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Wilbur Plaugher
2018 starts the way 2017 ends
Trust issues with city manager and city council continue to be focus of the Measure S committee
Wilbur Plaugher in 2007 when he was in- ducted into the National Cowboy and West- ern Heritage Museum Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.
By Dick Sheppard
Sanger Herald
Ninety-five year old Wilbur Plaugher, Sanger's rodeo legend, a member of every cowboy and rodeo hall of fame in the world and cofounder of the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys died Tuesday evening.
He was in a nursing home recovering from surgery, said his daughter Shelly Plaugher Cot- ter. "He was planning to get back to the ranch."
Until recently Mr. Plaugher worked his cattle ranch just outside Sanger almost every weekday and frequently served as a guest preacher on Sunday at Sanger area churches.
He is in the chamber of commerce's hall of fame, was honored by the city council in 2012, was the Christmas parade grand marshal and the grand marshal of the 92nd Annual Clovis Rodeo parade in 2006.
He held two world records for the fastest time in steer wrestling and was the All-Around Champion Cowboy in 1946 at Madison Square Garden; the same year he began his long, sto- ried career as a bullfighter.
He acted in Walt Disney movies and ap- peared in one movie with Marilyn Monroe.
1923-2018
By Dick Sheppard
Sanger Herald
The mood changed quickly, as it tends to do, at Measure S Citizens Oversight Commit- tee meetings.
A parade of gang and drug prevention/ intervention grant recipients received smiles and praise from the committee for quarterly reports about how they used Measure S money. There were no more smiles or praise after that. The rest of the Tuesday evening meeting was a 2018 continuation of what started in 2016 and occupied most of the com- mittee's attention in 2017; a feud with city manager Tim Chapa.
The committee made it clear it believes Chapa has intentionally misappropriated pub- lic safety dollars and has made attempts to cover it up with doctored minutes of commit- tee meetings that don't reflect what was said and done and by sabotaging the committee's attempt to have a compliance audit done.
The city attorney and the city council were also targets of committee comments about a lack of trust and transparency.
Neither Chapa nor any member of the city council attended the oversight meeting.
"This has gone on way too long," said com-
mittee member James Miser. "Tim [Chapa] andIneedtositdownandseeifwecangetit straightened out." He was referring to the re- vised July 25, 2017 minutes which he said at- tacked him personally. Revised minutes from four other meetings going all the way back
to July 5, 2017, were approved. "The minutes need to be accurate and need to reflect both sides," said Miser.
A discussion led by committee member Tony Gonzalez made it clear the committee is not enthusiastic about using the same auditor if another attempt at a compliance audit is made.
The committee voted to request a special public meeting with the city attorney and the city council to explore possible changes in Measure S expenditure language.
It will ask the city council to amend grant procedures to change money disbursement from four times to one time per year and
it will ask the council to direct that unused awarded grant funds be divided among other nonprofit grant recipients based on their revised budgets.
The reporter can be contacted by email at sangerherald@gmail.com or by phone at the Herald at (559) 875-2511.
THURSDAY
JANUARY 4, 2018
VOL 129 NO. 1
2 sections, 14 pages
CLASSIFIED 4-6B LIFE STYLES 2B
OBITUARIES 2A OPINION 3A SPORTS 1B POLICE LOG 2A WEATHER 8A
2017
JULY-DECEMBER IN REVIEW
July
A neighborhood tradition
Mary Tieche was a 16-year-old high school student in 2012. She thought it "was just weird" that the Jenni Park Parade hadn't taken place the year before.
Christi Garza who had organized the neighborhood parade for 15 years announced in 2010 that she was ready to drop out of the lead and march behind a new parade leader.
No one stepped up in 2011. But in 2012, Mary, who had participated in almost all the previous parades, be- came the new event coordinator.
For six years, under Mary's lead- ership, the Jenni Park Parade and ice cream fest has thrived.
Navo not pleased with funding
Gov. Jerry Brown’s $183.2 billion state budget for fiscal year 2017- 2018, a spending plan with signifi- cant boosts for some public schools, just not the ones in Sanger, received mixed reviews.
State superintendent of public instruction Tom Torlakson praised the budget. Sanger Unified School District (SUSD) superintendent of schools Matt Navo is not so enthusi- astic.
SUSD’s 2017-2018 fiscal year bud- get was approved on June 27, a little more than a week after the state bud- get. The $3.5 million the district was supposed to receive from the state had been cut to $1.5 million, said Navo.
“Although I appreciate the state's continued efforts to fund public edu- cation at a financial level that is com- mensurate with 2007 levels, I cannot deny the fact that California schools continue to be held to many unfund- ed obligations that make building and developing a budget extremely difficult if not impossible.”
First look
The city council got its first look at a $42 million overall budget for fiscal year 2017- 2018, including a
$12.3 million general fund budget, at its July 6 meeting. The council aims for August passage of a budget for the fiscal year 2017-2018 that began on July 1.
Street reconstruction
About the time O Street and North Avenue were finished there was a partial closure of P Street at 7th Avenue and the city was getting to sign a contract for additional P street reconstruction work.
Apartment fire
In late July when the tem- perature was almost 100 degrees tired firefighters made their way through a tangle of water hoses, empty air cannisters and thick smoke. (See the photo on page 6A) Investigators never determined the exact cause of a fire that destroyed a four unit portion of the Driftwood Apartments complex.
Another Measure S flap
"I'm here to answer your ques- tions," said city manager Tim Chapa. "But, I won't answer ques- tions that challenge my integrity. That are insulting."
That was in response to a ques- tion from oversight committee member Jim Miser about Chapa's relationship with the auditing firm of Brown Armstrong.
It was a special meeting called for the purpose of allowing the Measure S Committee to talk with a representative of the auditing firm and then make a recommendation to the city council about hiring the firm to do a compliance audit of Measure S funds going back for several years.
Things went south when there was no representative of the audit firm at the meeting and Chapa let the oversight committee know up front that he was going to recom- mend the city council approve the audit firm no matter what the over- sight committee had to say about it.
The Jenni Park Parade is a 4th of July tradition, older than many of its young participants
Dick Sheppard/Sanger Herald
Owen Geil is 4 years old and he obviously takes the job of riding in the Jenni Park Parade very seriously. The annual event is a 22-year-old 4th of July neighborhood tradition. His mother Mia has been in every parade since her mother, Alexandra "Alex" Carrillo, helped Christi Garza get the event started in 1995. Mary Tieche has been organizing for the past half dozen years.
August
National Night Out
Thousands attended Sanger's National Night Out, enjoying a search and rescue horse named Deputy Dan-O, Blitz the police dog and games and attractions from multiple community organizations. The event has become a tradition in Sanger and across the country, sponsored by local fire and police departments to raise awareness of public safety and unify communi- ties.
Budget finally approved
The City of Sanger finally got a budget approved for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, a little more than a month after the fiscal year started on July 1.
An overall budget of $42 million with a general fund of $12.5 million was approved at the Aug. 3 city council meeting on a 4-1 vote.
Mayor Frank Gonzalez, mayor pro tem Eli Ontiveros and coun- cilmembers Humberto Garza and Daniel Martinez voted in favor of the budget. Councilmember Melissa Hurtado cast the lone dissenting vote.
An earlier motion by Ontiveros to accept the budget minus the con- troversial funding of public safety personnel who were not previously paid from the Measure S fund died for lack of a second.
The general fund anticipates a surplus of $45,432 and the overall budget, including enterprise funds, projects a deficit of $2.7 million.
Reagan Elementary,
a "Model Professional Learning Community
At WorkTM"
Reagan Elementary School was
one of only about 200 schools and districts in the U.S. and Canada
to receive the honor of being recognized by Solution Tree for its
See 2017 REVIEW on page 2A SANGER HERALD: A MID VALLEY PUBLISHING NEWSPAPER • (559) 875-2511 • www.thesangerherald.com