Appliance Repair in Turlock, CA

US Department of Labor recovers $82K in back wages, assesses $36K in penalties

TURLOCK, CA – Too often, federal investigators find foreign-born workers brought to the U.S. fail to receive the rights and protections they are legally due. Employers don’t pay them as the law requires, and transport them in unsafe vehicles and house them in overcrowded – and sometimes hazardous – conditions. Employers who exploit these workers gain an unfair advantage over industry competitors and lower standards for domestic workers.

A recent investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor found numerous violations of the H-2A agricultural worker program by Roberto Perez Farms and Perez Bros Farms Inc. in Turlock. Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found the employers:

The division also determined that the employers transported workers in unsafe vehicles with bald tires and inoperable lights, and housed workers in unsafe and overcrowded conditions. Investigators also found Roberto Perez Farms and Perez Bros Farms Inc. failed to disclose all conditions of employment, provide wage statements to workers and pay wages when due, all violations of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act.

The investigation recovered $82,616 in back wages for 92 workers and led the department to assess $36,765 in civil money penalties against the two California agricultural employers for multiple violations of the H-2A guest worker program.

“Agricultural employers violate basic labor laws when they reject domestic workers and instead use, abuse and steal the hard-earned wages and limited funds of guest workers,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Cesar Avila in Sacramento. “These violations are all too common in the agricultural industry. The Wage and Hour Division will continue to use every enforcement tool available to hold accountable those taking advantage vulnerable farmworkers and putting their health at risk.”

In fiscal year 2021, the Wage and Hour Division conducted 1,000 investigations of agricultural employers, recovering more than $8.4 million in back wages for 10,000 and assessing $7 million in penalties.

For more information about the H-2A visa program and other laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division.

The Turlock City Council on Tuesday took a step toward planning long-term strategies to reduce homelessness, including potential contracts for health services.

Voting 5-0, the council approved a homeless committee report with recommendations Councilwomen Rebecka Monez and Pam Franco began working on eight months ago.

Monez, chair of the ad hoc committee, directed City Manager Reagan Wilson to return to the council with proposed spending based on the recommendations. The council could then vote on the expenditures, such as contracts with health care providers.

Recommendations with cost estimates include spending $400,000 for two full-time behavioral health workers assigned to west Turlock. The city could contract the First Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center for Spanish and English mental health services for both people experiencing homelessness and the wider community, the committee wrote. A contract would last a year, said Jeffrey Lewis, president and CEO of Legacy Health Endowment.

“For us to be able to effectively and compassionately help those that are suffering from homelessness, we absolutely have to address the underlying root cause,” Monez said. “We can’t just keep putting a Band-Aid on it and handing out a meal or handing out anything.”

Monez identified mental health illness and substance abuse as common causes of homelessness. In the 2020 Stanislaus County homeless count, 10% of 1,383 people surveyed said substance abuse or illness was why they lost housing.

The committee also recommended Turlock contract the Community Health Centers of America for mobile health services across the city. A $350,000 contract with the organization could additionally help prevent more people from becoming unhoused, the committee wrote.

To measure the results of city homeless efforts moving forward, the council also discussed paying for an evaluation every six months. An independent evaluator can assess the effects and help the city decide whether to continue funding, the committee said.

Legacy Health Endowment could provide the evaluation service, Lewis said. Councilwoman Nicole Larson recommended the city put out a request for proposals to review additional options.

“I have a fiscal responsibility to make sure I come back and explain what works,” Lewis said. “The academics that we work with are the ones who really build the research tool.”

One strategy the committee proposed without a cost estimate was adding signs to the discourage panhandling. At busy intersections and shopping centers, the city could add signs telling residents to donate to local nonprofits instead of directly to people asking for money. Cities that have run anti-panhandling signs programs include Fresno and Newport Beach, The Fresno Bee and Daily Pilot reported.

The city finance department could run a program for Turlock’s nonprofit service providers to receive donations, the committee wrote. Larson suggested staff also look into the costs of installing donation box slots for this purpose.

Despite the city ending its homeless encampment emergency in July, two farmers during Tuesday’s meeting said a camp formed near Taylor Road around November. Some people living in the encampment are trespassing through orchards, leaving garbage on fields and cutting drip lines for water, the farmers said.

“I would hope that the city of Turlock would just hear us out, get us some help and get these people some help so they can better themselves as well,” Amber Young said. “But the RV camping that’s going around — not just in our backyard but in Turlock — it’s horrible.”

Unlike how the city put up a fence around the former encampment on West Main Street near Planet Fitness, Young said farmers cannot keep people off their property the same way.

Monez told the farmers the encampment lies in the California Department of Transportation’s right of way, not the city’s. Caltrans refused to clear it before the annual outdoor county homeless count scheduled Thursday, Feb. 24, Monez added.

The committee has a meeting with Caltrans on Monday, Franco said, and will report back.

Monez asked Wilson to return to the council with homelessness spending proposals to vote on at the next regular meeting on March 8, if possible.

Say goodbye all-you-can-eat buffets and hello to steaks the size of Texas in Turlock.

The city’s old Hometown Buffet, which closed permanently during the pandemic, will find new life as a popular national steakhouse chain plans to open in its place.

Plans filed to the city of Turlock Planning Division show the old 9,000-square-foot building on Countryside Drive that housed the buffet chain will be demolished. Then a new Texas Roadhouse restaurant will be constructed in its place.

The national chain is known for its steaks, Southwest cuisine and free peanuts served in buckets at your table. Despite its name, the chain was founded in Indiana in 1993 and now runs its headquarters from Louisville, Ky. In 2002, the company partnered with country music legend Willie Nelson, who still promotes the brand.

The new Texas Roadhouse will be the second site for the chain in Stanislaus County. In 2013, the company launched a location on Sisk Road in Modesto in the former space of the Hungry Hunter restaurant. The northwest Modesto restaurant has been a popular draw, with lines sometimes out the door. The next closest location is in Tracy.

The new Turlock Texas Roadhouse site will be an 8,300-square-foot structure built in the restaurant’s signature rustic style. The large building will have capacity for some 420 guests. Twenty to 30 employees will be hired to staff the full-service restaurant.

According to planning documents, work on the new structure is set to begin at the end of January, with eyes on completion by June. The new steakhouse, on the west side of Countryside Drive between Fulkerth and Tuolumne roads, will share a retail complex with existing Applebee’s and IHOP restaurants.

Demolition of the old HomeTown Buffet building, which was built in 2000, is slated for mid-January. The Turlock site was the last location in the region for the once powerhouse national buffet chain that at its peak had more than 250 across the country.

But in 2018, the Modesto HomeTown Buffet abruptly closed after nearly 25 years in business. And before that in 2016, the chain’s Merced location was shuttered.

The HomeTown Buffet and its parent companies have filed for bankruptcy a number of times in the past decade. The pandemic and its associated safety shutdowns have hastened its demise.

The Turlock location was closed in 2020, and initially was listed as “Reopening Soon” on the company website. A sign on its doors still reads “temporarily closed.” But this year, the brand’s parent company permanently closed all of its remaining locations as part of ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

For this holiday season, Norman Esakhnai presents a pandemic-themed light show at his Turlock home, set to a promo for the pretend album “Now That’s What I Call a Corona Christmas.” The silly soundtrack teases songs like “Sanitizer is Comin’ to Town” and “Baby It’s COVID Outside.”

Esakhnai began planning the nightly coordinated lights, music and snow display in February and invites the community to stop by 731 E. Tuolumne Road through Jan. 1.

On foot, Esakhnai said, people can listen to the COVID-19 Christmas song snippets through his speakers. People parked in their cars should turn their radios to 87.9 and can also see the lyrics, puns and short animations appear on a display screen.

“There hasn’t been a time where I’ve looked out and there wasn’t a car,” Esakhnai said. “There’s constantly cars parking all the way down the street and everywhere, to (the point) where I had to put cones out so people don’t park right in front of the house because then it blocks everyone else’s view.”

Candy canes, snowflakes and Christmas trees also light up and flash a variety of colors to the music. Thanks to snow machines and three fans, white powder falls around the house, too. Friday night, a number of children frolicked among the flakes.

Other years, Esakhnai drives up to the Sonora area and brings back real snow for snowmen, but this month’s weather has yet to enable the decoration.

Esakhnai works as a handyman and said he found the COVID-19 holiday jokes online. He programmed the altered songs and announcer voice, so it is not him singing.

The family decorates the house every Christmas, but his daughters have become more interested in helping as he makes the display more elaborate each year. Mikayla, 13, and Alexa, 10, also sometimes pass out candy canes, Esakhnai said.

Last year, the family put on a COVID-19-themed holiday display with jumping gingerbread men, Esakhnai said, but completely changed it for 2021.

He turns on the display every night from 5 to 10 p.m. and plans to take it down Jan. 2. The best view is from across the street, to take it all in, he said.

Visitors may have to bide their time if they want to hear the COVID Christmas part of the light show. His playlist includes many other pieces, including “Carol of the Bells,” Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and music from “Star Wars” and “The Polar Express.”

This story was originally published December 12, 2021 11:35 AM.

A divided Turlock City Council on Tuesday directed staff to request a contract proposal for fire administration services from Modesto, despite concerns from unions and residents who gave public comments.

Voting 3-2, officials in the majority said the step allows the city to gather information and compare the cost of paying Modesto to manage the Turlock Fire Department against maintaining an in-house command team.

Mayor Amy Bublak, who voted for the request with Councilwomen Pam Franco and Rebecka Monez, responded to resident concerns that the council wants to sell the Fire Department to Modesto. Resident Milt Trieweiler and former Councilman Gil Esquer were among several who urged the council not to request a Modesto contract proposal.

“The last three years — only three years — I haven’t been supported by them, the Fire (Department),” Bublak said during the meeting. “But I have supported them nonstop. So this whole hatred concept and jumping to conclusions and people wanting to sell out is all wrong.”

In the 2018 mayoral election, the Turlock firefighters union endorsed one of Bublak’s opponents, then-Mayor Gary Soiseth. In a phone interview, union President Chad Hackett declined to comment on Bublak’s statement but said the union does not support contracting for fire services.

While the union understands the council wanting to explore options, Hackett said, it prefers considering joint power agreements, consolidation or regionalization instead of contracting.

“We do not feel that long-term it is a viable and healthy option,” he said Wednesday. “Whereas the other ones provide more stability factors to where local agencies can still have jurisdiction rights and control within their organization.”

The union is open to evaluating other options to cut out redundancies and smartly spend taxpayers’ dollars, Hackett added. Turlock could look into partnering with the Denair and Keyes fire protection districts, whose jurisdictions touch the city’s, he said.

Under a contract for fire administration services, Hackett also said Turlock firefighters would lose opportunities to be promoted to management. The proposal Turlock seeks would outsource the command positions of fire chief, division chief of operation and division chief of training to Modesto, Interim Chief Michael Botto said during the meeting. All other Turlock Fire Department staff would continue as city employees, per the city staff report.

Mark Gomez, president of the Turlock Management Association Public Safety, similarly told officials during the meeting that his union opposes removing the three positions from the city.

Council Members Nicole Larson and Andrew Nosrati voted against the action Tuesday. Larson proposed city staff obtain a contract proposal for fire administration services from Modesto but asked the information be included in the ongoing six-month-long Fire Department study. The council in late October voted to pay the consultant Citygate $80,000 for a comprehensive review of the agency and recommendations for its future.

Her motion failed with only Nosrati supporting it. If the motion had passed, the council would have planned to review the Modesto contract proposal and cost comparisons around May. Per the majority council vote, staff plan to bring the comparisons between a contract and traditional fire department in January.

Larson pushed for waiting until Citygate completes the master plan study and said the council does not need to plan on voting on a Modesto fire contract next month. With Botto and the interim chief division chief of operations scheduled to leave at the end of January, Larson said the council can instead look to hire another retiree to temporarily fill the positions.

Nosrati likewise said he opposed major changes without a permanent city manager. The position has been filled on an interim basis since January, when the council voted 3-2 to put then-City Manager Toby Wells on investigative leave.

On the other hand, Franco said requesting the contract proposal from Modesto allows Citygate to complete the study on the Turlock Fire Department’s future. City staff plan to share the proposal with Citygate for analysis.

“This is very understandably a heated and passionate argument whether we do this or not,” Franco said. “But tonight there’s no contract proposal here. There’s no numbers to compare anything to tonight.”

City staff plan to bring the Modesto fire contract proposal to the Turlock council in January. The next council meeting is scheduled for Jan. 11.