About 50 community members turned up at Calvary Chapel Turlock on Friday for the annual Turlock town hall meeting, presented by Stanislaus County Supervisor Vito Chiesa.
“For a Friday night during the holiday season, I was very pleased with the turnout,” said Chiesa, whose guests included Rep. John Duarte (R-Hughson), Sheriff Jeff Dirkse, Turlock Police Chief Jason Hedden, and Turlock Mayor Amy Bublak.
The speakers took the stage for brief remarks, which were followed by a question-and-answer session — with most of the queries directed at Duarte.
The discussion focused on a number of subjects, including immigration, education, transportation, water, housing, the economy, and law enforcement.
For several years, Chiesa has hosted multiple town hall meetings each year to make it easier for constituents to access their civic leaders.
“When you look at the local level, we’re pretty accessible,” said Chiesa. “But when you get above the city or county level, it’s very difficult for people to have face-to-face interactions. So, I continually try to put state and federal officials in front of constituents, and tonight we had a little different twist with the sheriff and police chief, and I think that worked out pretty well.”`
Duarte, serving his first term representing the 13th congressional district, shared what he learned during his first year in Washington before answering questions from the audience.
“There are 435 congressional districts in this nation,” said Duarte. “Of those, only about eight percent (35) are considered swing districts. The other 92 percent of those legislators are only worried about a primary, and that pushes us to the extremes.”
In addition, Duarte expressed a wide array of opinions:
* High-speed rail — Duarte called it “a boondoggle” and wants to see more money directed toward widening highways.
* Border security — Duarte supports immigration reform; he’d also like to see solutions regarding DACA and a guest-worker program.
* Water — “California has a critical, detrimental housing crisis because .. we don’t have the water resources to support the new construction.”
* Government spending — “Unless we get spending under control, I fear we could enter a permanent inflationary environment."
* Impeachment of President Biden — “Next week we’ll be voting for an impeachment inquiry that I’m going to support."
Dirkse and Hedden handled an update on SB 54, which limits local law enforcement interactions with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The law is designed to ensure that all residents of the U.S., regardless of immigration status, are capable of reporting crimes to local law enforcement agencies without jeopardizing that status.
With more than 70,000 bookings between 2018 and 2021, 106 were released to ICE — 0.14 percent. Last year, with more than 15,000 arrests, there were no turnovers to ICE. To be clear, ICE must initiate the turnover request.
Both Dirkse and Hedden reported that staffing levels within both their departments are on the rise.
“The No. 1 thing I really look at as the sheriff is staffing,” said Dirkse. “The more staff that I have, the more that we can do for the community.”
When Dirkse became sheriff in 2018, the department was authorized 180 deputies. Today, the department is authorized for 209.
“We are forecast to be completely full by March 31,” said Dirkse. “We are literally at the strongest staffing position that we have been in, realistically, in 15 years.”
Dirkse believes the statistics back up his assertion. He cited the homicide rate in the unincorporated areas of the county. Nine homicides is the lowest number on record, according to Dirkse. To date, there have been three homicides in 2023 (CHP is handling two county homicide cases that happened on state roadways).
Hedden also reported positive staffing numbers.
“We currently have four police officer trainees in the background-check process,” said Hedden. “If all of these four successful police officer trainees complete the background process, we’d be fully staffed, on paper.”
