Category Archives: Uncategorized

And if you see Val Acoba’s Red Dragon Theater, wish them Happy New Year.

“First proposed nine years ago, the development would create a new city from a dusty stretch of ranch land midway between the Bay Area and Southern California. Solar arrays bolted to its rooftops, spread across its water reservoirs and clustered elsewhere would generate more electricity during the day than the city’s 25,000 homes would need, [...]

The apparent firing of Jessica Glynn raises questions about the rollout of the Marshall Plan and the management style of City Manager Kurt Wilson.   Glynn was hired last October. But she was forbidden to talk to the press for almost a month. When she was finally allowed to talk, City Manager Kurt Wilson sat [...]

NPR recently did a story called “Marathon Mania in American History.” It included these antics at University of the Pacific: “The Associated Press reported on March 21, 1958, that two University of California undergrads were trying to break the 110-hour sitting-on-a-seesaw record set by College of the Pacific students in 1957. Friends planned to feed [...]

In a wide-ranging conversation that formed the basis of today’s column, Mayor Anthony Silva also said: —He’s raised $20,000 towards the Mayor’s 4th of July Fireworks. —“Social media helps me. It’s a good way to reach 20,000 people.” —If Steve Bestolarides challenges him for mayor: “As soon as that happens, I’m going to stick 11 [...]

The “Free Weston Ranch” bunch that wants to remove the southwest neighborhood from the city and join the county is back in the news. “The centerpiece of the … complaints last week was that more than $900,000 in what (neighborhood leader Dale) Fritchen called “landscape maintenance district fees” paid by residents are not being spent [...]

I’m puzzled by the remarks of CSU Stanislaus President Joseph F. Sheley to the San Joaquin Partnership this week. Sheley said this about the drive to create a CSU Stockton: “Right now, anything that promotes (a discussion) is a good thing,” Sheley said. “Anything that forces a discussion is a good thing. But we need to [...]

Bill Reis-Knight forwards thoughts from Silicon valley techie Karl Auerbach: “My guess is that the center of manufacturing for HSR components will be in the central valley of California.  A lot of people have mentioned the city of Merced because of its old Air Force base and position on one of the HSR routes.  But [...]

Mayor Anthony Silva invited me to City Hall for a chat today. Silva spoke rapidly for over an hour on such a wide-ranging variety of topics that I can’t cover them all today. I’ll blog a few more in the next few days. But here is one: Silva fumed that bad publicity complicates his love [...]

Here’s the column on Mayor Anthony Silva’s limousine debacle. Here’s a sampling of reader reactions. We’ll start with Jack Hauser, who says calling the mayor’s antics “trailer park” is a insult — to trailer parks. “I have to take issue with that sentence,” Hauser said. “I live in a n adult, high-end 55-plus trailer park [...]