Local News Section
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UC Davis Students Visit Brennan Park For Field Trip Local landscape architect Monica Perrone, ASLA, brought 18 of her UC Davis landscape architecture students to Brennan Park in Oakdale on Tuesday, March 2 to generate specific designs for the park in coordination with Cheryl Bolin, Director of Parks and Recreation, as part of their quarter final project. 
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Public Invited To General Plan Open House The City of Oakdale will host its second General Plan Update Community Workshop and Housing Roundtable on Thursday, March 18 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Gene Bianchi Community Center, 110 So. Second Ave. in Oakdale. |
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City Shake Up Costs Bolin’s Job The City of Oakdale is in the process of a reorganization plan that will contract out all city building division services to a private provider, transfer a popular after school program to the Oakdale Joint Unified School District and move park maintenance employees from the city’s recreation program to public works, according to city manager Steve Hallam. |
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Pedestrian Struck, Killed On F Street A 48-year-old Oakdale man was struck by a truck while crossing West F Street in the 1100 block on Saturday, March 6 around 8:15 p.m. He suffered major injuries and later died at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto. The man, identified as Michael Harrell, was not in a crosswalk when the accident occurred and preliminary tests revealed a very high BAC (blood alcohol content) ... |
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Numbers Dwindling - Economy Chews On Local Daycare, Preschool Enrollment The struggling economy continues to cause ripples in the water, including that of the kiddie pool as preschools and daycares face dwindling enrollment. |
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Long Time City Employee Thompson Enjoying Retirement Dave Thompson of Oakdale has finally found some time to go fishing. 
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Sierra View’s Willy Wonka, Jr. Tickets On Sale Oompa Loompas, candy creations, and Willy Wonka will take center stage at Sierra View Elementary School in its upcoming student performance of Roald Dahl’s “Willy Wonka, Jr.” The elementary students have been rehearsing almost daily since late January with help from Oakdale High School drama teacher Bryan Mills and some of his drama students.
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FFA Auctions Cakes, Raises Dough In celebration of National FFA Week, the Oakdale High School FFA chapter held its annual dinner and cake auction fundraiser on Feb. 24, bringing out supporters who were there to open their wallets for the sweet stuff.
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Hospital Union Issue Heats Up With an appearance before the state Public Employment Relations Board looming March 9 between the Oak Valley Hospital District and the United Steelworkers Union, a group of Oak Valley Hospital District employees spoke at the Feb. 24 hospital board meeting to dispute accounts provided by other employees and union officials at the January meeting. |
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Cash Slash - Revenue Picture Dire For City At a time when demands for city services are rising, the City of Oakdale’s sales tax revenue continues to plummet, according to City Manager Steve Hallam. |
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Friendships And Finalists - Wallace Earns 2011 Junior Miss Medallion Oakdale High School Junior Emily Wallace has earned the medallion as Oakdale’s Junior Miss 2011.
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Fair Oaks Celebrates Olympic Spirit The Olympic Spirit is alive and well at Fair Oaks Elementary School. Organized and spurred on by self-proclaimed Olympic buff and fifth/sixth grade teacher Michelle Danner, the whole school joined in the activities and learned about the games.
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Young Scientists Prep For Regional Science Olympiad Oakdale student scientists from the junior high and high school are gearing up for the 24th Annual Stanislaus County Science Olympiad on Saturday, March 6. They will be competing amongst more than 550 students representing area junior and senior high schools in the daylong event.
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City Forced To Dip Into Reserve Fund Even though it was a step they didn’t want to take, Oakdale City Council members voted at the Feb. 16 council meeting to dip into the city’s reserve fund to balance its budget heading into the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal year. |
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Joint Staffing - Fire Agencies Fuse The two local fire agencies — Oakdale Rural Fire Protection District and Oakdale City Fire — are blending families as of March 1 in a joint staffing agreement that will run on a trial basis for six months. |
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Pond Mud Permit Modified The second application to spread byproduct mud from Oakdale’s Con Agra plant aerated ponds has been modified. This permit modification included the removal of properties adjacent to Oakdale’s Woodward Reservoir. The JND Thomas Company, Inc. that represents two separate Oakdale farming operations planning to use the byproduct pond mud as soil amendments from the Con Agra ponds filed a withdraw of three parcels ... |
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Sierra View Students Go A Little Batty Birds and bats both fly, but they are very different animals. Second graders at Sierra View Elementary School recently learned about the similarities and differences between these animals during a presentation that dovetailed with a story they’d just read called The Great Ball Game: A Muskogee Story.
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Council Decides Against Erecting River Fence Oakdale City Council members revisited the issue of river access and the nuisance it causes in some neighborhoods at their Feb. 16 council meeting. |
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Area Teen Expands Literary Horizons When 17-year-old Taylor Hobbs left home for Oregon in late October of last year, the task at hand was pretty cut and dry — 50,000 words in 30 days. The task was presented as 1667 words a day, the equivalent of a 175-page novel in a month. As a home schooled student, Taylor’s mother Bridgette Hobbs, shared that as parents, she and her husband ...
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OHS Drama Club Presents The Crucible Under the direction of OHS drama teacher Bryan Mills and student Jacob Korupp, the classic drama, “The Crucible,” will be presented by the Oakdale High School Drama Club on Friday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. and on Sunday, Feb. 28 at 2 p.m. at the OHS theater. Tickets may be purchased at the OHS Main Office or at the door. Cost is $5 for students ...
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Bunny Photo Fundraiser Helps 4-H Club It’s almost springtime and a local 4-H club is offering a good way to commemorate the season by offering to take pictures of kids and bunnies.
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Rural Fire District Laying Off Personnel The Oakdale Rural Protection District is tightening its belt and making changes that, according to rural chief Lee Winton, have been long overdue. |
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City Anticipating More Lost Revenue In a preview of what will be a major issue this spring, the Oakdale City Council was scheduled to discuss a mid-year budget shortfall at its Tuesday, Feb. 16 council meeting. The meeting was postponed from its normal Monday session due to the Presidents’ Day holiday and was after press time for The Leader. |
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Rotary Clubs Recognize Public Service Standouts For the seventh year running, a selection of Oakdale’s finest public service employees received the red carpet treatment Tuesday evening, Feb. 9 at the awards dinner event held at the community center, hosted by the dual Rotary Clubs of Oakdale.
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Community Mourns Loss Of Antinetti Longtime Oakdale educator and administrator Pam Antinetti died Friday, Feb. 5 after a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer. She was 66.
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City Balks At State Landscape Initiative Oakdale City Council members reluctantly voted to tentatively approve a new state mandated water efficient landscape ordinance at the Feb. 1 city council meeting. |
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Carbon Monoxide Leak Forces Evacuattion A crack in a heat exchange unit led to the evacuation of city employees when carbon monoxide was detected in a city building on Monday, Feb. 1. |
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OID Revisits New Office Location The Oakdale Irrigation District has grown out of its office space and the issue has been an ongoing topic of discussion for the past few years. The district office currently leases office space at a neighboring property to accommodate the water department staff members for irrigation and domestic water. The district’s Board of Directors discussed the district office’s need to expand and possibly relocate at the Feb. ... |
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Oakdale Mayor Sees Tough Times Ahead For City Indicating the city will continue to face economic challenges in the coming year, Oakdale Mayor Farrell Jackson hosted his annual State of the City luncheon on Jan. 27 at the Gene Bianchi Community Center.
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School Board Must Cut $1.5M Trustees for the Oakdale Joint Unified School District met Jan. 25 to discuss how to cut $1.5 million from the 2010-2011 budget during a special budget workshop. District staff said that cutting that amount from the budget will leave the district in good shape for cash, even in declining revenues. |
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Drinking Water Risk? New Player Surfaces In Pond Mud Saga A public meeting on Jan. 20 for a new, second permit filed to spread the remainder of Con Agra’s byproduct pond mud onto rural Oakdale properties brought out less than a dozen people, including the presenters, but a new player is now in the mix. The South San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID) owns the Woodward Reservoir on the outskirts of Oakdale, which is bordered ... |
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Hearing Date Scheduled For East F Street Plan Wearing the dual hats of the Oakdale Redevelopment Agency, the Oakdale City Council members approved a resolution at the Jan. 19 council meeting to set a March 15 public hearing on the East F Street redevelopment plan. |
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Promotion Pins: Oakdale Fire Honors Retirees When retiring Oakdale City Fire Captain Gary Cortes made his farewell speech at the special promotional and retirement ceremony at Station II on Tuesday, Jan. 19, a person would have to have been made of stone not to feel something as the famously stoic man admitted with a tearful glitter that he didn’t quite know how to put a cap on 30 years of service.
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Billboard Reminds Public Of Reward In Ross Case On July 4, 2006, around midnight, 28-year-old Joseph ‘Joey’ Ross was stabbed to death while walking home from his business in the City of Oakdale. The Oakdale Police Department has pursued and exhausted all investigative leads and his murder remains unsolved.
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Hershey Injury Ruling Announced Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager announced that a resolution was reached with Hershey Chocolate and Confectionery Corporation “Hershey” arising from a March 24, 2007, incident at their Oakdale factory. The ‘People’ agreed to dismiss the pending criminal case against ‘Hershey’ in which Hershey was charged with violating Labor Code Section 6425(a), in exchange for a civil resolution pursuant to California’s Unfair Competition Law, Business and Professions Code ... |
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Six Troop 42 Scouts Earn Eagle Six young men in Boy Scout Troop 42, sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Oakdale 2nd ward, were honored and awarded the rank of Eagle Scout recently in an Eagle Court of Honor Ceremony.
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OID Scrutinizes Fringe Parcels Oakdale Irrigation District’s Board of Directors and OID General Manager Steve Knell held a lengthy discussion about the district’s need and plans to limit water availability for out-of-district contracts and the use of OID water on lands outside OID boundaries at the Jan. 19 regular meeting. |
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Record Attendance For Chamber Awards It was a night of humble tears, joyous laughter, and appreciative smiles on Friday, Jan. 15 as the 64th annual Oakdale Chamber of Commerce awards dinner boasted record ticket sales and the community braved the chilly weather to celebrate and honor the community’s best.
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City, Residents Discuss Planning About 20 local residents attended an open house Jan. 12 where city officials and consultants provided an update of the 2015 Oakdale general plan.
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Local Blood Drive Aids Two Firefighters Rain, wind and less than desirable road conditions were not enough to keep people away from, of all things, donating blood.
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Service Day: Volunteers Clean Up Community Garden It was cold and wet, windy and dismal but the weather didn’t dissuade a handful of people from participating in the first — and hopefully annual — Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of community service on Monday, Jan. 18 at the Oakdale Community Garden and adjoining hiking trail on the north side of the city.
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Piece Of Cake: 107 Just Another Number For Piccetti Monday, January 4 was not just another Monday at the Gladys Lemmons Senior Center. It was a day, which marked the 107th birthday of Oakdale resident Vera Piccetti.
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Council Delays Action On Benefit District The Oakdale City Council postponed a decision at the Jan. 4 council meeting about how property owners will pay for improvements to West F Street. |
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Planning Commission Approves Senior Housing Project Oakdale Planning Commission members approved the construction of a 119 unit residential senior housing project slated for the area of West F and Oak streets at their Jan. 6 meeting.
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Chamber Names Heath As Lifetime Achiever This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient — MaryAnne Heath — will be recognized with the honor at the upcoming annual awards dinner put on by the Oakdale Chamber of Commerce. The dinner will be Friday, Jan. 15 at the Gene Bianchi Community Center.
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New Sludge Spreading Permit Sought The Stanislaus County Department of Environmental Resources will hold a meeting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 20 at the Gene Bianchi Community Center, 110 So. Second Ave., Oakdale to consider a request to issue a Stanislaus County Food Processing By-product Use permit to JND Thomas Co., Inc. for the land application of food processing by-products. |
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Oakdale Teen Reaching Goals, Dreams He joined the Cub Scouts when he was eight years old and worked his way up through the ranks, earning merit badges and, according to his mom, maturing and learning to stretch and grow beyond his comfort zone.
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City Gearing Up For General Plan The last time Oakdale residents and city officials began to meet to plan the city’s future, the U.S. Census had just released the city’s 1990 population figures. |
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OID Considers Drilling Deep Wells The Oakdale Irrigation District Board of Directors is seriously considering the prospect of drilling several deep wells for a variety of reasons including adding to water reliability, water sales confidence, but especially because there is concern about state legislation on the horizon that may put restrictions and regulations on drilling wells to tap groundwater. |
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Council Snuffs Out Marijuana Dispensaries Members of the Oakdale City Council made it clear that medical marijuana dispensaries are not welcome additions to the city’s business community by taking preliminary steps to enact an ordinance prohibiting them at the Jan. 4 council meeting. |
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