As a Stanislaus County resident living in a rural area where Turlock, Ceres and Keyes compete for my local service and tax dollars, you might say I have no skin in the game for Turlock’s mayoral election. I am a farmer and live where I grow and you can’t grow crops in town. I consider Turlock my home town, I was raised there after all. It is where I do most of my business, have doctors’ appointments, grocery shop, attend to farm business and used to take my kids to school and fundraise for community organizations but I don’t get a vote. And yet I am affected by decisions made at city hall under the leadership of the mayor.

In the week following Easter in 2025, when everyone was away on spring break, I noticed load after load of ground up asphalt being dumped on farm land adjacent to my orchard. The back story on this small parcel of prime farm land was that it had been purchased by a buyer intent on turning it into a trucking operation and they had proceeded to do so without any permits. They were under the impression that no one could stop them because county enforcement was lax. The county was well aware of their illegal and unpermitted activities because so many neighbors had complained. They didn’t farm the ground but left it bare and allowed problematic weeds to grow and go to seed. What they did do was degrade the soil and put the groundwater quality at risk for contamination by burying toxic materials and attempting to make it a parking lot and mechanic shop for big rigs.

So, what did this have to do with Turlock? After watching an endless stream of trucks coming in and out dumping their loads of asphalt right next to my orchard, I decided to follow one on its trip back to wherever it had come from. It led me to a Donnelly Park neighbor with a big Measure L sign getting its roads redone. Did the city of Turlock know its asphalt was getting dumped illegally? So, I went straight to Turlock City Hall and was directed to the engineering department where I spoke with someone who redirected me to an engineer who later called me. He claimed that once the asphalt is ground and taken from the site it becomes the contractor’s responsibility, not the city’s. If it was being dumped illegally in the city limits Turlock would have a problem with it but if it was dumped illegally in the county, it wasn’t their concern, the county would have to deal with it. They washed their hands of it.

So don’t tell me I have no skin in the game, rural residents like me and my neighbors are the collateral damage of the city of Turlock’s lack of due diligence and accountability. That happened under Mayor Amy Bublak’s watch. They were notified and they did nothing. The county and CalEPA eventually got involved and the owners were forced to remove all the asphalt and sold the property to someone who is now farming it but the area where the asphalt had been dumped and spread is permanently damaged and will never be farmed again. Agriculture is the bread and butter of our economy, why wouldn’t you protect it? Think about that when you go to vote for Turlock’s mayor on Nov. 3. That is why I support Jim Reape even if I don’t have a vote.

— Christine Gemperle