Stanislaus County water rights, law enforcement, and job creation among local priorities for Duarte and Gray
Republican Rep. John Duarte and Democrat Adam Gray are running for California’s 13th congressional district with the hopes of either keeping the U.S. House of Representatives red or flipping it to blue.
Though the race is closely watched nationally, The Bee wanted to know how they would help Modesto and surrounding areas specifically if they were elected. The district covers southwest Modesto, portions of downtown, the Airport district, and just outside of the city, Ceres, Twin Rivers, Empire and parts of Turlock.
Duarte and Gray were in Modesto on Friday for a debate at the State Theatre. Here’s what they had to say.
Duarte on Modesto
Duarte was asked how he plans to help Modestans and the surrounding area if re-elected to the House.
“Modesto here is a thriving community, because we had a vision for the water rights on the Tuolumne River,” Duarte said. “If you look at the Modesto Irrigation District and the history of Modesto, they’re very closely tied.”
Duarte is referring to the La Grange Dam completed in 1893. The Modesto Irrigation District was formed in 1887 as a public water district and became operational in 1904. Modesto was founded in 1870.
“We’ve got to protect our water,” Duarte said.
Duarte said MID is considerably cheaper per kilowatt than PG&E. “We’ve got to protect our low energy costs,” he said.
He stressed the importance of Modesto being competitive in the world marketplace. “We’re losing too many employers because we’re too expensive a place to do business here in California,” he said.
For local accomplishments, Duarte said he helped get a dispatch center in Modesto.
“I got a $3.5 million dispatch center for Sue Zwahlen, the Mayor of Modesto,” he said. “That was her community project request and we got it for her.”
He said that she can now dispatch better and put mental health professionals out with police officers when necessary. “That was her vision,” Duarte said. “That’s what we did for her.”
Though the money was originally slated for a Modesto-specific dispatch center, in April Modesto Police Department Chief Brandon Gillespie and Stanislaus County Supervisor Buck Condit said that original plan may not happen.
The City of Modesto confirmed receiving the funds from Duarte for emergency communications center operations, and said some of the funds were allocated to a “state-of-the-art computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system” along with furniture, equipment and infrastructure. The new CAD system is slated to be operational in the next 12 months.
He said he would work with High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas. Originally created in 1988, HIDTA focuses on funding and coordination between law enforcement agencies for drug trafficking. Duarte introduced a bill in February known as the “HIDTA reauthorization act” which originally requested funding for $302 million, increasing the sunsetted funding by $22 million.
He said HIDTA’s current funding is $309 million but he hopes to work with colleagues in Nevada and the Senate to get it bumped up to $400 million.
“We’re trying to get the HIDTA bill cranked up,” Duarte said. “That’s where we can get the DEA, the FBI, the CIA, the Border and Customs folks relaying directly to the sheriffs and police officers here in the valley,” Duarte said. “And make sure we interdict large-scale drug traffickers wherever possible.”
He also said he was trying to get 16 new prosecutors into the Central Valley to prosecute more drug traffickers on Federal charges as opposed to state courts.
“When we prosecute them in state courts, they don’t go to jail for very long,” Duarte said. “If they’re going to move a lot of fentanyl in our communities, we need them to go to jail for a long time– it’s killing our kids.”
The bill is still with the House and hasn’t been voted on.
Gray on Modesto
Gray was asked what he plans to bring to Modesto if elected to the House.
“We’ve worked hard here in Stanislaus County, we brought the Volt Institute here, which is a job training facility,” Gray said. “We frankly need to bring more money into it and expand because we have to create new jobs.”
The Volt Institute was established in 2017 as a workforce development program in partnership with Opportunity Stanislaus and the County Department of Education. Gray worked to get the funding into the state budget as a member of the state assembly.
He said that food production and agriculture’s byproducts allow for incredible things in biomass and energy production and he wants to see a lot more of that.
“This is really one of the epicenters, Stanislaus County,” Gray said.
He said Stanislaus County Supervisors voted to make it an emphasis and focus of the county to track those jobs. He also mentioned BEAM, another nonprofit organization he said is investing money to create renewable energy jobs that “fit hand and glove” with agriculture.
The program intends to repurpose agricultural waste into things like building materials, renewable energy and consumer goods.
Gray said he and his team accomplished some of the best floodplain restoration in the state.
“Here in Stanislaus County, if you go a little bit further out of town here, You’re going to find Dos Rios, which is the new State Park– It’s actually the newest in the State of California,” Gray said.
Before it was a state park, it was a floodplain and he said the California Department of Fish and Wildlife secured $50 million at the state level in the last few years to invest in environmental projects.
The Dos Rios state park was established in partnership with River Partners, who thanked Gray as a “longtime floodplain advocate.”
“They protect us from floods when we have big wet years off these rivers and you can just put the water out into these floodplains and they recharge groundwater,” Gray said. “Farmers like it, public safety people like it, environmentalists like it, that’s the kind of innovative work we can do when people are working together.”
He added that he didn’t believe there was anyone in Washington right now willing to do that, just a lot of finger-pointing and excuses.
This story was originally published October 28, 2024 at 5:16 PM with the headline "Stanislaus County water rights, law enforcement, and job creation among local priorities for Duarte and Gray."
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to clarify that the comment from April about a Modesto-specific dispatch center came from MPD Chief Brandon Gillespie and Stanislaus County Supervisor Buck Condit.
