Page 6 - Sanger Herald 12-28-17 E-edition

California TrusFrame operations manager Jimmy Frausto and company CEO Steven Stroder told the city council they were not made aware the company would owe $389,000 in im- pact fees when it bought an extra 10.8 acres in Sanger's indus- trial park. They said that forced them to re-evaluate staying in Sanger.
The Measure S pot boiled over again.
The Measure S Citizens Oversight Committee was not happy with city manager Tim Chapa, and its chairperson Jeanne Ad- ams wasted no time letting him know it.
"I want to draw the committee's attention to the fact that we are being asked to affirm public safety equipment purchases that have already been approved by the city council," said Ad- ams, tapping her pencil emphatically on the agenda for the Feb. 7 meeting.
"Our decisions to affirm or not will have no standing. They will not go to the city council. They will not go anywhere," said a grim faced Adams. She was talking about more than $20,000 for the fire department and more than $500,000 for the police department that Chapa had taken directly to the council for approval without letting the oversight committee first vet the purchases.
Academic Decathletes
The Apaches emerged with 18 medals in individual events at the 2017 Academic Decathlon. High school principal Dan Chacon said the team would be recognized by the school board and would be honored at an extended lunch hour where team members would be presented with Apache gear.
March
School district promotes from within
Veteran Sanger school district educator Leo Castillo was named the new principal of Washington Academic Middle School. He will replace Jamie Nino who will become the dis- trict’s project manager. Juan Gonzalez will replace Castillo as the principal at Lincoln Elementary School. Brad Pawloski, who has been the district director of facilities and construction, will become the chief operating officer (COO), replacing Richard Sepulveda who will retire.
All those changes will take place with the start of the 2017- 2018 school year.
Compliance audit wanted
The Measure S Citizens Oversight Committee wants a com- pliance audit of city expenditures of the measure's public safety tax dollars since 2009. Former committee chairpersons, Mary Burnett and Joe Villalobos agreed the audit is "long overdue." The committee voted unanimously to recommend to the city council that it spend the $35,000 it would take to have an inde- pendent agency conduct the audit.
Fire Chief Greg Tarascou was designated a “Chief Fire Of- ficer” (CFO). The Commission on Professional Credentialing met on Feb. 7 to officially confer the designation on Tarascou who joined a group of only 1,210 CFO’s world-wide.
Council gets more involved in Measure S flap
The city council meeting on March 2 opened with representa- tives of a $20 million business, California TrusFrame, located in Sanger's industrial park, expressing frustration with the city. It closed with several members of the audience and a citizens oversight committee expressing frustration with the city.
In between, council made members of the Sanger Police Offi- cers and the Sanger Firefighters associations happy by approv- ing wage increases for members of both bargaining groups to be paid out of Measure S public safety funds. Council members Humberto Garza, Melissa Hurtado and Daniel Martinez voted in favor of funding the pay raises with Measure S money. Mayor Frank Gonzalez and mayor pro tem Eli Ontiveros were opposed.
The fire department got such a good report card insurance rates could go down. "That's up to the insurance companies of course, but the rates should go lower," said fire chief Greg
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Tarascou. The fire department was reclassified from a previ- ous score of 4 to a better score of 3 after a Public Protection Classification survey was completed by the Insurance Service Office, Tarascou told the Measure S oversight committee.
New controversy for city manager
A conflict of interest question about city manager Tim Cha- pa's role as a wage negotiator for the city was raised back in February. City attorney Hilda Cantu Montoy responded with a 13-page memo on March 7 to Chapa and the council. The memo, obtained by the Herald, does not say Chapa acted inappropri- ately or that he violated any provision of the Political Reform Act or any government code when he negotiated a cost of living adjustment for an executive level employee bargaining group. However, it does suggest he give back money be got because of the negotiations and what is known as the "me too" language in his contract. "Me too" refers to a clause that gives him the same increase in salary other executives get, even if he's the one who was responsible for negotiating the pay raise. The memo also suggests the council attempt to negotiate that clause out of Chapa's contract.
Measure S issues will not go away. That was made clear at the March 16 city council meeting during heated discussions before approval of a compliance audit of the public safety tax spending and a council decision to require proposed Measure S expenditures be reviewed by the oversight committee before going to the council.
Even though complaints about Measure S issues took up most of the time, compliments exchanged by city representatives and John Ypma framed the big news of the evening; Initiative Foods will rebuild in Sanger. Ypma, president of a company that is the third largest producer of baby food in the U.S., was pleased with incentives offered by the city and committed to rebuilding his Initiative Foods plant and hiring employees from Sanger. The plant was destroyed last year by the largest fire in Sanger history.
Sanger dominates at the regional science fair
The 66th annual California State Science Fair will be held in the California Science Center on April 24- 25. There will be 1,000 participants from 400 schools, showing 900 projects and competing for awards totaling $60,000. Thirty-seven students from Sanger won the right to compete at the state level. They make up 65 percent of the total delegation from Fresno County.
Fresno County public health officer Dr. Ken Bird praised Brian Gong and Gong's Market in Sanger for their commit- ment to public health. Bird presented the Pillar of Public Health Award to Gong. Mayor Frank Gonzalez and city manager Tim Chapa were there. So were representatives from a couple of Fresno TV stations and a swarm of county health employees who accompanied Bird. It was a big deal.
April
It was the consensus of the more than 70 volunteers who con- ducted interviews designed to give Sanger high school seniors a sample of a "real world" job interview that all "Sanger High students are just downright impressive." Sanger High's deputy principal Thomas Soto ran the project like a general overseeing a military operation. It was the newest version of a senior exit interview project started many years ago by Sanger Rotary.
The Sanger city council introduced an ordinance banning the commercial sale of marijuana, including medical marijuana, in the city of Sanger. It also decided again that all proposed Measure S public safety expenditures should be vetted by an oversight committee before coming to the city council and it heard an independent auditor say the city's accounting proce- dures could use some improvement.
Sanger Unified's inaugural Robotics Showcase filled both high school gyms with students, teachers, administrators, coaches and proud parents. There were lots of displays tell- ing all about the robots and of course there were the whirring, clicking, clacking mechanical creatures creeping, crawling and
performing to the tune of digital codes written by clever stu- dents.
The chamber of commerce announced names of its 2017: Hall of Fame inductee, Ron Stukey; Citizen of the Year, Jes- sica Guerra; Mother of the Year, Pam Viar; and Mr. and Mrs. Farmer, Mark and Cheri Melkonian. They will be honored at the chamber awards banquet on May 19.
Karma?
Gary Watahira became the new interim administrative ser- vices director for the City of Sanger. Watahira replaces Rudy Hernandez who was hired to replace Debby Sultan after a couple of interim finance directors filled the position. Sultan was part of the administrative team under former city manager Brian Haddix. Present city manager Tim Chapa and the former city council complained many times about the way finances were handled on Sultan's watch. Chapa did not elaborate on the hiring of Watahira or the departure of Hernandez. However, both occurred soon after an independent audit revealed prob- lems with Sanger's present accounting practices.
Science Fair winners
Sanger High student Titus Patton received a first place award and an invitation to the International Science Fair.
Patton was one of 927 California Science Fair participants from 400 schools throughout California who presented 814 proj- ects while competing for awards totaling $60,000.
Lilliana Torres of Sanger Academy Charter School and Jap- noor Kaur of Quail Lake Environmental Charter School re- ceived fourth place awards, said advisor Carl Gong. Isabella Worley of Quail Lake received an honor- able mention and Ma- son Dougherty of Quail Lake received a $200 special award for his project.
Fairmont Elementary, John S. Wash Elementary and Sanger Academy Charter were selected by Educational Results Part- nership and the Campaign for Business and Education Excel- lence as three of 1,866 public schools in California to receive the title of 2016 Honor Roll school.
SUSD honored its Employees of the Year, Teacher Arcelia Monjares, Del Rey; Administrator, Rick Church, principal Kings River/Taft; and Classified, Juliana Ramirez, Lincoln pre school. Monjares and Church are finalists for County Employee of the Year honors.
May
Priorities
More than 30 people attended a community workshop at Sanger Academy Charter School to help the city council decide priorities for Sanger’s budget for the next fiscal year.
It was the second of two planned workshops. Attendance for the second workshop was a great improvement from the first, with almost every seat in the room filled. Fewer than a dozen attended the earlier meeting.
An overarching theme of the community comments was the need for economic stimulation and development.
Accounting errors and an all or nothing approach
The city council found out it was going to cost an extra $20,000 to audit the fiscal year 2015-2016 city budget because of accounting errors that made it impossible to complete the audit without racking up considerable overtime."
When it finished lamenting the audit issue, the council dis- cussed taking a more risky approach to getting county and state money. Sanger has partnered with the Fresno County Commu- nity Development Block Grant Program (CDBG) since 1975 and has received in excess of $10 million in CDBG funds in an annual allocation of approximately $330,000. That partnership may come to an end and the city may follow Parlier's lead and apply to the state for project-specific funding on a competitive basis. That issue will come back to the council at a later meet- ing.
Mia Geil and Laura Franco Perez have been appointed to the city's planning commission. Geil will take the seat previously held by council member Daniel Martinez until the term expires in January 2019 and Perez will fill a vacancy with term expira-
See 2017 YEAR IN REVIEW on page 7A
SANGER HERALD 6A THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2017
2017 YEAR IN REVIEW - January - June
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