News & Events

Teens tackle water storage in all-day coding challenge

Wednesday, April 03, 2019

Four students from West High School took the $4,000 top prize for high school coders at the fourth annual H2O Hackathon. 125 high school and college students gathered at the San Joaquin County Office of Education in Stockton to compete for the Golden Spigot Award. This year’s challenge related to dams and their dual role in water storage and flood protection. Read full article.

Public gets first look at Tracy Hills

Monday, April 01, 2019

Hundreds of people filled the sidewalks and streets of Tracy Hills as they toured model homes during the recent preview of the first homes in the long-awaited master-planned community in south Tracy. One of the builders, Meritage Homes of Scottsdale, Arizona, opened its models for the five-hour preview. Potential buyers peered into closets, examined kitchen countertops and wandered through bedrooms as they took a look at the layouts of furnished and unfurnished model homes. Read full article.

LEPRINO FOODS COMPANY FOUNDATION PRESENTS FRIENDS OF THE PARKS AND COMMUNITY SERVICES FOUNDATION WITH GENEROUS DONATION AT TRACY CITY COUNCIL MEETING

Friday, March 29, 2019

$43,000 donated for purchase of five scoreboards at Legacy Fields Tracy, Calif. – Representatives from Leprino Foods Company Foundation presented the Friends of the Parks and Community Services Foundation with a $43,000 donation at the February 5, 2019 Tracy City Council meeting. Their generous donation will be used towards the purchase and installation of five scoreboards for the Legacy Fields Sports Complex. The Legacy Fields Sports Complex represents years of planning and partnerships with the City of Tracy and local youth sports leagues. At full build-out, Legacy Fields will consist of 166 acres of active sport areas. The first phase consists of...

New city manager focused on finances, economic development

Friday, March 29, 2019

Jenny Haruyama is not new to Tracy, and as the newly hired city manager, she wants to focus on making sure the city is financially ready for the future. The City Council unanimously voted to hire Haruyama during their regular meeting. She is leaving her post as the city manager of Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County and will take over in May. Read full article.

The Rise of Warehousing and E-Commerce in SJC

Friday, March 29, 2019

STOCKTON — The San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG), in partnership with the Center for Business and Policy Research (CBPR), will hold a FREE and informative Speaker Series event on the topic of The Rise of Warehousing and E-Commerce in San Joaquin County on Tuesday, April 9, 2019. San Joaquin County has been a center of Northern California trade since its origins nearly 170 years ago. The past decade has brought dynamic change to the County’s role in Northern California commerce, Stockton-Lodi MSA now has the second highest concentration of transportation and warehousing employment in the United States. CBPR will release the...

TRACY CITY COUNCIL APPOINTS CITY MANAGER

Friday, March 29, 2019

Tracy, Calif. – At the regular meeting of the Tracy City Council on March 19, 2019, Council [unanimously] approved the appointment of Jenny Haruyama as the City Manager. Ms. Haruyama will begin her duties at the City of Tracy on or before May 31, 2019, becoming Tracy’s eleventh City Manager since 1954. “I am truly honored to have been selected as Tracy’s City Manager,” stated Ms. Haruyama, “Having worked and raised my family here, returning to Tracy is like coming home. The people are the heart of this community and I look forward to building upon that foundation to accomplish great...

Valley Link Commuter Rail Survey

Friday, March 29, 2019

Valley Link is looking for your input on transit stations for a new rail corridor, running from the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station to Lathrop and eventually to Stockton, with connections to ACE. The Tri-Valley–San Joaquin Valley Rail Authority, in collaboration with its service area partners, is developing the new rail corridor. The goal of Valley Link is to: Increase mobility options for commuters Make transit connections easier Create new stations and platforms Ensure the new rail line serves all users This is your opportunity to make recommendations about safety, comfort and effective access to the Valley Link stations. Please note that the Valley Link route you see...

State of the City speakers emphasize new job growth

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Four new industries with a total of 1,120 jobs are coming on line in Tracy, showing continued progress in creating new employment centers, Mayor Robert Rickman reported in his State of the City message. The job creation element of Tracy’s economy, which has the lowest unemployment rate in the county at 4.2 percent, was one of the major thrusts of Rickman’s illustrated talk before a packed house at the Grand Theatre. The firms that Rickman pinpointed included Katerra with the potential of 550 jobs, Lindt-Ghirardelli with 350, Zinus Furniture with 120-170, and ThermoFisher Scientific with 100 or more. Read full article.

California accounted for nearly three-quarters of US jobs added in February

Monday, March 25, 2019

KEY POINTS California accounts for nearly three out of every four nonfarm jobs created in the U.S. during February, according to data released Friday. Employers in the state add 14,600 nonfarm payroll jobs last month, the California Employment Development Department reported Friday. Earlier this month, the U.S. government reports nonfarm payrolls in the U.S. rose by just 20,000 jobs. California accounted for nearly three out of every four nonfarm jobs created in the U.S. during February, according to data released. Employers in the state added 14,600 nonfarm payroll jobs, the California Employment Development Department reported. The U.S. government reported nonfarm payrolls in the U.S. rose by...

University announces commencement plans

Monday, March 18, 2019

On May 4, Notre Dame de Namur University will graduate the largest number of Tracy students yet in its Class of 2019. In a news release, NDNU President Judith Maxwell Greig lauded the number of Tracy graduates, including the first local students to receive teaching credentials and the first to earn bachelor’s degrees in human services. “We’re excited that our Tracy programs are continuing to grow and the number of graduates keeps increasing,” Greig wrote. “Our university is proud to contribute to creating a highly educated workforce for the Tracy triangle and the Central Valley.” Read full article.

New debate over Gateway development

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

The 533-acre piece of open land at the 11th Street exit off Interstate 205, rightfully called Gateway, is getting new attention from the City Council. The council members got a report about new plans for the property at their regular meeting. Read full article.

New Amazon tours to debut in Sacramento, Tracy

Friday, March 08, 2019

The new Amazon tours will be open to the public in Sacramento and in Tracy, where visitors can see everything it takes to get their items from the web to the front door. SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Amazon is opening up select facilities that will show every part of the process of how they get items off the web and onto the customer's front porch. Tours for the Sacramento and Tracy Fulfillment Centers opened up in February for the general public. While the tours are new to the region, they aren’t new to Amazon as whole. The company has been offering public tours at...

We Know How to Restore the CA Dream

Monday, March 04, 2019

2019 could be a watershed year in California’s quest to reduce poverty, increase economic security and restore upward mobility. Moreover, the right actions will improve conditions for struggling Californians now and create the infrastructure we need to be resilient to climate change and economic disruptions. CA Fwd, on behalf of the California Economic Summit, defined this moment in testimony to the Assembly Committee on Jobs, Economic Development and the Economy and urged the committee to seize three insights from the Summit: Read full article.

Distinguished thinker speaks at Grand

Friday, March 01, 2019

Restaurant and clothing entrepreneur Dan Costa described how he grew his chain of regional restaurants in the Central Valley to a business that now includes food, apparel and gear companies that sell across the nation as Notre Dame de Namur University launched a new Tracy Distinguished Thinkers Forum at the Grand Theatre Center for the Arts. Costa’s talk, with the theme “Entrepreneurship in the San Joaquin Valley,” described how his chain of Velvet Creamery and Mallard’s restaurants led him to create Innov8 Partners investment company, which has brands for outdoor clothing and gear, equipment for first responders, and prepared meal kits. Read full...

Downtown Lowdown for November

Friday, November 02, 2018

The Tracy City Center Association publishes monthly news about events and businesses in downtown Tracy. Check out the events and updates each month in the pages of the Tracy Press. Every Thursday — Attention, commuters and working families! Select businesses in downtown Tracy are participating in our Late-Night Thursdays, extending their business hours on Thursday nights to 8 p.m. Every Saturday through Nov. 17 — The Farmers Market, voted the No. 1 event in the Best of Tracy 2018, is coming to an end for the summer season. Check out our announcement below regarding a new Winter Farmers Market. Bring your family and friends...

First foundations laid at Tracy Hills

Friday, November 02, 2018

Before the sun rose Wednesday morning, crews were working to pour the first three home foundations at Tracy Hills off Corral Hollow Road. Janco Industries poured 220 cubic yards of concrete for the three foundations that will become model homes for Meritage Homes. Several cement trucks poured concrete into a hopper, and from there it was pumped with a boom across the foundation forms. Click here for the complete article.

Harvest conditions ‘nearly ideal’

Friday, November 02, 2018

As a mechanical harvester lifted cabernet sauvignon grapes from vines at his family’s vineyard southeast of Tracy earlier this week, grower Jeff Brown could see the light at the end of the harvest tunnel. “We should be finished by the end of this week,” he reported. “The long spell of moderate temperatures has made it possible to wind up as best as possible.” Brown is among a number of Tracy-area farmers who have completed, or are in the process of completing, their 2018 harvest in what has become a nearly ideal harvest season for grapes, tomatoes, walnuts and almonds. Click here for the...

Peddling flower power in downtown Tracy

Friday, November 02, 2018

Some unsuspecting people who happened to be in downtown Tracy on Wednesday got bouquets of flowers to mark Petal It Forward Day. Karen Ferrante, owner of The Little Flower Shop, and her store manager, Tamra Bermudez, grabbed armfuls of bright yellow blooms and gave them out to pedestrians and business employees throughout the retail district. Petal It Forward Day was started last year by the Society of American Florists. Tracy was one of about 400 cities in the nation where flower shops participated. “We give two bouquets out,” Ferrante explained. “There’s no catch to it. We just give them to random people. They keep...

Three years after launch, NDNU degree pays off for local mother

Friday, November 02, 2018

When Virginia Meagher applied for the Master of Business Administration degree program at Notre Dame de Namur University, she didn’t even tell her husband. Almost three years later, she has changed professions and is making more money and planning for her family’s future. “I attended college right out of high school, years ago,” the 44-year-old Mountain House mother said in an interview Monday. “I was a great student in high school. I was a terrible student in college.” She had spent her professional life working with nonprofits but felt she needed more. Click here for the complete article.