Page 3 - Sanger Herald 2-1-18 E-edition

SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
Random thoughts I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic, but ...
By Dick Sheppard
Hizzoner Frank Gonzalez did a good job with his first state of the city presentation on Monday.
See the story on the front page.
The red, white and blue
bunting in front of the dais was a nice touch and the cookies after the presentation were delicious.
I agree with the audience member who said, "This is the way to do a state of the city presentation. Tell me what the city did and what it's going to do, give me cookies and get me home at a reasonable hour."
Amen.
•••
I forgot to call and ask how much money
was raised last Saturday during the annual Apache Football fundraising BBQ at the Oasis.
I'll bet a six pack it was a lot.
It seemed like everybody showed up for the event - and everybody had fun.
Football and football fund raisers bring outtheverybestinSangerresidents. That's when, no matter what race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual preference or political per- suasion, we are truly one town, one tribe and one team.
•••
I haven't made up my mind whether the
newest development in the drawn out battle between the Measure S Citizens Oversight Committee and city manager Tim Chapa should cause me to focus on an apparent new silver lining or on the dark cloud that's been around for awhile.
See the story on the front page.
Most of what I write in this column is an echo of what I've heard from readers in the candy aisle at Walmart or the produce section at Gong's. Maybe over a beer at the Oasis or coffee at Starbuck's.
Most of the random thoughts are, frankly, someone else's.
I haven't had time to listen to any comments except the ones I heard at city hall during and after the Measure S meeting on Tuesday.
Some were cautiously optimistic.
But, most were openly suspicious of what seemed to be a peace offering by Chapa.
A late night Tuesday text and an early
morning Wednesday email suggested that Chapa has fulfilled his apparent promise to the Sanger Police Officers Association with a raise for everybody in the bargaining unit, not just the six officers already being paid out of Measure S funds, so maybe it's time, with members of the grand jury scribbling notes in the back of the room, to just walk away.
I'm trying to be one of those who are cautiously optimistic.
Maybe, at least, the recently discovered 2009resolutionNo.4122that attemptsto explain Measure S in easy to understand terms will stop the committee from over thinking and obsessing about how to interpret 2008's ordinance 1094 which defines Measure S in such baffling language that it has puzzled a long succession of oversight committee members. Maybe it will release the current crop from its apparent paralysis of analysis and heal at least one seemingly chronic Measure S problem.
Maybe.
But, I don't see how a formula based on a number from 2007-2008, as good as it may be, is going to solve problems like Chapa failing to let the oversight committee vet proposed public safety spending before sending the bills to the council for approval or Chapa's failure to report the committee's comments to the council about proposed spending the committee did get to vet and didn't approve.
I'm not sure what it would take to make up for the mess the city [Chapa] made of the committee's proposed compliance audit.
I know, for me, it would take more than a last minute "Hail Mary" with a recently discovered 2009 resolution with all the answers about how to properly interpret those frustrating words "supplement" and
"supplant." Maybe it would take a really big box of chocolates on Valentine's Day, a good dinner at the School House Restaurant, a couple of glasses of a good cabernet, a really big, really sincere apology and a really big and really sincere promise that those things will never happen again.
I guess we'll just have to give it time, let it play out, to see which is going to win - the dark cloud or the silver lining.
•••
The school board is still working through
the process of picking a successor to Matt Navo who will retire as superintendent at the end of this school year.
There's been no word about whether two closed door meetings have brought the board any closer to making a decision.
Seems like the longer it takes to decide the more likely the board is going to be forced to pick someone from within the district.
June is not far away and there's not much time left for someone from outside to give notice, come to Sanger and get up to speed on a great district that is dealing with so many growth issues.
•••
Just a few other people's random thoughts.
Comments, complaints and suggestions may be emailed to sangerherald@gmail.com or maybe made by calling 875-2511
Dick Sheppard
In my OPINION
Are High Speed Rail supporters
NATIONAL guest commentary
Sanctuary jurisdictions are on notice
incapable of rational thought?
By Natalia Castro
Attorney General Jeff
Sessions is sending a strong
message to counties and
states that refuse to protect
their citizens from criminal
illegal immigrants. After a
year of continuous battles
against jurisdictions which
are self-proclaimed “sanctu-
ary cities,” Sessions has announced his intent to issue subpoenas to 23 of these jurisdictions as part of a mandatory compliance review.
By nature, sanctuary cities ignore federal immigration law in order to further their own end. In a Justice Department press release this week, Sessions announced that if this practice continued, he would issue subpoenas to 23 jurisdictions which claim sanctuary city status, including the entire states of Califor- nia, Illinois and Oregon.
Sessions announced due to concern that sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants violate federal statute 8 U.S.C. 1373, which outlines that state and local entities must comply with federal agencies in regard to ascertaining a person’s immigration status.
As Sessions explained, “Protecting criminal aliens from federal immigration authorities defies common sense and un- dermines the rule of law. We have seen too many examples of the threat to public safety represented by jurisdictions that actively thwart the federal government’s immigration enforcement — enough is enough.”
With subpoenas proving the counties and states are withholding information on im- migration status from federal officials, the federal government can finally remove criti- cal funding from these jurisdictions.
This allows Sessions to enforce President Donald Trump’s Executive Order: Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, which states, “the Attorney General and the Secretary, in their discretion and to the extent consistent with law, shall ensure that jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373 (sanctuary juris- dictions) are not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney Gen- eral or the Secretary.”
The Justice Department is acting, and Congress should act on the issue as well. Federal judges in California have been quick to block the implementation of Trump’s executive order. Further action to clarify the
statute could help. Fortunately, the House has already taken the issue seriously, as it was included in H.R. 3354, the omnibus bill deliv- ering government funding for FY2018 which passed the House and awaits Senate review. The bill both included some spending for the border wall and prevents sanctuary cities from receiving federal grants, cementing the end of sanctuary cities into law.
This is necessary now more than ever as our broken immigration system is fueling a dangerous environment for Americans across the country.
The Justice Department released a report in December 2017 which proves 94 percent of confirmed immigrants in federal prisons are in the country illegally. The immigrants com- ing into the U.S. illegally are not law-abiding citizens cementing their place in Ameri-
can society, rather the Justice Department confirms they present real dangers to the American people.
But this is also hard to articulate since sanctuary cities, and a lack of local-federal cooperation play a significant role in blurring our vision of illegal immigrant crime. The Justice Department report explains, “This report does not include data on foreign-born or alien populations in state prisons and local jails because state and local facilities do not routinely provide DHS or DOJ with com- prehensive information about their inmates and detainees. This limitation is noteworthy because state and local facilities account for approximately 90 percent of the total U.S. incarcerated population.”
Luckily, Breitbart News in October 2017 shed light onto how pervasive the issue is, telling the story of Marco Freiire, a 42-year illegal immigrant from Ecuador, who was ar- rested a second time by immigration officials after being released from custody in New York City following charges of assault, crimi- nal possession of a weapon, harassment and menacing and a pending immigration hold. New York City’s sanctuary city policy places all their citizens at risk for the preference of illegal immigrants.
Sanctuary city policies are dangerous, but with an Attorney General ready to subpoena counties and states who refuse to comply with federal law we are all a bit safer. Con- gress still must act to correct this issue, but until then, Sessions is playing a critical role in keeping Americans safe.
Natalia Castro is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.
By Fred Hall
More often than one
might imagine, the thought
has arisen with this writer
of penning a rambling
thesis entitled “Rational
thought—or the lack there-
of—on California political
governance.” Thepredicate ofthoseweplacedincharge FredHall
of our state would be that money must grow on trees because it's so easy to extract taxes fromthepeople. That'sespeciallytruewhen about half of the voters pay no taxes at all, many of them spending a life of leisure on thedole! “Ifitappearstobefreewe'llprob- ably vote for anything or anyone!”
The absence of rational thought is pro- foundly represented by the most recent request from the folks at the High Speed Rail Authority for an additional $2.8 billion to be invested (now, there's a term that's open to interpretation -- squandered is perhaps more apropos) just to shore up financing for the short stretch here in the Valley!
At some point the inevitability of failure mustberecognizedandthelossescut. That's pretty obvious, absent the projected private investment. CapandTradeandfueltaxes for road maintenance and environmental projects were never intended to support this project. We were told that the sale of voter approved bonds, federal money and private equity investment would do the job!
Perhaps this would be a good time to review how exactly we got to this point and what the honest prospects are of finishing anywhere near budget or, for that matter, evenfinishingatall. Perhapsafterthelast local business has been forced to move and the last crosstie laid it will become a monu- ment to poor planning and general govern- mentincompetence. Atouristdestination.
Its proximity to Sacramento would allow people to visit both locations on a single weekend. Imaginethosetoweringmonolithic structures and rusting steel rail to nowhere that the misguided people of the early 2000's allowed their superiors to construct - mini- mally questioned - as a monument to their governor and how awestruck our descen- dants will be when observing such a tribute
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to waste and hubris!
What should be equally disturbing is the
fact politicians have seen fit to expand the state's budget by almost 50 percent in less than a decade. California spending is now
in the rarified air of almost $200 billion when bond spending is added in. Add to that staggering number the fact that senate and assembly seem hell-bent on greater expendi- tures on social welfare, health care and pen- sions for government workers.
Unaccounted for in all that mess is the growing costs of repairing the damage done to the Oroville Dam which is now around $800 million.
The reformation of federal taxes has made it far less palatable in pay extraordinarily high state rates in places like New York, New JerseyandNewYork. Foryearshightax states were somewhat mitigated by being able to deduct those high local rates—not so anymore.
With California government officials fight- ing everything being proposed and done bythisadministration, thinkaboutitfora moment - if someone were fighting every- thing you did would you rush to make sure they have plenty of taxpayer money for an unneeded railroad or more social programs and free health care?
The very actions of our elected officials too often rise to the level of being so dumb they need to be removed from office.
We, here in the Central Valley, have so little political clout that our “friends” from along the coast and residing in the large cit- ies would simply elect more just like these who are equally clueless.
Money in California does not come from a bottomless well. There can be little doubt a day of reckoning will soon arrive. Will the last one out please turn off the exorbitantly expensive lights from all our alternative, renewable energy sources?
But, as always, that's only one man's opin- ion.
In addition to the Sanger Herald, Publisher Fred Hall oversees three other Mid Valley Publishing newspapers - Reedley Exponent, Dinuba Sentinel and Parlier Post. He can be contacted by phone at (559) 638-2244 or by email at fred@midvalleypublishing.com.
An award winning 2018 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
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Natalia Castro
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