The Ceres Unified School District Board of Trustees has an opportunity to make the right choice in renaming the Cesar Chavez Junior High School after Louis Arrollo (sometimes spelled Louie Arrollo).

His is one of three top names picked by an ad hoc committee. The other two considerations are Eastgate Jr. High School and Jose Hernandez Jr. High School.

I trust the board won’t make the same mistake it did back in 2010 when it named the school after Chavez when board policy calls for school names to honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the school district or community. Chavez made no contributions to the Ceres community; in fact was not looked upon kindly by farmers in the Central Valley.

While as a former astronaut Jose Hernandez is a role model for the Latino community, he does not hail from Ceres – he’s a Stockton native – so let that community name a school in his honor. Other than making a few appearances in schools, Hernandez has not had any direct impact on Ceres.

The CUSD board policy is the reason we have today schools named after local folks who had a significant role in impacting Ceres: Walter White, Mae Hensley, Joel Hidahl, Sam Vaughn, Virginia Parks, Patricia Kay Beaver, Carroll Fowler, Robert Adkison, Walt Hanline and schools named after the families of Sinclear, Berryhill, Lucas, Caswell and La Rosa. All local people!

Choosing Hernandez over Arrollo would be a huge disservice to a man who spent decades serving Ceres citizens and their children in the Ceres education system.

When Arrollo’s family moved to Ceres in 1957 they were among the first permanent Hispanic residents. From 1963 to 1984 he served as the first Hispanic officer in the Ceres Police Department. Arrollo retired as a police commander in 1984 and was a law enforcement teacher at Ceres High School from 1984 to 1988 and Dean of Students from 1988 to 2001. Mr. Arrollo was elected to the Ceres City Council in 1985, elected mayor in 1987 and re-elected in 1989. Arrollo stepped down because of his wife’s medical issues but was reappointed to the City Council in 1998, and ran for mayor again and was elected in 1999. He retired in 2001. In January he was honored as Citizen of the Year.

Vision flowed from Arrollo’s mayoral terms. He was instrumental in getting the city to build the skate park at Smyrna Park as a diversion from drugs and gang activity, initiated the annual Concerts in the Park series, and formed the Public Safety Department to place police and fire under the same department (a concept that was later disbanded). He also formed committees to look after labor camp and the city motto contest which came up with the “Ceres – Together We Achieve.” He was also the first Ceres mayor to deliver a “State of the City” address.

Naming the school after Arrollo is a long overdue honor.

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I admit that it’s been a while since I tried to visit a city manager at City Hall since most of my contacts with them have been outside. But I found the exercise on Friday to be frustrating. No signage makes it readily apparent how to access either the city manager or city clerk offices.

I’ve been around a long time – nearly 39 years. I’ve seen city managers come and go – Jim Marshall, Mary Strenn, Gary Napper, Tim Kerr, Art deWerk, Brad Kilger and Toby Wells among them – and the entrance to see most of them was always on the Second Street side. The city clerk would often greet visitors and the little lobby had council agendas available and postings for jobs. I also entered City Hall on that side to see City Attorney Michael Lyions.

Boy, have things changed!

I believe it was before Tom Westbrook’s tenure and certainly before Doug Dunford’s that the city saw to it to seal off that entrance years ago and now everything is funneled through that Magnolia Street entrance where there is no signage indicating where to visit city management. I inquired of the Planning/Building window to ask how to see the city manager and was told to go through the Finance Department window.

Finance window? Oh, you mean the place behind glass and the little round openings to speak to clerks who take utility bill payments from citizens after standing in line? Awkward and not professional, in my opinion.

Councilman James Casey was correct where he uttered at last week’s council meeting that Ceres – and these are his direct words – “does a piss poor job of communicating.” Even down to the way City Hall is configured and signed.

But maybe it’s by design.

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During the ribbon cutting to the Woodspring Inn & Suites in September, then City Manager Doug Dunford mentioned to me how he was concerned about the growing legal fees the city was paying to contract with the law firm of White Brenner LLP, which provides City Attorney Nubia Goldstein.

Goldstein also is the city attorney for Newman and Patterson.

I received a press release last week from someone raising the same concerns about what the city of Patterson is being charged as well.

Last week at the Patterson City Council meeting, Patterson’s finance director detailed a request to increase the city attorney’s budget from $385,000 to $915,000! The proposal comes two weeks after that council unanimously approved a motion directing staff to hire out a study to evaluate ditching the law firm and hire an in-house city attorney. Despite that direction, no RFP has been issued as of yet.

Patterson city records show that White Brenner LLP has billed its taxpayers nearly $3 million since December 2024, including a single invoice exceeding $550,000.

Patterson councilmembers did not speak nor was there a formal vote on the budget, instead, the meeting was dominated by two hours of comments from the public expressing concerns about stalled city improvements and overall spending priorities. Ex-Patterson Mayor Pat Maisetti expressed concerns about the city’s escalating legal costs and called for greater oversight of legal spending.

The answer may be that Patterson has been involved in multiple significant land-use and development disputes, including litigation over development fees and housing projects.

Ceres has also been sued. For example, the law firm is defending the suit to stop the Maverik project from proceeding but I believe they are reimbursing the city.

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It is so utterly incompetent in an age in which we can send people to the far side of the moon yet California can’t get its act together and let us know who won an election on election night.

Results will be certified by July 10? Is this some kind of Third World nation where ballots are being sent by donkeys in baskets hung from their sides?

On Election Night only about 45 percent of ballots had been counted! It seems time and time again that the ones who appear to be winning on Election Night only see leads evaporate or completely flip with late ballot counting.

We still don’t know who our next governor choices might be!

This is the primary reason people don’t trust the voting system in California. It sows the seeds of doubt big time.

We must change this.

In November we have the chance to vote for voter ID! It will impact the mail-in ballots and help speed up the process of vote counting. It abandons the act of a voter signing the outside of the ballot envelope (signatures can be forged) to a four-digit PIN for quick scanning.

Aside from the Voter ID initiative, the U.S. Supreme Court has a case before it which could lead to states being required to be in custody of a ballot as of 8 p.m. on an election night in order to be counted, thereby tossing out any ballots postmarked on Election Day and still moving through the mail system.

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Graduations are over and I like to re-publish a column from the past.

After spending a ton of money on a quality education, many college graduates may not find jobs that pay the big bucks.

Absolutely the world needs graduates – they are our future. But it’s true that we live in a world that is constantly evolving.

I, do, however, have some advice for graduates entering the world that still applies in a changing society:

• No one is going to make it happen for you. If you want something in life, be intentional and as focused as a laser beam. And trust me, there is a world of distraction ready to break your concentration.
• It’s time to grow up. You like playing video games but who makes money doing it? And you may think it’s cool to invest hundreds of dollars in body piercings and tattoos out to look cool, but they don’t impress those doing the hiring.
• It’s not all about you. Sorry to say but you have not arrived. It’s quite rare for any of us to end up as a Bill Gates or a Walt Disney type. Humble yourself and picture yourself merely joining the end of a long line of soldiers who’ve been marching along, with those at the head of the line dropping off to the side, worn out and tired.
• Be a person of your word. Do what you say you will do. And does anyone really have to tell you that you need to show up for work when you’re scheduled to? Yes, even if all your friends are going to the lake on Saturday and you’re scheduled to work that day! You’ll stand out as a promise keeper and people will take notice your trustworthiness. Take responsibility and you’ll be given responsibility. Do your best. Even if you work at Wal-Mart, work as if you owned the company. And honestly, you’ll feel better about yourself if you do your best, no matter if you feel you’re underpaid.
• Don’t let others think for you. Challenge what your teachers and the media tell you.
• Incorporate a spiritual aspect to your life, God if you haven’t already. The Bible is full of wisdom for life, not just preparation for the afterlife. He who dies with the most toys still dies.
• Take care of your body; it’s the only one you’ll get. It seems like a no-brainer for a twenty-something but take a look around and see how many people who two or three decades later are pathetic physical specimens because of smoking, drug use, lack of exercise, lousy food choices and sleep deprivation.
• Practice physical and mental disciplines. Practice the art of denying self at least once a day.
• Do something every now and then that challenges your comfort zone. Routine is the enemy of creativity.
• Be respectful of others. Employ the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
• Appreciate what you’ve got. Studies reveal that happy people tend to be grateful for the little things in life. Smile. Have a personality that people want to be around. Don’t live life so fast that you fail to smile when a child bats bashful eyes at you. Or that you fail to see flowers along the side of the road. And it goes without saying that you should – no must – say “I love you” to family and close friends. Live without regrets.
• Get outside of yourself. We live in a world of people who love only themselves. The trouble is they don’t love others. Volunteer for a worthy cause. You’ll be amazed at how your open eyes – and heart – will see need and want to help others.
• Consider yourself blessed for the opportunity you have in the United States. A lot of young people have been brainwashed into thinking we live in a horrible nation but that’s just liberal hogwash – and as far as I’m concerned the nation would be better off replacing them with legal immigrants who appreciate the greatest nation on earth. Whenever you feel sorry about your position in life, realize you’re wealthy by world standards.
• Know what’s going on in the world and take a stand. There are too many apathetic souls in our country. We had men and women die for freedom and what’s with the California voter turnout of 23.1 percent last week? That’s tragic that the vast majority could care less.

Here’s someone else’s thoughts. A poster I spied in Jimmy John’s sandwich shop in Springfield, Illinois – blocks from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum – titled, “Food for Thought,” is worthy of required reading for graduates.

RULE 1 – Life is not fair – get used to it.

RULE 2 – The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

RULE 3 – You will NOT make $70,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice president with car phone, until you earn both.

RULE 4 – If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.

RULE 5 – Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping they called it “opportunity.”

RULE 6 – If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes – learn from them.

RULE 7 – Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

RULE 8 – Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

RULE 9 – Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

RULE 10 – Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

RULE 11 – Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

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I saw a man-on-the-street interview in Hollywood. It was a simple question: Who is our current vice president? The interviewer targeted younger people. A number had no clue. One said he “I have no mother f------- idea.” An older woman got it right.

Most of the reactions were not kind, nor should they be. People like this should not be encouraged to vote.

Something Luke Stockdale wrote resonated with me: “Some also vote ....which I love Thomas Sowell’s ideas that the misinformed emotional voters simply screw up the whole voting process, yet they urge all these idiots to get out and vote.”

I’ve said that before. I don’t think the voting age should be lowered. Maybe it should be raised until people are wiser.

And if you want to allow illegal aliens to receive amnesty to become U.S. citizens, no voting rights for 10 or 20 years. That’s the price they should pay if and when amnesty is offered.

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