let’s make it sound like Trump is creating havoc on the jail system in Memphis and how they are now crowded.
Here is the lead paragraph: “A task force ordered by President Donald Trump to combat crime in Memphis, Tennessee, has made thousands of arrests, compounding strains on the busy local court system and an already overcrowded jail in ways that concerned officials say will last months or even years as cases play out.”
Darn Donald Trump for jamming up the court system for cracking down on crime. I’d say that’s a good problem since more than 2,800 people have been arrested and more than 28,000 traffic citations have been issued.
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Merced County has my kind of sheriff.
Recently Vern Warnke condemned the requirement of the Democrat controlled Legislature and Governor Dipsy-do that they spend valuable time documenting and reporting statistics regarding ICE requests and jail interactions. Only in California do you have lawmakers require counties and law enforcement to hold annual public forums so residents can know about ICE activities in their midst.
Warnke called it a waste of taxpayer money with hundreds of hours of staff time and it most certainly is. “There’s 300 other things they need to be doing than that,” he said. And he aptly noted that those wanting those stats are using it “against law enforcement … and against protecting citizens.”
With his hands tied, the good sheriff has, however, followed state law and did not honor ICE detainers in 2024.
He’d love to wave a wand and get rid of the Dems’ screwy law saying that he and other sheriffs can’t cooperate with ICE, noting that in 2024, Merced County had 233 felons arrested who were here illegally, and had to “release them onto the streets back to create more victims.”
In any state governed by people of common sense, all 233 would have been held for the federal agents to deport.
Since the state forbids local sheriffs and police chiefs to cooperate with ICE, there’s the unintended consequence of causing ICE to conduct operations in California due to the lack of communication by jails and prisons. So how is to know if the masked folks snatching aliens off the streets are ICE or cartel members, he asks?
If only the voters were educated and voted this riff-raff out of office.
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I must amend something I wrote in my column of Nov. 26 in which I noted how the American Farm Bureau Federation estimated that the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner was down 5% from last year, and well below the 2022 record-high price under Biden. That wasn’t true in Newsom’s California where our Thanksgiving Dinner cost 32 percent more than the national average.
According to the California Farm Bureau, the national average of the cost of a Thanksgiving Dinner rose between 18.78 percent between 2018 and 2014 during the Biden administration and Democrat leadership in Congress – a timeline that coincides with Newsom becoming governor in 2019.
There is no reason why Californians, who are raised in a state that produces turkeys and crops should have to pay more. Same goes for gasoline in a state that has plenty of oil to be processed. Same for why we should have plenty of water for farmers yet we set it aside for smelt. Here’s where government regulations and control makes all the different in being able to afford California and fleeing it.
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
