By Emerson Drake
3/4/10
Ayn Rand in “Atlas Shrugged” talks about newspaper editors who control the flow of information to twist public opinion for their own purpose.And it seems that's becoming an almost daily event here in Modesto, the McClatchy Bee Yellow pages have attempted to deny the public the whole story when it comes to public entities.
From endorsing three rubberstamps to the MID board who have continued to spend MID into the poor house, to colluding with the MID to deny the public the information regarding problems with the smart meters. Once you've maxed out your credit as MID has you don't have anywhere to go if problems occur.
We've seen it in reference to the Lopez case where yet again today, Garth Stapley quotes Lopez's side regarding the "Hundreds of thousands of dollars" they hope to receive, and when it comes towards the end of the article he paraphrases Adam Christianson's quote "I didn't need an investigation to know Pooley hadn't done anything wrong."Women all over Stanislaus County were cringing when they heard that.
We see the never ending personal vendettas from Mark Vasche` regarding politicians across the board but what has it accomplished?MID has just raised our rates and is contemplating (read will be) instituting "surcharges" which they hope can be raised at will without incurring quite so much wrath from the public.
But they have taken a page from the Modesto City Council and they continue to put off major decisions (the McHenry Ave. solar farm) until the fervor has subsided.Despite losing all five annexation attempts, the City is moving full speed ahead to tremendously expand the sphere of influence, which according to one city staffer “makes development of those areas inevitable.”
The City Building Fee Committee is being chaired by Kristin Olsen (a Bee favorite), who without hearing one word of information from the staff has unilaterally declared "we need to lower our building fees,” while on the other hand, she hopes to milk donations for her attempt to abandon the very voters who elected her in a personal attempt at gratification in her run for the state assembly, from the very developers for whom she is trying to cut the fees.
All the while the Bee remains silent, while the Sheriff through his campaign 460’s reports, attempts to deny bundled checks from Correct Care Solutions, (which is a vendor the Sheriff's Department oversees) by falsely labeling these very donations as coming in back in 2007. It has been verified that these donations were received in 2009.
A line from Atlas Shrugged says “One editor who’d open his trap at the wrong time could do us more harm than ten disgruntled millionaires (millionaires being the ones who desire openness and honesty in her book), which regarding the millionaires is quite the dichotomy from the way things are here in Modesto.
The editors at the McClatchy Bee have squelched the dissent, but the battle for truth and openness rages on here in Modesto.
We here at the Voice of Modesto vow to,
Never Give up, Never Surrender
