Page 3 - Sanger Herald 8-9-18 E-edition

Random thoughts They're not going to have to worry about anyone accusing them of being too ethical ...
Dick Sheppard
That's where the Measure S funded across the board pay raise for public safety person- nel was put together - behind closed doors.
Then the carefully crafted proposed raise was slipped into a budget issue and brought before the city council to be approved before the oversight committee found out about it.
It was darned clever on Chapa's part.
It was darned ignorant and incompetent on the council's part.
Neither Chapa nor the council will have to worry about being accused of displaying any ethics in that situation.
Yet, Chapa carefully outlines the whole process in his more than 1,100 word response to the grand jury's finding that the oversight committee was bypassed.
The first draft of the proposed response claimed the committee had not been bypassed.
The second draft, the one that's more than 1,100 words and the one that was approved by the city council last week to be its final, "official" response, came about because mayor pro tem Eli Ontiveros insisted that a timeline be added to show that, indeed, the committee had been bypassed.
The unapologetic explanation of how it all unfolded is so long and so convoluted I had to read it carefully - a couple of times - before it becomes clear to me that it really does agree with the grand jury, the oversight committee was bypassed.
Once again, darned clever on Chapa's part. Once again, not so clever or competent on
How ironic that Sanger
city manager Tim Chapa admits - not in so many words - that he intentionally used the act to conduct public business in the dark, in a closed door meeting protected from public scrutiny by the Brown Act.
SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
By Dick Sheppard
California's "Open Meeting Law," the Ralph M. Brown Act of 1953, was cre- ated to help shine a light on public business conducted by government entities like the Sanger city council.
the part of the city council.
City attorney Hilda Cantu Montoy
explained, before the council voted to accept the response as written, that the council could approve a shorter response that would just say something like, "We agree, the over- sight committee was bypassed."
Why did the council go with the long ver- sion instead of one that was much shorter and to the point and made more sense?
My guess is the council felt the shorter response might sound too much like a repudi- ation and slap on the wrist for its darn clever and beloved city manager.
Just my guess.
Now I'm curious to see what the other "official" response to the grand jury will say
- the one that will be written by Sue Simpson, the immediate past chairperson of the Measure S Citizens Oversight Committee.
Sue told me she's working on it and will have it ready before the deadline.
Sue was one of three past oversight com- mittee chairpersons to stand before the council last week and recount the ways the committee has been incrementally marginal- ized to the point of total irrelevance by the current administration.
The committee no longer has any responsi- bility or authority and the Measure S money can now be used for whatever purpose the city manager and the council choose as long as they call it "public safety" in 1,100 words or less.
I'm sure that's not what voters had in mind when, in 2016, they voted to renew the mea- sure for another 10 years.
I'm also sure that Sanger voters pay so little attention to what goes on at city hall that it doesn't really make any difference that it's now the Measure S Slush Fund.
•••
I enjoyed sitting across the table from
93-year-old WWII veteran Joseph Matsuo last Saturday morning at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) community breakfast.
Mr. Matsuo was born and raised in San Francisco until Executive Order 9066 forced him and other Japanese-Americans into relo- cation centers.
At 17 he volunteered for the Army and became an interpreter in the military intel- ligence service. When he was discharged he settled in Sanger and became a "poultry sexer."
Youmayask, asIdid,"Whatisapoultry sexer?" I found out it's the person who quick- ly determines whether the newly hatched chicks are male or female. It requires hours of standing and concentration. Mr. Matsuo had to deal with thousands of chicks a day and do the same thing over and over.
Insomepartsoftheworldit's arevered career and I found out there’s even a world- wide chicken sexing competition.
That was almost as interesting as hearing about Mr. Matsuo's recent trip to Washington, D.C. as part of the 16th Honor Flight.
Then we talked about family and agreed our daughters probably would not approve of the biscuits and gravy, with bacon and sau- sage, breakfast we were enjoying.
I love Sanger and its great people, like Joseph Matsuo, just not its weird politics.
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
- Pogo
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In my OPINION
Mid-term elections are just around the corner
By Fred Hall
Difficult as it may
seem to believe, August is already a week upon us and the mid-term elections of November are just around the corner!
the American spirit by eliminating the dra- conian regulations put in place by our own government. He believed in opening up this great wealthy country to mineral exploration to rid ourself of dependency on unpredictable foreign governments. He wanted to see that American spirit rekindled by getting families off welfare and see that they have produc- tive jobs in which they can regain their pride. His tax cut, which Nancy Pelosi referred to as crumbs, has been a big part of driving this rebirth.
Trump believes in America's strength and greatness although one would never know that if one only gets their “news” from much of the mainstream media where the line between reporting and advocacy has been blurred so much as to become invisible.
With less than 100 days left, there is suf- ficient time to do the necessary reading and research necessary to make an informed choice in November.
With all the obfuscation involved in mod- ern electioneering, it's absolutely imperative that each and every one us become a more sophisticated consumer of the garbage fed as the reasons to vote for them. Everyone run- ning for office has good points as well as a problematic downside. It's our job to decide if the good points outweigh the bad! Any decision which is made on emotion alone is usually bad. A good example of that would be, “this guy (or gal) has promised me more free stuff making them my choice.” The free stuff is killing us, not only in California but all across the nation.
Strangely enough—we believe it is mainly due to the liberal education system—there has been a number of candidates announcing for office who present themselves as Socialist Democrats of the Bernie Sanders ilk. Need we point out that Socialism has never worked wherever it has been attempted? California has already advanced the idea of free health care for everyone, whether they are a citizen or not. On the national level these Socialist Democrats are advocating for the abolition
of an entire segment of law enforcement which enforces immigration law. They also want free health care for all. That comes at a price which has already been established by two separate and disparate groups as $32 tril- lion. That shouldn't be all that hard to find!
Don't fall victim to media which is so infected with The Hate Trump virus that they find reporting of simple truths so elusive as to be out of their grasp.
Read, study and demand facts when someone advances a claim or theory. When a decision such as the one you will be facing in November is so momentous one should be damned sure their decision is fact based and not an emotional one.
But, as always, that's only one man's opin- ion.
Although, as I said, this is only my opinion, please take these facts into consideration when you are doing your research!
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.
James Carville, Bill
Clinton's campaign manag-
er back in the 90s, famously
and succinctly told all of America who would listenthat“It'stheeconomy,stupid.” Fora man who was so incredibly irritating, he was very accurate in making that assessment ofthepoliticalfront. Itseemsthatpeople vote their pocketbook first and foremost. Those were, economically, really good times. Silicone Valley was beginning to flourish, money was available, seemingly everywhere and jobs seemed plentiful.
Somewhere in the middle of that decade, Congressgotinvolved. Theyfeltthatevery- thing was so good that everyone should own their own home and they were going to help makethathappen. Suchwasthebeginning of unintended consequences when those two august houses of huge egos and little common sense set the stage for the great recession of the 2000s.
Since people had been allowed to become over-leveraged in their homes, thanks to sub-prime borrowing, the numbers of fore- closures ballooned to unbelievable num- bers in the early years of this new century. That colossal collapse placed strain on the American economy and there was rampant failure.
Enter Barack Obama, a black academic forwhomthestarshadaligned. Thiswell- spoken young man was elected president and immediately massive programs began to flow from the federal government—generally to noavailorevenadetriment. Startupenergy companies in the solar industry received gov- ernment grants and immediately built palace- like headquarters and bled taxpayer grant money until they were gone!
Obama's anemic, socialist driven economy muddled along for eight years with record low employment numbers and unprecedented numbers of people unemployed and joining the welfare roles after exhausting all efforts tofindajob. Weweretoldthiswasthenew reality and we should get accustomed to it because no one was ever going to be able to changethesituation. PresidentObamaspent much of the early part of his term apologiz- ing for America, asking forgiveness from the rest of the world for perceived past wrongs.
That brings us to 2016 and a political neophyte named Donald J. Trump announc- ing his candidacy for The President of The UnitedStates. Noone gavehimachanceof success. Thismanusedtermslike“draining the swamp” that is Washington and was hated by both Democrats and the power structure oftheRepublicanparty. Thismanpromised change in the cultural fabric of America as wellastheeconomicstructure. Hebelieved one could grow the economy and bring back businesses that had fled all the regulations put in place by the prior administration.
He believed in “loosing the tiger” that is
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