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Mike Harris Newsletter — October 26, 2026
📞 On Call with Mike Harris | District 3 | October 26, 2026
Good morning, Merced,
Check the calendar on the fridge, because this week everything lands at once. Saturday night the porch lights come on for Halloween. Sunday morning the clocks hand back the hour they borrowed from us in March. And a week from tomorrow, every ballot in this city comes due. In between, there is real news: the Bear Creek clearing I have been hounding finally has crews in the channel, the police chief put five years of crime numbers on the public record, and our own community college is quietly chipping away at the ambulance problem I was talking about long before I ever held this seat. Let's take it in order.
🗳️ Eight Days, One Ballot
🔹 The ballot's last safe week on the kitchen counter. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3, a week from tomorrow. You have three good options: mail it so it is postmarked by Nov. 3, drop it in a county drop box by 8 p.m. on Election Day, or vote in person. Locations, hours, and drop box maps are all on the county's election page. And if the Oct. 19 registration deadline got past you, do not give up: same-day conditional registration is still available in person. A week is plenty of time. A week from Wednesday is not.
👉 Visit the county's Nov. 3 election page
🔹 Homework for the top of the ballot. Two pieces of local coverage this week are worth your reading time. The Merced County Times checked in on Brian Pacheco's final push in the Assembly District 27 race, and The Merced FOCUS sat down on camera with Congressman Adam Gray after his opponent, Kevin Lincoln, declined to debate. Neither race is decided on a council dais, but both winners will cast votes that reach every street in Merced. My yes on Measure B has been on the record for a month, and the reading list from my last two letters still stands. Do the homework, then turn it in.
👉 Read the Times piece on the Assembly District 27 race
👉 Watch the FOCUS interview with Rep. Gray
🚨 Public Safety
🔹 Bear Creek clearing is no longer a promise. It is a work site. Two weeks ago I told you the next update I wanted to hand you was a start date. Here it is: The Merced FOCUS reported Thursday that clearing near Crocker Dam began in early October, according to the county's assistant public works director, Lindsey Johnson. The same story lays out the bigger picture: a county task force focused on roads, drains, culverts, and creeks, monthly public updates on storm prep, evacuation alerts pushed to every phone if they are ever needed, and federal forecasters putting the odds of a strong El Niño above 83 percent.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: Our neighborhoods south of Bear Creek do not need a forecaster to explain the stakes. They lived 2023. City, county, and state emergency declarations are now stacked, and the channel work has started where our stretch begins.
→ 💬 My take: Chainsaws beat press releases every time. I will keep watching until the channel is clear from Crocker Dam to Campus Parkway, and the home prep list from earlier this month still applies: gutters, drains, garage floors, alerts.
👉 Read the FOCUS storm prep story
🔹 Five years of crime numbers, out loud and on the record. At last Monday's meeting, Chief Steven Stanfield gave the council a five-year update on the department's crime and operational statistics, reporting declines in auto crashes, thefts, robberies, and assaults, alongside the annual AB 481 equipment report. The council also approved the service pistol standardization and the three-year fire vehicle upfitting agreement from the same docket. The Times published a full recap on Thursday.
→ 💬 My take: City polling says public safety sits at the top of residents' worries, and the honest answer to worry is data, shared in public, in good years and bad. Monday was exactly that, and the trend lines are pointing the right way.
👉 Read the Times recap of the chief's report
🔹 Halloween on a Saturday, then the clocks fall back. Trick-or-treaters own the sidewalks Saturday evening, so drivers, take the side streets slowly at dusk, and parents, a glow stick or flashlight turns a dark costume into a visible one. Then at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, we gain an hour.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: A career in emergency medicine taught me that dusk on Halloween is one of the riskiest hours of the year for kids on foot, and that a dead smoke alarm battery is the cheapest tragedy to prevent. Spend five minutes of your extra hour Sunday testing alarms and swapping batteries.
👉 Get the NFPA smoke alarm tip sheet
💼 Economic Development
🔹 626 W. Main is a step closer to new ownership. Last Monday the council gave staff the green light to negotiate the sale of the city-owned building at 626 W. Main Street to a private buyer.
→ 💬 My take: A city should not be the landlord of empty square footage on its own Main Street. I want that address back on the tax rolls with the lights on and customers walking in, and when a deal comes back to the dais, you will read the terms here.
👉 Explore the city's business and development hub
🔹 A decade of parks, a college-town land plan, and the art report, all in one night. The rest of Monday's District 3 docket moved too. The council adopted the ten-year Parks, Recreation, and Open Space master plan, opened the conversation with the county Office of Education on a joint powers authority to fund infrastructure for the Virginia Smith Trust development, and received the public art report I had been waiting on, covering how the program is funded and how artists are selected for projects like the downtown murals.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: Those three items are the college-town blueprint in miniature: parks worth gathering in, land that can carry growth, and art that makes Main Street worth the trip. None of it is flashy tonight. All of it compounds for a decade.
🩺 Healthcare
🔹 Merced is training its own paramedics, and the system is better for it. The Merced FOCUS published a story Tuesday on Merced College's paramedic program, which has been running students through three semesters of intense classroom and full-scenario field training since January 2023. The same piece notes the city's first responder picture is improving, with a new ambulance provider now serving the county and every fire station in the city staffed for medical response, including advanced life support service the FOCUS calls a first for our county. Program professor Steven Melander put it well: "to bring that level of service to a smaller city like Merced, it's a big deal."
→ 💬 My take: I once ran the ambulance company that served this county, and I have said for years that a city our size should rarely be without three dedicated ambulances. A homegrown pipeline of paramedics who train here, stay here, and are ready from day one is how that gap closes for good. This story made my week.
🔹 Medicare enrollment, week two: you do not have to do this alone. The window to join, switch, or drop a plan runs through Dec. 7, and last week's homework still stands: read the Annual Notice of Change your plan mailed you, and hang up on anyone who calls claiming to be Medicare. This week's addition: HICAP, California's Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program, offers free, unbiased, one-on-one help from trained counselors with no sales pitch attached, at 1-800-434-0222. Nobody should puzzle through plan comparisons alone at the kitchen table when expert help is free.
👉 Find free Medicare counseling through HICAP
📅 Meetings & Community Events
🔹 Commission corner, busy week in the chamber: the Recreation and Parks Commission meets tonight, Monday, Oct. 26, at 5:30 p.m., its first session since the ten-year parks plan was adopted, so it is a timely one to watch. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission meets Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 3 p.m., and the Planning Commission returns Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 6 p.m. All at the Merced Civic Center.
🔹 Distinguished Climate Speakers Series: this afternoon, Monday, Oct. 26, 3 to 5 p.m., Lakireddy Ballroom, UC Merced. Final boarding call for climate scientist Jonathan Foley. A world-class lecture ten minutes from Main Street costs you nothing but the drive.
🔹 Day of Unity: Wednesday, Oct. 28, 5 to 8 p.m., 514 W. Main St. An evening of culture, resilience, and community, right in the heart of our district. Bring the family and show up for your neighbors.
🔹 Merced Certified Farmers' Market: Saturday, Oct. 31, morning, downtown Merced. Every Saturday, rain or shine, and yes, costumes are welcome at the pumpkin table.
🔹 Monster Mash Dash and Zombie Zoom Fun Run: Saturday, Oct. 31, 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Lake Yosemite, 5714 N. Lake Road. A 5K Monster Dash for the grown-ups and a 400-meter Zoom Zoom for the little monsters. Earn the candy first.
🔹 One spooky read for the season: the Times spent Friday's front page asking what lies upstairs in downtown's Stefani Building, paranormal investigators and all. I make no official city finding on ghosts, but it is a fun Halloween read about a building our district knows well.
👉 Read the Times investigation
🔹 City Council: Monday, Nov. 2, 6 p.m., Council Chamber, Merced Civic Center, 678 W. 18th St., second floor. The last meeting before Election Day, with the agenda posting by 5 p.m. this Friday, Oct. 30. Come speak, or watch from the couch.
👉 View agendas, minutes, and video
🔹 Pizza and Pints: Saturday, Nov. 7, Bob Hart Square. Seven local pizzerias, ten breweries, 21 and over. Downtown's best argument that a square beats a parking lot.
👉 See the Pizza and Pints details
🔹 Save the date: the 22nd Annual Veterans Day Parade, Wednesday, Nov. 11, downtown. The street closure for Main Street and Bob Hart Square cleared the council last Monday, so it is officially on the books. Eight years in an Air Force uniform means this one is never optional on my calendar, and I hope it earns a spot on yours.
📢 Stay Connected with Merced
🔹 Get city alerts on your terms. Subscribe Merced lets you pick the topics you want, from emergency notifications to city news, delivered straight to you. With creek crews working ahead of a strong El Niño and an election eight days out, the timing writes its own argument. If you sign up for nothing else, sign up for the emergency alerts.
👉 Sign up for Subscribe Merced
☎️ The Direct Line
This week asks three small things of you: a slow drive and a bright porch light on Saturday, five minutes with your smoke alarms on Sunday, and a ballot out the door before next Tuesday. If any of it has you stuck, or if something on your block needs a councilmember's attention, call me. No front desk, no phone tree, just me.
My number is (209) 385-6203. You can also reply to this email or write me at HarrisM@cityofmerced.gov. And if this letter would save a neighbor a headache this week, send it their way.
Happy Halloween, Merced.
Mike Harris
Councilmember, City of Merced
