Deadline for candidates to pull papers is today

Today is the final day for candidates to file if they want to seek election to local city councils or the Yosemite Community College District board.

Seven of Stanislaus County's nine cities have council elections this fall; Ceres and Modesto elect their council members in odd-numbered years.

The filing deadline ends today for seats in which the incumbent is running. It is extended to Wednesday in races where the incumbent does not run. The filing period began last month.

The biggest headlines have come out of Riverbank, where Councilman Richard O'Brien intends to challenge Mayor Virginia Madueño, and where controversial one-term Councilman Jesse James White has yet to take out papers seeking re-election or publicly state whether he will.

White is scheduled to be in Stanislaus County Superior Court this morning for a preliminary hearing on charges of drunken driving and causing injury to his 4-year-old son, hit-and-run and resisting a police officer in connection with a car crash Feb. 20 in Oakdale.