Modesto officials face accusations of racism during contentious council meeting
The Modesto City Council was roiled this week by accusations of racism after the majority voted against appointing a black man to a city board, the latest in the ongoing saga of dysfunction and turmoil among the elected leaders.
Council members Mani Grewal, Jenny Kenoyer, Doug Ridenour and Bill Zoslocki voted Tuesday evening against placing Sebastian Jones on the Board of Building Appeals. The board’s main responsibility is hearing property owners’ appeals of city enforcement actions regarding building code violations.
Mayor Ted Brandvold and council members Kristi Ah You and Tony Madrigal voted in favor of Jones’ appointment.
The 4-3 vote reflected the frequent divide among council members. The meeting included the mistrust and bad faith that council members have expressed toward one another, with Ah You accusing the four who voted against Jones of colluding before the meeting.
“My only concern is this seems staged to me,” Ah You said. “... It feels like the four of you already decided what you were going to do.” Zoslocki later in the meeting accused Ah You of again making emotionally charged situations worse.
Ah You noted this was the first time in her four years on the City Council that it had rejected an appointment to a city board or commission.
The meeting featured Ah You’s daughter, Amanda Duran, periodically heckling the council members who voted against Jones. Ah You eventually left the council dais to speak with her daughter.
Duran and Jones both were paid campaign workers for Madrigal during his unsuccessful run for the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors in 2018. Jones is a volunteer field representative for Madrigal in his role as a councilman.
Madrigal and Brandvold serve on the council’s Appointments Committee and recommended Jones to the council.
NAACP supports appointment
Jones, 57, had plenty of supporters at the meeting, including Wendy Byrd, president of the Modesto-Stanislaus Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
She told council members that there has been a lack of diversity on city boards and commissions and African Americans have faced opposition when they try to serve. She said one of the NAACP’s goals is to change that.
She said Jones has passion and connections to parts of the community council members may not and can learn what he needs to know to be a board member. “We have to grow and groom new leaders,” she said.
But after the 4-3 vote against Jones’ appointment, several audience members told council members at the very least that denying Jones the appointment gave the appearance of racism. And Jones accused the four who voted against him of racism.
He accused Kenoyer of repeatedly not making him feel welcome as a black man at public events that predominately feature white people, and Zoslocki of never coming to west or south Modesto, heavily minority sections of the city. Jones said he has heard from others who claim that when Ridenour was a police officer he planted drugs on the people of color he arrested.
“I’m sorry you let the ugliness come out of Sebastian,” Jones told the council. “But I exposed you because I dealt with you.”
Zoslocki invoked the slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by saying he does not judge people by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Zoslocki said in an interview his concern with Jones is he makes wild, unfounded accusations.
He and Kenoyer at Tuesday’s meeting also accused Jones of playing the race card.
‘It’s not because he’s black’
“Every time Mr. Jones comes here (to a council meeting) he says it’s because he’s black,” Kenoyer said. “It’s not because he’s black. It’s because of what he says.”
Jones can be a very passionate speaker during council meetings and has consistently criticized the four council members.
Ridenour said Jones had the right to express his opinions, including calling him a racist and corrupt police officer, but the councilman said he was concerned that Jones did not fill out much of the application to serve on the Board of Building Appeals. A review of all of the applications showed there were more qualified candidates who completed their applications.
Ridenour declined to provide The Bee with the applications without going through City Attorney Adam Lindgren first. City spokesman Thomas Reeves said the city attorney’s office will provide the applications early next week.
But Brandvold provided The Bee on Wednesday with copies of what he said are the four applications to the Board of Building Appeals.
A review shows two were more fully completed than Jones’, though Brandvold said one is from someone who just resigned from another city board and his concern is whether that person would stay with the building appeals board.
None of the four applicants has direct experience with building and building codes.
Ridenour also said during Tuesday’s meeting that he had received negative reports about Jones but was not at liberty to discuss them until checking with the city attorney.
The council eventually voted 6-1 to take another look at the two appointments to the Board of Building Appeals. (There was an additional candidate to fill a second opening on the board at Tuesday’s meeting.) The council will review all of the applicants and not just the two recommended by Madrigal and Brandvold.
Brandvold cast the “no” vote because this undercuts the Appointments Committee’s authority.
A renter’s perspective
Jones is a former Greyhound bus driver, owner of a funeral escort service, community activist, and lives in west Modesto. He frequently attends City Council meetings where he has advocated for seniors facing eviction because of rising rents and for other renters.
He said in an interview he also is a renter and would bring that perspective to the Board of Building Appeals. Jones said he did not complete his application because he did not expect to be appointed, but said he has resubmitted a fully completed one now that the council is going take another look at the vacancies.
Grewal and the three other council members questioned whether Jones could be unbiased and represent all of the city as a member of the Board of Building Appeals because of his strong advocacy for development in west and south Modesto.
But Madrigal said the four were taking Jones’ advocacy out of context. And the five-member Board of Building Appeals does not approve housing projects and other development. Its focus is on building code violations, including dilapidated rental housing, a particular concern for Jones.
For instance, the city in 2017 asked the Board of Building Appeals to issue civil penalties against the owner of a two-story Ninth Street apartment building that was in deplorable condition after the owner failed to make repairs. The board imposed $60,000 in civil penalties.
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
