Economist suggests Mantecans perhaps crack open a book now and then.

This week's (15 Sep 08) Manteca City Council highlights:

• Manteca economist determined the city is populated by primitive ignorant villagers.
• Whole Foods market and Trader Joe's not interested in locating in Manteca because we are too uneducated.
• The Council approves of study and calls it much better than any other they've seen. Mayor Weatherford praises study.

Shown above (click to enlarge) pages from the study. The chart at right lists the requirements for various stores including Whole Foods Inc. and Trader Joe's Inc.

In response, Councilman Snyder regaled the meeting participants with a fascinating story of how he went to a restaurant in Toledo and even though they served hot dogs on paper plates it was a great success because Jamie Farr mentioned it on a TV show. He suggested, "that's what Manteca needs."

Lathrop's high tech witch hunt

The rumor mill is still in full force on the website devoted to destroying Lathrop's mayor, Kristy Sayles. The personal attacks and pure vitriol from those posting on the message boards there is pretty frightening. It's especially chilling to see the posts from so-called Christians condemning her morals and telling her to repent and ask God for forgiveness for her sins. They even quote scripture. I guess they've forgotten the part of the Bible that says "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." One particularly nasty poster, who claims to go to the same church as the mayor, called her a filthy name in Spanish in one of his posts.

She's been accused of bigamy, of having children fathered by men she wasn't married to at the time, of taking thousands of dollars from somewhere and doing something with it (doing what is not exactly clear...but who cares about facts when we have so many good rumors). She's accused of using aliases for criminal purposes, and of lying about her age and education and income. We see documents and bits of documents taken out of context, mixed in with accusations and speculations. The condemnation is fueled by the self-righteousness of the "webmaster" and others in the holier-than-thou atmosphere that pervades the site, whipping themselves into a frenzy over the "immoralities" of the mayor.

I'm not here to defend Mayor Sayles. I don't live in Lathrop and can't vote in their elections. What bothers me is the trend throughout our country towards dirty, nasty politics in name of "truth" when often what is put out there is a vile perversion of someone's idea of the truth. Intelligent, thinking citizens will look past the mud and arrows and discern for themselves what to accept and what to reject and take into account where the information is coming from. The ignorant villagers will light their torches and call for burning the witch based on rumors and innuendo spread on a viral website.

I've suggested that the candidates on the Lathrop ballot come out and disassociate themselves from the opposition website. Only one candidate actually said she had nothing to do with it and that's Rosalinda Valencia, candidate for city council. However, though she claimed she's not involved with it, she regularly posts and contributes to the website. According to a trusted source who attended Tuesday's Lathrop city council meeting, Mrs. Valencia "disgraced" herself by making public comments at the meeting about the "blog" and calling for Mayor Sayles to step down.

Who else is posting on the opposition website? John Rock, candidate for mayor, has made several posts under his real name. Laura Thimler posts under her own name and some of the nastiest and juiciest gossip has come directly from her. I think Thimler is a former Lathrop city clerk (but don't hold me to that) and was a candidate in 2002 for MUSD trustee. "Dan," another regular poster to the website, doesn't give his last name but appears to be former Lathrop city council candidate and current Planning Commissioner Dan MacNeilage.

In the end, the smear campaign being waged by Mayor Sayles' enemies may backfire. Word on the street is that even people who don't particularly like her or support her, feel sorry for her because of the website. I think most people can relate to their personal lives being turned inside out and published on the Internet and their disgust with the website is stronger than their feelings about the mayor. Not everyone is an "ignorant villager" and many will see the website, and those participating in it, for what it is.

Planning Commission drinking game

Edited 18 Sep 08: New additions!

It occurred to me at the last Planning Commission meeting that it would make a great "drinking game.*"

The rules are pretty simple.

Take a drink (or get a point) every time someone uses the following words:

• upscale
• pedestrian friendly
• walking trail
• visual impact
• orderly growth
• entitlements
• great project
• environmental impact
• Any reference to trees, shading, planters, landscaping or color schemes
• signage
• build-out

Double points for:

• negative declaration, (quadruple if it's pronounced "neg dec")
• staff recommends
• Sphere of Influence
• consistent with (general plan or adjacent uses)
• Any reference to "growth paying its own way."
• vibrant
• amenities

* If you review the audio tape of the meeting and end up with alcohol poisoning, don't blame me. I don't recommend trying it unless you have a designated doctor and a gastric lavage apparatus standing by.

Photo: actually a city council meeting but at this point it shouldn't matter.

Manteca's daily newspaper and ethics (or lack of)

I picked up a copy of Friday's Manteca Bulletin that happened to be sitting on my dining room table and saw the headline "Manteca burglars barely out of puberty" and under the headline a picture of an unnamed scantily-clad 15-year-old girl with a policeman (her supposed 16-year-old male accomplice is blurry in the background). I opened the paper and on page 3 is a second picture of the same 15-year-old girl from a different angle, being handcuffed by a policeman with her hands behind her back.

I gotta ask: What the hell is wrong with the Manteca Bulletin?

First of all, isn't there some kind of thing in our constitution about being presumed innocent until proven guilty? Why is the Bulletin publishing pictures of a young teenaged girl wearing a skimpy camisole type top with lots of cleavage? not just once on the front page, but again on the inside page with the caption "Officer ... adjusts handcuffs..." sort of giving it a perverse bondage aspect which I don't think was altogether coincidental. It made me ill.

I'm a grandmother and have granddaughters, two of them are 15 years old. If that was my granddaughter's photo in the Bulletin, I don't care what she did, I'd be spitting nails. Not only are the photographs vaguely perverted but in the second photo, you can clearly see her face and I'm sure everyone who knows her, like her neighbors, schoolmates and teachers, recognizes her. So much for protecting minors and people who haven't been convicted of a crime. Another disturbing aspect of the photos is that I'm pretty sure the girl wasn't asked if she minded having her picture taken, she didn't have much choice being in handcuffs and all.

I guess the Bulletin's editor, Dennis Wyatt, liked the pictures so much that he had photographer Glenn Kahl write a second article about it just so he'd have an excuse to use the photo of her in handcuffs because otherwise two photos would probably seem a little much. By the way, isn't it funny how the Bulletin's main photographer always just happens to show up when someone is being arrested? Like he's got some kind of police radio or something that the rest of us ordinary citizens (and The Sun Post) aren't allowed to have since the Manteca Police Department changed to scrambled/encrypted radio transmissions earlier this year. Another layer of secrecy in goverment...but I digress.

Back in 2006, the Manteca Bulletin reported on a Manteca police officer who was arrested for "domestic violence." The policeman was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. In the article, the Bulletin declined to name the officer citing their policy of not naming anyone, police or regular citizens, who haven't been convicted of a crime. The article also said the alleged violence "didn't result in a serious injury" or require a trip to the hospital (kind of downplaying the violence aspect) so they felt they shouldn't print any names, and pointed out "As always, the individuals arrested are innocent until proven otherwise."

Nice policy. However, the Bulletin routinely prints photos of people being arrested including their names and the alleged crimes. How Dennis Wyatt could say with a straight face that they don't is just astounding. And, here he is putting a picture of a 15-year-old girl in handcuffs on the front page. It's not even clear that she was accused of anything except being in the vicinity when a crime occurred, but hey, they didn't give her name so it's cool.

And while I'm on a rant, what about the way the Manteca Police have a habit of hand-cuffing people they're going to arrest then letting them stand or sit outside so everyone gets a good look instead of putting them directly in the squad car? I know from first hand observation, that sometimes arrestees are hand-cuffed and made to sit on the ground for half an hour or more in full view of everyone on the street. Even international accords on handling prisoners of war prohibits the parading and photographing of prisoners, citing humiliation among other reasons.

The neighborhood I live in has deteriorated over the years and I've had police outside in my front yard with guns drawn (at 8:30 in the morning when I was leaving to take my grandchildren to school!) and suspects handcuffed and sitting on my lawn for 30 minutes. It was quite unnerving to say the least. I think their excuse was that they were waiting for room at the county jail. But waving guns around and putting handcuffed prisoners on my lawn and frightening my grandchildren?! In this particular instance, I think the arrests were for parole violations at a neighbor's house and not for any crime currently in progress. You'd think the police department would have a contingency plan for handling arrests when the jail is full instead of using my yard for a holding cell. But enough about the police for now.

I'm not a fan of the Manteca Bulletin and in the past I've questioned their journalistic ethics and integrity. Time to question it again. Dennis Wyatt...what the hell were you thinking?

Take this plot and shove it!

Video of the raucous meeting yesterday at the Union Cemetery.

Note the cast of colorful characters. Also, the citizens showed their appreciation to Mayor Kristy Sayles (Lathrop, Calif.) for being there and lending her support. There were no officials from the City of Manteca present.

I can't decide if this should be classified under political meetings or ethnographic studies.

Union Cemetery photographs

In case anyone is interested I did photo-document the cemetery in Oct 2003 and the photo album is on line. I thought it was one of the more interesting places in town. Look at the grave markers. Some of them say the person buried there was born in 1804. There may be earlier ones I didn't see.

Think about that. When this person was born, George Washington had just died five years earlier. Thomas Jefferson and many of the "founding fathers" were still living when this person was a teenager. Notice how many list the place of birth as England and some list when they came to the California Territory. Other boast of being a "California Native."

My favorite is the guy who I thought at first glance was buried with his cat. I think I'd like to be buried with a cat.

"Opposition Researchers," Headlines and Truth

I was in line in the grocery store a couple days ago and at least 4 weekly magazines had big pictures of a smiling Sarah Palin holding her baby on their covers with various headlines that used words like embarrassing, scandals, lies, secrets, attack, investigation and other key words that make you think, boy there must be a lot of dirt on this woman...otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to print it, right? Wrong.

In an interview with FoxNews.com's Megyn Kelly, US Weekly admits that the lies referred to under the headline "Babies, Lies & Scandals" are the lies being spread by the "liberal bloggers" about Palin and not lies told by Palin. I heard on the radio Tuesday that about 40 "lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers" were landing in Wasilla, AK this week to dig up anything they can on the GOP's vice presidential candidate. I guess the theory is if you sling enough mud, some of it's bound to stick.

Kristy Sayles, Lathrop's beleaguered mayor, has her own personal "opposition researcher" who is digging up anything and everything he can find on her, slinging mud and hoping that something sticks. The latest "news" on Sayles reports that there was an incident of domestic violence in front of children in her daycare. Nevermind that there was no finding of any such thing by investigators, but putting it out there in big bold statements means it must be true, right?

How low can we go? Another attack is made on Sayles' spending habits, accusing her of blowing over $1,000 on eBay purchases while claiming indigency and inability to pay a $750 filing fee to run for mayor. She's accused of making lots of money from her daycare business and from selling on eBay. Does anyone really believe that? I did a little investigating myself and my conclusion is that this is a hard-working woman trying to make ends meet in a tough economy. The purchases on eBay appear to be related to her day care business and/or her store on eBay and buying clothes for her kids.

Let's see...buy clothes for the kids or run for mayor?