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Crab to die for – that’s what you got if you were lucky enough to attend the Newman Police Department K-9 Program crab finner Saturday night.
What started out as just an idea by a couple of police department officers only a few short weeks ago turned into one of the best events any Newman organization has hosted. In an effort to raise funds for the new K-9 program, the department tossed around ideas about different dinners, etc. With a little (actually a lot) of help from Newman Mini Mart owner, Manish Thakkar, the idea for a crab dinner started coming together, and they were on their way.
The most notorious crab feed dinners in this area are regularly hosted by Portuguese festa organizations so the officers turned to the famous Newman “Joes” – Silva and Barcellos – for the expertise needed to pull this event off. The “Joe duo” did more than that, they sold tickets, they took care of the kitchen, they directed the meal servers and ran the oral auction at the dinner. Quite the pair!!!
Over 1,500 pounds of the sweetest, mouth-watering crab was prepared and over 400 supporters were in attendance at the dinner. The last crab dinner that I attended, was hosted by Newman FDES about 10 years ago so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
I was very pleasantly surprised at how well put together this event was.
I had the pleasure of sitting with Jason, Michelle and Kyle Jasper and was informed by Kyle that he loves crab and was ready to dig in. Kyle didn’t partake too much in the salad, bread and raviolis as he said he didn’t want to fill up on all of “that stuff,” he was waiting for the real deal. He did indeed – it was great to see a young one enjoy the fruit of the sea. He ate so much crab that he finally gave up and started cracking and shelling crab for his mom. Jason gave the crab extremely high marks and I consider him to be somewhat of an aficionado as his aunt and her family are in the fishing business in Ft. Bragg and know what good crab tastes like. From the quantity of empty shells that the four of us produced, it was pretty clear that we definitely enjoyed the crab. When I actually took the time to look up from my pile of shells, I saw that everyone else in the room was loving the meal as well!
The P.D. had a great turnout for the first year of this event and managed to raise over $15,000 for the K-9 program. It has been quite a few years since the Newman Fire Department has had their dinner-dance and that was the last time that I can remember attending such a great dinner in Newman.
The greatest part of the event was looking around the room and watching the officers, city staff and other volunteers working the event. You can’t buy that kind of PR – the interaction between the community attendees and the officers was priceless and goes a long way in building relationships.
Kudos to the entire Newman PD for their efforts with this event – it was a great one and I hope that it was the “first annual” of many more to come!
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Speaking of kudos to the police department – this time we have to add in Newman City Hall – for hosting such a nice swearing-in ceremony for new Police Chief Adam McGill. The formal event was held at the beautiful West Side Theatre and attended by a room full of law enforcement officials and many others. It was a wonderful way to welcome Adam to our community and give the guests and idea of how special our community is.
We welcome new chief McGill and his family to the West Side.
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McGill joins Newman’s Police Department and Interim Chief Ulibarri bids farewell to a community that he has served for over a year. Not a bad way to spend your retirement years, right?
While we are glad to have a new official chief of police in Newman we are sad to see Ulibarri go and I think that he, too, is sad to be leaving Newman. In his short tenure in Newman, Ulibarri has managed to bring respect, dignity and enthusiasm back to Newman PD and it shows in the quality of officers that we have in our ranks.
We will miss Ulibarri’s contagious and genuine laughter and his enthusiasm for enjoying each day as it comes. He has been a positive influence on Newman PD and has paved the way for his successor.
We wish him many fun-filled retirement days and hope he finds his way back to Newman to visit!!
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Hot off the presses – well hot off the fax machine – the latest twist in the District 5 Stanislaus County Supervisors race – all four members of the Newman City Council have endorsed Supervisor Jim DeMartini for re-election.
Council members Mike Crinklaw, Ted Kelly, Robert Martina and Ed Katen have all signed a letter of endorsement for DeMartini.
Councilman Mike Crinklaw is quoted to say, “Jim DeMartini has been a great leader for the West Side. People know that they can trust him to do the right thing.”
The council members are joined by Newman City Treasurer David Reed and former Councilman Tom Applegate in supporting DeMartini’s campaign.
DeMartini states, “I think this nearly unanimous support from Newman elected officials confirms whay my campaign is all about, that I have a record of standing up for the people of the West Side. Newman is a wonderful community and I will continue to work hard for the people who live there.”
This announcement will probably not be a great ego booster for Fantazia but should come as no surprise since some Newman council members were said to be a little less than pleased at the Fantazia campaign mail piece depicting DeMartini as a pinocchio.....and in all reality have been extremely pleased with the representation that the West Side has received from DeMartini at the county level.
DeMartini has a tremendous work ethic and has shown his face around my neighborhood several times. As a matter of fact he was walking Newman precincts again on Sunday and dropped by my home on Sunday evening.
We got on the conversation of his visiting departments within the county structure and he shared a story about a man who had worked in the parks and recreation department repairing lawn mowers. This gentleman has worked for the county for 29 years and told DeMartini that during his 29 years has never had one visit by a county supervisor. He was quite taken aback that DeMartini actually showed an interest in what he did to keep the county operations going. DeMartini asked the man if there was anything that he needed for the department to help him out – turns out there was. When he first started repairing lawn mowers for the county, he was given a $50 budget to purchase parts and supplies. Over the years his budget has not changed and those lawn mower parts have certainly increased in price. What was once a one-day fix was now taking over three weeks because he had to fill out a requisition form for a vendor purchase, get it approved by his department and then place the order for the parts. All he wanted was a little increase in his purchasing power. The very next day DeMartini had his purchasing power increased and I do believe he made a friend for life. It’s the little things that make a difference and that is what makes a good representative in government – cutting through the red tape to get to the heart of the matter. While this may seem pretty mundane to many, you can sure bet that it had a huge impact to the 29-year county employee.
That kind of interaction with the many department employees of the county is what makes an informed supervisor, a supervisor who knows what he is talking about when trying to find ways to make budget cuts and restructuring of county services.
DeMartini doesn’t just do this because he has free time on his hands – he manages to still run his 1,500-acre farming operation in between all of it – and says that he thoroughly enjoys campaigning. Sounds like a man that we need to represent us in District 5.
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