The Secrets they’re keeping From You
By Emerson Drake
Stanislaus County, the City of Modesto, the Modesto Irrigation District and the Modesto Bee ALL know what you’re about to learn. A Special Interest Group you know as Mapes Ranch and Lyons Property Investment Group (Bill Lyons) are taking Modesto Basin’s groundwater and selling it for their own personal profit. Not a big deal you say? When it’s to the tune of 10,000 acre feet worth $8.5M maybe it’s worth reading about and the water of course is completely free to them.
The email herein was sent to leaders of all of these groups several days ago. The sad thing is all of these groups had a hand in making it possible. Allegedly led by House Modesto’s and MID’s own Stu Gilman, MID has been led around by the nose with the help of John Mensinger and Paul Campbell.
The first eight pages are the important ones. The rest are the water agreement with Lyons Ranch we’ve talked about here before. Yes Bill Lyons is the only person in the District getting free water from MID
Why is everyone one staying silent? In the City Council alone both Mayor Sue Zwahlen and Councilwoman Rosa Escutia-Braaton have each taken $10,000 from Lyons entities. You didn’t hear them speak about the donations when approving the Stanislaus Groundwater Sustainability Plan. How will we be able to trust the Council to spend funds wisely when they are participating is this special interest theft (if you have a better term I’m all ears) of our water.
There will be more in the future but we needed to get these politicos off the snide.
Eye On Modesto 