Page 3 - Sanger Herald 11-15-18 E-edition

SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
Random thoughts It's not over until it's over ... and that might not be until Dec. 6 ...
By Dick Sheppard
No, all the votes have not yet been counted.
The last I heard, California election officials were hoping to have the counting wrapped up before Thanksgiving.
The late counting is not
because of an error. It's just the way it is in California and many other states these days.
More and more people are voting by mail and more and more people are waiting until the last minute to mail in ballots or maybe waiting to turn them in at one of the polling places on election day so they can get one of those little "I voted" stickers. (That's what I always do.)
The late mail in of ballots and the pro- visional ones issued at polling places on election day don't get counted until they're checked by election officials in each county. In very populated counties that takes awhile.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported, "By the time all the state’s precincts had reported on election night, about 7.4 million votes had been counted. But by Friday, there were still more than 4.8 million late-arriving and provi- sional ballots to be tallied.
"Those 12.2 million votes are more than the total population of all but the nation’s six largest states. The 4.8 million ballots left to be counted surpass the number of people who live in Louisiana (population: 4.6 million), the 25th-largest state in the union."
Fresno County's election boss Brandi Orth estimated on Wednesday after the Tuesday election there were still another 100,000 bal- lots countywide to be counted – a combina- tion of about 76,000 late-arriving vote-by-mail ballots as well as about 24,000 provisional bal- lots.
Orth said the next update of the vote count would be after the Herald goes to press for this week. But, you can check on it yourself at fresnovote.com.
She said, "Election officials in California have until Dec. 6 to certify this election. We hope to do it before that date."
When the Herald went to press this week all the local vote leaders still had very solid leads. So, it's not likely the outcome of any
of those races, including the one for the 14th state senate district involving Sanger's appar- ent state senator elect, Melissa Hurtado, will be affected by the remaining uncounted bal- lots.
Hurtado hesitated for awhile to claim vic- tory even though, on Wednesday morning after the election, she had quite a few more votes than the incumbent Andy Vidak. But this Monday she sent what I thought was
a classy email thanking voters. I put it in today's paper as a letter to the editor. She will be honored at this evening's city council meeting.
The council will soon have to get down to the business of deciding whether to call for a special election or to appoint someone from council district No. 1 to fill out the rest of her term, which runs through November of 2020.
•••
Have I mentioned - again - in the past cou-
ple of weeks how much I hate the diagonal parking downtown?
Thank you,
It is clear from the latest results that our campaign will prevail when the final tally of votes is completed.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I am profoundly humbled and honored to have received your support. We accomplished something many thought was impossible, and we did it because of you.
Established 1889 • Published every Thursday 740 N Sanger, CA 93657 • (559) 875-2511
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Dick Sheppard
I drive a compact car and if I have to park next to an SUV, double or crew cab pickup it's impossible, when I'm pulling out, to see what's coming in the lane I'm backing into - until we hit each other.
A couple of solutions come go mind: Make all parking downtown parallel; or, Increase the angle of the diagonal parking slots. Sanger's downtown diagonal park-
ing is darn near at a right angle to the curb. (Exaggerating just a tad to make a point.) In Reedley, where there is a greater angle to the slots, it's easier to see when backing out of the parking space and the SUVs, crew and double cab pickups don't stick out so far into the street.
•••
One of the long vacant lots frequently
used for off street parking for events at the Sanger Womans Club and city hall is in the early stages of not being vacant any longer.
Sam Lucido who built the office complex on the southeast corner of 7th and P streets, a few years back, has begun blocking off, level- ing and grading the lot just down the street
at the corner of 7th Street and West Avenue, west of the Womans Club and across West Avenue from city hall. As part of the project, the lumpy, bumpy alley east of the complex, between 7th Street and Jensen Avenue is going to get a long needed makeover.
Sam says, with the rainy season approach- ing, the office complex probably won't be open for business until spring of next year.
•••
It's up to the city council this evening.
The Measure S Citizens Oversight Committee on Tuesday declined to recom- mend the council approve spending $1.7 mil- lion out of the Measure S fund to buy a ladder truck and a new patient gurney for the fire department.
With one of the five-member oversight committee absent, the vote on the $1.6 million truck and the $31,927 gurney was 2-2, killing motions to approve staff recommendations for the committee to send "go ahead" mes- sages to the council.
The council is not bound by the commit- tee's decision - or lack of it - and if the council approves the expenditure it would not be the first or probably the last time the council dis- agrees with the committee.
Committee members James Miser and Melissa Griggs, who opposed the recommen- dations, agreed the purchases were appropri- ate uses of the Measure S funds. However, they also agreed that spending that much money out of the fund would soon deplete it and require cutbacks in other areas.
See the story on the front page. •••
If Jesse Solorio wasn't nervous about replacing Ken Marcantonio on the school board, he probably had a panic attack after attending the Tuesday evening school board meeting. That's where other board members and administrators took turns heaping praise on Marcantonio for his 16 years service as a board member.
Solorio won the election to replace retir- ing Marcantonio as the representative from trustee district No. 6.
•••
Lots of great holiday events are coming
up in Sanger. But I doubt if any will top the
From the beginning, I made it clear that thisracewasaboutthepeopleoftheValley, their issues and their right to have a chance at achieving the American dream. Our mes- sage prevailed,andourworkisonlyjust beginning.
We won together, and it is my hope that wecontinuetoworktogethertoprovideour communitieswithgoodpayingjobs,access to healthcare, clean air, water infrastructure, and quality education.
I will work towards these goals every sin- gle day in office. This victory is just the first step in ensuring a better life for everyone in the Central Valley.
14th annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball and Veterans Celebration last Saturday at the community center.
The event, put on by the committee of "Those Who Served," is always on Nov. 10, the birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps. This year the corps turned 243 years old.
There is always an honored guest and this year the Marines got a twofer with John "Doc" Bart and his son USMC Maj. Phillip A. Bart.
Both got standing ovations and a ton of "oo- rahs."
Doc and his boy made Doc's hometown of Broken Arrow, OK, downright proud!
•••
Jefferson Elementary School deserves a standing ovation and a ton of "oorahs" for its salute to veterans and Veterans Day.
The Nov. 9 event at the school featured several Sanger military veterans and a fantastic trumpet rendition of the National Anthem and Taps by USMC Sgt. Esteban Aguirre.
("Oorah" by the way is a Marine Corps battle cry which, in peacetime, is sometimes inspired by heated excitement fueled by cold beer.)
•••
Comments, complaints and suggestions may be emailed to sangerherald@gmail.com or may be made by calling 875-2511.
In my OPINION
California: Land of higher gas prices and
candidates with questionable credentials
By Fred Hall
be instrumental in Al Franken's election to the Senate from Minnesota.
Making the “discovery” of those ballots even more extraordinary would be the fact that the initial count in the state might have been 51 percent to 49 percent and the new- est addition breaks 70 percent to 80 percent Democrat. Now,Iknowthatanythingispos- sible but it sure as hell strains credulity that the divergence from the norm is so great.
On another note, an adult, somewhere, is going to have to stand up and apply the law to bring an end to the homegrown terror- ismcurrentlybeingemployedbydisparate groupslikeANTIFAisstopped. Weseefree- dom of the press being defended so fervently while the right of individuals and others to speak their mind is subject to threat of bodily harm. ThankyouMaxineWaters,aproduct of California, and others for advocating the spread of the spore for hatred.
OvertheweekendItooktimetoreadan analysis of the election in another newspaper. Theirconclusionthatthefailureofthecur- rent offering of a water bond went down to defeat because of “bond fatigue” on the part ofvoters. Iseeitabitdifferently. There havebeenwaterbondsontheballotsince 1990andallhavesucceeded. Unfortunately, withoutregardforhowtheywereworded, not a single one seems to have improved thewatersituationhereinTheValley. Bureaucrats and environmentalists seem to take complete control over any additional availability of money and completely over- lookedtheneedsofthefarmingcommunity whichistheveryheartbeatoftheeconomy inourvalley. Thereareonlysomanytimes thatpoliticianscanpullthewooloverthe eyes of voters. The old saw which goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; shame me twice, shame on me” comes to mind.
TrueresentmentarisesoverProposition
6, which we strongly believe was intention- ally incorrectly and misleadingly worded whenitappearedontheballot. Thewording was such that the voter was lead to believe that by voting yes, they were taking away therepairofourroads. Truthis,yourno vote allowed the state to continue with the 12 cents per gallon which they had passed ear- lier. Thereismoneyfortherepairofroads in our previous system, had it been used correctly. Theysimplymuststop“stealing” road repair money is assist in the High Speed Rail project, which is neither viable nor will iteverbefinished.
Money taken from the economy and the individual taxpayer for use by a governing bodyhasaverypoorshelfrecord. They blowthroughitlikea“drunkensailor”and inflict great economic harm on the goose which is busy laying the golden egg.
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.
It is generally a given
that, as members of the
human race, we are pos-
sessed of five senses:
sight, hearing, touch, taste
andsmell. ThomasPaine
asserted that we should
also be possessed with the
additional aspect of com-
mon sense which is defined as good sense and sound judgment in practical matters. Synonymswouldinclude: goodsense,sense, nativewit,sensibleness,judgment,level headedness, prudence, discernment, can- niness, astuteness, shrewdness, wisdom, insight, perception and perspicacity.
Followinghardontheheelsofanelec- tion in which California voters opted to tax themselves even more when it served no real demonstrablepurpose,I havetoquestion just how well common sense is represented inthisstate. Specifically,I'mreferringto Proposition 6 wherein Californians chose to keep the most recent legislatively passed gasolinetaxincreasewhichistargetedto growprecipitously. Addingtoallofthat CapandTradewillreturnin2020tomake thepainevenworse. NumberswhichIhave seen indicate that the eventual cost will be 78 centspergallon. That'sontopofthehighest prices in the nation.
Additionally, we managed to elect several candidates whose credentials and agenda (if any)aretrulyinexplicable. Moneyflowed intothisareafromtheoutside. Thatalone wouldmakethevotersuspiciousofthe motives. Atleastoneseasonedcandidate with a record of achievement was replaced by a novice who, frankly, I believe would have a hard time telling you why they were evenrunning. Toadegree,theCalifornia situation was mimicked in New York where a bartender is being sent to The United States HouseofRepresentativeswithademon- strable lack of knowledge of the job. All
this happened while others were returned toofficewhohaveabsolutelynorecordof accomplishment during their lengthy ten- ures.
Thefinancingofcampaignsandthepres- ence of special interest groups are dead give- awaystothereasonforsupportingoravoid- ingsomecandidatesandinitiatives. Onecan easily establish if the interest is in our local areaoritisstrictlyfinancialandselfserving. Make no mistake about it, there are many who would like to take control of this tiny sliverofthestatethatistheremainingcon- servativevoiceinCalifornia. Whathappens if we were to lose the remaining thread of conservatism and sanity in the entire state?
While we are speaking of common sense, can anyone explain to me, after almost a week after the election, states like Florida and Arizona were continuing to find entire boxes of uncounted votes in some pretty obscureplaces. Itremindsmeoftheyear when the Democrat party found a box of bal- lots in the trunk of a car which turned out to
Fred Hall
With gratitude,
Melissa Hurtado
Senator Elect California 14th District
An award winning 2018 member of the California Newspaper Publishers Association
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