Sanger Herald 1-3-19 E-edition

Students learn about cows
Looking for a home
Boys bounce back in tournament
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Sports 1B
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• All are U.S. citizens, at least 18 years old, registered voters who live in council district 1;
• Alvarez-Tovar says on his ap- plication that he is a groundskeeper who has a bachelor of science degree from Fresno State;
• Banuelos is a counseling and aca- demic tutor with the Fresno County superintendent of schools migrant education program;
• Licon Cantu says she has been a corporate recruiter and has served on the Measure S Citizens Oversight Committee. She lists her present oc- cupation as management:
See COUNCIL, page 2A
traordinary - defining moments - for our stu- dents and for each other."
Jones was talking to the 1,279 district em- ployees, more than 100 of the 12,000 students in the district - members of the drumline, band and cheer team - district trustees and VIPs who attended the "welcome back to school" general session in the high school's Coach Dean Nichol- son gym. It was Jones's first year on the job as superintendent and judging from the enthusi- astic crowd reaction, she did a good job of set- ting the stage for another award winning year.
Key employee replaced
The school district's special education pro- gram specialist Jason Stricker replaced Kim- berly Salomonson as director of pupil services. Salomonson accepted a position with WestEd, a research, development and services agency that works with education. She held the direc- tor of pupil services position since 2011 when she replaced Matt Navo who was promoted to an "Academic Officer." She was the district's educator of the year in 2016.
September
Active shooter exercise
It was about coordinating efforts of police, firefighters, paramedics and school person- nel to deal with someone firing shots on a school campus. That's what was going on at the high school on a Saturday in early Sep- tember – all day – an active shooter response training exercise. The morning was primarily devoted to classroom activities involving overall goals, job responsibilities, team move-
See 2018 IN REVIEW on page 6A
Sanger(FresnoCounty)CA93657
Hurtado replacement on city
council may be selected today
Six applicants for the district 1 council seat
By Dick Sheppard
Sanger Herald
You’ll have an opportunity at this evening’s city council meeting to be
a part of the process of selecting a new city councilmember to represent council district 1 in the northeast part of town.
The position became open when previous councilmember Melissa Hurtado was elected in November to the state senate to replace Andy Vidak and resigned from the council on Dec. 2.
There are six applicants for the council position, Juan J. Alvarez- Tovar, Laura Banuelos, Marci Licon Cantu, Martin F. Castellano, Anthony Espitia and Esmeralda Hurtado. They will introduce themselves, discuss their qualifications and talk about why they want to be a councilmem- ber at today’s 6 p.m. council meeting at city hall, 1700 7th St.
If you’re there, you’ll have an op- portunity to comment on each of the candidates.
The applicant who receives major- ity approval of the remaining four city council members will take an oath of office and be seated at a later council meeting, probably at a special meeting on Jan. 23.
If a majority of the councilmem- bers can’t agree on any of the current applicants, the council could extend the application period and hold a special meeting before Feb. 1 to inter- view new applicants. It could also call a special June election in council dis- trict 1 to pick the new councilmem- ber. A memo to the council from city clerk Becky Padron says the cost of
a special election would be between $18,000 and $22,000.
The new councilmember will serve out the remainder of Hurtado’s term, through 2020.
About the applicants:
Dick Sheppard/Sanger Herald
2018
JULY-DECEMBER IN REVIEW
This look back at 2018 summarizes just a few of the stories that appeared on the front pages of the Sanger Herald during the past year.
July
Budget approved
It took less than 20 minutes for the city council to approve a $46.5 overall budget with a $12.7 million general fund at a lightly attended Saturday evening special meeting.
Mayor pro tem Eli Ontiveros abstained from the vote. Mayor Frank Gonzalez, who made the motion to approve the 2018-2019 fiscal year budget and council members Humberto Garza, Daniel Martinez and Melissa Hurtado voted to approve the spending plan.
A special meeting was necessary because, with Humberto Garza absent at the regular June 21 meeting, the other four councilmem- bers deadlocked on approving either the new fiscal year budget or a continuation of the 2017- 2018 spending plan.
New owners and new name
Sequoia Chevrolet Buick GMC, which had been selling new and used cars and trucks in Sanger since 1982, was sold, and new owners Ramona Llamas and her husband Manuel Prieto said one of the changes in store for the dealership would be a very slight name change, Sanger Sequoia Chevrolet Buick GMC. The new owners have become very involved in the Sanger community.
Trying to catch up on zoning
Don't be surprised if you receive a notice that a parcel of land near you is going to be re- zoned. It likely will be part of Sanger's effort to comply with California's housing element law which required that Sanger find a total of 63 acres spread somewhere within the city limits that could be rezoned to accommodate "afford- able"housing. Thezoningchangehadtotake place, because California said so, even though there likely are no plans to build anything on the property in the near or maybe even in the distant future. The process which was started by the planning commission in July was com- pleted only about a week ago and details will be in next week's Herald.
New VFW commander
A project to resurface and restripe Church Avenue between Greenwood and Bethel avenues, that was started in August took several months to complete.
mission and the Measure S Citizens Oversight Committee, was sworn as the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 7168 in Sanger.
August
Grand jury response approved
The city council agreed on a response to the June 15 grand jury report that criticized the city for its handling of Measure S funds.
The lengthy response approved at the Aug. 2 council meeting agreed with a grand jury find- ing that the Citizen's Oversight Committee was bypassed in its review of proposed Measure S spending including 2017's across-the-board pay increase for public safety employees. The response pointed out that the city council had adopted Ordinance No. 2017-02 which ensured the committee would have an opportunity in the future to review all proposed Measure S expenditures.
Candidate races set
Mayor Frank Gonzalez and school board in- cumbents Pete Filippi and Jesse Vasquez got free passes in the Nov. 2018 election. No one ran against them. Melissa Beasely challenged incumbent Humberto Garza in council district No. 2 and retired fire captain David Sulenta and campus safety officer Michael Monte- longo ran against mayor pro tem Eli Ontive- ros in council district No. 4. Office manager Gina Lynn Olson-Cuevas and custodian Jesse Solorio, would compete for the district No. 6 school board seat vacated by retiring Kenneth Marcantonio. Other races would involve city
councilmember Melissa Hurtado and school board member Marcy Masumoto. Hurtado ran against incumbent Andy Vidak for the district No. 14 state senate seat and Masumoto ran unopposed for the County Board of Education district No. 4 seat being vacated by retiring Delbert Cederquist.
Welcome back to school
Adela Jones, superintendent of schools, took only a few minutes to underline and put excla- mation marks around the latest call to action for the award winning Sanger Unified School District. "Create extraordinary moments" is the theme for this school year, said Jones. "The kind of moments that can jolt us and elevate us and change us. We're good, but not good enough. We can be even better by creating ex-
THURSDAY
JANUARY 3, 2019
VOL 130 NO. 1
2 sections, 14 pages
CLASSIFIED 5B LEGALS 6,7B BUSINESS DIRECTORY 8B LIFE STYLES 2B OBITUARIES 2A OPINION 3A SPORTS 1B POLICE LOG 2A WEATHER 8A
Johnny Perez, who has been active on the Sanger Community Emergency Response Team, is chairman of the Sanger planning com-
• Jan 3 - City council meeting, 6 p.m. at city hall, 1700 7th St. The council will interview applicants for the vacant council district 1 position.
• Jan 8 - School board meeting, 7 p.m. at the district office, 1905 7th St. SANGER HERALD: A MID VALLEY PUBLISHING NEWSPAPER • (559) 875-2511 • www.thesangerherald.com