Page 3 - Sanger Herald 2-21-19 E-edition

Random thoughts In order to serve its readers the Herald must be a watch dog, not a lap dog ...
Thank goodness the recent hail storm didn't knock all the blossoms off the trees lining 7th Street. It seems like it would be inappropriate to celebrate the Blossom Trail Festival on March 2 in downtown Sanger without any blossoms.
By the way chamber of commerce boss Tammy Wolfe is still looking for vendors for the event. Give her a call at (559) 875-4575 if you're interested ... or you can email her side- kick at the chamber, Karen Pearson, at karen. sangerchamber@gmail.com.
The chamber's dynamic duo of Tammy and Karen is also hoping for a few more tro- phy sponsors for the annual Blossom Trail Festival car show. Tomorrow is the deadline for getting your name or the name of your business on one of the trophies.
••• Kim Reed,
holding "Rambo" in the photo,
is the Sanger Animal Shelter volunteer coordi- nator.
There are not
enough words of
praise in the big-
gest Thesaurus
to adequately
describe the great job Kim does making shelter dogs as comfortable as possible while attheshelterandgetting themoutofthe unheated and uncooled metal building on the city yard and into forever homes as fast as she can.
You can meet Kim and other volunteers from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Saturday at the shelter. Take North Avenue east across Newmark into the city yard and look for the shelter on your left when you enter the yard.
You can also meet Rambo and the other dogs hoping for a forever home.
It's a special event with activities for children, an opportunity for questions and answers with the staff and volunteers, trainingonhowtocareforyourpetand,of course, an opportunity to adopt your new best friend.
•••
We don’t believe bad things happen in
Sanger because of the Sanger Herald, even though that’s what some people would have you believe. We don’t believe the Herald causes things, good or bad, to happen at city hall or with the police or fire departments because the Herald is not always a cheerlead- er or promoter for any of those government entities.
That’s not our role.
On every page but this one, 3A, we report as objectively as possible on all the good and bad things that go on in town. On this page, clearly labeled "Editorial & Opinion," there are subjective opinions about the good and the bad, even though some folk only seem
to remember the less than positive opinions
In my OPINION
The road to hell is paved with good
intentions - like the Green New Deal
SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2019 EDITORIAL & OPINION
By Dick Sheppard
I encountered someone from out of town while driv- ing to the office on Tuesday morning. I could tell he wasn't from Sanger because he used his turn signal.
•••
Obviously Mother Nature is bipolar and off her meds.
Dick Sheppard
about what are usually unintended bad conse- quences of, we hope, good intentions.
The opinions expressed on this page, by the way, have been echoed by each of the four grand jury reports on the idiosyncrasies of Sanger's municipal governance.
A free and independent press, in order to serve its readers and local taxpayers – that, by the way, is all of us who live in Sanger - must be a watch dog, not a lap dog. We are not by nature or intention an adversarial newspaper. However, we are an inquiring newspaper that is not afraid to sometimes
be adversarial for as long as it takes to get
a problem corrected – or at least, exposed – even though that stance is not always popular at city hall or with the fire or police depart- ments.
A previous mayor who complained that the Herald would not publish biased city hall press releases praising the job he was doing as mayor, proudly announced he had found another newspaper that would print the releases unedited – the high school paper.
A more recent council threatened to replace the Herald at the news desk dur-
ing council meetings with someone who has a Facebook page, posts positive comments about what goes on at city hall and takes pho- tos for the city's website for which, I assume, she is well compensated by the city.
Then the council discovered that a story about that kind of a self serving behavior would probably make the front page in California Newspaper Publishers Association newspapers all over the state.
We believe our readers want us, on their behalf, to pay attention to how their employ- ees are conducting themselves. We regard all those at city hall and the police officers and firefighters as employees of the residents of Sanger because the residents of Sanger pay their salaries. They are, after all, being paid very well to look after our welfare and safety.
In nearly all cases they are great employ- ees.Andinnearlyallcasesthosegreat employees are receiving larger salaries
than the residents of Sanger who are in the private sector in a small town where, accord- ing to the “BestPlaces” website, “The aver- age income of a Sanger resident is $16,620
a year and the average in the United States is$28,555ayear. Themedianhousehold income of a Sanger resident is $42,094 a year and the U.S. average is $53,482 a year.”
The Sanger city manager, Tim Chapa, who is not a resident of Sanger, oversees all the other city employees and pulls down an annual salary of $168,756, according the City ofSangerwebsite. Bytheway,manyofthe higher paid employees, like Chapa, are not residents of Sanger.
Chapa is supposed to be overseen by the city council and according to the “Council Rules of Procedure” on the city website, “Council Members receive a stipend of $300 per month and an auto allowance of $400 per month. Council Members are also eligible
for participation in group insurance benefits including medical, dental, vision, and life insurance.”
That’s a lot of salaries, perks and stipends we, the residents of Sanger, are responsible for paying with our taxes and fees every month.
But it's not as much as it will be if an employee bargaining unit is able to convince the council that Sanger should be paying public safety employees on the same scale as those in much larger communities to prevent
turnover. A small town's general fund rev- enue dictates that small towns are and always will be de facto training locations for larger towns ... unless a small town is willing to inap- propriately take money from other than gen- eral fund sources, cut back on other services and eventually lay off the very employees who lobbied for the higher salaries.
The council which is responsible for hold- ing the city manager accountable and the city manager who is responsible for holding all
the other employees accountable are the ones the Herald tries to hold accountable on behalf of our readers and all the residents of Sanger.
It's our opinion that it's better for the Herald to play that role than for another grand jury to come to town and air the city's dirty laundry for all the state and county to see.
Comments, complaints and suggestions may be emailed to sangerherald@gmail.com or may be made by calling 875-2511
We welcome guest columns at the Herald
Do you have a point of view you would like to share with Sanger Herald readers?
Submit your thoughts in 350-500 words with a contact email address and a photo yourself and, if it doesn't libel anyone
or express a point of view that should
not be explored in a family newspaper we'll probably make you one of our guest columnists
We welcome points of view which are thought provoking, insightful and may be different than ours
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
If we publish your point of view, it doesn't necessarily mean we agree with it We believe we have an obligation to share diverse opinions about controversial local subjects in order to help readers be aware of all sides of an issue
We prefer you email your submission to sangerherald@gmail.com. However, you may also type it, double-spaced, and mail it to us at 740 N , Sanger, CA 93657 Include your phone number in case we have questions The phone number will not be published.
An award winning 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
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 under 300 words and letters from writ- 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
By Fred Hall
the growth of the size of our government fromthatdateforward. Trustme,ithas grown exponentially.
We are currently enjoying the best econo- my in America in years. That doesn't mean one should not be wary of those who advocate every day to roll back everything President Trump has done. Chief among the items on their wish list is the tax cut. Government types want their money back!
Leading bogeymen on the “most wanted” list of today's crop of progressive Democrats aremillionairesandbillionaires. Wehave
to be honest with ourselves and realize that evenifgovernmenttookeverydimethey had it would not improve our personal lives a whit. Tothecontrary,itwouldcostjobsfor working Americans with the reallocation of capital.
Ask Mario Cuomo, the Governor of New York. Theyhavetaxedthewealthytosuch an extreme that they are exiting the state, leaving Mr. Cuomo and his liberal buddies at City Hall with a $3 billion deficit in the state's budget. Wherethehellhascommonsense gone? GavinNewsom,areyoulistening? Anyway, you should think this one over. After government takes all their money it would only leave a small percentage of the taxpayinguniverse topayforyourwasteful budgets. Thosemillionairesandbillionaires have been the cash cows for years and gov- ernmentwillhaveeffectivelyeliminated them. Liberalswillbesatisfiedbutnothing will be gained.
Implementation of the “Green New Deal” hardly deserves mention once the cost analy- sishasbeencompletedonthepricetag. We simply don't have enough money in our gross domestic product to pay for free medical care, free schooling all the way through col- lege,aguaranteedjobandaguaranteedsal- aryifonechoosesnottowork. Allofthatis supposedtobeaccomplishedwithinadecade whileerasingourcarbonfootprint. The elimination of all fossil fuel powered vehicles including cars, trucks, airplanes and ships is allthatwillberequired! Nottoworry,they will be replaced by electrical vehicles, wheth- er you like it or not!
Although we've co-mingled a lot of differ- ent thoughts in today's column, the one thing they share in common is that they are indica- tive of our country's liberal slouch to the
left. Everythingwehavetalkedaboutshows that our liberal political class continues an expedited shift toward the basic elements of socialism. Cooler minds and clearer thoughts are going to have to prevail which can help return this national toward more traditional Americanism.
Contrarytowhatmainstreammediaand the Democrat party will tell you, that state- ment is not racist, xenophobic, sexist or any of the slurs they thrown at us, calling con- servativesvariousformsof“isms” It'sjust plainoldcommonsense,whichiscompletely foreign to their agenda for the country.
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.
There is a quote which
has stuck with me for a
long, long time but it seems
even more apropos as time
passes. The passage is com-
monly attributed to Nikita
Khrushchev in an address
at a meeting with Western
Ambassadors at the Polish
embassy in Moscow on 18 November 1956. Thewordsarechillingand,inlightoftoday's situation in America, seem extremely pre- scient. I'veuseditbefore,buttodayitreally fits the political climate.
“We will take the United States without firingashot...Wewillburyyou! Wecan't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist the elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day tofindthattheyhaveCommunism. Wedo not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within.”
Makingsuchaproclamationeven
more frightening, there are some who say Khruschev made mention of our educational system as part of that re-educating process whichwouldmaketheirformofgovern- mentevenmorepalatableforyoungpeople. They felt they could grow a revolution in this countryfromourveryown. Sincemanyof today'sleadersmatriculatedafter1970and espouse some really strange thoughts, one is left to wonder.
We've all heard the old adage about “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The paving of that road is continuing to
be extended every time a member of our ruling class dreams up a wondrous new “entitlement.” Theveryfirststonewasput inplacealmost90yearsagoduringthegreat depression. Eventheinstigatorofmany earlyprograms,FranklinD.Roosevelt,often said that he feared they could be a narcotic. We believe that time has shown that the Presidentwasfrighteninglycorrect. The real culprit behind much of this appeared when Congress voted the government power to confiscate wealth derived from personal income from all Americans.
One area where the President got it ter- ribly wrong was his authorization for public employeestoorganize. Whenpublicemploy- ee unions go to negotiations over salaries and benefits it's always with people who are using taxpayermoneyandnottheirown. The result of that fiasco is obvious when govern- ment employees pay and benefits far exceed that which is paid to employees in the private sector. Thetailisindeedwaggingthedog! Thanks to the handiwork in negotiations by some bureaucrat the guy or gal who makes less is forced to pay the salary of someone whomakesabout150percentofwhatprivate sectormakes. But,that'sadiscussionfor another day.
The 16th amendment was passed on July 3, 1909 by Congress and ratified on February 3,1913. Priortothat,in1812and1816there were short-lived collections of taxes but theyhadbeentopayforwars. Theactionof Congress in the early 1900's, in our opinion, gave the government access to the fruit of thelaborofeveryoneinAmerica. Ifone ever had any doubt about that, simply chart
Fred Hall