Page 4 - Mid Valley Times 7-25-19 E-edition

Thursday, July 25, 2019 | A4 | Mid Valley TiMes Editorial & Opinions
Serving the Readers of the Reedley Exponent, Dimuba Sentinel and Sanger Herald.
A Mid Valley Publishing Newspaper
Founded March 26, 1891, in a two-story building on the corner of 11th and F streets, by A.S. Jones
Fred Hall — Publisher
In my OPINION Time to purge simmering
anger over 2016 election
Random thoughts on Apaches, concession stands, concerned citizens
Rick Curiel — Dinuba Editor Jon Earnest — Reedley Editor Dick Sheppard — Sanger Editor
For almost three years, this coun- try has been roiled with at least three investigations that appear politically motivated. There are Democratic Par- ty claims that Donald Trump stole the election through Russian collusion, and much of the media is synchro- nizing their attacks on a duly-elected president — without a scintilla of proof!
By Dick Sheppard
Nothing brings the Sanger community together more than Apache football.
During football season we forget our differences and become “one town, one tribe and one team” and, YAY, the Apaches will kick off their 2019 football season in just 29 days, on Aug. 23, in Reedley.
The Apaches, with 10 re- turning starters including quarterback and top running back, will host Hanford, Paso Robles, Madera South, Edi- son and San Joaquin Memo- rial. They'll travel to Reedley, Clovis East, Lemoore, Madera and Bullard — and only one of those schools, Reedley, seems to know how many Sanger fans travel with the team and manages to stock enough food so the concession stand isn’t empty by halftime.
I’ve attended so many Reedley Pirate football games over the years I still expect to hear Paul Mitchell doing the public address announc- ing. Paul, like Rick Bubenik, in Sanger, was a part of the game for many, many years. Glad Rick is still the voice of Tom Flores Stadium.
Speaking of Sanger’s great pro football player and coach, Tom Flores, it’s probably go- ing to be even more difficult than usual to get tickets to the Sanger High School Athletic Hall of Fame dinner and en- shrinement ceremony on May 2 of next year. Tom, a regular at the Sanger event, is a favor- ite to be among the next class of inductees of the Pro Foot- ball Hall of Fame. It would be a good idea to make sure
your name is on a waiting list at Sanger High School as soon
as possible.
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I’m a news junkie and in addition to surfing news sites online I’ve been a subscriber for awhile to the e-edition of the Fresno daily left wing ad- vocacy publication. Recently I subscribed to an e-edition of a right wing publication and now I don’t know whether to worry about global warming or global cooling.
•••
City manager Tim Chapa is
a frequent topic of conversa- tions with people who talk to me while I’m shopping, buying my morning coffee and Egg McMuffin or walking to the park with my bossy little girl dog Sadie.
Last week I got a text invit- ing me to attend a meeting of “concerned citizens” to talk about Chapa. I didn’t attend. Even though the meeting was in a church I didn’t feel like it had a prayer of a chance of ac- complishing more than letting a few concerned citizens blow off steam.
It doesn’t really matter what concerned citizens or I think about Chapa. He reports to the city council and it must be happy with him or he wouldn’t keep getting pay raises.
I think maybe one of the things Chapa does best is to deflect attention from his em- ployer, a city council with lots of unfulfilled potential and no united sense of vision or direc- tion for the city.
“Everything will be better when the Academy corridor annexation has been com- pleted” rings as hollow these
days as a previ- ous administra- tion’s mantra, “Things will be better when the Highway 180 construction has been com- pleted.”
Dick Sheppard
Congress is so preoccupied that
a plethora of problems — especially the illegal immi- gration crisis — have been completely ignored and, at last count, 14 House committees have begun their own kangaroo courts. These same people turn a blind eye to evidence wherein it would appear that high rank- ing members of at least two government agencies have been corrupted with being overzealous to impeach this president, the effect of which would be to overturn a legitimate election.
Donald Trump, the choice of the American people for president, has been called misogynistic, xenophobic and racist — completely absent of any real proof. The man has been accused or torture and mistreatment of migrants while simply employing many of the facilities used by our former president.
Exactly how bad is the overkill? At this point, at least 14 House committees have been investigating Donald Trump, his candidacy, his presidency, his busi- nesses and his family since 2018! That's a helluva lot of people and man-hours tied up in redundancy of the Mueller probe which was supposed to answer the ques- tion of what exactly happened. We know that to be true because we were assured, almost on a daily basis, by guys like Adam Schiff who told everyone who would listen that the evidence has there, and clear, for every- one to see! Schiff's goofy sidekick from California, Eric Swalwell, took a small break to run for president — about 15 minutes before it dawned on him that he didn't have a chance in hell. His plan of aking everyone's gun and personal protection was not being accepted well by the voters.
When the report was filed and there was no evi- dence, the Democrats simply moved on to “plan B.” They would continue throwing mud with the fantasy- like hope that perhaps something would stick. Were it not for the president standing strong in the breech while taking a pounding from the press and politicians we would have been left with a bureaucracy that is completely dysfunctional and nothing would get done.
It appears to me that all of this infighting which is being done to the detriment of the country is sim- ply over political power. We now have a political class which seems not to give a damn about their constitu- ents. They propose political solutions to situations that present absolutely no threat. Their proffered cure — such as socialism — has been tried throughout the world and has been an abject failure everywhere.
Presidential candidates have been pulled so far to the left in their need to be competitive that they argue for unconstrained abortion, open borders, guaranteed health care for the entire world if it can reach our bor- ders, migrants having the same rights as American citizens and virtually everything free from cradle to grave.
One of the earliest lessons learned was that angry people make bad decisions.
The time has come to fully purge ourselves — and, especially all the political operatives in this country — of the long-smoldering anger at having lost the general election in 2016. Long past is the time when the Demo- cratic Party should have analyzed that loss and learned its lessons. There were solid reasons the voters turned to someone else. The election wasn't stolen! Deal with that and ask yourselves what the voters want and ex- pect. Stop treating them like unknowing children.
Letters from readers
Fred Hall
In order to move the city in any direction except backward somebody has to do the work of creating a vision and mak- ing plans and policies support- ing that vision. It doesn’t have tobea“Wechoosetogoto the moon” kind of vision. Just a simple “We choose to be a business friendly city” kind of vision would do, with support- ing plans, policies, oversight and accountability.
Creating a vision with plans and policies to make it happen is the city council’s job and it sure as heck doesn’t appear to me to be doing it.
In spite of city hall hype, Sanger is just not a business or development friendly city. There’s no written policy that says that. Neither is there a vi- sion, plan or policy that says it is — and that’s the problem — a void created by the inac- tion of a council that appar- ently hopes good things will magically happen when the Academy corridor annexation is completed.
Maybe it’s time “concerned citizens” focus on a different target and do their talking at the polls.
Dick Sheppard can be con- tacted at sangerherald@gmail. com.
But, as always, that's only one man's opinion.
'Gem' in Sanger
Last September, I tripped over a table in my home, fell and broke my right arm. Af- ter a trip to Clovis Community Hospital's emergency room and seeing an orthopedic surgeon, I was referred to Sanger Physi- cal Therapy for follow-up care.
I have been totally impressed with the staff at this facility. Their helpfulness, courtesy and friendliness were greatly appre-
ciated. Having received care at various physical therapy offic- es, in Fresno and Clovis in the past on several occasions, I was totally impressed with the care and services provided at Sanger Physical Therapy. At all the oth- er places I visited, the physical therapists do an assessment and initial evaluation of your needs and then turn you over to the physical therapy aides. Not in Sanger, the physical therapists actually work with you on each
and every visit!
I would like to thank and
recognize all the staff at this facility: Rose, Lydia, Kassy, Brenda, Dr. Glen Duncan and especially my therapist, Dr. Andrew Lilles, for helping me return my right arm to its pre- fall status. We are all so fortu- nate to have such a wonderful "gem" in Sanger.
Pilar De La Cruz Samoulian, MSN, RN Sanger
Letters Policy
MID VALLEY TIMES invites letters from the public on any topic of local relevance. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity or brevity, and we reserve the right to NOT publish them if they could be deemed libelous or profane. Letters should be 350 words or less, and bear the author's name, address, and phone number. Letters can be mailed, emailed, submitted via our website, or personally delivered to: Editor, Reedley Exponent, 1130 G St, Reedley CA 93654.
QUOTE
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— Norm Papernick
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