Page 3 - Sanger Herald 6-27-19 E-edition

Random thoughts 'Change is the only constant in life ...' - Heraclitus
I hadn't thought much about that until last week. Did you notice in the police logs on page 2A that Sanger police dealt with six mental health and seven drug related incidents in just one week. One of those incidents involved Valle and a homeless, probably drug addicted woman in Sanger Park.
Valle was doing a routine check of the park when he noticed a woman with, as
he described it, "a hole in her leg." She refused help and didn't want him to call
for emergency medical services. But when he looked more closely and saw maggots infesting the wound he knew he had to act to protect the woman from herself.
"That condition should have been very painful for the woman. However, due to drug use or her mental health status she showed no indications of being in pain or discomfort," said police chief Silver Rodriguez.
Valle got medical help for the woman and Rodriguez says he hopes with the assistance ofmentalhelpcliniciansshewill alsoget the help she needs for her mental health wellness.
I remember when "Andy" was Sanger's only visible homeless person. Then along came the economic crisis of 2008 and the arrival of several homeless families in Sanger Park and nearby orchards. They were in general decent people living from paycheck to paycheck who had gotten in way over their heads with those notorious 'subprime' mortgages. I still keep in touch with a few who managed to get back on their feet.
Within the past year I did a story on
the new wave of homeless in Sanger Park. They are very different than the ones who arrived as a result of the economic crisis. Homelessness, maybe as a result of drug addiction, is a lifestyle with the ones I met.
Maybe the experts are right for a change. •••
Since I got a "Fitbit" about a month ago I go for a morning and afternoon walk around downtown every business day.
A Fitbit, by the way, is a little electronic device worn on the wrist like a watch. It tracks, among other things, number of steps, distance traveled and calories burned. It nags me to take at least 10,000 steps every day. That's probably better for my physical than my mental wellbeing because most of my walks around the old downtown core are just flat out depressing.
The city keeps telling us how business and development friendly it is. That's not
the message screamed by downtown's broken and uneven sidewalks, vacant and deteriorating buildings, empty lots strewn with rubbish, dirty alleys that are no more than block long ruts with fading memories of
There have been many changes in the Herald, Sanger and the region since this photo was tak- en in 1929. That's when the Herald moved to 1424 7th St. with a clean alley beside the building andsidewalksinsteadofcrackedand brokenconcreteinfrontofthebuilding.
SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2019 EDITORIAL & OPINION
By Dick Sheppard
Waytogo police officer Juan Valle!
You've probably heard or read recent comments by experts who study such things that the current homeless problem is really a drug addiction problem.
Dick Sheppard
ancient paving that once covered them and the smelly panhandlers and dumpster divers.
If it's true what they say about a downtown core being the heart of a city, our city is dying of a broken heart. Let's hope the new downtown revitalization committee will be able to make much needed changes.
•••
Speaking of changes - Sanger was a
bustling sawmill and shipping - Wild West kind of town - with a population of 800 when it got its first newspaper, the Sanger Herald.
Newsboys hawked the first edition of the Herald on Sanger’s sawdust covered streets on May 11, 1889 after picking up copies of the paper from the Herald’s office on the south side of Seventh Street between N and O streets. That was 22 years before Sanger was incorporated as a city in 1911.
That first edition had very little resemblance to today’s Herald. Display ads dominated the front page and there was a complete absence of local news on the page. Ads have since moved to the inside pages and local news now dominates the front page.
We use computers these days to put the newspaper together. We don’t set the type by hand and use an ink roller on the face of the paper forms the way it was done back in 1889.
Technology is not the only thing that has changed.
Our readers and the area served by Mid ValleyPublishingwhichownstheHerald,the Reedley Exponent and the Dinuba Sentinel have changed.
Recognizing and responding to those changes is the only way we can continue to meet readers’ expectations.
It’s only a few minute drive these days between any of the three cities where Mid Valley Publishing has a newspaper. A Sanger resident, Drew Esquer, is the postmaster in Dinuba and a former Sanger development director, Luis Patlan, is the city manager.
Quite a few Reedley residents work in Sanger and the other way around. One of my favorite restaurants, the Mainstreet Café,
is in Reedley and I'm frequently in Dinuba, sometimes to have lunch at the Safari restaurant with a few of my classmates from Dinuba High School.
All three newspapers are printed in Sanger and we have copies of the Herald, the Exponent and the Sentinel on our front counter.
The point is, Sanger, Reedley and Dinuba and the smaller towns in between have become one region, one “metro” area with a lot of interaction and many shared interests and family ties.
Many in our shared metro area, our region, because of the growth of social media and news websites, are no longer willing
to wait for our newspapers to come out weekly; they want their news, at least in an abbreviated form, in real time.
Starting in July, embracing and responding to those changes, the Herald, Exponent and Sentinel will be consolidated into one publication, the MidValley Times, with complete coverage of our “metro area” in one newspaper. Our new, upgraded, more interactive and intuitive website will allow
us to report regional news as it happens and then provide more details in the next edition of the MidValley Times.
We’ll still have offices and the same personnel in each city, the paper will still be delivered every Thursday ... and I’ll still be keeping an eye on city hall and wondering about the municipal idiosyncrasies that keep attracting the attention of the county grand jury.
•••
Look for this column next week in the new
Please direct your questions or comments to sangerherald@gmail.com.
In my OPINION
Begin political change at the local level
By Fred Hall
highest in the nation because of artificial factors such as legislators mandating that a certain—ever growing—percentage of power come from renewable resources. Renewable resources are always more expensive than traditional methods of generating power. Blame the cost on P.G.&E. If you will because they are not very sympathetic people, but the real source of exorbitant power is deeply rooted in Sacramento at the capitol and all the lobbyists!
It's reached the point where every hare-brained scheme there is for generat- ing power now has a lobbyist and, through spreading money around the capitol, manage to get themselves adding to legislation man- dating their use by the power company. That includes everything from solar to steam and every one of them is more expensive than coal-fired or natural gas.
Yes, we have a lot of things in this beau- tifulstateinwhichwecantakepridebut
the living standard of far too many of our population sure as hell isn't one of them. The middle class family in California is being decimated by cost of living increases with which leadership deals so cavalierly. Perhaps a good slogan would be “Make California AffordableAgain.” DonaldTrumpdeclared thathewouldworktomakeAmericagreat againandhasworkedeverydaysincehis inaugurationtomakeitso. Butthen,on second thought, Gavin Newsom is no Donald Trump, so we need to prepare ourselves for the whims of a rich, San Francisco liberal who lives in a fantasy world which is far, far away from reality here in the Valley.
Given the weight of the current problem onthestatewidelevelandtheabsenceof character quality in those we have elected,
it appears that the best place to begin is atthelocallevel. There—atleastatthis time—remains something of a conserva-
tive political base here in the Valley. Ask
the hard questions of those who seek public office. Do everything possible to elect people who do not answer to special interest groups and lobbyists. Make no mistake about it, we understand that money is the “mothers milk” of politics and the unions and special interest groups have tons of cash to spend on their personally selected candidate.
We may be naive, but we believe that com- mon sense is the best defense against some big donor with their thumb on the scale.
That means clear thinking, informed voters should always be the winner.
But, as always, that's only one man's opin- ion.
In addition to the Sanger Herald, Publisher Fred Hall oversees two other Mid Valley Publishing newspapers - Reedley Exponent, and Dinuba Sentinel. He can be contacted by phone at (559) 638-2244 or by email at fred@ midvalleypublishing.com.
What's not to like about livinginCalifornia? Even
with the current summer
heat, we have the great-
est climate in the world;
we have the most beauti-
ful mountains; we have
the greatest beaches; we
have the richest farmland
to be found anywhere; we have magnificent deserts and yet we have the highest poverty rate in The United States and the highest number of welfare recipients in the entire nation. Obviously, we have a major problem somewhere! Couldithaveanythingtodo with having the worst possible political lead- ership? Youthink!
Facts can be stubborn things with which politicians and public officials must deal with onaregularbasis. Caseinpoint; Sinceabout 2010, California has been losing a net 140,000 citizens each and every year. The Democrat administration in Sacramento and their sycophants in the media would tell you that the state is giving itself an enema—ridding itself of waste—to make room for the “best andbrightest”astheymigratetothe“golden state”withthepeoplewhoareleaving. No onereallybelievesthat! Ifwhatwe'reget- tingarethebestandbrightest,allIcansayis God help us.
The spin placed on the rationale for the exodusispatentlyuntrue. Ifonewilltake
a moment to survey your surroundings, it doesn't take long for your “lying” eyes and intuitive brain to detect a far different situ- ation. Theterm“enema”wasnotthrownin as a pejorative element—It's actually the way the political elite have described those who areleaving! Thosebeingforcedtoleaveare all essentially working people who can no lon- ger afford to live here and pay the ”entitle- ments” for those who choose not to support themselves or, even worse, are illegal and shouldn't even be here.
Remember, regardless of what the media mighttellyouaboutthevalueof thisunder- the-radar illegal population paying taxes, their negative impact on the economy of Californiaisroughly$26billion. Theircost of support exceeds their contribution by that amount. Apparentlypoliticiansseethemas potential voters and with our current system of licensing through the D.M.V. With all the potential voter fraud, it is entirely feasible— even probably—that many of these people windupvoting. Allowingtheharvestingof absentee ballots makes it a virtual certainty.
Eight million Californians live below the poverty line and about 13 million find them- selvesonwelfarerollsofsomesort. Adding to the misery factor for many of these people is the fact that basics—like utilities—are the
Fred Hall
See LETTERS TO THE EDITOR on page 6A
An award winning
SANGER HERALD(USPS 418- 340) is published weekly every Thursday for $25 per year for Fresno County residents and $29.50 per year for residents outside the county and $3150 per year for residents outside the state, non cancelable Periodicals postage paid at Sanger, CA and at additional mailing of ces
Postmaster: Send address changes to the Sanger Herald, 740 N, Sanger, CA 93657
Letters to the editor policy
The Sanger Herald appreciates letters
to the editor and encourages readers to participate in this public forum E-mail to sanger- herald@gmailcom Provide your name and tele- phone number The telephone number will not be published
No handwritten letters, please
Letters under300wordsandlettersfromwrit- ers who have not been recently published will be given preference
Letters may be edited for length, grammar and clarity
Letters that are libelous will not be printed
Established 1889 • Published every Thursday 740 N Sanger, CA 93657 • (559) 875-2511
Fred Hall, publisher Dick Sheppard, editor
Lifestyles editor: Mike Nemeth
Sports editor: Mike Nemeth
Front office: Sharon Mendoza, classified ads
Display Advertising: Paulette Garcia
Composition: Susie House
Press Room: Tom Flores, Phillip Marquez, Ricardo Fernan- dez and Geno Bravo
Mail Room: Anthony Dimmick, Sally Ramirez and Lorena Neri
2019 member of the California Newspaper Publishers Association
The Sanger Herald is owned and published by Mid Valley Publishing, Inc, 740 N, Sanger, CA 93657 It is an Adjudicated Legal Newspaper
General Circulation in Fresno County, Order No 85500, Dec 1951 Sanger Herald subscriptions are taken by mail in advance