Letters to the editor | Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021: High school football is weak in Modesto

High school football weak in Modesto

Over the past decade the Modesto City Schools football situation has been hapless. Teams have suffered winless seasons with no improvement. The only playoff win was a 2017 victory by Gregori in the first round. Since then, no MCS team has won a game in the Sac Joaquin Section playoffs. Something needs to change. Our schools aren’t able to compete with stronger Sacramento programs.

Currently the district has only three football stadiums for seven teams. The only improvement planned is a $5.7 million football complex to be built at Johansen High School. If city teams are going to be competitive in the section, action must be taken. New facilities should be planned for all Modesto teams. Administration needs to step up and take the game much more seriously.

Coaches are allowed to stay on staffs with losing records, despite no signs of improvement or progress. This year the WAC conference teams are doing worse than ever. The exception is Davis, winning with a new weight room. If coaches are hired with advanced degrees and better credentials, everyone will win. Part-time stipends aren’t enough. Uneducated coaches interested in a quick payday should not be considered.

Eric Johnson, Modesto

Try this, Turlock leaders

With over a dozen city job openings in Turlock, some of which have been vacant for several months, this seems like a good opportunity for the Turlock City Council (with the advice of Acting City Manager Dan Madden) to create and appoint a Commissioner of Public Safety (COPS) to oversee both the police and fire departments. The position should be held by a civilian with knowledge of public security, as a means of promoting community-oriented policing and fire safety. The deputy chiefs of their respective departments would serve as the top-ranked, trained officers, while the civilian commissioner would be the chief executive and head administrator. Turlock will save thousands of dollars a year by hiring one individual to lead both departments. The entire city stands to benefit.

Several cities across America, including Cleveland, OH; Jersey City, NJ; Mechanicville, NY; and Bay City, MI, have experimented with this practice and have seen positive results. It is now time for Turlock to pave the way for the rest of California and promote community involvement in public safety by appointing a COPS.

Alex Paul Kiehl, Turlock

Withrow’s willful ignorance

Re “Stanislaus County doesn’t track homeless death, causes” (Front Page, Sept. 26): “Just knowing what they’re dying of doesn’t help us get them off the streets,” Terry Withrow, Stanislaus County supervisor and member of the Stanislaus Homeless Alliance says in your article. My reaction, as a complete layperson, was “obviously it does.”. It strikes me as incredibly closed-minded that this data would not matter. Whether unhoused persons are dying of exposure versus drugs versus homicide would signal very different required responses and resources allocated to these individuals.

Homelessness is a symptom; there is always an underlying cause. How can we get people off the streets if we don’t know why they’re there and the challenges they face? As the saying goes, knowledge is power. It strikes me as very concerning that Withrow, one of our leaders in charge of dealing with this issue, does not want to equip himself with as much information as possible.

Brinae Gaudet, Modesto

Reasons to beware River Walk

Several people spoke out at this week’s LAFCO meeting against the River Walk development being proposed for Riverbank. I agree with their points, which include:

• An age-restricted development (most houses will be for ages 55-plus) does nothing to meet the housing needs of Stanislaus County, where many families have been priced out of the housing market.

• The project would have a negative impact on Riverbank’s sewer and water facilities. There are already problems with the city’s sewage treatment capacity. People who live in the development area complain about poor water quality; building here would not improve the water.

• The site is within a floodplain. Even catch basins to handle a 100-year flood would not save those houses from a megastorm, which are happening all over the U.S. and in Europe. Let’s keep the land in agriculture since the area is one of the best around for recharging our aquifer.

• Traffic on McHenry Avenue, Patterson Road and Coffee Road is already very heavy. Adding up to 2,682 new homes will only make the traffic worse. Bad traffic also equals bad air quality from tailpipe emissions. Stanislaus County has some of the worst air quality in the U.S.

Anita Young, Modesto

Stop dissing public health

We are well into our second year of this COVID pandemic, and one thing is for sure, we must trust and rely on state and local public health to guide us through. There are some things government does best, and that is public heath concerns for all citizens.

Local public health officials have been putting up with silly bullying from the public they serve. This is wrong and these spoilers must cease. For example, not getting the COVID vaccination, causing a heavy burden on our local hospitals; somebody coughing in your face; and not wearing a mask.

The COVID virus and its variants just keep on spreading. Those who answer the call and follow the advice to get and use remedies to beat this pandemic deserve praise.

I thank The Modesto Bee for providing us with almost daily news and information on the local aspects of our pandemic. I have had many friends go to the vaccination clinics to receive the services offered. They were pleasantly pleased on the treatment given. It is not too late to get the COVID immunization.

Daniel Marsh, Modesto

News you can rely on

Re “Delta COVID surge may be declining in Stanislaus County” (Front Page, Sept. 23): Today I extended my on-line Bee subscription by 50%.

Reading Ken Carlson’s piece on our local COVID status, it struck me again how important The Bee is. Not only as a source of information, but also as a “glue” binding its readers together as a community.

Yes, it is much thinner than in the old days, and I don’t like some of the new comics. But the articles on education, local sports, community events lists, city council and supervisors meetings, some state and national news — all are so important.

Richard Anderson, Modesto

A motto to live by

As a young man in the Army serving my country in that exotic tropical land that is Vietnam, I followed and adhered to a little five-word phrase. As I grew older it occurred to me that those five words still hold some importance in one’s life. This is never more apparent than the situation we find ourselves in with this worldwide pandemic. Should there really be a debate? Vaccine or no vaccine, mask or no mask? Yes, it should be up to each and every one of us to decide. Base your decision on logic, facts, and most of all, science.

Oh, that five word phrase: “Stupid will get you killed.”

C.D. Wilkinson, Modesto

Trump was no Ike

When I joined the Army, Eisenhower was president, the former supreme commander of the armed forces in Europe defeating the fascists in WWII. Creator of the Interstate Highway system, promoter of labor and education. He was a Republican who loved America and placed his loyalty to the Constitution above himself, even to the point of integrating segregated southern schools. He warned against the military industrial complex, and said our money would be better spent on education, health care and infrastructure to improve America.

Today we see the Republican Party as the party of Trump, a cult that will do anything to please one man, even to the detriment of this great nation of ours. They are working every day to undermine our elections and the confidence we have in the voice of the people, just to please Trump and, as they say, “own the libs,” instead of doing what is best for America. They want to ignore the attempted coup and the attack on the Capitol, instigated by that same cult leader in order for him to remain in power.

We are watching as this republic is being destroyed by Trump’s Republican Party.

Charlie Lockett, Modesto