Valley Headlines

Adam Gray going to Congress

Turlock Journal. Gray unseats incumbent Duarte in CA-13 race.
Synopsis: Reporter Joe Cortez writes about the closest, and last, congressional race in America -- which Adam Gray won when Fresno released its final vote tallies Tuesday. Gray said: “I felt good about the campaign we ran. We had hundreds of volunteers helping our campaign in so many ways. We knew it was going to be a close race, and it was a close race. I’m just thrilled that the voters put their trust in me to send me to Washington.” Despite media attention from across the nation, Cortez was also the only reporter to hear John Duarte’s concession: “I didn’t plan on being in Congress forever,” he said. “But whenever I think I can make a difference, I’ll consider public service in different forms, including running for Congress again.”
MAD Take: Duarte’s comments sounded more like a “concession-for-now” statement. Close enough.

Merced Focus. Adam Gray declares victory over John Duarte in Congressional District 13. 
Synopsis: Brianna Vaccari reports that Adam Gray came up with a surprising net gain of 22 votes in Fresno County’s final vote count. Gray won the election, in which over 210,000 ballots were cast, by 187 votes. The reporter notes that Donald Trump flipped four of the district’s five counties (the fifth, Madera, didn’t need flipping), but just enough voters split their ballots to send Gray to Congress.

GV Wire. Adam Gray declares victory over incumbent John Duarte after latest vote tally.
Synopsis: Reporter Anthony Haddad provides the final numbers and 187-vote margin, calling it a “close-as-a-whisker, down-to-the-wire” victory. It means Republicans will still control the House but have only a 5-vote majority.

Modesto Bee / McClatchy DC. Democrat Adam Gray tops John Duarte in congressional rematch.
Synopsis: Like the AP, NY Times, LA Times, etc., McClatchy’s reporter has to turn to the Turlock Journal to obtain quotes in this race.

Here are 4 theories of why

SF Chronicle. 4 reasons why CA Democrats flipped House seats despite broad GOP wins.
Synopsis: Reporter Shira Stein starts this story talking about how CA’s purple Democrats bucked the odds even as the party lost ground in the state legislature. One analyst said that non-white voters helped Adam Gray win. Oddly, a different campaign consultant seems stunned Duarte lost. Yet another, Mike Madrid, says that apparently a lot of Valley voters are splitting their tickets. Consultant Orrin Evans says the winners each “had their own authentic brand that could differentiate themselves from a mold or caricature that Republicans were desperately trying to paint.”

Alvarado-Gil tries on racism

Sacramento Bee. CA Senate leader condemns senator for ‘online racist attack on fellow lawmaker.
Synopsis: Having left the Democratic Party last year, Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil on Tuesday accused Sen. Lena Gonzalez of asking her to leave an area being used by Democrats for a meeting. That provoked her to call Gonzalez “the grand wizard of the Latino KLAUCUS.” Gonzalez, in turn, called Alvarado-Gil’s behavior “unwarranted, inexcusable and hateful.”
MAD Take: Apparently, Alvarado-Gil doesn’t feel she has enough enemies. If you’ve lost track, she’s in a beef with her former chief of staff, his son the Stanislaus County supervisor, nearly every Democrat in the state and some Republicans. Republican senate leader Brian Jones, said “racism and personal attacks have no place in our political discourse.”

Farmers happy over results

Successful Farming. A ‘Trump Bump’ on the farm, with a dollop of Trade War Anxiety.
Synopsis: Purdue University’s ongoing Ag Economy Barometer – a frequent poll of large-scale Midwestern farmers -- shows confidence surged 30 points in the week after the election, hitting its highest rating since May 2021. That’s the good news. The bad news is that 40% say they expect a trade war will increase their costs and limit their profits. Apparently, they believe reduced regulations will be worth it. In 2016, when Trump won, the bump was 24% in the first Barometer poll after the election.

Farmers unhappy over water

Ag Alert. Groups work to widen SGMA engagement.
Synopsis: Perhaps if more people understood the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, they would support it. That’s the thought behind an upcoming outreach effort by the Farm Bureau, Community Alliance, Family Farmers and the state. A 2021 survey of small farmers found that a third had never heard of SGMA, which passed in 2014. Many of those were farming on “white lands” – land they were able to buy cheap because it has no surface water. Many of those farmers – including the one profiled in this story – are going to be heavily fined for pumping. That means they either pay more than they can make or let their trees die. If their trees die, they lose their farms.

SJV Water. Punjabi growers seek dialogue, answers from state water regulators.
Synopsis: The Punjabi American Growers Group, formed in 2020, has gotten the State Water Board to conduct a workshop Thursday in Visalia. Reporter Lisa McEwen notes that Dorene D’Adamo will chair the meeting. Among the questions will be why the state’s ag department would encourage drip systems for trees in 2017 when the state’s water department knew pumping would be outlawed? “Where was the guidance and communication to farmers not to plant almonds?”

Kern County Water Agency. Growers respond to state’s initial 5% allocation.
Synopsis: Despite functionally full reservoirs, the Dept of Water Resources set the initial allocation for State Water Project clients at 5% of normal requests – which the Kern County Water Agency called “incredibly disappointing.” That 5% amounts to 50,000-acre feet, an allocation normally reserved for drought years. The KCWA called it a “devastatingly low” allocation that isn’t justified after two wet years. KCWA asked that regulators not “lose sight of the primary purpose of the SWP, which is to deliver water to its customers.”

More pollution for SF Bay

KQED. Massive sewage leak has spilled 20 million gallons of waste into East Bay Marsh.
Synopsis: An underground leak went undetected for weeks and has resulted in 20 million gallons of sewage being dumped into a Contra Costa County marsh on the edge of the Delta. It came from a pipe meant to carry wastewater into a storage unit.
MAD Take: The Bay Area has 47 treatment plants ringing the Bay. Many are thoroughly outdated and fail to meet the standards that treatment plants in the Valley and elsewhere meet or are fined for failing to meet. Yet, the SFPUC is suing to be allowed to continue using these plants. This spill is an example of the dozens that occur every year. Such abuse of the state’s water would not be tolerated if it had been caused by farmers or Valley cities. Why is it tolerated around the Bay?

Deputy Obie feeling better

Madera Tribune. MCSO K-9 is recovering.  
Synopsis: Obie, the K-9 deputy who was shot as he charged a man pointing a shotgun at pursuing deputies, is out of the doggie hospital and home with his human. The story of Obie “has had a huge impact on all of us,” said the sheriff’s office. “We remain indebted to him for his selfless act of bravery.”

Rabies victim bitten at school

KSEE / CBS47. Merced County teacher dead from rabies was bit in classroom.
Synopsis: Leah Seneng, 60, was a teacher at Bryant Middle School in Dos Palos when she was bitten by a bat on Oct. 14. She found the bat on the floor of her art classroom when she got to work in the morning and picked it up to carry outside. That’s when it bit her. “She didn’t want her kids to be exposed to it. She protected her kids,” said a friend.  

Welcome to USA, hands up

SF Standard. A UK band landed in the Bay Area on Monday; Tuesday they were robbed at gunpoint.
Synopsis: Sports Team (the chart-topping band, not actual sport-o’s) pulled a rented van into a Starbucks in Vallejo and went inside for some coffee. When they came out, their van was being boosted and the bad guys pulled a gun when confronted. No instruments were stolen, and Tuesday’s show in Sacramento went on as scheduled. It was the gun that shocked the Brits. Even the bad guys don’t use them in merry olde England.

Maybe a new coach will work

ABC30. Fresno State to hire USC linebackers coach Matt Entz as next head coach.
Synopsis: It will be a 5-year deal for the new coach. Entz was most recently a head coach at North Dakota State, where his teams went 60-10 and won two FCS national titles. He replaces Tom Skipper, who took over in July after Jeff Tedford stepped down due to health concerns. Fresno State will join the Pac-12 in 2026.