Our Views: Cruising into Graffiti Summer
Congratulations to the six new inductees on the Legends of the Cruise Walk of Fame downtown. Their sidewalk markers will be formally unveiled at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.
This year’s class – the second group inducted – includes the Century Toppers Car Club, 2015 Graffiti Parade Grand Marshal Wendell Reed, Century Toppers member Dennis Wilson and era street rodder Charlie Reynolds. Posthumous inductees include Bennie Furtado, who was among the first real hot rodders, and Gerry Ramirez, the car hop at the old Burge’s Drive-In. Furtado and Ramirez will be represented at the ceremony by family members.
They all played roles in the cruising-era history Modesto celebrates each summer. The Walk of Fame is one of the many events leading up to the annual parade through downtown Modesto on June 12, beginning at 7 p.m., followed by weekend car shows and other Graffiti Summer events.
Speaking of traditions
This one goes much further into the history books: Welcome back, MoBand, which kicked off its 96th season Thursday night to a large crowd in the Mancini Bowl at Graceada Park. The six-week-long season runs through July 9, and if Thursday’s opener was any indication, it could be one of the best ever. It’s been a rite of spring and summer in Modesto every year since 1919.
And the survey says ...
Residents of three area cities complied with Gov. Jerry Brown’s 25 percent water reduction mandate. Riverbank had the highest at a 47 percent April reduction compared with April 2013. The city of Oakdale reduced by 35 percent and Manteca by 30.
Compare those reductions with Livingston, where water use rose by 1 percent, and Ceres, where it dropped only by 1 percent. Residents of Merced (27 percent reduction), Ripon (21 percent), Modesto, Turlock and Patterson (19 percent each), and Atwater (18 percent) still have some water-saving work to do.
Tuolumne County residents saved 18 percent when comparing Aprils of 2013 and 2015, but saved 41 percent comparing May numbers from those same years.
It certainly doesn’t help that a cable TV work crew broke a water main in north Modesto on Thursday, flooding the streets with more than 500,000 gallons of water. That’s not what officials have in mind when it comes to groundwater recharging.
Railroading
For years, Modesto residents have complained about the noise of the trains coming through the downtown as well as those that pass through neighborhoods, including the Airport District where the Modesto & Empire Traction trains roll.
As The Bee’s Kevin Valine reported in Thursday’s edition, the city will consider hiring a consultant to study creating quiet zones along the Union Pacific tracks downtown. Engineers could still honk if they see someone on the tracks, and directional horns would still warn of oncoming trains while limiting where the sound travels.
Valine reported that a UP spokesman in December told The Bee that “any attempt to limit the use of these horns has to be taken very seriously (and is) a deviation from the protocol, in a sense.”
The real deviation, however, would be for the railroads to genuinely listen to the complaints and work with the city to address them. But it’s difficult to envision the industry that won’t tell people how much volatile Bakken crude oil it is transporting through their communities is going to stop tooting its own horns.
This story was originally published June 5, 2015 at 3:11 PM with the headline "Our Views: Cruising into Graffiti Summer."