Twice-Told Tales: Teachers oppose 1% proposed pay raise

10 years ago — 2015

Tracy Unified School District teachers showed a united front in their opposition to a 1% proposed pay raise when more than 100 of them protested during a regular school board meeting. Holding signs with such messages as “Teachers are worth it,” and “It’s about respect — 1 percent is an insult,” the crowd wearing green Tracy Educators Association shirts, cheered as their union president addressed the board. After six months of contract negotiations between the groups, an impasse was reached in late February with the union’s last offer at a 6.5% raise and the district’s offer was 1%.

A benefit Saturday at a local dentist office offered Tracy families in need medical care they lack — and may serve as the ignition for a citywide effort. The office of Dr. Carlos Sanchez, DDS — led by office manager Paula Goncalves and registered dental assistant Melissa Nardolillo — held their first Dentistry from the Heart event to provide cleanings and other maintenance care to people who lack dental insurance or the means to pay for it. Goncalves reached out to St. Bernard’s Catholic Church, McHenry House Tracy Family Shelter and other organizations to find families in need of a trip to the dentist.

Chief Gary Hampton of the Tracy Police Department will ask the City Council to approve a $204,980 expenditure to buy body cameras for city police officers. Officers within the department have been testing the devices for weeks. The equipment — including a camera and a recording hard drive on each officer — would be bought from Taser International and paid for with a state grant from the Citizens’ Option for Public Safety program. The city would incur a yearly expense to the website Evidence.com to store the accumulated video.

A tractor-trailer struck a streetlight on West Grant Line Road, sending it crashing into a backflow valve and shutting water off to businesses in a shopping center at North Tracy Boulevard and West Grant Line Road. The crash occurred around 8:45 a.m., when the truck turned into an alley. Police said the driver turned too tightly, striking the light pole and snapping it off at the base. The pole crashed into the aboveground backflow valve and severed it. The driver of the tractor-trailer continued to turn, striking a concrete pylon next to a fire suppression system valve for the nearby business and damaging that valve, too.

25 years ago — 2000

Cutting 4.3 cents in federal gasoline taxes would take some of the sting out of rapidly rising gas prices, U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo said. Pombo, R-Tracy, has introduced legislation to roll back a gas-tax hike that was enacted in1993 by Congress and President Clinton to bridge the federal budget deficit but subsequently was shifted to highway repairs and improvements. Recent $1.70 to $1.80 per gallon gas prices have most area motorists grumbling. High gas prices are sparking a lot of complaints from residents of the 11th Congressional District, which includes most of San Joaquin County and part of southern Sacramento County.

More than a dozen people in workout clothes evacuated the In-Shape City health club when the building’s air conditioning system caught fire just before 3 p.m. The fire, caused by an electrical short in one of the building’s four air conditioners, was contained just minutes after firefighters arrived. A driver passing by 11th Street and Parker Avenue was the first to spot the fire, seeing smoke billowing from In-Shape’s roof. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they cut a hole in the building’s roof to gain access to the fire, dousing the flames before they could spread to any of the other air conditioning systems.

Regency Real Estate, which represents Raley’s Supermarket & Drug Center, filed a lawsuit in November against the landowners of the proposed shopping center where Raley s was slated to be built. The suit accuses them of making a deal to sell the land at the northeast corner of Corral Hollow Road and 11th Street to Safeway Food & Drug. The case is scheduled for June 5. Representatives said they filed the suit after who tried to opt out of the contract with Regency Real Estate. In November, the Tracy City Council approved the project, which included Orchard Supply Hardware, restaurants and an office-supply store. But by that time, the property owners had asked to back out of the deal. Regency officials have accused the owners of secretly negotiating with San Diego-based Security Trust Co., which represented Safeway, accusing Safeway officials of trying to buy the land to prevent Raley’s from moving across the street.

Swati Saini, a junior at West High School was crowned Tracy Junior Miss in front of a crowd of 200 at the Emma Baumgardner Theatre. The program is based largely on how girls do in school and the impressions they make in personal interviews with judges, but they are also judged on fitness and creative talent. As Tracy’s Junior Miss for 2001 she takes home a $3,000 scholarship, plus a $500 award for scholastic achievement and a $200 award for being tops in the fitness category. All nine contestants gained at least $100 in scholarships just for participating in this year’s program. The first alternate was Celina Montelongo and the second alternate was Amy Gowan.

50 years ago — 1975

Three Tracy teens were killed when their car hit a train on the Southern Pacific Holly spur on Arbor Road between Holly Sugar and MacArthur Drive. The three boys, two 17-year-olds and a 16-year-old, were killed instantly when their car, heading west on Arbor Road at about 1:45 a.m. struck the first of three rail cars, a gondola carrying a load of coke. The car glanced off the front wheels and was wedged beneath the gondola. A switchman said he tried to warn the driver by waving a lantern with a white light but the car was moving too fast. The California Highway Patrol said the car left 40 feet of skid mark before hitting the rail car. The train was reportedly moving two or three mph when the crash occurred.

Girl Scout Troop 729 kicked off Girl Scout Week on Arbor Day, planting two trees donated by the Tracy Community Garden Club at North School along with help from the North School Earth Patrol. Tracy has 150 girls involved in scouting with three Brownie troops, four Junior troops and one Cadette group. Troop 729 will hold an open house at the Girl Scout Hut on Bessie Avenue with different displays by the troops and refreshments. The Tierra del Oro Girl Scout Council, of which Tracy is a member, will have an open house at their Stockton office, celebrating the Girl Scouts’ birthday and the council’s 10th anniversary.

The Tracy Rural Fire District welcomed their newest piece of equipment, a tanker with a 3,200-gallon capacity and a remote controlled Santra Rosa nozzle mounted on the front bumper. The new rig painted bright yellow has a Mack chassis and was built by the Howe Fire equipment company of Martinez. The $50,000 tanker has a pump with a 500-gallon-per-minute capacity and replaces the district’s original tanker, a 4,000-gallon semi-truck that was a converted military gasoline truck. Tracy Rural Fire now has seven engines, a tanker, rescue pickup and a chief’s car.

A Redding man wanted for attempted murder in Hayward was wounded and taken into custody by California Highway Patrol officers following a shooting and chase into the foothills west of the Interstate 5 and 50 junction. The 21-year-old man was wanted in connection of an assault and knifing of a security guard at a Hayward department store. The suspect then fled in a van and was spotted by the CHP on I-580 near Corral Hollow Road. The van was stopped on I-580 near the Stanislaus County Line and when the man exited the van he appeared to reach for a weapon and was shot twice with a shotgun by a CHP officer. The man ran four miles into a field and was found by an airplane while he was hiding in a gully. He was taken into custody and treated for wounds to his thigh and forearm.

Deuel Vocational Institution was put on lockdown for the fifth murder of the year at the prison. The 19-year-old inmate had been at the prison for just two days as he began a three-years-to life sentence for a sexual perversion conviction in Riverside County. A guard saw the man staggering while walking from his cell in the “G” wing after dinner. The man was taken to the prison hospital where he was pronounced dead, suffering 47 stab wounds. Two weapons were found in the wing but sheriff and DVI investigators did not have any suspects in the killing.

100 years ago — 1925

The Tracy City Council granted building permits for modern buildings estimated to cost $18,925, including four buildings at $4,500 each at their last meeting. One building will be a six-room dwelling on 1the Street, another was a five-room home in Lincoln Manor and one builder making two five-room homes — one on D Street and the other on Eighth Street. The other permits were for a $800 addition to the Slack Building and a $125 private garage on D Street.

A Tracy man is not expected to live after being injured in a rollover accident on the highway a couple of miles east of Tracy. Eldred Tigh has been unconscious at hospital in French Camp since the accident. He and two other people were another car reportedly crowded them off the road into the soft dirt where the car overturned. The other two occupants received scratches, but Tigh received a serious head injury with doctors fearing his skull fractured at the base of the brain. His family arrived from Fresno with little hope of his recovery.

Arrangements to put city water and sewer facilities in Parker Acres and adding a water main extension to the south side because of the number of new residents owning property in those locations were the main topics of discussion at Tracy City Council. In the end it was voted to call for bids for the proposed improvements. The city engineer made an estimate of $1,600 for the water extensions with eh board saying the rapid growth of both districts needed to be encouraged by making the improvements.

A Modesto man pleaded guilty and was fined $125 for reckless driving on Central Avenue. Two officers saw the man turn onto Central from West Ninth Street and head towards 11th Street at excessive speed. While trying to catch up to the driver they saw the man double back on Central, swerving across the roadway and three tracks of the Southern Pacific Railyard where the police chief became involved in the chase. An officer pulled up alongside the man’s car and let another officer step across the running board and shut the man’s car engine off. The man was taken to court and paid his fine.

-Tracy Press archives