The "living systems" of Salida and Wood Colony

 My comments to the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors on July 14, 2026:

"I'm dropping off this request and it's length prohibits my reading it into public comment. I have to admit, I'm not sorry that I was out-of-town during the April 28, 2026 Modesto City Council meeting as it would have been an utter waste of time. The slimy tactics of that bought and paid for council blow my mind! They send notice of the General Plan update on the agenda at 4:58pm on a Friday, they switch maps from the ones that they supposedly did their due-diligence with at Salida and Wood Colony MACs, they hold a private special planning commission meeting, and are holding their public scoping meeting tomorrow online only. There's not much more they legally could do to limit public participation. As a Salida resident, they don't care what I, nor the 14,000 people of Salida, nor the over 3,000 people of Wood Colony have to say anyways. They don't view us as neighbors and they do not treat us like the human beings that we are. As Ken Carlson reported in the Modesto Bee, their votes have been bought and that is enough to curtail any shred of humanity they might have left.

 To quote the current chair of Salida MAC, Karen Gorne, “We will fight tooth and nail.” This can be the hard way or a slightly difficult way, depending upon you. I'm here to inform you that Salida is going to petition for a Community Services District and if Modesto is not going to preserve the

high quality farmland of our neighbor, Wood Colony, then Salida will. Folded into our CSD is

Stanislaus County's Prime Farmland
 in dark green

Wood Colony as our farmland mitigated green belt. When land is developed in Salida, farmland will be mitigated in Wood Colony. This provides for no minimum on acreage like the farmland trusts that require a minimum of 40 acres. Modesto cannot be trusted; we have learned from a former city employee that Modesto is using the land around the Jennings treatment plant for ag mitigation. I have put in a PRA to Modesto and the former employee has told me they are willing to verify this information to Supervisor Withrow. So the slightly less difficult way for Salida is if you create the CSD. If you want to go the harder route, then so be it. Those greedy puppets are not getting one inch of Salida's land.

Also in this document, are the issues surrounding two EIRs being conducted on Salida Community Plan lands. Case precedence of Save Tara vs. City of West Hollywood found an agency may not commit itself to a project before completing CEQA review. Which brings me to the minutes from your workshop in Hughson: I inquired to Salida MAC as to whether the County's efforts to put a Central Valley Circular facility in Salida to recycle paper and cardboard has been brought to Salida MAC and they replied it had not. The word “efforts” makes it sound like it's not definite and I would suggest it is brought to Salida MAC as soon as possible before spending more funding on something that may not be compatible to the community. Please address at the MAC the environmental impacts of such a facility in Salida. You can model it on the cardboard and paper recycling business that I frequent, American Recycling on Morgan Road, which has burned down twice in recent memory. I am assuming you don't intend to place the facility near homes or schools?

As Supervisor Chiesa said in his speech, "Communities are living systems".

Stanislaus County has a vision PDF online that includes values that “Each person matters” and the “County works everyday to build people's trust.” That is exactly what Salida and Wood Colony need right now – that we matter and can trust you"

Formal request:

July 14, 2026

VIA EMAIL AND HAND DELIVERY

Thomas E. Boze, County Counsel

Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors

1010 Tenth Street

Modesto, CA 95354

Re: The Salida Community Plan Initiative (Ordinance C.S. 1005) — Demand for Compliance with Voter-Enacted Law; Section 3.08 Incorporation Study Funds; the Initiative’s Financing Architecture; Conflicting Environmental Reviews; Preservation of Salida’s Incorporation Viability; Request for County Action on Salida Self-Governance

Dear Mr. Boze and Honorable Members of the Board:

This letter addresses the County’s obligations under the voter-enacted Salida Area Planning, Road Improvement, Economic Development and Farmland Protection Initiative, adopted by this Board on August 7, 2007 as Ordinance C.S. 1005 pursuant to Elections Code section 9116, and the County’s posture toward the City of Modesto’s General Plan 2050 effort. We request the actions in Part VIII and identify the legal basis for each. We prefer resolution but reserve all remedies.

I. The Initiative Is Voter-Protected Law the Board Cannot Amend by Administrative or Budgetary Action — a Principle This Board Has Already Acknowledged.

Because the Initiative qualified by petition and was adopted without alteration under Elections Code section 9116, it carries the full protection of Elections Code section 9125: it “shall not be repealed or amended except by a vote of the people,” except as the measure itself provides. The County’s own Chief Executive Office confirmed this in writing on August 31, 2012. Controlling authority:

Because the Initiative qualified by petition and was adopted without alteration under Elections Code section 9116, it carries the full protection of Elections Code section 9125: it “shall not be repealed or amended except by a vote of the people,” except as the measure itself provides. The County’s own Chief Executive Office confirmed this in writing on August 31, 2012. Controlling authority: DeVita v. County of Napa (1995) 9 Cal.4th 763; Rossi v. Brown (1995) 9 Cal.4th 688. Because section 9125 prohibits amendment or repeal except by the voters, County actions that effectively alter or nullify the Initiative’s substantive provisions would be subject to judicial review.

This Board has itself stated the governing principle. At the March 15, 2022 hearing on General Plan Amendment PLN2019-0079, District 3 Supervisor Withrow explained, on the record: “It’s wrong to treat one applicant… one way and all the people who’ve come in here… a different way. This initiative requires that a programmatic EIR be prepared prior to the development within the amendment area. It doesn’t say ‘may.’ It doesn’t say the county has the discretion to ignore this in favor of one developer.” We ask only that the County apply that same rule — the Initiative is mandatory and may not be cherry-picked — to every subject below.

The County’s record also shows why vigilance is warranted. In September 2019, County Planning filed CEQA documents asserting that parcel APN 003-014-007 was included in the Initiative’s Exhibit B-1 map by “draftsman’s error” and could be administratively “corrected” — twelve years after adoption, unchallenged in the interim, and surfacing only when the owner sought to develop. A Salida resident’s formal CEQA referral response (L. Powell, June 30, 2021) objected on precisely the section 9125 grounds stated here, quoting the Initial Study’s own language; the Board thereafter denied the project 3-2. The episode establishes two things: the County has previously attempted administrative amendment of the voter-enacted map, and the County has already once receded when confronted with section 9125. This letter asks it to recede again — before, rather than after, litigation.

II. Section 3.08’s Incorporation Study Funds Have Been Applied to a Different Purpose Than the One the Voters’ Measure Contemplated.

Development Agreement Section 3.08 required Residential Applicants to pay the County $150,000, due concurrently with execution of the Agreement in 2007, which the County was to “use or direct… to an appropriate local agency to help fund studies considering the potential incorporation of the Salida Area.” That discretion belongs to the County. But the public record raises real questions about how it has been exercised:

• The July 22, 2025 Board agenda item (Resolution 2025-0397) shows the $1,049,000 Program EIR effort — a development-clearance document for the Amendment Area, prepared under a July 23, 2024 agreement with Ascent Environmental, Inc. — funded in part by $75,000 in “Salida Incorporation Study” fund balance, alongside $682,720 in County General Fund and $291,220 in “Salida Planning Efforts” fund balance.

• Only $75,000 of the original $150,000 appears as remaining fund balance. We request a full accounting: what portion has been expended, on what, and pursuant to what direction.

• We further request confirmation of the scope, budget line, and independence of the “incorporation feasibility analysis” folded into the Ascent contract, and Salida MAC review of its assumptions before finalization — particularly any assumption that the City of Modesto is or would remain Salida’s water purveyor (see the July 22, 2025 County–Modesto MOU, Resolution 2025-0397; Gov. Code § 56133; Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth v. City of Rancho Cordova (2007) 40 Cal.4th 412). The purveyor assumption matters because the record of Modesto’s conduct is documented and one-sided: a standing “will not serve” position for new Salida development since acquiring the Del Este system; refusal of water service to Gregori High School, forcing the school district to drill its own well; the November 25, 2014 council action singling out Salida-area territory — alone among former Del Este communities — for removal from routine water-connection approvals; and the March 3, 2021 denial of service to the Lark Landing project. An incorporation feasibility analysis should evaluate reasonably foreseeable alternatives for municipal water service and should not assume continued service from a jurisdiction actively pursuing annexation of the same territory.

Applying section 3.08 funds earmarked for incorporation studies to a development-entitlement EIR, without a clear public accounting, raises a substantial question whether the County has redirected a voter-protected measure’s dedicated funding to a different purpose — reviewable as an expenditure contrary to law under Code of Civil Procedure section 526a (Blair v. Pitchess (1971) 5 Cal.3d 258; White v. Davis (1975) 13 Cal.3d 757) and remediable by writ under Code of Civil Procedure section 1085.

III. The Initiative’s Own Financing Architecture — the Section 4.03 Fee and the Section 2.09 Districts — Assigns These Costs to Applicants, Not the General Fund.

The voters’ measure built a complete funding system for exactly the costs now being charged to the public:

• The Salida Community Plan fee. Development Agreement Section 4.03(A), implemented through the Initiative’s zoning provisions (§ 21.66.110), requires a fee on persons seeking approvals in the Amendment Area, sized to defray — but not exceed — the cost of “preparation, election or adoption, and administration of the Initiative, planning studies and subsequent Development Plans, and environmental impact report,” including “actual County costs, third-party consultant costs, and other reasonable costs,” with Applicants credited for eligible costs they front. The Initiative assigns environmental-review costs to the development the review enables — not to the General Fund, and not to incorporation-study money. We request confirmation of the fee’s current status (including whether it has been established and is collecting) and an accounting of how PEIR costs will be recovered through it.

• The mandatory financing districts. Development Agreement Section 2.09 provides: “Prior to the recordation of any final map, the Applicant filing such map shall petition County to form (or annex into, as applicable) community facilities districts or other such financing districts solely burdening the applicable portion of the Project Site.” District formation before development is not optional under the voters’ measure. We request confirmation that no final map will record, and no Development Plan will be approved, without compliance with Section 2.09.

IV. The County Is Running Environmental Review on a Collision Course with Modesto’s — Whose Own Process Shows Hallmarks of Predetermination.

The County’s PEIR analyzes buildout of the same territory — including the Landmark Business Park area — that Modesto’s General Plan 2050 proposes to absorb into its sphere of influence. Each EIR must analyze inconsistency with applicable plans, including the voter-enacted Salida Community Plan (CEQA Guidelines § 15125(d)), and cumulative impacts of the concurrent proposals; CEQA applies fully to annexation and sphere actions (Bozung v. Local Agency Formation Com. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 263). As to Modesto’s process specifically:

• Commitment before review. By March 2026, Modesto had assembled parcel-by-parcel “Property Owner Support Maps” cataloging landowner commitments to a specific expansion footprint before any Draft EIR existed, following an April 2026 Council vote to pursue its largest expansion option. An agency may not commit itself to a project before completing CEQA review (Save Tara v. City of West Hollywood (2008) 45 Cal.4th 116).

• An unstable project description. The map presented to the Salida and Wood Colony Municipal Advisory Councils differed from the map the Council ultimately voted on, with territory added back “for study” at and after the hearing. “An accurate, stable and finite project description is the sine qua non of an informative and legally sufficient EIR.” (County of Inyo v. City of Los Angeles (1977) 71 Cal.App.3d 185, 193.)

• Stated intent to override its own voters. At the February 2026 Salida MAC meeting, Modesto planning staff indicated the City Council would proceed notwithstanding a negative advisory vote under Modesto’s Measures A and M — the framework whose administration has previously been the subject of federal litigation. Committee Concerning Community Improvement v. City of Modesto (9th Cir. 2009) 583 F.3d 690. The City’s own Measure M History Map (UGR-15-001) confirms that every advisory vote to extend sewer north of Kiernan Avenue has been defeated by Modesto’s electorate.

• Mitigation that warrants scrutiny. Modesto’s public materials commit only to unspecified future “conservation easements or in-lieu fees to an established, qualified mitigation program.” The community has received information from a former City employee, which it is corroborating through Public Records Act requests, indicating the City may intend to credit City-owned agricultural land near its wastewater treatment facilities — approximately 1,700 acres of which is understood to be leased out for farming — toward farmland mitigation. Mitigation from land the converting agency already owns and cannot itself develop supplies no additionality, permanence, or independent enforcement, and is not “mitigation” within CEQA Guidelines section 15370; unspecified future programs are impermissibly deferred mitigation (Guidelines § 15126.4(a)(1)(B)). Nor can mitigation be adequate where the replacement land is of demonstrably lower agricultural classification than the land converted: California Department of Conservation Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program (FMMP) data show the territory proposed for conversion within and north of the Salida Community Plan area and Wood Colony is predominantly Prime Farmland and Farmland of Statewide Importance, substantially overlapping areas of very high groundwater recharge — a double designation requiring analysis under both the agricultural-resources and SGMA/water-supply sections of any EIR. The lawful benchmark in this county is the program this Board adopted and the Fifth District Court of Appeal upheld: permanent agricultural conservation easements on comparable land held by a qualified independent entity (Building Industry Assn. of Central California v. County of Stanislaus (2010) 190 Cal.App.4th 582, review denied).

V. LAFCO Law, Policy, and the County’s Own Tax Agreements Independently Protect Salida.

• Stanislaus LAFCO’s May 2014 response to Modesto’s prior general plan NOP stated the governing tests: sphere expansion requires a finding of “insufficient land… within the current sphere of influence” — while Modesto then held over 11,000 sphere acres outside city limits and had voluntarily removed 1,254 acres of already-approved territory from its own growth map — and LAFCO’s adopted policy that sphere boundaries “maintain a separation between existing communities… and the identity of an individual community,” expressly naming Salida and Wood Colony. LAFCO rejected Modesto’s attempt on Salida and the Beckwith Triangle in 1996. (Gov. Code §§ 56377, 56425, 56668.)

• Historic downtown Salida was designated a disadvantaged community by this County in the early 2000s for federal sewer funding. Under Government Code section 56375(a)(8) (SB 244), LAFCO may not approve a city annexation exceeding 10 acres where a disadvantaged unincorporated community is contiguous unless an application to annex that community is also filed. We request that the County preserve and produce the records establishing that designation.

• The 2022 Master Property Tax Revenue Agreement (Board Resolution 2022-0298) excludes the Salida Area from its automatic terms, reserving property tax sharing there for independent negotiation — an exclusion with unbroken lineage to the 1996 master agreement, which likewise excluded Salida for separate negotiation. The Ninth Circuit discussed the role tax-sharing arrangements played in the annexation process challenged in Committee, supra, 583 F.3d 690. The Board therefore retains — and has retained for thirty years — a genuine checkpoint over the fiscal terms of any Salida-area annexation, which we ask it to exercise rather than waive.

• Under Development Agreement Section 4.01, once Subsequent Approvals comply with the Initiative, “County shall not require any further legislative-level entitlements to enable Applicants to build out the Project.” We ask the County to confirm how the PEIR’s scope is consistent with this provision.

California law defines a community of interest as “a contiguous population which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation.” Salida and Wood Colony each satisfy that definition many times over — a fact the County itself has operationalized through their Municipal Advisory Councils — and the same principle that requires keeping such communities whole for representation counsels against boundary actions that dismember them.

VI. Allowing Modesto to Absorb the Amendment Area Would Foreclose the Very Incorporation the Initiative Funded.

The Amendment Area is not merely land; it is Salida’s future municipal territory and tax base — the geography that makes cityhood feasible. If Modesto absorbs the Community Plan lands north and south of Kiernan, Salida is walled in: bounded by Modesto to the east and south, with growth possible only westward into Wood Colony, which neither community wants. A community with nowhere to grow faces incorporation denial on that very ground — as East Los Angeles’s incorporation effort learned — and a Salida stripped of its employment lands would stagnate into precisely the disadvantaged county island that state law (SB 244) was enacted to prevent, ultimately becoming Modesto’s forced obligation rather than its own city. Community support for self-governance is longstanding and substantial. The County cannot square facilitating that outcome with its duties under the Initiative: a measure whose stated purposes include Salida’s economic development, whose Development Agreement funds incorporation studies (§ 3.08), and whose zoning contemplates district governance (§ 21.66.100) is not implemented by policies that render incorporation geographically and fiscally impossible. Every discretionary act the County takes regarding the Amendment Area — the PEIR’s assumptions, tax negotiations, LAFCO positions, EIR comments — should be measured against this question: does it preserve or foreclose Salida’s capacity for self-governance?

VII. Salida Will Petition to Form a Community Services District with Full Powers — an Action Both the Initiative and Prior County Planning Have Long Contemplated.

Community representatives intend to petition Stanislaus LAFCO to form the Salida Community Services District under the Community Services District Law (Gov. Code § 61000 et seq.). This is not a departure from County policy but its overdue fulfillment. General Plan text predating the 2007 Initiative already described a Salida community services district as a co-processor, alongside Project proponents and the County, of development approvals in Salida — text the 2007 ordinance amended only to update the unit count, not to abandon the concept. The anticipated district was never formed only because the residential market collapse of 2008–2009 stalled the development the Initiative entitled. The Initiative’s zoning provisions (§ 21.66.100) independently confirm the same expectation, conditioning Amendment Area development on annexation to or service from “a sanitary district, water district, and/or community services district,” and Section 2.09 mandates financing districts besides.

We ask the Board to support formation of a district with a full powers menu — comparable to the Mountain House Community Services District, which governed that community for nearly three decades before its 2024 incorporation as San Joaquin County’s newest city — rather than the narrower model of the County’s own Keyes Community Services District, which since 1995 has held only water, wastewater collection, and street lighting powers. Because a district holds only the powers requested and granted at formation, with latent powers activated only through separate LAFCO proceedings (Gov. Code § 61106), the scope requested at formation will determine what Salida’s district can do for years. The County’s constructive participation follows from its duty to implement, not impede, a voter-enacted measure whose own planning documents anticipated it. (Elec. Code § 9125; DeVita, supra.)

VIII. Requested Actions.

1. Provide a full accounting of the Section 3.08 $150,000 incorporation-study payment: amounts expended, purposes, and the County’s direction, including the basis for applying $75,000 to the PEIR.

2. Confirm the status of the Section 4.03 / § 21.66.110 Salida Community Plan fee and how PEIR costs will be recovered from it consistent with the Initiative.

3. Confirm Section 2.09 compliance: no final map recordation or Development Plan approval without the mandated community facilities district petition.

4. Provide Salida MAC review of the incorporation feasibility analysis’s scope and assumptions before finalization, including independence from any assumption that Modesto is Salida’s water purveyor.

5. Adopt a Board resolution that the County will not negotiate any tax-sharing agreement transferring Salida Area revenues to any city while Salida self-governance planning is underway, consistent with the Salida Area exclusion carried in the County’s master tax agreements since 1996.

6. Direct County Counsel and Planning to file comments on Modesto’s General Plan 2050 EIR addressing: the conflict with the voter-enacted Salida Community Plan; the Save Tara and County of Inyo defects above; farmland mitigation adequacy under the BIA v. Stanislaus standard; section 56375(a)(8)/SB 244 compliance as to downtown Salida; and the foreclosure of Salida’s incorporation viability described in Part VI.

7. Reaffirm by resolution the county-recognized community boundaries and communities-of-interest status of Salida and Wood Colony, consistent with California’s recognized Communities of Interest principles and Stanislaus LAFCO’s separation-of-communities policies.

8. Support the Salida CSD formation petition with a full powers menu, consistent with Part VII.

9. Preserve all records relating to the Section 3.08 fund, the Section 4.03 fee, Section 2.09 compliance, the PLN2019-0079 “draftsman’s error” determinations, the Ascent and West Yost contracts, the downtown Salida disadvantaged-community designation, and County–Modesto communications regarding the Salida area.

We request a written response within thirty (30) days. We prefer cooperation, but reserve all rights and remedies, including enforcement of Elections Code section 9125, taxpayer action under Code of Civil Procedure section 526a, and writ relief under Code of Civil Procedure section 1085.

A taxing annexation for Salida

If Stanislaus County succeeds in annexing our homes into taxing districts, tax increases are never going to end. Every so often, they will want to raise taxes as they have already been doing to the people in those taxing districts.

As if 2020 hasn't been a bad enough year already, the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors is moving forward with plans to annex all of Salida into taxing districts. They call it a community service "assessment" (CSA) but that's just another word for "tax", and this is why it's subject to a Prop 218 vote. Following are the politics behind this tax and my thoughts on why I am against it.

The first tax to be voted on is known as CSA 4 and applies only to the Bristol Glen (aka Amberwood) neighborhood for their storm drain maintenance. For the CSA 4 tax to apply to all of Salida, Stanislaus LAFCO will have to approve Salida being annexed into Bristol Glen's taxing district and then registered homeowners will vote. The second taxing district that the rest of Salida will be annexed into is CSA 10 which covers park maintenance and the landscaping around the current CSA neighborhoods.

Following are my comments regarding the proposed tax annexation at the August 11, 2020 Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors meeting:

"I would like to request that agenda item C-1 be pulled and the following points are taken into consideration. To quote from page 2:

"In November, staff led a second meeting with the community and explained the rate increase process, benefits and costs, and why the increase was needed for CSA 10. County staff performed an informal poll of those that attended using comment cards. Based on 19 comment cards submitted, 10 were for the increase and 9 were against the increase. However, the most notable of responses, both verbally and written, for that meeting was a request that all of Salida pay for their "fair share" of the storm drain maintenance costs before considering raising the rate for CSA 10."

Let's begin with that quote "fair share". In 2013, I asked Matt Machado (former Director of Stanislaus County Public Works) how the storm drain maintenance in Salida was funded in neighborhoods like mine which are not covered by a CSA and his reply was "the gas tax". And here we are, seven years later and in the intervening time, we've had SB-1 and Measure L which are nice hefty increases to gas tax revenue. As was brought up at the Salida MAC meeting and also in the intervening time, the County decided to raid the CSA to pay for storm drain maintenance in my neighborhood as well as others not in CSA Districts, and this you spin as we are not paying our "fair share"??? That section of the agenda item should be stricken because it is nothing more than a biased opinion to further an agenda. If you don't wish to strike it, you can just as easily add my negative comment from the nine that were opposed so it's a more balanced and fair government document. (The Board of Supervisors adopted neither suggestion and the comment still stands in the document. They approved the tax unanimously to proceed onto the annexation process.)

My County Supervisor once told me that I was smart for not buying a Mello Roos home. (Mello Roos homes in Salida also have CSA taxes). I replied that it isn't because I'm smart, I did it on purpose because I didn't want the added taxes. When the people in CSA and Mello Roos homes purchase those homes, they agree to pay those taxes. They know what they are getting into. When we bought our home 27 years ago, the real estate agent did not say, "Well, you don't have these additional taxes on your home, but just wait, you will in 27 years."

Personally, the amount you want to tax us with isn't a big deal to me. I'm against this tax in principle. The principle being that we DO pay more than our fair share and we did not sign up for this. Another principle is that I think your timing is horrendous because other than the Great Recession, you're going to push a tax during the second biggest economic downturn of the 21st century. While the amount may not be a big deal to me, you are imposing this tax on low-income areas of Salida - the same sections of Salida you use for DUC (Disadvantaged Unincorporated Community) status in grants so that tax may be a big deal to a lot of other people in Salida." (NOTE: Salida as a whole is not a DUC, but the county obtained the storm drain grant for the Historic neighborhoods by grouping them as a DUC.)

I can't combat this tax alone so if you wish to help, e-mail me.

Urban Limit Lines; the politics of invisible lines in the sand

Board members of the Municipal Advisory Councils (MACs) in Salida and Wood Colony, along with members of other local boards like Salida Sanitary District, etc. received letters from the City of Modesto dated June 9, 2020 requesting feedback about their proposed Urban Limit Lines (ULL). So far, the correspondence and social media postings in response to the letter have been a resounding "leave us alone" from Salida and Wood Colony residents.

First, just what is an Urban Limit Line? That's an invisible line in the sand (or in our case, prime agricultural soil called Hanford Sandy Loam) that would prevent the City of Modesto from land-grabbing upon the communities of Salida and Wood Colony. As most local area 

Modesto Bee map 
https://www.modbee.com/article237666634.html

residents know, Salida and Wood Colony have been fighting proposed annexations by Modesto for quite some time now.  Typically, a ULL would be met with open arms by our unincorporated communities for the protection they offer, so why is this one not?

Because the ULL does NOT match up to our communities' boundaries which means that Modesto would still have the opportunity to develop and sprawl into Salida and Wood Colony. 

Politicians in Modesto didn't just wake up one day and decide to implement the ULL, nor did they wake up and decide to go after Salida and Wood Colony once again - they are doing this for two reasons: former Modesto City Councilman, Denny Jackman and landowners in Salida and Wood Colony. 

Denny Jackman is perhaps the most well-known farmland preservationist in our county. He co-authored with former Modesto mayor, Garrad Marsh, Measure E - a county-wide residential ULL that was passed by voters in 2007. Denny then tried to repeat the success with a City of Modesto ULL initiative in 2015 known as Measure I. The Modesto Chamber of Commerce and local unions poured money into an anti-Measure I campaign and the initiative was narrowly defeated.

Denny is not one to give up so easily. To put it bluntly, he is threatening Modesto with another ULL ballot initiative if they did not implement a ULL on their own. The June 9 letter even says this but much more diplomatically: "Mr. Jackman informed the City Council that he intended to proceed with another attempt to impose the same limitations as he had pursued in 2015." But this new ULL is not exactly the same as the one in 2015. The ULL sacrifices much more of Wood Colony. Salida's lines are pretty much the same as 2015 but they do not follow Salida's Community Plan (SCP) boundaries. Why? On both counts: landowners.

Based on social media posts on NextDoor regarding this topic and a recent Wood Colony MAC meeting, it appears that Bill Lyons Jr. is affecting the boundaries in Wood Colony. He is the largest landowner there. For Salida, the main chunks of land cut out of our SCP boundaries is everything south of Kiernan and Joe Gallo's land north of Kiernan. Back during the Measure I initiative, (this was told to me by a Wood Colony friend) Denny ran into Dave Romano (who reps for Joe Gallo) and Dave told him they'd fight the initiative if the land wasn't removed from the ULL. That's why it's not a clean line north of Kiernan (west of Dale), even though all that land has been designated for Salida in the SCP with a Development Agreement signed by Mr. Romano. 

Back to the ULL and my thoughts: the Modesto City Council is in a rock and hard place trying to appease Denny and compromise with powerful families like Lyons and Gallo who want to sell their lands for commercial prices (much higher than ag prices). Additionally, while their lands are in areas designated for Salida and Wood Colony, the land cannot be developed unless City of Modesto agrees to supply water for new development. Historically for Salida, this has meant that Modesto will not supply the water unless they get to annex the land. (That's how Salida lost Costco and Kaiser from it's districts.)

I cannot see the residents of Salida and Wood Colony being on board for something that does not fully protect our communities from annexation. We can let the Modesto City Council know what we think of their invisible lines in the sand, but they don't have a history of listening to us since we are not constituents. However, their past votes have proven to be political campaign ammo and have killed re-election bids so I guess we'll see.

The Assets of Exits

The "Yes" is same font as the Scottish campaign
for independence in 2014

When I first read of the growing movement for California to secede from the United States, known as Calexit, I was incredulous and I must admit, a bit fearful. Understandably so because the last time that a state seceded from the union, it resulted in full scale civil war and the seceding states lost. My great-grandparents in South Carolina lived through those hellacious times. Born in the mid-1850's, my great-grandparents were children during the Civil War and both of their fathers fought for the Confederacy. One great-great-grandfather sold salt to his neighbors when the Union embargoed salt to the South. His estate was valued in the 1860 U.S. Census at $10,000 and then after the war in 1870, at $1,000. The other great-great-grandfather was a doctor and later became a South Carolina state legislator. Family stories say he was so traumatized from what he saw during the war, that he quit practicing medicine once the war was over. Did they have any inkling of the misery and suffering that was coming? Would they have left the South if they knew? In looking at the lessons of the Civil War, and if Calexit is approved, should we Californians plan to leave before a similar fate arrives for us?

Because if there's one thing I understand and empathize with, it's many of the Calexit reasons for leaving because much it of also applies to our little Salida. One of the primary reasons cited is that California pays more in federal taxes than it gets back and the same is true for Salida. Salida and Denair (and possibly Knights Ferry) are the only unincorporated communities in Stanislaus County that do not have a "disadvantaged" status. Very little of the property and sales taxes generated in Salida goes back into benefiting our community. Oftentimes, when I ask for something to improve Salida, I'm told by the County reps, "If we do it for you, we'll have to do it for everyone". Take speed bumps for example. Many Salidans have asked for speed bumps to be installed in areas where cars are speeding, especially near schools. In response to this, Stanislaus County Public Works created a policy that if a community wants a speed bump, we'll have to pay $4,000 for each bump out of our own pockets. Why can't some of the estimated $5 million generated in taxes by Salida pay for that?

Which brings up another similar issue between California and Salida - taxation without representation. Now before you go and point out how many U.S. House of Representatives California has - two words for you - Electoral College. We pay a disproportionate amount of taxes as compared to the amount of representation we have in the Electoral College. For example, a single vote in Wyoming is worth 3.5 times more than a Californian's.

Salida has a Municipal Advisory Council (MAC), which as it states in the name - is "advisory". No binding powers can be made on behalf of the community by the MAC council. The only one that can make binding decisions on Salida's behalf is our County Supervisor. But unfortunately for Salida, we are a minority population in the district. The City of Modesto has the majority population so when Modesto wanted to annex Salida in 2012, our supervisor supported annexation up until several contentious MAC meetings in 2013. Salida shouldn't have to march out an army of angry residents every time one person makes a decision we don't agree with. Salida should be represented by Salida and for Salida.

But perhaps the most significant commonality between the State of California and Salida is we both have assets that our governments won't want to lose, and that's why I think they will fight any attempts to self-govern. Look at how much of the west coast is within California's boundaries. And how many federal military bases are along that coast. The ports and the commerce that goes in and out of those ports. How about Silicon Valley? What about food? There are active silver and diamond mines in California. There's oil. There's natural gas. And there's even salt. There's not much the U.S. could do to California to hurt us in the way of embargo; they will more likely suffer with the loss of our assets. Which is why they won't let us go quietly into the night based on a majority vote. I think history will repeat itself and they will fight to keep us in the Union just as they did with the South.

If Stanislaus County wanted to, they could incorporate Salida into a city with just a piece of paper called a resolution. But they won't. Our county supervisor gave perhaps the most telling quote that the county won't help Salida incorporate when he said in 2011, "Moreover, we would avoid the expensive and inefficient duplication of services from adding a 10th city to our county, with another expensive city manager and layer of bureaucracy that we cannot afford."  Just who is the "we" in that "cannot afford"? He

Salida sits over the highest area of aquifer
recharge in Stanislaus County.

represents the county so assuming "we" is the county, is he saying the county cannot afford to lose the property and sales taxes generated by Salida?  Not only that, but how willing do you think the county would be to relinquish control of Salida's assets? We have two major transportation arteries that go through Salida: Highway 99 and Union Pacific Railroad. As he mentioned in his opinion piece, Salida also has several hundred acres of open farmland that the county could develop and receive 100% of the taxes from. Full build out of this land was estimated to generate $22.8 million in a 2011 consulting study. But the asset that is worth more than gold is water. Salida is poised over the highest area of aquifer recharge in the county and our northern border is on the Stanislaus River. 

Salida may mean "exit" in Spanish, but like our state, our assets will complicate any exit to future self governance.

Stanislaus County could incorporate Salida into a city

My public comments to the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors on June 28,2016:

Good morning Gentlemen, 

I think this current Board of Supervisors has enacted some very proactive and visionary things for the future of Stanislaus County. Like Focus on Prevention, or the pay increases for a future Board that might not ever apply to any of you. 

So today, I want to share what I think is a huge problem that lies in our future and ask you to decide if you want to be proactive and visionary about it and that huge problem is the future of Salida. On Thursday, June 9th, I received a call from the Planning Department at the City of Modesto to inform me that the City plans to revert to their 1995 General Plan boundaries. While that doesn't appear to be much different than the way things are as Salida is still within the City's General Plan boundaries, I was also told that this does call for a change in their Sphere of Influence and they plan to apply to LAFCO for an SOI that includes Salida Community Plan land. The City of Modesto currently has over 11,000 acres in their sphere of influence, yet they consistently go after the land that You the County set aside for us in the Salida Community Plan. I think it goes without saying, but no one in Salida is going to be ok with this. And the worst part of it is, even if every Salida resident showed up to protest it, that may not be enough for us to stop it from happening.

Modesto tried to annex Salida in 1997 and it was voted down by one vote at LAFCO. In the meantime, they cherry-picked Salida's tax base and annexed in the land that Costco and Kaiser are on. Then Modesto planned to annex us again in 2013 and were met with a resounding “No”. And here we are only three years later and they are back to cherry-picking the open farmland which is all they really want anyway.  It's proof positive that Modesto is never going to relent until they get what they want; and all they want is Salida's tax base of undeveloped land.

The future for Salida is dismal. If allowed to, Modesto will take all the Salida Community Plan land that's north and south of Kiernan. We will be walled in by Modesto on the East, which only leaves growth to the west which is NOT what the majority of residents of Salida and our neighboring Wood Colony want. I see this future as the death of Salida. It will have no where to grow which is a requirement for incorporation as a city. Nowhere to grow was one of the reasons cited as a denial of East L.A.'s incorporation. Salida will age and stagnate; and next thing that will happen is we will end up a disadvantaged county island that Modesto will be forced to annex before they can grow further west under SB 244 requirements.

There's only one way to stop the destruction of Salida and the sprawl of Modesto westward, and that's to incorporate Salida as a city. An online poll last year showed that 70% of Salida residents supported incorporation. But incorporating Salida is easier said than done. Trying to do it ourselves has the odds stacked against us. You the County, has all the resources we don't have. You the County, has our $150,000 set aside by landowners for our incorporation studies. You the County, would be the ones to negotiate tax-sharing so Salida can have it's tax revenue go to the new city. You the County, as shocking as this might be to you, can incorporate Salida into a city. 

On Page 2 in section 2 of Stanislaus LAFCO's Citizen's Guide to the Incorporation Process, it states:

“After meeting the basic legal requirements for incorporation, the proposal can be initiated in one of two ways. One way is through a public agency. A resolution of application can be adopted by the legislative body of an affected agency, which is defined as any city, district or county that contains territory within the proposed incorporation boundaries.”

Salida will never be the town that David Curtis dreamed of when he founded it in 1908 calling it “A Model Town”. It will always be the poor man's Ripon of Stanislaus County unless we can incorporate. We will never get grants to build a city hall like Waterford did. We will never have the police coverage that Hughson does and they are 6,000 people smaller than Salida. Hughson City Councilwoman Jill Silva told me the best thing Hughson ever did was to incorporate. 

Incorporation would be the best thing Salida ever did too. It would have a chance to be a charming city like Ripon. It would have a chance to be a safe city like Hughson. Its borders would be set to prevent the slide into poverty. A green belt could be put between Salida and Wood Colony. Salida would have a chance to be the city David Curtis dreamed of and the present residents want. Please consider giving Salida that chance. You have the ability and the funds to make it a reality. Thank you.

Tokyo Rose Russell's campaign against Modesto's Measure I

Modesto Chamber of Commerce
CEO, Cecil Russell left. Craig Lewis
and Jon Rodriguez seated behind at
June 2015 Modesto City Council
meeting.

In the last week of January 2013, I received a tip that the Modesto Chamber of Commerce was planning a mailer campaign to try and promote the Salida Annexation to Salida residents. The first thing I did was call the Modesto Chamber of Commerce to verify the tip. Modesto Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer, Cecil Russell, returned my call. I told him about the tip and asked whether it was accurate. His response was, "Well Ms. Borges, you have received a very unreliable tip. We are planning nothing of the sort." My reply to that was, "Oh good, because if you were, we would have to counter it."

Two months later at a Salida Annexation Ad Hoc Committee meeting, I relayed that story to a county official who responded, "Oh, I think Craig Lewis and the Chamber have been

Source: forejustice.org - Tokyo Rose was
later pardoned.

talked out of that now." That was the first time I had ever heard Craig Lewis' name but I must admit, I was a bit shocked that Cecil Russell had so blatantly lied to me. As the daughter of a WWII veteran who fought the Japanese in Leyte Gulf, this potential propaganda campaign by the Modesto Chamber of Commerce to manipulate the minds of Salidans reminded me of the famous WWII Japanese propagandists known as "Tokyo Rose." I began thinking of Cecil as "Tokyo Rose Russell".

Tokyo Rose Russell and Craig Lewis are at it again with their propaganda campaigns. Mailers hit homes on Friday, October 9, 2015 claiming "Your Modesto Police Officers & Firefighters Urge You Vote NO on Measure I - Measure I will Make Modesto Residents LESS Safe". So let's dissect that statement on the rationale of how urban limits could make Modesto residents "less safe". First off, they are trying to capitalize on a fear factor that Modesto residents might have because the city has high crime rates. That's something that the Modesto City Council has tried to sell Measure G (a sales tax hike) to the voters by calling

it "Safer Neighborhoods Initiative". But how can a measure that imposes urban limits on developers make Modesto "less safe"? The thinking may go something like this: if Modesto politicians and developers are restricted from being able to easily annex and build in the communities of Wood Colony and Salida, then that means less tax revenue for the city which is what funds their police and fire. Notice that I highlighted and emphasized the word "easily" - because technically, if Measure I passes, Modesto politicians and developers can still annex and develop in Wood Colony and Salida but not without first sending it to Modesto's registered voters for approval. 

Now let's address the mailer piece claim that Modesto police officers and firefighters urge a no vote. Do all Modesto police and firefighters really think this? No, it was a small number who voted for this on their union boards; the general membership wasn't polled. There are Modesto firefighters who live in Wood Colony and Salida. Do you think they think its better for Modesto's politicians to decide the fate of their communities as opposed to themselves and their neighbors? And I've had a Modesto policeman tell me personally he thought Salida should decide it's own future. Self-determination is all we want. But the money and power wrought against us by the Modesto City Council and Modesto Chamber of Commerce makes this difficult to achieve.

The most important thing to note on the mailer is the most innocuous, but definitely wordy: the return address. Tokyo Rose Russell and friends have gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like the entire population of Modesto is against Measure I. Even going so far

Easier just to write:
"All of Modesto"

as to double cover the bases by listing "Modesto Taxpayers" and "Residents" as if those are two separate groups. Ok, maybe you can count children as being residents and not taxpayers but its not like they can vote on it nor have any children's groups come out in opposition against Measure I. Additionally, the return address is either a misprint or the Modesto Chamber is using a criminal law attorney, Earl Carter, as a front for their organization. The chamber's address is listed on their original Form 410 filing.

The Modesto Chamber of Commerce is garnering some big donations from their members to fight Measure I. The Modesto Chamber's president, Dave Gianelli donated $1,000 and Craig Lewis, (former owner of Prudential Real Estate) has donated $3,000 under the guise of Sylvan Property Management. Tokyo Rose Russell donated $1,000 and the Modesto Chamber donated another $3,000.

Just as our G.I.'s saw through Tokyo Rose's propaganda, Salida and Wood Colony residents hope City of Modesto voters will see through this charade and vote 'Yes on Measure I'. Please help give the ability for your neighbors to the north and the west to decide our own futures.

Of Law and Land Grabs

I've had a couple of phone calls about the Modesto Bee article, "Modesto considers urban growth boundary, budget" and I can see why the callers are concerned. Some of the wording of the article sounds like Modesto has launched a fresh annexation attack. But its actually quite the opposite.

For those residents who lived in Salida in 2007, the acronym "SOS" or "Stamp Out Sprawl" should ring a bell. It was the same name for a residential urban limits growth initiative passed by voters that year known as Measure E. Same name, same author, which is former Modesto City Councilman, Denny Jackman. Well...one author is the same at least. The other, Garrad Marsh, is now the Mayor of Modesto. 

To give you a little background on just what a "residential urban limits" initiative is, its proponents gathered the required number of signatures to place it on the ballot. Once passed, it means that any time a developer wishes to build residential housing in the county (not cities, just county areas) that it goes to ballot for voter approval first. In all county areas...except Salida. The reason it doesn't apply to Salida is because the Salida Community Plan was placed on the same ballot, in the same year - BUT - the Board of Supervisors pulled the initiative off the ballot and passed it so it would supersede Measure E (aka SOS). 

But Modesto really blew it when they crossed Denny Jackman's ag line in the sand and went after Wood Colony. He capitalized on the huge public outcry against pushing generational farmers and a gentle non-political religious community from their lands to slap up commercial and industrial development on some of the best farmland in the county. So Denny decided to do for Modesto what he had already done for the county and introduce an urban limits initiative. This new SOS includes different boundaries for both residential and non-residential development. Proponents easily gathered the needed signatures for the initiative to be placed on the November 2015 ballot.

Modesto City Council voting on SOS initiative - June 2, 2015

And that is what the article was about in the Modesto Bee. Its all part of the process to place SOS on the ballot. BY LAW, the Modesto City Council HAS TO VOTE YES to place it on the ballot. They have NO CHOICE but to vote yes as they are required to do so by law. I witnessed this vote and the look on their faces pretty much says it all.

Now I will say that I do support SOS and I hope it passes. It will offer a layer of protection against Modesto's land grabs on Wood Colony and Salida. Except for one area: Denny carved out some land south of Pirrone, east of Sisk and west of Dale. This was in part to appease a developer, Dave Romano, because he did not want Romano to fight the SOS initiative. Of course I'm unhappy this area was excluded because its part of the Salida Community Plan. Being that the land is included in the Salida Community Plan, and being that Mr. Romano, along with other landowners who signed a development agreement for the Salida Community Plan, I think that if they want to develop it, they need to talk to Salida and not Modesto. Salida is done with Modesto's land grabs - no more!

Pointing out a policy inequity in LAFCO

My comments during the public comment period at Tuesday, June 2, 2015 Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors meeting:

"Good morning Gentlemen, 

Three years ago, I was living a peaceful suburban life in Salida, doing things like playing Bunco and quilting. This is the quilt top I was working on three years ago when my quiet life was upended by Mayor Marsh saying he wanted to annex Salida.  

Three years ago, I had no idea what kind of political machine we were up against. And that Modesto machine is still cranking against Salida. In November, the council voted to remove all of Salida from their city manager being able to approve any municipal water connections and just last week someone quoted Dave Lopez as recently saying, “Salida is doomed.”

Now you and I both know that Salida is not “doomed”. If they apply to annex us, we will vote it down. But I didn't know this three years ago when this all started. I had no idea what LAFCO was or that Salida's fate rests so heavily upon the LAFCO board's decisions. 

Over the past three years, I've tried to learn as much as possible about LAFCO. Keith Boggs wrote* a great article about LAFCO in this edition of Stanislaus Magazine, which I pick up at the blood bank while donating blood. Kudos Mr. Boggs, I recommend this to anyone who needs a good primer on LAFCO. However, there's much more to know and that includes studying how the LAFCO board votes. 

So if those of you were thinking that myself and the other Salida and Wood Colony folks who attend LAFCO meetings have nothing better to do on a Wednesday night than attend a LAFCO meeting, you'd be sadly mistaken. No offense to those of you who serve on LAFCO, but there's a whole host of things I'd rather be doing on a Wednesday night like going to happy hour with my friends or finishing this quilt top. But no, we go to study you and watch how you vote.

I've been attending LAFCO meetings now for quite some time, and have witnessed firsthand this appalling sideshow that has transpired over Mayor Beekman's vote on Amendment 22 regarding farmland mitigation. What's so appalling is how low of a mitigation amount that some cities are trying to get away with, as if our prime farmland, which to quote Supervisor DeMartini, grows over 200 different types of crops, is worth so little to mitigate. And equally appalling is the modern witch trial they are now using to punish Mayor Beekman for his vote. 

Now there's an inequity about this that I wish to bring up here. Apparently, the way the rules are written the mayors can vote to remove a mayor as their representative, but the public cannot vote to remove the public member on LAFCO. But the Board of Supervisors can. 

Now I don't know Matthew Beekman. I've never met him and I know very little about him other than he's a beekeeper and mayor of Hughson. I have met Brad Hawn, and have briefly chatted with him twice and he seems a nice enough fellow. And while I don't know nor can predict how they would vote on Salida if and when it comes before LAFCO, I can tell you this:  As a member of the public, Brad Hawn's vote did not represent me on Amendment 22. Based on the outcry in favor of Mayor Beekman, I'd say there's quite a large segment of the county that feels the same way. And depending on how the mayors' vote comes out on July 8, this may be an inequity that the public asks you to rectify. Afterall, you do represent the public.

I look forward to the day that Salida is no longer threatened by whomever is trying to exploit us next and I can go back to my formerly quiet life where my biggest worry was correctly stitching together quilting squares. Thank you."

(*CORRECTION: The author of the LAFCO article was Stanislaus LAFCO Director, Marjorie Blom)

Lending a voice for SB 25

2013 seems to be the pinnacle of the most recent battle against the annexation of Salida by the City of Modesto. That's when Salida resident, Nanette Spyksma, reached out to several newly incorporated cities in Riverside County to gather information on incorporation. In doing so, she established communication with Verne Lauritzen of Jurupa Valley. 

Jurupa Valley was the last of four new cities to incorporate in Riverside County between 2008 to 2011. The new city's incorporation took place just two days after SB 89 eliminated vehicle license fee revenues which had been allocated for newly incorporated cities. This stroke of fate put Jurupa Valley at risk for disincorporation.

We learned from Mr. Lauritzen that Riverside legislators were working on a bill to restore that funding source to the four new cities. Several Salida residents wrote letters in support of the legislation which passed in the state legislature but ended up being vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown. Several similar bills have since been introduced and all have failed to be enacted. The latest bill is SB 25 - VEHICLE LICENSE FEE ADJUSTMENT FOR CITY INCORPORATIONS authored by Senator Richard Roth.

Public comment on SB 25 with  Michael Kusiak.

A public hearing for the bill was held on Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at 9:30 am before the Senate Committee on Governance and Finance at the California State Capitol building in Sacramento. I was invited to attend the hearing by Michael Kusiak and Michael Baldwin of Castro Valley. Michael Kusiak was the first public member to make a comment, and he was very eloquent. I hadn't planned to speak, but ended up jotting down a brief public comment on the back of the agenda copy. Following is a summary of my comments (not verbatim, but close):

"My name is Katherine Borges and I am the chair of the Salida Municipal Advisory Council in the beautiful agricultural county of Stanislaus. Salida is the largest unincorporated community in Stanislaus County with a population of nearly 14,000. It was founded the same year as the City of Modesto in 1870 by the railroad. Since Modesto has grown and sprawled to our borders, we have been under the threat of annexation by Modesto which the majority of Salida residents are against. We are hoping to incorporate the community as a city which would be greatly assisted and may even depend on the reinstatement of VLF fees. We ask for support of SB 25 to help Jurupa Valley and the other cities, and any future bills that help to reinstate VLF fees."

At the close of the hearing, we exited room 112 and Senator Richard Roth made a point of seeking us out to shake our hands and thank us for our comments. 

It's important to help other communities and newly incorporated cities in their self-governance efforts. Helping them can help Salida. 

Modesto Bee Op Ed: Modesto trying to take bite out of Salida

BY KATHERINE BORGES
11/24/2014 4:00 AM  UPDATED: 11/25/2014 1:55 PM

The first time Modesto City Councilman John Gunderson attended a Salida Municipal Advisory Council meeting back on Aug. 28, 2012, he was there to answer questions that Salidans had about the proposed annexation to Modesto.

If Salida were annexed, it would become part of Gunderson’s district.

Responding to a question regarding the annexation time frame, Gunderson said: “Nothing is going to happen for years anyway, other than maybe the nibble, nibble on your outskirts. That’s possible if the economy gets better.”

In the two years since, Salida residents have resoundingly decried Modesto’s annexation attempts.

A few weeks ago, in September, Gunderson appeared on the “Dave Bowman Show” on KFIV 1360 AM, and when asked whether Salida should be annexed, Gunderson replied he was against annexing “Salida proper.”

When Bowman pressed him to define “Salida proper,” Gunderson revealed there’s “a section being considered” and “the property owner seems to want to be with the city so he can develop.”

It appears the time for nibbling on Salida has arrived.

This proposed nibbling would occur on land Stanislaus County designated for Salida in the 2007 update of the Salida Community Plan. It’s north of Kiernan, west of Dale Road and east of Stoddard. Because this land isn’t within the current boundaries of Salida’s urbanized area, it might be more difficult for Salida residents to stop this raid.

Past annexations have put Costco and the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center into Modesto, nibbling away thousands of acres from Salida’s future tax base. Since purchasing the Del Este Water Co. in the mid-1990s, which supplied residents of Salida, Modesto has withheld supplying water to new development in Salida unless they get to annex the land into the city. Despite approving out-of-boundary water service agreements for other Del Este-served communities like Del Rio, Modesto’s quid pro quo is land-for-water from Salida.

If Modesto is once again allowed to extort land from Salida, will Modesto’s leap across Kiernan open Modesto to further legal ramifications? The encroachment north of Kiernan is Modesto’s effort to surround Salida, in effect an acre-by-acre creep toward turning Salida into an unincorporated county island. Not only is the creation of county islands prohibited by state law, the city of Modesto has already been sued with regard to county islands in the past for a practice known as “municipal underbounding.”

Coined by urban geographers, municipal underbounding describes annexation policies and practices in which cities grow around islands of low-income minority communities, often in favor of annexing predominantly white communities. Modesto holds the distinction of being one of the few cities in the United States to already have had a municipal underbounding lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed in 2004 on behalf of four neighborhoods which, unlike Salida, lack basic amenities such as sewer service. Granted, the city and county are slowly working toward annexing these communities into the city. But does “working toward” warrant a land grab on the tax base of a neighboring community?

It’s time for Modesto’s elected representatives to be held accountable. The unincorporated communities should be annexed first before the city casts beyond its borders. It’s time for Modesto to end its status quo abuse of Salida – end the water extortion, stop the annexations, no more nibbling.

Be a good neighbor, Modesto.

Comments made on the article via Facebook:

The Modesto Bee does not keep many of its articles nor opinion pieces online indefinitely so as the author of this piece, I am republishing it with thanks and credit to the Modesto Bee for its original publication.

The article's original link:
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article4059497.html#storylink=cpy

John Gunderson Facebook post #6 and my reply - Lovin' those Facebook nuggets!

John Gunderson is my favorite current sitting member of the Modesto City Council! Now before you start making inquiries into my mental state and shopping around for hospitals to have me committed to, allow me to explain that statement: He's the only one talking about Salida and Wood Colony. Sure, the others will talk about it, but only when a question is directly asked of them. But the Facebook-addicted councilman not only talks about Salida and Wood Colony without being asked to, he drops little nuggets of info along the way that we'd never learn otherwise from his tight-lipped peers. For instance, in his last post, he mentioned that a Wood Colony landowner wants $250K per acre. We wouldn't have known that if it wasn't for Councilman Gunderson!

In his October 4, 2014 reply to a post by Lina Allredge on the Salida CA News Facebook page, the councilman drops two intriguing tidbits:

Modesto General Plan map approved January 28, 2014

"As this topic evolves there is muttering that we will go back to the map adopted by Council January 28th (another chance to remove Salida from the plan) with the possibility of a statement of acquiescence from County."

Soooooo...the council is discussing (or to use his word "muttering") about going back to the original land grab map that was voted and approved on January 28, 2014. That would be delightful on so many levels! Particularly because it would put back in so many of the "No" votes needed to vote down annexation! And they had worked so hard to be accommodating sell-outs with gerrymandering those votes out. Tsk-tsk, what a shame...  Equally intriguing is "...possibility of a statement of acquiescence from County". Just who is he talking to and what are they saying? From everything we've heard from the County and/or Supervisor Terry Withrow up to this point, they've essentially told the city to go pound sand. Perhaps he considers the county's "No Growth Pledge" a "statement of acquiescence"? One could hope.

Now I know that its rather unlike me to bypass an opportunity to counter the councilman's propaganda about his opinions on whether Salida's residential housing is "poor planning" on the county's part, but being that he doesn't have a say in the county's planning outside the city limits, its really a moot point. So I'll just cut to the chase and comment on an end statement:

"Stanislaus County and Modesto has done some very poor planning in the past. If civil discourse can proceed perhaps something reasonable can be worked out."

If Councilman Gunderson and the rest of Modesto City Council REALLY WANT "civil discourse" they can start it by taking ALL of (county-defined) Salida and Wood Colony out of their general plan (and that includes the land within the Salida Community Plan). Salida and Wood Colony are not inanimate objects. People do live here and that's what even puts each community on a map in the first place. Both communities have made it loud and resoundingly clear that the vast majority of residents do not want to be annexed into the City of Modesto. Listening to the people is where civil discourse really begins and not with those who have "hidden agendas all over this topic".

“Where wise actions are the fruit of life, wise discourse is the pollination.” ― Bryant McGill