After_Deadline's blog

Modesto's 4th of July celebrations certainly drew out lots of people yesterday, from the 5,000+ who went to the parade in the morning to the big crowd in Enslen Park for the Modesto Jaycees' laser show.

The mood was great with people curious about what they'd see. Illegal fireworks soared over the park a few times. And that turnout was stellar.

Way to go Jaycees, for bringing people together from the morning to the night.

Now, about those lasers ... What'd you think?

I saw quite a few people pack up their blankets and leave by the third song with the lasers shooting patriotic images at the projector screen. I also heard a few oohs and ahhs.

Your impressions?

- AA

I'm leaving Modesto and Stanislaus County to take note of some serious bad form in Los Banos.

Eugene Forte, a local government gadfly, reportedly used the "N-word" when speaking to Los Banos Mayor Tommy Jones at a City Council meeting last month. Here's an editorial from the Los Banos Enterprise on the exchange.

The paper has published some letters to the editor on both sides of the meeting. I'm not in Los Banos and I wasn't at the meeting. As an outsider, it's hard to imagine the other side. The letters appear to paint Forte as a loose cannon.

But, like in Riverbank, Los Banos appears to be experiencing a tumultuous period in local politics. There's an effort under way to recall Jones and two other council members.

I'm fighting the urge to spot a trend.

- AA

Here are some more headlines from the 2008-09 Civil Grand Jury. You'll see stories start to move on modbee.com shortly.

1) Turlock City Councilwoman Mary Jackson did not have a conflict of interest when she voted to allow a liquor license at a downtown piano bar. Some have alleged she should have refrained from voting because the attorney who represented the bar was a campaign supporter. However, the grand jury says Jackson could have stepped down to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

2) Riverbank Councilman Jesse James White was not a registered voter in Riverbank when he took out papers to run for election. That means he was inellegible to run. The grand jury recommends the he step down from office.

3) Riverbank City Manager Rich Holmer disseminates information poorly, and should set up new practices to provide information to the council. The council should evaluate his job performance every year.

Mayor Jim Ridenour doesn't get special treatment in his part-time job as a reserve sheriff's deputy, the county Civil Grand Jury has concluded.

The grand jury looked into allegations that Ridenour was getting paid for work he didn't do at the Sheriff's Department.

"There was no documented evidence that the Sheriff's Office had mismanaged this individual's time and pay," the grand jury wrote.

"I had no doubt about it. We had done it right," Ridenour said today.

Ridenour has worked at the Sheriff's Department since 1992. His work there became an issue a year ago when former Mayor Carmen Sabatino looked at Ridenour's mayoral calendar and suggested that Ridenour was attending events while he was supposed to be at the Sheriff's Department.

Sabatino is unlikely to drop his charges. Ridenour is giving Sabatino a copy of his mayoral calendar every week.

I must've written a dozen stories over the past month on the standoff between the city and the Modesto Police Officers Association.

All that's left to say is the obvious: The nine cop layoffs didn't have to happen.

You don't have to look far to see the same dynamic playing out. About 100 Sacramento workers are losing their jobs today because of a similar bargaining stalemate.

Perhaps Modesto was too rigid in how it looked at the MPOA's cost-saving ideas. Maybe the MPOA was banking on having more political muscle than elected council members.

Both sides seemed to lose.

Here's where a few more city officials wound up:

Modesto early this year pulled the plug on a program intended to record what cops see on patrol with video cameras on their dashboards.

The roughly $300,000 investment fell victim first to technical problems and then to a change in ownership over the company that supplied the equipment.

Modesto didn't lose a dime on the project, except for the time it spent installing and trying to use the cameras.

Dell Inc., which won a contract to provide the cameras in January 2008, reimbursed the city.

It wasn't Dell equipment going in the cars, however. Dell hired North Carolina-based Integrian to supply the cameras. Integrian now goes by Digital Safety Technologies, and DST reportedly wasn't keen to either fix the equipment to make it functional, or to reimburse the city.

Gary Cook, Modesto's information technology director, said Dell stepped in and took responsibility for the contract.

No rest for the weary, or for those trying to balance government budgets this week.

I've sent out feelers and it doesn't sound like the Modesto Police Officers Association and Modesto Police Management Association are going back to the bargaining table today. I'll let you know if that changes. Eleven cops will lose their jobs Wednesday if the city can't reach a deal for wage concessions with those groups.

Attention remains fixed on the budget talks in Sacramento with billions of dollars on the line.

Mayors and City Council members from around the state are trying to prevent Sacramento from raiding their budgets. Check out the videos at League of California Cities site to get a sense of what they're saying.