Dario Lenzi turns 14 on Sept. 15, and will once again celebrate his birthday by selling ice cream in the front yard of his Lodi home. This will be his 9th annual birthday benefit ice cream stand. So far, he has raised $17,000, which he has donated entirely to various charities, according to his mother, Erin Lenzi, principal of Millswood School. Last year, he raised an incredible $6,500 and decided to give the money to the family of 14-year-old Keyiro Fuentes, who died in the horrific fire that leveled the Hawaiian coastal town of Lahaina. Dario and his mother decided it would be special to fly to Lahaina so they could personally deliver the envelope containing the money to Keyiro’s mom and dad. And that’s exactly what they did last November. They met with Andres and Luz Vargas, Keyiro’s adoptive parents, in a touching meeting that Erin said didn’t last very long. Keyiro’s mother sobbed, Erin says, and said the brief meeting was very emotional for everyone. The Aug. 8 fire last summer devastated the coastal town. The Vargases searched for their son for two days. They found his charred remains in their burned-out home, his arm around his beloved dog. The Vargases wrapped their son in a tarp and carried his remains half a mile to the police station. After their trip, Erin said the Vargases’ distress was extreme because the fire burned everything they owned. Dario has not yet decided which charity will receive his donation this year.
WHAT’S WORRYING: Neighbors of Lakewood School at the corner of Turner and Ham are stretched thin by the seemingly endless construction at that site. They’ve lived with dust and tractors for months as workers remodel the student loading zone in front of the school and build a new parking lot behind it. Local resident John Campbell writes, “The neighbors around the school are starting to lose patience.” He says they’ve had to endure two months of dust, noise (often before 7 a.m.) and heavy equipment shaking their homes and causing intense vibrations that have felt like they were in the embassy in Havana. “I sent the city several messages with my concerns throughout the project but never received a response,” he says. Chelsea Vongher, Lodi Unified’s PIO, says the projected completion date is Sept. 3.
REVIEW: A few weeks ago, we wrote briefly about the career of AA Cristofani, who for years was a manager of the Bank of America in downtown Lodi and, in retirement, helped found the Bank of Lodi (now Wells Fargo). At the time, BofA had three branches in Lodi. One of them was on Lodi Avenue, where Taco Bell is today. The manager was Ida Hyske. Hyske, now 97, was named branch manager in October 1974. When she was promoted, she was the branch’s operations manager. Hyske joined the bank in 1957 as a receipt machine operator and rose to teller a year later. Three years later, she moved to the West Lodi Avenue branch as operations manager. The branch closed on May 18, 1984. The decision to close the 15-year-old branch came two months after BofA announced it would close 150 branches in California. Two months later, the building reopened as Central Sierra Bank. Currently, there is only one BofA branch north of Kettleman Lane, which upsets many of the bank’s customers.
TRUE COLORS: The big garbage truck swap is nearly complete. Waste Management is replacing most of the garbage cans with new ones, or at least new lids in colors that comply with the state’s new rule. The city says the project is more than 70% complete, but warns that it could take up to three months to receive your new garbage cans. You can contact the city with any questions or concerns about solid waste and recycling at (209) 269-4918. The garbage truck swap came as the state mandated that garbage cans throughout California be uniformly colored.
When the city renegotiated its concession agreement with WM, it included a price increase, a new minimum trash can size, and a penalty fee for those who overfill their trash can or put unwanted items in the recycling bin. The new contract also extended the agreement for several years, for which the city will receive $1 million. Customers who previously had 20-gallon trash cans had to replace them with larger ones, which is still a sore spot for many.
DRIVE SLOWLY: New speed limits will be in place for some streets in the city. Most of the changes will be in the industrial area east of Highway 99. This includes Thurman, Pixley Parkway, Industrial Way and Auto Center Drive. None of the above streets had speed limits. Who would have thought? Anyway, the new limits will be between 35 and 40 MPH. In addition, the speed on Church Street from Tokay Street to Lodi Avenue will be reduced from 35 MPH to 30 MPH.
CREDIT: Five years ago, a ransomware attack took down several of the city’s key computer systems, including email, the financial system and the police computerized dispatch and reporting system. The outage lasted a month, says Nancy Sarieh, the city’s press secretary. In response, then-state Rep. Jim Cooper (now Sac County sheriff) secured the city a $500,000 grant to purchase an upgraded cybersecurity system. It has protected the city ever since, they say. Now the city has been recognized by State Tech Magazine as an “industry leader.” The security improvements were overseen by Benjamin Buecher, the city’s IT manager, who has since left Lodi to work at the San Joaquin Rail Commission.
FLASHBACK: Last week we mentioned that the second city ordinance of the newly formed city of Lodi imposed a business tax. The third ordinance, passed by the newly appointed Board of Trustees, as the city councilors were called in 1906, sought to limit the number of saloons in the city. On December 22, 1906, it was decided that the number of saloons would be limited to four until the city’s population reached 2,500. After that, one more saloon could be opened for every additional 500 people. Old hands asked if this measure was ever enforced. Ordinance No. 4 required the disposal of “garbage, garbage, refuse and mud” from city streets, which consisted of dirt. The measure also mandated that waste from dishwashing carts could not be allowed to spill.
Steve is a former newspaper publisher and lifelong Lodian whose column appears most Tuesdays and Fridays in the News-Sentinel and on stevemann.substack.com. Write to Steve at [email protected].
