Page 3 - Sanger Herald 5-17-18 E-edition

SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
Random thoughts Conflict of interest or no conflict of interest - you decide ...
By Dick Sheppard
A neighbor said he had to make a tough choice on Mother's Day.
He had to decide wheth- er to take his wife out for a nice dinner or put gas in his car.
"Next time she wants me
to take her to someplace expensive I'll take her to the gas station," he said.
Gas prices are the highest they've been since 2014, according to GasBuddy, and we live in the state with the highest price of all, including Alaska and Hawaii.
"Prices will continue to rise through Memorial Day," said GasBuddy.
California gasoline tax is about 40 cents
a gallon. Along with the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents, Californians are now paying more than 58 cents in excise taxes per gallon. Like all other states with sales taxes, California “taxes the tax” by applying the combined local and state sales tax, which ranges from 7.25 to 9.75 percent, on top of the gasoline tax.
It will only get worse because in July of next year the state tax will go up another 7.5 cents, bringing the combined state and fed- eral excise tax to 65.7 cents per gallon.
Will we have an opportunity in November to vote on repealing the recent gas tax hike?
Maybe.
Signatures on the petition to create a ballot initiative are still being certified.
It had not officially qualified for the ballot as of May 12, according to BallotPedia
Those little City of Sanger electric cars like the one I see the city manager driving, even though he gets a substantial car allow- ance, are looking pretty good right about now.
•••
How would you define "conflict of inter-
est"?
I'm curious because a representative of
the Sanger Unified School District and a rep- resentative of the City of Sanger apparently believe in very different definitions - or, at least, their legal advisors do.
The school district representative, Eduardo Martinez, recused himself and the city's representative, Frank Gonzalez, did not.
"Recused himself" can broadly be explained as withdrawing from a decision
California should fund the UC Merced Medi- cal School
Over the last decade there has been a shortage of doctors in the Central Valley
making process because of a possible con- flict of interest or lack of impartiality.
Some time ago the city council acting as the board of the redevelopment successor agency, with Gonzalez presiding, voted to sell land in Sanger's industrial park to the school district if the successor agency's oversight board would agree to the sale.
Don't get hung up on all that "successor agency" bureaucratic jargon. It's not really relevant to the question we're asking.
The oversight board met on Monday after- noon to consider approving the sale.
It had been so long since the oversight board had a meeting I had forgotten who was on it.
I was a little taken aback when I checked and discovered that a city representative and a school district representative, Gonzalez and Martinez, were on a board that was going to make a decision on a matter in which both would have a vested interest.
The others on the board are Dan Spears, Paul Zavala, Mark Johnson and Karen Steinhauer.
So even if Gonzalez and Martinez recused themselves there would still be a quorum and a decision could be made without suspicions of a conflict of interest being raised.
As soon as the agenda item was announced Martinez recused himself, left the dais and did not participate in either the discussion or the vote.
Gonzalez announced he "had been advised" there would be no conflict of interest involved if he participated.
So he did.
Enthusiastically.
Zavala was absent and the final vote,
with Martinez not participating, was 4-0 to approve the sale.
NeitherGonzaleznorMartinezstoodto gain personally from the decision.
But the city certainly did and the school district certainly did.
So, was it possible for either of them to be objective or impartial about the decision.
I doubt it.
Was there a conflict of interest?
If so, should there be a do-over?
That's one thing this city administration
seems to do well, to get right, a do-ever. •••
Word on the street is the grand jury has wrapped up its investigation and plans to
region of California.
California has some of the top medical
schools in the nation however, California’s medical schools are unable to supply enough doctors for its growing population.
With over 12 allopathic and osteopathic medical schools in California and plans for opening two osteopathic medical schools in Fresno in 2019-2020, experts fear an almost 5000 doctor shortages by 2025 (Maier, 2017).
The only way to decrease this shortage is to open medical schools in the Central Valley and train students who are likely stay in the
See Letters to the Editor on page 6A
issue a report in a month or so.
Too bad it missed that Monday successor
agency oversight board meeting.
City of Sanger governance provided a tar-
get rich environment for grand juries in 2008, 2012, 2015 and 2018.
The school district's longtime motto has been, "Always with pride."
Maybe city hall's motto could be some- thing like, "Maybe no grand jury report next year!" Maybe.
•••
Jim Miser, a member of the Measure S
Citizens Oversight Committee, corrected something I wrote a couple of weeks ago. "I said the money would run out under
their budget by 6/30/2020, not 2018," Jim wrote in an email.
Sorry, Jim. I got confused because two other people noticed the math errors in the Measure S documents presented to the over- sight committee and one who took time to walk me through the math believed
the end would come, as far as Measure S
money is concerned, in 2018.
The committee is holding two special
meetings next Tuesday evening, more do- overs, to try to get everyone on the same error free page.
We're not really going to run out of money. Hopefully.
We're also not likely to run of out the frus-
trating math errors and accounting problems that have plagued this administration since it took office.
•••
Speaking of the end of things, a conspiracy
theorist by the name of Mathieu Jean-Marc Joseph Rodrigue has pointed to the Bible to support his theory that the world will end on my birthday, June 24.
Maybe I should have one heckuva pre- birthday party on June 23 and not worry about cleaning up or having a hangover.
Comments, complaints and suggestions may be emailed to sangerherald@gmail.com or may be made by calling 875-2511.
Dick Sheppard
In my OPINION
How soon will it be before wage earners
can no longer afford to live in California?
By Fred Hall
How can the state of
California, in good faith,
spend $1 billion in tax payer
money on an unprecedented
expansion of MediCal to
include people who are not evenlegalresidents? That's
a question which is going
to need asking because
California Senate Democrats are proposing the additional spending for next year's bud- get. That'salittlebitlikebreakingintoyour neighbor's house and expecting to be fed din- ner! Onceagain,theywillturntotheonly source available for funding such adventures, and that would be the taxpayer.
Not to be outdone, an appointed, unelected board, The California Energy Commission, has,bystipulation, mandatedthatbythe year 2020 all homes constructed in California musthavesolarpanels. Thisistosatisfy some arbitrary standard, set by the state, for an unreasonable, unattainable percentage of renewable energy being utilized.
Ask anyone and they will tell you that California is already in the middle of a hous- ing shortage which is becoming a crisis and we already have the most expensive housing in the nation.
Item one and item two are at complete oddswitheachother. Byenactingnumber one—the additional health care—we add one more goody to the magnet that draws and encourages hundreds of thousands of illegals to enter the United States. That alone places greater strain on the housing situation and one winds up with the horrendous homeless camps in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco because these low—or no—
income people can't afford housing here in the Golden State to which they were lured because of so many government handouts.
At the same time, thousands of California tax- payersaregivinguponhighhousingcosts, highcostofliving,hightaxestosupport those the state deem worthy of care and have decided to move to a friendlier locale, which is out of state.
Even with all the “climate change” and “global warming” we remain one of the most beautiful states in the union and our climate is genuinely delightful almost all year round. The tunnel vision politicians in Sacramento have heaped on regulations, restrictions and taxes until the average earners have reached the point they can no longer afford the over- headoflivinghere. Ironicallytheunder- educated with no skills or training continue to arrive, drawn by the “milk and honey” provided by our Democrat politicians.
By the way, talking about our high taxes,
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Fred Hall
what the hell happened to the last of many water bonds we passed which was supposed to be used for increased storage capacity? So far the only use of the money has been for useless studies and surveys as well as an air- plane to fly over the snow pack in the Sierra. Bureaucrats seem to have meetings to plan meetings. Whilerealneedscontinuetoget short shrift, the size of California govern- mentcontinuesitsunrestrictedgrowth. I'm pretty sure we've all reached the point where we realize the value of growing something that is already basically useless and counter productive.
This sorry state of circumstances only points out the apparent lack of the use of common sense by our state government offi- cials. We continue to add to a lengthy list of freebies non-citizens can expect when they reach California, thereby encouraging them to come; then when they get here they are under educated and lacking skills required to add to our economy or make a decent living thereby addingtothedilemmafacedbyall Californians. That would be the ever increas- ing—generally governmentally sponsored— cost and availability of housing.
Everything costs more here, forcing many long time citizens and businesses to flee—yet California politicians have the lure out and seem to welcome and defend the burgeon- ing number of illegals who bring literally nothingtothetable. Does“sanctuarycities” and“sanctuarystate”ringabell? Where
is the common sense in this approach to governance? It'shardtoblamethe“undocu- mented” when they are encouraged and one sure as hell can't blame most of California's common sense citizens. Seems to me that the blame falls on the liberal coastal cities and the liberal politicians they elect who wind up in Sacramento with whom we are “blessed.”
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.
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