A smorgasbord of Stockton items (2024)

A city construction heartbreak

Delays and cost overruns on Stockton’s new City Hall at the Waterfront Towers may get all the criticism for municipal projects gone awry, but another city project, in some ways, is faring even worse: the Northeast Stockton Library & Community Center.

The $14.5 million project, located on Morada Lane beside Ronald E. McNair High School, is not as big a money hole as the Waterfront Towers, but it’s a heartbreaker. The beautifully designed project was supposed to be completed by fall/winter 2022.

Instead, construction ground to a complete halt amid legal bickering between the city and the builder, Patriot Contracting, Inc.

Patriot filed a claim against the city — usually the precursor to a lawsuit — on April 15, alleging the city is in breach of contract for suspending Patriot from the project.

On May 30, the city rejected Patriot’s claim. The law now gives Patriot six months to file a court action.

What’s the bone of contention? The city won’t say, citing probable litigation. Patriot did not return calls and emails.

When construction halted, the city left the site unguarded for “a short period of time.” Big mistake; the site was vandalized. The city belatedly installed a 24-hour surveillance camera and hired a daily security patrol.

Cost to taxpayers: $12,000 a month.

The conflict has indefinitely delayed a project that, when completed, promises to be one of the best municipal buildings in Stockton.

Renderings show a modern library interior popping with color illuminated by open, light-filled design that blurs the boundary between inside and out. Outside, on grounds just shy of 5 acres, a native plant garden, trails, a playground, reading spots, courts for basketball and pickleball, artwork, and space for festivals and concerts. And in the community center, meeting spaces, a gym and ball courts.

It’s a gem. Or should be. As it stands now, the sight is blighted and — to use an architectural term — butt ugly.

“It’s a shame,” said City Council Member Dan Wright. “I feel bad for all the people who worked hard to get Measure M (a quarter-cent sales tax that funds libraries) passed and to get this building built. This would be such a benefit to McNair High School and the surrounding community.”

Wright added unhappily, “We’ve got to get through all the procedures. That’s just our legal system, unfortunately.”

FPPC latest to investigate 209 Times founder

Hot on the heels of a scathing Grand Jury report on the 209 Times disinformation site, The Fair Political Practices Commission, the state agency charged with keeping elections honest, has opened an investigation into 209 Times Founder Motecuzoma Sanchez, a county official confirms.

The FPPC recently requested copies of Sanchez’ 460s, the form documenting a campaign’s donors and cash flow, from the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters’ office.

In addition to running the 209 Times, Sanchez operates two political consultancies; he ran unsuccessfully for numerous offices; and was a director at Stockton Unified where he received numerous gifts he was legally obligated to report on Form 700s.

The FPPC investigation comes on top of a blistering Grand Jury report denouncing the 209 Times as dishonest and toxic to Stockton city government. Sanchez and the Times’ other hack, Frank Gayaldo, also are being sued for defamation by a former associate. The embattled Sanchez has filed a motion to have the suit declared a SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) and dismissed. A ruling on that motion is pending.

Cruise ship sank from neglect, says Coast Guard

The pocket cruise ship MV Aurora sank in the Delta outside Stockton because negligent owners failed to maintain the ship’s hull, Coast Guard investigators say.

The Coast Guard’s incident team managed to refloat the 293-foot vessel on Little Potato Slough over the weekend. It wasn’t easy, said Lt. Commander Mark Leahey of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Sector San Francisco.

“It should have taken 24 hours, but it ended up taking 70-something,” Leahey said, “because there were so many places water was coming in.”

Underwater welders had to patch a Swiss cheese of holes. The incident team, bringing in pumps and giant generators, pumped 1.3 million gallons of water out of the lower decks.

All vessels periodically must be hauled out and doctored, but the Aurora was not maintained, Leahey said. “It’s obvious it hasn’t seen an industrial drydock in years.”

The charismatic but derelict ship was towed to Herman & Helen’s Marina in 2013 by then-owner Chris Willson after the previous owner advertised it free for the taking on Craigslist. That should have told Willson everything he needed to know. It didn’t. Proclaiming big restoration plans, Willson vowed never to walk away from the ship — but did exactly that last year. He gave the Aurora to an as-yet publicly unidentified man — reportedly one of modest means — and moved far away.

The next step is to determine the proper agency to dispose of the vessel. Then comes the thorny question of who pays for everything.

By ominous coincidence, Stockton’s council on Tuesday ratified spending $491,178.50 to Lind Marine of Petaluma and associated contractors for the salvage and disposal of the 1942 Navy tugboat Mazapeta. That ship, too, sank at Herman & Helen’s. The city accepted liability because the boat was near the intake of the city’s Delta Water Supply Project. Leaking petroleum products could have contaminated city water.

But the cost of dealing with The Mazapeta, which weighed a mere 218 tons, will be dwarfed by the cost of the immense Aurora, 2,496 tons. Costs could run into the tens of millions.

It’s clear from Willson’s Facebook page that he resents and rejects any criticism — a bold stand for someone who played a major role in a debacle of this magnitude. Yet it does limn the contours of a solution: Willson should pay the costs. That will spare him criticism as a pompous fool and let Stockton taxpayers off the hook. A win-win deal.

Introducing AI-Robo-Code-Cop

Recently the council okayed hiring City Detect, an Alabama-based artificial Intelligence outfit, to supply AI technology to augment Stockton’s overwhelmed code enforcers.

How will AI code enforcement work? I called Gavin Baum-Blake, City Detect’s CEO and founder.

“We put cameras on existing vehicles and we use computer vision, a form of predictive AI, to identify where the certain types of blight are,” Baum-Blake said.

Predictive AI?

Most AI is generative AI, Baum-Blake explained. When prompted it makes text, images, videos. Predictive AI uses machine learning to identify patterns, in this case blight.

Take lawns. City Detect fed its computers around 1.8 million pictures of homes across America, “And you find out what is a lawn that is in compliance with what cities say and … with what a good neighbor does. Then you see the abandoned lots when homeowners fail to keep the yard up adequately.”

The AI learns the difference.

City Detect affixes its cameras to the vehicles of city code enforcers, who canvas neighborhoods. The AI cameras spy graffiti, dumping, boarded windows, peeling paint, overgrown yards, cars parked on “unapproved surfaces” and other blight.

The first go-round is educational, Baum-Blake said. Offenders receive a courtesy notice.

“They’re given every opportunity to fix the problem themselves,” Blake-Baum said. “But ultimately if they don’t rectify the situation … within a set amount of time then there can be a fee.”

Or, worst case — say an absentee slumlord, a problem in Stockton — “The municipality can often abate it themselves if a long enough period goes on.”

A concern about AI code enforcement is that it will disproportionately hurt the poor. But the spread of blight hurts the value of modest homes, too, Baum-Blake said.

“Even if it costs $100 to fix a violation, then that house will be transferable when at the end of your life you give it to your kids.”

The alternative is Detroit, Baum-Blake said. “There are thousands and thousands of houses that were just left abandoned. What is supposed to be intergenerational wealth is vacant property.”

The council gave City Detect a $712,800 contract to do AI code enforcement through Sept. 30, 2025. If the technology works out, the contract allows for two one-year extensions. City Detect will affix AI cameras to nine city vehicles within the next three months.

Speaking of the Delta …

Every year, as sure as the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, I call Dave Wheeler and ask him if Lost Isle, once the premier party resort in the entire Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, will reopen this year.

Wheeler, a Southern California financier, closed Lost Isle in 2008 under pressure from the Sheriff and county bureaucrats, who demanded all sorts of upgrades. Wheeler then ran into a buzzsaw of bureaucracy and bad luck, hemorrhaging millions and catching hell from his wife but never managing to reopen.

Well, what about it, Dave?

“I’m working on it but it ain’t gonna open this year,” Wheeler said.

The last misfortune — a 2022 fire that firefighters allowed to burn for reasons I still don’t understand — required extensive cleanup.

Wheeler was recently in town, applying for building permits, and planning construction this year.

“I would expect we’ll be open fall or spring 2026,’ said he, adding, “We’re going to be updating the website … so people actually believe we’re making progress. I still get a lot of people on Facebook, people saying, ‘Asshole, nothing’s ever going to happen.’ But it will.”Michael Fitzgerald’s column runs on Wednesdays. On Twitter and Instagram as Stocktonopolis. Email:mfitzgeraldstockton@gmail.com

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