Stanislaus County upgrades its health inspections website. How to find reports
The Stanislaus County Department of Environmental Resources has finished upgrading the section of its website that contains food facility inspection reports.
When The Modesto Bee investigated the county’s reporting system in January 2024, it found issues with public access, including an outdated website that didn’t allow users to search for the most recent inspection reports.
That has changed with the website’s new interface.
Before 2024, the website was not kept up to date. The Bee’s investigation helped establish a relationship with the department in which the most recent reports were emailed to a reporter weekly.
“In the past, inspection information had to be transferred through a separate process before it appeared on the public website,” said Robert Kostlivy, director of Stanislaus County Department of Environmental Resources. “Occasionally, that process would encounter technical issues, which could delay inspection results from being posted.”
The public can now easily find the most recent health inspection reports.
The website was unavailable for around six weeks while the department completed the upgrade, Kostlivy said. The new site now connects directly to the department’s inspection database, “making it more reliable and reducing the chances of delays or interruptions in the future.”
New website interface features allow recent searches
Food establishments that sell, serve, give away or distribute food to the public in Stanislaus County must be inspected and possess a health permit issued by DER, its website states. This includes restaurants, school cafeterias, mobile food vendors, corrections facilities and grocery stores.
Inspections are unannounced, aside from mobile food trucks and trailers, which are scheduled.
The purpose of an inspection is to ensure food is being handled properly and within the requirements set by the California Retail Food Code, according to the website. Inspectors observe kitchen workers’ food-handling practices, check that equipment is working, take food temperatures, check that water temperatures are at correct levels and check that proper sanitizing measures are in place.
“Any problems observed during the inspection are documented on the inspection report and the person in charge of the food establishment is educated and prompted to correct the procedure or method immediately,” the website states.
A search bar on the left side of the website’s interface allows viewers to input an inspection date range, a facility name, street name and/or city. The inspection date range is a new feature allowing users to access updated reports in real time.
“Transparency is one of our top priorities,” Kostlivy said. “We saw this as an opportunity to invest in a better long-term solution rather than simply applying a temporary fix.”
A disclaimer on the website states that nondigital inspection reports are scanned on a weekly basis. “Some inspections may still be completed using paper forms,” said Environmental Health Manager Karl Quinn. “In such cases, entry of the inspection data into the database may be delayed by a few days.”
Reports from inspections that result in a closure may have been scanned into the system, while a report from a reinspection permitting reopening may not yet have been scanned, according to the disclaimer. A closure means the facility was closed on the date of inspection, and the absence of a subsequent report should not be taken to mean the facility is still closed.
This can also mean that a food facility may have corrected violations listed in a report by the time the public reads it.
If a viewer simply searches by the last seven days, for example, the website will display the number of inspections conducted across however many facilities were inspected. Reinspections are included if they were conducted within the same seven-day period.
Displayed are the names of the facilities in alphabetical order and the number of inspections conducted at each facility within the given time period, and the inspection’s purpose.
Reasons for an inspection include routine, reinspection, opening, change of ownership, complaint and surveillance (due to a fire, sewage issue, notice that the facility is no longer in business, etc.).
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