One more look at 2005

The year 2005 is almost over, and in these waning hours of the old year, we've come up with a list of the TP's Top 10 news stories. What do you think of our choices? Did we miss anything big? Do you have any predictions for 2006 in Tracy?

Here's our Top 10 for 2005, in no particular order.

1. Sheriff in shackles
Former San Joaquin County Sheriff Baxter Dunn pleaded guilty to mail fraud charges and served jail time during the year. The high-profile corruption case forced Dunn and three co-conspirators, including former Supervisor Lynn Bedford, to make plea bargain agreements with prosecutors in January. Monte McFall, a former court marshal, went to trial and was convicted in March, and now he demands a new trial.

2. Downtown digs
Tracy’s downtown facelift was mostly completed in 2005. Central Avenue was torn up in the spring and repaved in time to show off a new streetscape for some of the city’s big events in the fall. Crews from Granite Construction didn’t find any tunnels leading from the buildings that once housed old saloons, but they did find at least one basement entrance that served to keep speculation alive that a secret passage under Central Avenue had existed at one time. The project won’t be complete until the Grand Theater and old City Hall are restored. Work on those projects will continue through 2006.

3. Major medical work
Sutter Tracy Community Hospital opened its new outpatient surgery center and emergency room in December 2004, but the hospital’s $24 million expansion continued through 2005 with a new maternity wing in February and more recently the new parking lot that takes the place of what used to be part of Beverly Place between Tracy Boulevard and Bessie Avenue.

4. West’s speedstersIn June, the girls on West High School’s track team became the first since 1994 to shatter Southern California’s dominance in California state track and fields events. The team ran away with the state title. The team, led by Olympic hopeful Brittany Daniels, beat Long Beach Wilson High, 48-43, for the California Scholastic Federation’s Division I crown.

5. Hate-mongering Kansans
A high school math teacher’s remarks about homosexuality caused a minor controversy at the school, but it was enough to draw the attention of Kansas minister Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church with protests against gay rights groups, other churches and the United States of America. The congregation came to town to protest at local graduation ceremonies and at churches.

6. Water, water In July the South San Joaquin Irrigation District completed a new $126 million water treatment plant and pipeline that will bring water from Woodward Reservoir to Tracy and three other cities. The pipeline took about 16 years to plan and a couple years to build, but it was encouraging for district and city officials, who were pleased to find a way to make inter-agency cooperation the key to a valuable public works project.

7. Tough Little Leaguers
Tracy’s National League All Stars represented their city well in the Little League World Series. Tracy’s top youth baseball players made it to the Western Regional Tournament in San Bernardino in August but lost the title game.

8. Hurricane’s helpersHurricane Katrina may have been a big story for New Orleans and for the nation, but Tracy people got involved, too, and not just in fundraisers for disaster relief. Tracy people went out to the disaster site to help victims, and San Joaquin County also welcomed people who had to move away from their homes.

9. Campus here or thereSan Joaquin Delta College’s plans for a Mountain House campus seemed to hit a snag when it came down to negotiations with one of the new town’s developers. The city of Tracy stepped in and offered the college the city’s community park site on 11th Street at Chrisman Road. That apparently brought everyone back to the negotiating table, and in October, the college and developer were able to confirm plans for the Mountain House campus.

10. Half-million-dollar houses
How could we get to the end of the year without construction of new homes in Tracy as a top story? It turned out that a slow-growth measure from 2000 finally took hold in 2005, and by the end of November, the city had issued permits for only 373 new houses. December’s numbers aren’t in, but we could see the fewest new homes built during the past year since 1996. At the same time, the city also saw unprecedented home prices. The real estate market started to cool off by the end of summer, but median-priced homes reached $540,000 in October, compared with $430,000 for the same month in 2004.