Experience is needed for this City Council Chris Vierra must be shaking his head and thinking of asking Ceres residents: “Miss me yet?” If you want a reason why Ceres needs experience on the City Council, look no farther than Javier Lopez’s lack of experience. For decades I marveled at how Ceres city leaders remained free from scandal and controversy as other city councils and members in Hughson, Riverbank and Turlock experienced their own embarrassments. Now it seems like the new Ceres City Council is the laughingstock of the county. Lots of folks are now asking what I asked on Nov. 4: how did this guy – a man of little vision, no experience and no money – get elected over an experienced councilman in an 8,753 to 6,924 vote margin? It wasn’t because he suggested the water needs of Ceres could be met by self-serve water kiosks and not addressing the problem of continued water source (I kid you not). His coziness with the Condits – he appointed an inexperienced Couper Condit as vice mayor over council veteran Linda Ryno – might be your clue as to who had worked behind the scenes to elect Lopez. (“You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”) The other factor is that you had a vocal and young mostly Latino segment of the cancel culture who made a racial issue over the actions of the past council – yep, all members were white – cracking down on unlicensed street vendors who happen to be mostly Latino. They create a simple order of health and safety law issue turn into a race issue and took it out on Durossette.