Sunday, November 17, 2019

SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE CALIFORNIA CITY OF MANTECA

But Nobody Who Knows What Is Talking

by Bob Walsh

Manteca is a nice city. I used to live there. It is a burg of about 70,000 people and is now largely a bedroom city feeding into the bay area, though it still has a significant ag and light industry component.

Something strange is going on there. In the last couple of weeks the Chief of Police, Jodie Estarziau, was put on administrative leave. Public Works Manager Mark Houghton was sacked after 12 years on the job. City Manager Tim Ogden and Finance Director Jeri Tejeda were put on administrative leave back in September. The Community Development Manger resigned two weeks ago and has declined comment on why he left his job.

The city is saying very little. Somebody has stated that "accusations" were made against the Chief. An investigation is underway. No one who knows will say who is doing the investigation, if it is criminal or administrative, or pretty much anything else.

I am confident word will leak out. It pretty much always does. The city, though, is obviously sweating it as they don't want to be sued for violating any employee confidentiality rights. It will leak out anyway. Then maybe the residents will find out what the hell is going on.

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