Let's call it the Tommy and Joe Community Center. TJ hall for short.

Los Banos Enterprise quote:
The criminal investigation for Mary Ann Jones didn’t go into management practices, didn’t go into the culpability of other city employees,” Stone said. “So I don’t feel like we have enough information to indict anyone or convict anyone else besides Mary Ann Jones.”

No one believes Steve is guilty of anything criminal. He is guilty of lazy management. We pay him a lot of money to manage and protect our city. The one common denominator in the city’s woes has been the manager. Here was a chance to start the ball moving on his removal, but the familiar split of votes saved him. We must wait until the next election to see if the voters of Los Banos will give their vote of confidence to the big three who gave their vote of confidence to the city manager.

His statement alone is all I needed to hear to know why we need to replace the city manager. When you rely on fixing problems rather than prevention, bad things will continue to happen. The police chief scandal, police and fire layoffs, over building, two thefts from the city, crazy requests for raises and no understanding of the economy is reason enough to ask Steve to leave. We need a manager with vision that can be proactive. Steve did his best as a former PG&E employee to run our city, but maybe we need someone who knows how to manage a city and not how to manipulate a council.

Miss Stone’s vote last night could be a glimmer of hope that indicates she has seen the light and will not march in line with the two who got her elected. Or it could be a clever tactic to appease her critics since she knows it takes four votes to remove the city manager.

“Here we go again”. With the distraction of the resignation of Melinda Wall, almost everyone will miss the public forum on the Housing Element report. This report will be used as justification to annex more land and start building more homes, but this time with higher density. This report is flawed and based on straight line projections without consideration for recent economic events. These reports have proven to be wrong in the past and I believe this report is wrong today. We have always fallen well short of the projections and without industry we are just building a ghost to

I am glad to see that our Mayor cares enough about the water needs of the Westside to take the time to write a letter to the editor of the Los Banos Enterprise. In his letter he highlights the efforts of Congressmen Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa to bring more water to the Westside. I am sure all efforts to get the water flow restored are appreciated. With Dennis facing a tough reelection, I am sure he appreciates the recognition from the Mayor of Los Banos. And now that the Westside has plenty of water and Dennis is guaranteed reelection with the Mayor’s support, perhaps the Mayor could

OLB proved that a forum can help spread information and inspire political debate, some good and some bad. The webmaster got scared and shut down the service. Don’t worry because the Enterprise is here to save the day. OLB can live in Pleasantville, but the rest of us can debate the issues here.

Just read her letter to the editor. She's got my vote.

It was just before 5pm on October 17, 1989 when a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the bay area and rumbled all the way into Merced County. Two year old Tommy froze in the living room as his mother grabbed him and headed under a table. In less than a minute the shaking stopped. Mother and son then headed outside to recover from the shock. Tommy began screaming “Fireplace Man”, “Fireplace Man”, “Fireplace Man”!

His mother and the neighbors looked at the chimneys on the surrounding homes, but nothing was wrong. Only the sounds of Sirens all over town could be heard. And then his mother figured it out. He was saying Fire and Policeman because he heard sirens and was saying it too fast to be understood. How sad it would be to have an emergency and hear nothing.

As the Mayor hugs and thanks people for voting for him I overheard one voter ask how long of a term he won. The Mayor replied two years, but he is going to get it changed to 4 years. I thought that was an odd statement and I am not sure what to think about it. I also laughed when the person sitting across from the person who got hugged by the Mayor said “but you didn’t vote for”. The sentence wasn’t finished because a non-verbal communication technique was employed to end the statement.

The Mayor should be thinking about the economic problems of the city. Unfortunately the Mayor has stated that he has no control of what happened at the national level and therefore should not be held accountable for it.