The city of Turlock is the second largest city in Stanislaus County with a population around 73,000 located on Highway 99 just south of Modesto.  Situated half way between these two towns is the city of Ceres.  The commonality between Ceres, Turlock and Dixon is the city attorney firm of Churchwell and White.

While Doug White attends Turlock and Dixon meetings, Tom Hallinan functions as the city attorney of Ceres.  Hallinan is running for Stanislaus county supervisor.  The connection between White and Hallinan becomes problematic when the man hired by Turlock to be city manager, Toby Wells, allegedly was going to be fired from the city of Ceres because he made “sweet heart” deals with friends to provide water at a lower cost than to the general population.

Preventing the public from knowing this is the personnel exemption for closed meetings.  Illegal actions are hidden under the guise of protecting the criminal from damage to his or her reputation.  Let’s look at some facts.

At the March 10, 2020 Turlock city council meeting when the hiring of the city manager came up, members of the public spoke out against White saying that an “in house” attorney would be a better idea.  Mr. Redd also said that Wells was being paid $185,000 in Ceres and Turlock was bumping that up to $220,000.  It was also questioned why this was being done in a rush as there was no formal recruitment process which had been scheduled.

To protect Wells, did Hallinan and White simply circumvent this process?  As the recruitment process had already begun, where an interim city manager was to occupy that position to as late as November, why was the council content to just hire Wells?  Where was the background check of Wells?  Why did councilwoman Nicole Larson defend this process as well as Gil Esquer, both of whom put up softball questions to justify their positions?

The city of Turlock, as are many rural communities, is having financial difficulties.  Why would a council not look to cut costs to hire a city manager for less and why would they retain Churchwell/White, which has a reputation of driving up attorney fees to a million dollars a year?  The city of Patterson paid $4.5 million over 4 and one half years, Dixon was at a million last year, and technically bankrupt Atwater was on the road to that amount before White resigned as their city attorney.

The web does not stop just within White’s firm, however, as White was the treasurer for State Assemblyman Adam Gray’s campaign.  The FPPC fined Gray for White not filing timely statements.  The Turlock Journal’s editor refused to respond to multiple calls.  The Atwater-Wintun Times silenced reporter Beverly Barela with the interim police chief actually threatening her.  The Merced Sun Star continued to publish “fake news” regarding Atwater’s deposed police chief.  This even reached into the courtroom of a Superior Court judge making rulings on that case.

The Golden Rule is triumphing over blind justice as those with money and connections are deciding what is right and what the public has a right to know.  We at the Independent Voice will continue to practice investigative journalism weekly despite any attempts to dissuade us.