The BOS(ses)
Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors
Stanislaus County
Stanislaus County
City Council
City of Modesto
Paradise South
City of Modesto
Three clips from the article, Poor Neighborhoods Left Behind By Lee Romney, Times Staff Writer
September 18, 2005
The four Modesto-area neighborhoods — home to about 14,000 people — are known by informal names: No Man’s Land, the Garden, Bret Harte, Robertson Road. All lie southwest of Highway 99, a diagonal line that has historically separated Modesto’s disenfranchised from decision-makers.
Meanwhile, in Robertson Road, failing septic tanks and flooding so plagued the area that county and city officials acknowledged “an incredibly serious health threat.” Modesto voters last fall approved a sewer trunk extension to the neighborhood (city law requires an advisory vote), and county officials say work will begin soon. The improvements will bring the number of Latino pockets with city sewer service to three, while no whiter unincorporated pocket has received it, officials say.
One councilman and former Robertson Road resident initially opposed the sewer proposal there, arguing that the county would waste taxpayer money by investing in an area with “substandard housing on a flood plain.” Another councilman provoked controversy when he said that building affordable housing in downtown Modesto would attract too many large Latino families.
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