Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto · Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto

Chapter 8: Sometimes You Win

July 19, 2023·49 min·3 clips

Pitzer College students found PFAS chemicals in Adelanto's water at levels 500 to 1,100 times higher than the EPA's lifetime exposure advisory.

The final chapter starts where the story began. David Weinberg puts Adelanto back on the election wheel, this time with Stivana taking on the mayor herself. The water question still hangs there. Reyes says he already knew what the students found before their report tested the city's water for PFAS chemicals. That answer does not sit cleanly. If he knew, Weinberg asks, why did he not go after the federal government before the students presented their report? Reyes does not answer. He also keeps saying the water is totally fine, while Stivana treats the fight as the thing her council work forced into the open. The election math is tiny. In 2018, Adelanto had just under 35,000 residents, and Gabriel Reyes became mayor with 1,539 votes. About four percent. So the race never feels abstract. It is calls, doors, dirt lots, and one candidate trying not to come apart. Ten days out, Weinberg finds her on the north side of town, wearing a Halloween dress at a trunk-or-treat event. Her confidence is there, but it sounds worked for. She says the race will be close, and that her team has done what it can while still having more left. Then she lands the joke that does not quite play like a joke: her goal for the final week is to cry only once a day, then stay in the trenches. Adelanto's problems are big, but the work of trying to change them is local, repetitive, and very human.

As heard by us

An Adelanto election chapter that ties water, trust, and memory into one quiet finish.

Dreamtown closes by making another Adelanto election feel larger than the ballot box. David Weinberg keeps the focus grounded, moving from campaign talk to PFAS questions without losing the human scale.

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Why you'd press play

You want the final stretch of an Adelanto election, with the water fight still underneath it.

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