The Record's Lodi Blog

…you gotta sell yourself.

The Lodi Arts Commission posted on Facebook that they are searching for a judge for the 3rd annual Taco Truck Cookoff.  The June cookoff has become a highlight for the mobile food vendors and central Lodi.

If you can tell the commission why you should be a judge in 50 words or less, you might find yourself eating a whole lot of tacos in a couple months.

Here’s the Commission’s Facebook page.

Jeanie Biskup seems to have done it all after working 25-years in management for the Lodi Police Department. She’s not an officer, but has been a services manager or most recently classified as a management analyst.

“They are the catch all,” City Manager Rad Bartlam said, meaning that the management analyst’s job is to pick up duties that don’t quite fit on other employee plates.

What that has meant for Biskup is a long list of contributions to the department and, well, popularity. The community room at the police station was overflowing Thursday with people wanting to wish Biskup well in retirement.

Chief Mark Helms rattled off many of Biskup’s work: Crime prevention unit, field evidence technician, police volunteer supervisor, public information office team member, community improvement/code enforcement, animal services, council communications, mobile food vendor ordinance, crime prevention fair organizer, computer system changeovers, developed new radios, coordinator of Every 15 Minutes at the high schools, special event coordinator, built the department website, wrote Behind the Badge features for the Lodi News Sentinel, administered customer surveys, Crime Stoppers board member and Lodi Police Foundation board member.

And there’s more.

Biskup completed the LAPD West Point Leadership Academy in 2004. She oversaw the partners volunteer program, developed Neighborhood Emergency Training, was nationally recognized for her work on National Night Out coordination.

Biskup was Lodi Police employee of the year in 1994. She received the Meritorious Service award in 1994 and 2009. She won the Chief’s Award in 2000.

Quite a career. Here’s a blurry photo I took at Thursday’s retirement recognition with Biskup and Chief Helms.

Lodi Unified Personnel Director Mike McKilligan confirmed the district is shuffling its vice principal and assistant principal rosters.

District officials have not commented on why the switches are necessary. No one is being laid off under these moves, just changing schools. Here’s the new roster at each high school:

I’m not sure in every case who was where before. I can confirm that Martha Dent moves from Tokay to McNair; Marlon Gayle from Bear Creek to Lodi High; and Allen Dosty – the former  Henderson Day School principal – is now Bear Creek assistant principal.

…at golf.

Lodi Attorney Russell Humphrey (pictured below on the left) took first place in a recent 4-ball Championship in Granite Bay. Humphrey’s website notes how he attended college on a golf scholarship. He apparently chose law over the PGA tour, though. He and his partner shot a 66 and a 69.

Humphrey’s name has been in The Record on a number of occassions. He’s worked several high profile court cases, and worked a settlement agreement with a man who was badly bitten by a Lodi K-9. He also represents a client in making American’s with Disabilities Act claims – and he is also himself being sued for an ADA violation.

Below is a link to the full complaint filed by former Mayor James McCarty against Lodi ADA lawyer Russell Humphrey in federal court.

Complaint

Baubie Wardrobe-Fox

City Councilman Bob Johnson went into Wednesday’s City Council meeting with the intent of booting Recreation Commissioner Baubie Wardrobe-Fox off of the panel he twice appointed her to.

Johnson cited statistics that Wardrobe-Fox has missed more than 50 percent of commission meetings and failed to complete ethics training that is required of all board members in Lodi to complete every two years.

In 2010, Wardrobe-Fox was also fined by the Fair Political Practices Commission for late political filings. Apparently her fine has never been paid.

Wardrobe-Fox said Johnson’s numbers were wrong, and City Clerk Randi Johl confirmed the recreation commissioner has recently finished the ethics training – albeit long past the Dec. 31 deadline to have finished.

It was a bizarre scene. Johnson said he can’t recall the last time a commissioner or city volunteer has been kicked out of their position at an open council meeting. City Council member JoAnne Mounce questioned the tactic, calling it a “demeaning display of public humiliation of a city volunteer.”

Mayor Alan Nakanishi pounded his point that all commissioners are appointed and the council has a right and the power to remove them for no reason at all. He supported Johnson 100 percent .

In the end, Johnson rescinded his motion to remove Wardrobe-Fox from the commission because there was a discrepancy in the information he received leading up to Wednesday’s meeting and what Wardrobe-Fox presented – and was backed up by records that Johl was able to dig up.

It  appears Wardrobe-Fox has had just as good if not better attendance than her fellow commissioners (they are only required to attend 50 percent of meetings).

So, what some felt was going to be an embarrassing night for Wardrobe-Fox turned out to be perhaps a little embarrassing for Johnson.

A jam packed agenda for Tuesday night’s Board of Trustees meeting has posted at www.lodiusd.net (go to Board of Education, Electronic School Board and click March 5 on the calendar).

Items include:

• Consideration of moving first and second grade students from Tokay Colony to Live Oak, and eventually closing Tokay Colony. The school closure would not come until much later, and not until after community forums are held according to the staff report.
• The board will consider a proposed social media contract that student athletes must sign in order to be on their respective teams.
• Personnel matters that includes the resignation of Bear Creek Principal Shirley McNichols.

Lodi Recreation Commission chairwoman Barbara Wardrobe-Fox could be removed from her seat on the panel on Wednesday.

Wardrobe-Fox, who was appointed by Councilman Bob Johnson has apparently failed to complete some ethics training and routinely misses meetings.

When contact Friday, Johnson said he wouldn’t further explain the situation until the council meets Wednesday.

From the City Council agenda packet:

“A majority vote of the City Council may remove any member of a Commission for any reason including,

but not limited to, conduct unbecoming a public official, violating the City’s Conflict of Interest Code, failing
to comply with statutory requirements, or failing to attend fifty percent (50%) of the Commission meetings
in a calendar year. Conduct unbecoming a public official includes the conduct that any reasonable
commissioner would know is incompatible to public service, would indicate a lack of fitness to perform the
functions of a commissioner or would discredit or cause embarrassment to the City.
Any member of the City Council may initiate a person’s removal from a Commission by requesting that
consideration of the person’s removal be placed on the Council’s agenda at a regular or special meeting
for discussion and potential action. The City Clerk shall notify the person affected of the time and place of
the meeting. When the item is on the City Council agenda, the City Council may, by majority vote, remove
the person from a Commission.”
Ms. Foax’s removal has been recommended based on current and previous lack of compliance with AB 1234
Ethics Training, previous lack of compliance with Conflict of Interest Code filings and attendance shortcomings
over the previous two years. Notice of this meeting was provided to Ms. Fox pursuant to Section 5.2 above.

Parents of children that attend Camp Hutchins are frustrated by the lack of transparency in the process of the city asking Lodi Memorial Hospital to pay rent for the Hutchins Street Square space, and the hospitals refusal to do so.

The parents will meet Friday at 5:30 at the park behind the Square, and plan to speak at Wednesday’s City Council meeting in hopes of resurrecting talks between the city and the hospital.

I’ve been told by a hospital spokeswoman that anything more than the $1-a-year lease that equates to a city subsidy is not doable. The city said they want rent, and talks died quickly. The hospital said they will close the day care in July.

In a letter to me, parent Christina Short said she thinks there is a compromise to be found. She and her fellow parents vow to fight for the day care to remain open.

Outgoing Downtown Lodi Business Partnership executive director Jamie Watts is opening a new coffee shop/jazz club hybrid that will also showcase Lodi foods and wine.

Watts received approval for a license to sell beer and wine at Wednesday’s planning commission meeting.

“In the morning it will be coffee, pastries and wi-fi,” she said. “At night, we’ll have live entertainment like blues, jazz and comedy performances.”

The new place will open at 14 S. School St., the space formerly occupied by the short-lived Wine Ot.

- The Planning Commission also approved a wine tasting room for One Way Winery inside the new Visit Lodi! headquarters at 25 N. School St.