Author Archives: Scott Smith

Scott Smith

Scott Smith covers Stockton City Hall for The Record. Born and raised in Manteca, he attended San Joaquin Delta College, where he occasionally teaches writing. After graduating from California State University, Chico, he served with the U.S. Peace Corps in Uzbekistan and then worked as country director for Internews Uzbekistan. He has been with The Record since 2003, previously covering public safety, prisons and courts.

And then there were two

By Scott Smith | Published: May 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

Former Stockton Police Chief Blair Ulring is one of two finalists vying for the position of police chief in Flagstaff, Az. So says this brief in the azdailysun.com.

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State of the City speech

By Scott Smith | Published: May 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

The Record will be live streaming Mayor Ann Johnston’s speech today at 12:30 p.m. Go to recordnet.com and click on the link – Live: Stockton State of the City 2012.

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Meat of the article

By Scott Smith | Published: May 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

Bob Deis did not like the header to this story: Stockton City Council’s secret budgeting begins. He commented on it during Tuesday’s council meeting. We’re not secretly budgeting. It’s important that when you go through this budget document, there’s $521 million of proposed appropriations with all funds. Because we’re going through the 506 process, all [...]

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City budget online

By Scott Smith | Published: May 15, 2012 | 2 Comments

Stockton’s proposed 2012-13 budget is now public at the city’s website. It’s 312 pages.

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AB 506 reading

By Scott Smith | Published: May 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

Just in case you can’t get enough, here’s an executive summary of the AB 506 process. It points out, among many things, that this mediation process has a 60-day time limit, and the clock starts ticking on the day that a neutral evaluator is selected. The city announced that it and the interested parties had [...]

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Ulring

By Scott Smith | Published: May 11, 2012 | 1 Comment

Former Stockton Police Chief Blair Ulring is among five finalists considered to become Flagstaff’s next police chief, according to this story on azdailysun.com. Before leaving his post in Stockton, he made it clear that he was too young – he’s now 52 – to end his career, so this comes as little surprise.

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Not clearly erroneous

By Scott Smith | Published: May 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

Mayor Ann Johnston and the city await the signature of San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Lesley Holland denying Ralph White’s attempt to have Johnston removed from the race for mayor over term limits. Holland ruled from the bench and attorney Manuela Albuquerque fashioned this order putting it all down in writing. It paraphrases the [...]

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State audit reveals problems in Hercules

By Scott Smith | Published: May 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

Controller John Chiang found lots of problems in the accounting of Hercules. His audit team is now at work in Stockton. At a recent town hall meeting, Stockton City Manager Bob Deis said that he doesn’t believe Chiang’s group will unearth anything new. His team and a third party has pulled out all of the [...]

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Tonight’s town hall meeting

By Scott Smith | Published: May 7, 2012 | 2 Comments

Vice Mayor Kathy Miller is on tonight. She’ll meet the public in a 6:30 p.m. forum at the Siefert Community Center, 128 West Benjamin Holt Dr. The topic will be city finances and crime. This follows last week’s town hall meeting hosted by Mayor Ann Johnston and City Manager Bob Deis. About 100 people attended [...]

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City Council invocation

By Scott Smith | Published: May 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

The Jet Newspaper online, a publication from Fiji, reports that the July 10 Stockton council meeting will begin with its first Hindu invocation, first read in Sanskrit and then the English translation. What’s interesting about the story on this is the last graph, spelling out Stockton’s credentials. They threw everything in the pot – from [...]

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