Harbaugh, 49ers
part ways officially
Recent events give
‘Selma’ immediacy
SPORTS | Page C1
LIFESTYLES | Page C6
The Modesto Bee
MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2014
modbee.com
CHP struggles to reflect state
HIRING OF RACIAL MINORITIES FAILS
TO MATCH CALIFORNIA’S DIVERSITY
By Jon Ortiz
The Sacramento Bee
Glancing at the 458 candidates who
recently showed up for the California
Highway Patrol’s applicant screening
on a recent blustery morning, one
wouldn’t think the department has a
diversity problem.
The group that had gathered in the
gym at the CHP’s West Sacramento
academy came from the Sacramento
region and mirrored its multi-hued
TODAY’S
SCOOP
ethnic palette. Brown and black. Yellow and white. No color stood out.
Yet if the history holds true, the tiny
fraction of hopefuls who pass that
physical fitness testing, survive a
background check and manage to
graduate from the CHP’s academy a
year or so from now will swear an
oath to take a job that pays $6,225 to
$7,720 per month to start. Most of the
graduates will be white.
While the CHP is trying to make in-
roads, it remains far less diverse than
the state it patrols. Nearly 7 in 10 officers are white, compared to 4 in 10
Californians.
CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow
says the relative lack of diversity complicates policing for the 7,500 cops under his command, particularly in a
grim new era of unrest.
The department came under intense scrutiny last summer for the
beating of an African American woman by one of its white officers. Then
events in Ferguson, Mo., New York
and Ohio jolted communities nationwide and set law enforcement everywhere on edge. The recent ambush
killing of two New York police officers
by a man who reportedly sought revenge for Eric Garner’s death has
ratcheted up tensions even more.
(The shooter, who committed suicide,
was black. The officers he killed were
Asian and Latino.)
A 2012 Rand report noted research
that found “the police may be seen as
more legitimate and may be better
able to partner with community organizations in fighting crime” if a department’s diversity mirrors that of
the residents it serves.
“My goal is to have the Highway Patrol reflect the communities we serve
CHP | Back page, A8
“That river’s my backyard, my playground. It’s the only reason I bought that house.”
EDWARD QUIGLEY, Riverbank resident near the Stanislaus River
LOCAL NEWS
A certain poultry producer based in Livingston will
get national
TV exposure
Tuesday
night via
the
Foster
Farms Bowl.
The bowl will raise money
for anti-hunger efforts,
including Second Harvest
Food Bank, which serves
Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties. Page B1
LOCAL NEWS
The shooting in May of a
homicide suspect in Turlock involving two Merced
County sheriff’s deputies
remains under investigation, authorities confirmed
this week. Brian Scott
Hiatt was the prime suspect in the murders several hours earlier of Rhonda
Hiatt of Mariposa and her
sister, Lisa Robbins, of
Hilmar. Page B1
WORLD
As the search for a missing AirAsia plane resumed this morning,
Indonesian authorities said
they believe the commercial jet with 162 people on
board already lies at the
bottom of the sea. The
plane, an Airbus A320200, had encountered a
string of intense thunderstorms and heavy clouds
Sunday morning over the
Java Sea. Page B6
OPINIONS
While federal and state
policymakers apparently
have taken a smoke break,
e-cigarette use has
boomed among kids. A
government survey released last week confirmed
the worst fears of public
health officials. In the
absence of meaningful
regulation, vaping, as it is
known, has seeped into
the mainstream,
surpassing regular cigarette smoking among
adolescents.
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The Modesto Bee, © 2014
Joan Barnett Lee [email protected]
Edward Quigley and his daughter Arielle walk their dogs along the Stanislaus River in Riverbank on Tuesday. The Quigleys and
many of their neighbors are upset at the number of people that park on their streets to use the river in the summer.
River users trash subdivision
AVOIDING PARK FEE,
THEY LEAVE CARS,
GARBAGE ON STREETS
By Garth Stapley
[email protected]
RIVERBANK – Charging $5 a carload to enter Jacob Myers Park in the
summer may be paying off for City
Hall. But people in a nearby neighborhood say they’re paying a steep nonmonetary price.
Since the entry fee was imposed
three years ago at the popular park on
the Stanislaus River, people apparently have looked about for options. Now
vehicles belonging to rafters, fishermen and picnickers routinely line the
streets of the River Cove neighborhood on the river’s opposite shore, at
least in the summertime.
If all they did was park and enjoy
Riverbank’s river bank, neighbors
wouldn’t mind.
But the sudden increase in traffic
has overwhelmed city-placed trash
cans, say neighbors weary of garbage
ruining nature, their streets and their
yards. Some have a harder time finding street parking. Others have had
items disappear from their porches,
or come home to people using their
hoses to spray sandals and ice chests.
“I’ve seen people open their car
Trash litters the bank of the Stanislaus
River near River Cove Drive in Riverbank on Tuesday morning.
doors and push all their crap out (in
the street),” said Edward Quigley.
“Beer bottles, wrappers, dirty diapers.”
Graffiti mars the trash cans, a city
recreation sign, a vandalized nesting
box for owls and trunks of riverfront
trees. Broken glass makes going barefoot an unwise proposition.
“The area has changed so much,”
said Quigley, who fell head-over-heels
for the riverfront neighborhood 15
years ago.
Although the word “river” is in the
city’s very name, people here don’t enjoy exceptional access to it. They must
cross it, and a county line, for the most
likely entrance at Jacob Myers Park.
From its inception in the early
1990s, River Cove was meant to
change that in a small way. The Stanislaus since has been open to anyone
willing to climb a small berm after
parking in the 256-lot subdivision,
which was carved from a former walnut orchard and now is home to more
than 700 people.
When Quigley arrived a few years
later, he felt he’d stumbled on the
best-kept riparian secret in California.
He figures he puts in 20 or 30 days a
year on the water, in kayaks, rafts or
canoes, whether sun, rain or full
moon.
“That river’s my backyard, my playground,” he said. “It’s the only reason I
bought that house.”
Things changed when the city
started charging entry fees at Jacob
Myers, everyone seems to agree.
When the weather heats up, River
Cove streets are lined with dozens of
cars belonging to people from elsewhere.
“People are adaptive. They figure
things out,” said Riverbank police
Chief Erin Kiely. “They find a way
around (paying $5), and part of that is
to bounce over to River Cove.”
Aside from the fee, some might not
appreciate the park’s ban on alcohol,
which actually affects all public space
throughout the city. The rules don’t
apply to private property.
Just who owns the bank along River Cove could not easily be determined with City Hall dark for the holiPARK | Back page, A8
$1
Brown
excuses
local
man
MODESTAN
DRANK STOLEN
WINE AS A TEEN
By J.N. Sbranti
[email protected]
In pardoning a group of
convicted felons last week,
Gov. Jerry Brown went out of
his way to explain how one of
the burglars had taken “expensive wine out of a wine
cellar and drank it.”
It was an amusing detail
offered to justify granting
clemency for that crime.
But Modesto’s Michael J.
Moradian Jr. acknowledges
that what he did back in 1986
was no laughing matter.
“Nobody knows this about
me,” said Moradian, a community advocate whom the
City Council
honored earlier this month
for “his service, leadership
and dedica- Michael J.
tion” to Mo- Moradian Jr.
was in high
desto.
school when
Moradian,
46, said he he stole his
hadn’t even neighbor’s
told his two wine.
children about
his criminal record, but the
news spread quickly following the governor’s announcement.
“I was a senior in high
school when it happened,”
Moradian recalled. He was attending Modesto’s Davis
High School and hanging
with the wrong kind of
crowd. “I made poor choices
at the time.”
“My neighbor had a wine
cellar, and I decided to help
myself. I helped myself more
than once,” Moradian admitted. “That was expensive
wine I drank.”
Several other teens were
involved in stealing and
drinking that booze, but Moradian was the only “adult,”
having just turned 18. Once
prosecutors calculated the
missing wine was worth
more than $10,000, they
charged Moradian with felony theft.
He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail.
“It opened my eyes and
totally changed my life. I was
on the road to destruction in
high school, but it woke me
up,” Moradian assured. After
being forced to live among inmates at Stanislaus County’s
honor farm, he realized:
“This was not the lifestyle I
wanted.”
Moradian qualified for the
jail’s work release program.
He got a job with EarthCalc,
which calculates how much
dirt must be moved to
complete various projects.
But while he spent his days
working, he had to spend
PARDON | Back page, A8
Overhauling college science classes
By Richard Pérez-Peña
The New York Times
DAVIS – Hundreds of students fill the seats, but the lecture hall stays quiet enough
for everyone to hear each
cough and crumpling piece of
paper. The instructor speaks
from a podium for nearly the
entire 80 minutes. Most students take notes. Some scan
the Internet. A few doze.
In a nearby hall, an instructor, Catherine Uvarov, peppers students with questions
and presses them to explain
and expand on their answers.
Every few minutes, she has
them solve problems in small
groups. Running up and
down the aisles, she sticks a
microphone in front of a startled face, looking for an answer. Students dare not nod
off or show up without doing
the reading.
Both are introductory
chemistry classes at the University of California campus
here in Davis, but they present a sharp contrast – the
traditional and orderly but
dull versus the experimental
and engaging but noisy.
Breaking from practices that
many educators say have
proved ineffectual, Uvarov’s
class is part of an effort at a
small but growing number of
colleges to transform the way
science is taught.
“We have not done a good
job of teaching the intro
courses or gateway courses in
science and math,” said Hunter R. Rawlings III, president
of the Association of American Universities and a former
president of Cornell University and the University of Iowa.
SCIENCE | Back page, A8
Max Whittaker The New York Times
Catherine Uvarov, an instructor at the University of California,
Davis, leads a discussion during her introductory chemistry
class. Multiple studies show engaging but noisy teaching methods like this can improve students’ work in science classes.