Progress being made on fixing the city’s roads, safety measures at all Turlock Unified School District’s campuses and the foreshadowing of a Turlock Irrigation District electric rate increase were all discussed at Thursday’s Local Government Night public forum hosted by Stanislaus County Supervisor Vito Chiesa.

Chiesa has been hosting government night forums across his district for several years, but this is the first one held in Turlock to focus completely on local elected officials.

Present at Thursday’s forum were Turlock City Council member Rebecka Monez, Turlock Vice Mayor Pam Franco, Turlock Unified School Board of Trustees President Anthony Silva and Turlock Irrigation District Director Michael Frantz.

Monez touted the impending completion of the Columbia Pool remodel, the city’s balanced budget, the increase in the city’s police and fire staffing and progress made on fixing Turlock’s failing roadways.

“I'm proud to report that our city's budget is balanced. Our reserves have increased. We have some constituents that are complaining that our reserves are actually too high. And I don't know any elected governmental body who has people showing up and complaining that their reserve account is too high. So that's a big accomplishment,” said Monez.

The council member credited the passing of the citywide sales tax Measure A and the hiring of roads program manager Fred Pezeshk for the progress being made to repair Turlock’s declining roadways.

“Those of you who live in Turlock, you know your roads are getting repaired. For the last 10 or 15 years, we've been repairing about one to two roads per year…Last year we repaired 16. This year we have 28 going. Next year, we have 40 slotted. So we're really starting to knock out the roads issue.”

Franco, who is Turlock’s representative on the Stanislaus Council of Governments, talked about a $4.8 million grant the city received to repair Geer Road.

“One of the next things we'll be taking up is Golden State Boulevard. As we all know, that one needs repaired desperately,” said Franco.

Chiesa talked a little about the county’s plans to spend $50 million of American Recovery Plan Act funding on county island improvement projects. County islands are areas that are surrounded by city limits but technically still considered part of the unincorporated county.

“We consider that once in a lifetime money, we couldn't come up with $50 million to general fund or anything else, then we put an additional $15 million split up by district. In my district, there's the Kenwood island, which is literally right in the middle of Turlock… the citizens are not served well by the sheriff's department driving through town and so, but if you're on the city council, you don't want to annex it until it's brought up to some sort of city standard. So we've set aside about $5.5 million dollars for that island. It's going to be sidewalks, some storm drainage, the normal the normal things,” he said.

Chiesa also touted a historic tax share agreement between the City of Turlock and Stanislaus County to make way for a new Honda dealership to be built next to the Ford dealership on Golden State Boulevard, north of Taylor Road.

“The best part is that each jurisdiction is going to take $500,000 of sales tax and put it together for the Taylor Road interchange to do design work, because it's not running at a great service level… we like to fight a lot, but yet, in the end, it's about the 550,000 residents of Stanislaus County and making their life better. And the only way we do it is by working together in other capacities,” he said.

Silva, who has been on the TUSD Board of Trustees since 2015, talked about the growth of the Turlock Unified School District and the increased focus on safety.

“We have 15 schools, 13,500 students, 1,700 plus employees, almost a $240 million budget. So it's quite a responsibility, and with a seven member board, I feel blessed that we have some great talent that we can depend on each other to run this district and do what's best for our kids.

“Right at the top of the list is probably safety. We put a lot of our bond money into fencing and central entry points, and our people are really working to make sure our kids are safe. It's not foolproof. My dad always said locks are only for honest people, but we have to do something to do our part to make sure these kids stay safe and so that they can learn,” he said.

Frantz talked about how the TID Board of Directors is always trying to find the balance between reliability and affordability.

“We spent a lot of time talking about reliability, because we also have a lot of aging infrastructure. We talk about Don Pedro being paid for, but it's also worn out. We're replacing all four of the large generation plants in that dam over the next four years. The cost to do so is nearly $300 million of borrowed money. So those are significant investments that we are making for the next generation of people who live in this wonderful community. But we’re balancing reliability with affordability; always trying to figure out, we could do this, but what's it going to cost? We can do this, but what will happen if we don't? You know, people brag about Amazon having next day deliveries, but at TID, the expectation is really high. We need our power on all the time, right now, and if the power goes down, people get upset right away. And so we put a premium on reliability, but it costs money to do so,” he said.

Along with the updates needed to the Don Pedro generation plants, TID is also facing a  state mandate to be carbon free by 2024 and still working on all the things needed to secure its relicensing to operate Don Pedro. All of that requires funding and, according to Frantz, TID has raised its electric rates since 2015.

“It's been almost a decade since we raised rates. As a point of reference, in that same time frame PG&E has raised rates over 120% — over a doubling of rates in the same time frame. But we have substantial capital needs, so I don't want to mince any words. Our rates are going to go up. I don't know exactly when and how much, but our rates are headed up, hopefully in a small and acceptable manner. That's typically how we've done it. Last time we went up 3% I know we've been having discussions, and we know additional capital needs are there. I already said we're spending $300 million on our power plants, so we will be coming to you at some point in the near future for additional rates, but we're going to do our best to keep them to a nominal number,” said Frantz.