Fresh set of voices will help Modesto City Council to move beyond rancorous past
With any luck, the toxicity tainting our Modesto City Council in recent times will soon be just a memory.
There is no better time to turn over a new leaf than when such a group experiences significant turnover. That happened Tuesday, when we said “goodbye” to three of the council’s seven members, and “hello” to those elected last month to replace them.
The incoming — David Wright, Rosa Escutia-Braaton and Chris Ricci — are off on a good foot. The three came together to jointly write and submit an impressive, forward-facing letter to the editor that will soon appear on this opinions page of The Modesto Bee.
“We are all very different, with unique perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences, (and) we are committed above all else to improve this city,” the letter reads, in part. “Our diversity is our strength. Our promise to you, the citizens we were elected to represent, is to work together in good faith, with open minds, and a commitment to civility and compromise.”
What a contrast to the distrust, dislike and dysfunction we too often saw with the old group. Its last act — on a 4-3 vote, to no one’s surprise — was to publicly discipline their own city clerk on the day before the three outgoing members — Kristi Ah You, Doug Ridenour and Mani Grewal — left office.
That bitter saga dragged on for two years, costing taxpayers at least $90,000 for two investigations. And it may not be over, as City Clerk Stephanie Lopez’s attorney says she will sue.
The council had become irreparably fractured from many disputes over many years. But undisputed details in the row over the city clerk brought into focus bruising, deep division on the council as well as among Modesto’s top nonelected staff, with the mayor and city clerk on one side and the city manager and former city attorney on the other.
Any operation poisoned from the top will suffer. Too often this editorial board has been compelled to ponder how anything was getting done on the sixth floor at City Hall.
The seven-person council will lose a fourth member when Mayor Ted Brandvold hands over the reins after a Feb. 2 runoff election. At that time, Ridenour may rejoin the group, having finished in the top two in the first round of voting for mayor in November; his runoff opponent is Sue Zwahlen, a former Modesto school board member.
Remaining on the council are Bill Zoslocki (who lost a bid for Stanislaus County supervisor in November), Jenny Kenoyer and Tony Madrigal. (Grewal was just appointed to fill a county supervisor vacancy.)
The important thing is that the former council cliques — Grewal, Zoslocki, Kenoyer and Ridenour on one side, with Brandvold, Madrigal and Ah You often on the other — now are broken up.
The newly constituted council must resist whatever temptation there may be to continue the rupture with new alliances. Each council member must resolve to do what’s best for their district and all of Modesto with every vote.
We spend so much energy and attention on national politics and policies, and it’s good to see more voter engagement on all levels than in years past. But the truth remains that decisions of our City Council have more immediate impact on our lives, from the fees we pay for water and sewer services to the parks we visit and the streets we drive.
It’s time to let bygones be bygones, forget who owes whom and focus on the destiny of Modesto, an otherwise proud city of 222,000.
Yes, there will be differences of approach and opinion, but they can be handled — as the three incoming council members say in their letter — with “good faith, open minds and a commitment to civility and compromise.”
That’s all we ask.
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 5:00 AM.