Changing Spaces
Construction boom
About Town – TUESDAY, 3/10/26
There’s a lot happening. Even though you may not see everything, there are several major construction projects currently planned or underway in Lodi. The first is 12 West Apartments to be built at 2925 Gala Drive, next to Walmart on Kettleman Lane. It will include 210 market-rate units. Pacific Coast Producers is also expanding their corporate offices on Guild Avenue by 30,000 square-feet. Lodi Commons Senior Living complex has just opened up at 115 Louie Avenue and include 110 affordable units for seniors and veterans. There will also be the Sunset Housing development built where the old Sunset Theater once was. It will include 44 market-rate condos for seniors. The Lakehouse development on Turner at Lower Sac (across from the old General Mills) will have 150 market-rate apartments, 92-room boutique hotel, and 18,000 square feet of retail space. Finally, there’s the new Lodi Animal Shelter that could open in May on Auto Center Drive east of Beckman Road.
FEARLESS: There’s a new children’s book out called, “Fearless Marie,” published by Danielle DuBois Swimley. It’s “An inspiring and heartwarming picture book about courage, curiosity, and the magic of trying something new,” the Amazon description reads. The author says, “This story encourages children to step beyond their fears and discover the joy that comes from courage and strength.” Danielle lives in Lodi and is married to newly-retired public works director Charlie Swimley. It’s a true story in a sense. Danielle is a retired professional figure skater, who once took to the ice with the Ice Capades. She drew all of the characters that appear in the book herself, which she insisted had to reflect how skaters actually perform. The book is available on Amazon.
HELP: The governor recently announced new CARE Court accountability measures that he says are an effort to get more mentally ill people off the streets and into treatment, and has pledged awards of $291 million in funding for services and housing. The Care Court program began in 2023 with eight participating counties, with fully implemented programs in all 58 counties by December 2024, says the guv. In San Joaquin County the courts operate under SJ Behavioral Health and work in partnership with the courts, says Supervisor Steve Ding. “Referrals are made by hospitals, law enforcement and the community,” he says. The Lodi Access Center, which should open by early summer, will be an alternate destination for patients, says Ding. The SJ BeWell campus is a $261 million, 18-acre behavioral health facility under construction in French Camp and it will be the main destination for the county’s mentally ill patients. It is due to open in 2027-28. According to a new website that tracks how every California county is implementing the CARE Act (www.accountability.ca.gov/county/all/), San Joaquin County’s unsheltered population has grown by 156% since 2023 and the county has 976 people in “full-service partnerships.” Those partnerships adopt a “whatever it takes” approach and include stable housing, healthcare, help finding a job, and more.
NEW HIRE: The city just hired a new human resources manager, James Peavey, who started yesterday. He fills a position in the city that has been vacant for over a year. He comes to Lodi from Contra Costa County where he served as a departmental human resources officer II. Before that he was HR manager for the city of Concord, and the city of Pleasanton before that. Peavey has 27 years of public sector human resource experience under his belt. The HR job became vacant shortly after former city manager Scott Carney took office in June 2024. It remained filled by an interim until now. The city is still recruiting for a new city manager, who once in place, will look to fill the vacant assistant CM spot, which has also been minus a permanent full-time employee for almost a year-and-a-half. A new public works director and community development director could be named in the next couple of months. New Acting City Manager Aaron Busch recently started at the city, replacing James Lindsay, who filled in shortly after Carney was put on leave almost a year ago.
MUCKRAKER: Lodi Lake has returned to normal water levels after a month-long dry period, which provided the Woodbridge Irrigation District an opportunity to perform routine dam maintenance—a nearly annual occurrence. One persistent issue, however, is the accumulation of silt and muck at the lake’s bottom, which continues to reduce its depth over time. This problem has existed for decades and boaters have complained that weeds growing in the muck tangle up in their outboard props. Christina Jaromay, director of parks, recreation, and cultural services, explains, “Past attempts to dredge the lake were unsuccessful due to the heavy equipment becoming stuck.” She further notes concerns about potential damage to the lake’s internal retaining walls during dredging activities: “Removing material from the lake could compromise the structural integrity of these walls. We need to begin allocating funds for a capital project to rebuild the interior walls and prevent erosion.” Approximately thirty years ago, local trucker Frank Alegre offered to dredge the lake in exchange for keeping the removed soil, but the city declined the offer.
UPDATE: Last week this column mentioned how some water test results showed higher-than-allowed levels of certain “forever chemicals.” The city has responded that the data used in the story was from two years ago and they were collected in an effort to help the EPA establish maximum acceptable contaminant levels going forward. City PIO Nancy Sarieh says the city took immediate steps to curtail the contamination and wants to assure the public that Lodi water is safe to drink. The city currently gets half its water through pumping groundwater, the other half from the Mokelumne River, which is highly filtered and treated at a plant next to Lodi Lake. Water quality has been an issue in California, especially for the state’s water purveyors like Lodi, for decades. In the late ‘80s contaminant DBCP was found in the groundwater here and the state ordered that Lodi filter its drinking water. The city successfully sued pesticide companies to recover the filtration costs. In the mid-90s, the state found high concentrations of cleaning solvent in Lodi’s groundwater and ordered that it be removed. The solvent was found to be trapped in the soil and leaching into the water table. Ten-plus million dollars later the city settled with private insurance companies to recover the costs of soil remediation. Those cleanup efforts continue today.
LAST LAUGH: Someone posted, “Some people wake up feeling like a million bucks. I wake up feeling like ‘insufficient funds.’”
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Steve is a former newspaper publisher and lifelong Lodian whose column appears most Tuesdays and Fridays in the News-Sentinel and at stevemann.substack.com. Write to Steve at aboutlodi@gmail.com.