Page 3 - Sanger Herald 4-26-18 E-edition

SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
Random thoughts Only in California ...
By Dick Sheppard
My thanks to Sanger's
city manager Tim Chapa
and finance director Gary
Watahira for educating
everyone who attended the
April 19 city council meet-
ing about the "tidal wave"
heading our way in the
form of vastly increased payments by cities like Sanger into the bottomless CalPERS pit.
You can see the story on the front page of today's Herald.
I am convinced it won't be too long before those of us in the private sector, here in California, will be working just to help pay for the health care and pension benefits of retired municipal and state workers.
Cities will have to raise taxes, pass bond measures and maybe even have car washes and bake sales just to keep up with their "unfunded liability" increasingly larger pay- ments to CalPERS, a gigantic trust fund, that manages pension and health benefits for more than 1.6 million California public employees, retirees and their families.
Sanger, according to Chapa and Watahira, is better off than many California cities - even with its $21 million debt to CalPERS.
Does that scenario help explain the impor- tance of the approximately $2 million that comes into the city coffers each year from the Measure S public safety sales and use tax?
The more the huge CalPERS payments eat into the general fund budget, the fewer pub- lic services the city will be able to provide.
That Measure S windfall should continue to provide stable fire and police forces - and maybe with just a little sleight of hand, bol- ster an increasingly depleted general fund.
It's very possible it won't be long before some cities in California, without a public safety tax like Measure S and without a little sleight of hand will have to consider insol- vency as the only option to those CalPERS payments.
•••
Waytogo to Sanger High's Uni-Rex robot-
ics team that kicked robotic butt in Houston last week.
You can also see that story on the front page of today's Herald.
In only its third year, the robotics team has been to the world championships twice and last week did well enough to rank among the top 2 percent of all robotics programs world- wide.
On Tuesday at the school board meeting
we heard Hillary Cloud, who has championed the robotics program in the school district, say that Michael Watkins will be starting a competitive robotics program next year at Washington Academic Middle School.
Wow, I can hardly wait to see how our high school robotics team will do at future world championships after it gets a farm team at the middle school level.
Is this school district awesome or what?!?
•••
While it was great to see another Clovis tribute to Sanger's Wilbur Plaugher, this one from the Clovis Rodeo, it would be even bet- ter to see Sanger do something to acknowl- edge one of its most famous citizens.
This year's official rodeo poster showed a caricature of Wilbur balancing on two gal- loping horses, one of his most famous rodeo stunts.
Wilbur is in every cowboy and rodeo hall of fame in the world, he performed before presidents and royalty, he starred in mov- ies - even had a part in a movie with Marilyn Monroe - and he lived right here in Sanger.
Yet Clovis and other cities continue to honor him and Sanger seems oblivious to the great legacy left behind by one of its own.
•••
We have lived in Sanger longer than we lived anywhere, more than 20 years now, and
I still can't understand at least a couple of things about a huge number of Sanger driv- ers; why don't they use their turn signals and why do they swerve to the left before making a right turn and to the right before making a leftturn.
The two sort of go together in a good way. Kindoflikepastaandantipastocanceloutall thecaloriessoyoucaneatallyouwantand not gain weight.
If it weren't for the weird swerving maneuvertherewouldbenowaytoknow
Bill to ban sale of Bibles
A bill currently pending in the California legislaturewouldbanthesaleofbooksthat include traditional Christian views on mar- riageandsexuality.
Many fear the implementation of such a law would evolve into liberal California law- makers demanding a ban on sale of Bibles.
ThisiswhatistakingplaceinCalifornia.
Beverly S. Hartshorn
some of Sanger's drivers were contemplating making a left turn in front of you until you ran into them.
•••
Many of California's Christians are up in
arms about a proposed law that, they say, could eventually be interpreted in a way that would wind up banning the sale of Christian books, including the Bible.
See the letter to the editor, on this page, by Beverly S. Hartshorn.
They're talking about California’s AB 2943, a bill that purports to declare “sexual orienta- tion change efforts” to be an “unlawful busi- ness practice,” wrote David French in the National Review.
French claims the bill's language is so broad it could wind up being used to ban the sale of the Bible.
He goes on, And I’m right. It can and would. Here’s a step-by-step guide how:
First, the bill by its own terms applies to very broad categories of services and goods. Here’s the key enabling language:
1770. (a) The following unfair methods
of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices undertaken by any person in a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer are unlawful:
Second, a book (along with other written materials, like pamphlets or workbooks)
fits within the very, very broad definition of
a goods: tangible chattels bought or leased for use primarily for personal, family, or household purposes, including certificates or coupons exchangeable for these goods, and including goods that, at the time of the sale or subsequently, are to be so affixed to real property as to become a part of real property, whether or not they are severable from the real property.
Basically, if you can buy it and move it (in other words, it’s not real estate), then it’s a good. Moreover, under the statute, “services” can include “services furnished in connection with the sale or repair of goods.” Booksellers provide “services.”
While French may be right, those of us who live in California and have jobs in the private sector, will be working so hard to pay for the retirement benefits of retired gov- ernment employees we won't have enough money left to buy a Bible.
Only in California!
•••
"The only thing necessary for evil men to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke
Comments, complaints and suggestions may be emailed to sangerherald@gmail.com or may be made by calling 875-2511.
Dick Sheppard
In my OPINION
Do California or Washington DC
lawmakers have any common sense?
By Fred Hall
One has to realize that
the so-called deep state
is feeling empowered if
not omnipotent when the
Justice Department and
FBI feel they can, with
impunity, literally thumb
their noses at Congress
and fail to comply with a requesttoproducedocuments. Itgrows even worse when one pauses to consider thelengthoftimetheagencieshavefailed tocomply. Thesearerecords,Imightadd, that rightfully deserve transparent openness for public scrutiny and rightfully belong to theAmericanpeople. Theyshouldneverbe the stuff of tell-all books by people who are sworn to protect the nation's secrets.
Our Congress represents, or should, the will of all Americans, especially since we are the ones who elected them to represent us. Granted eventheydonotalwaysactin a manner which is indicative of the mandate whichtheyareprovided. Howoftenhave you noticed that their members promise one thing as candidates and deliver quite another once they get back to the “swamp” that is Washington,D.C.? Withthiscurrentcrop
in Washington, a good house cleaning would serve Americans well.
Undoubtedly our forefathers would be spinning in their graves were they aware
of just how bad politicians and the bureau- cracy have become in their dominance of thepoliticaldiscourse. Thesepeoplewho are so deeply embedded in the clandestine, backroom dealings of our Capital cities - that wouldcertainlyincludeSacramentoaswell as Washington - are literally making a mock- eryoftheentiredemocraticprocess. They feel completely comfortable in acting and doing as they damned well please!
A good place to make a start toward installinga“fix”wouldbeanhonestdiscus- sion with the “loyal opposition” and make sure they understand that the Democratic party and their candidate, Hillary Clinton, losttheelection. Forroughlyayearand
a half they have been in complete denial.
Through their childish actions they have managed, at least with some success, to impedethepresident'sagenda. Wedohavea tax cut in place and with Mr. Trump's legisla-
Fred Hall
tive and regulatory actions we are witness- ingsuccessinoureconomicsector. It'stime toactlikeanadultandrealizethatDonald Trump won the electoral college which is the way we elect our president here in The UnitedStates.
We know that Hillary won California,
so with the attitude of most of California's elected officials it's completely possible that she could be named president of California.
With all the goofy stuff the governor, the legislatureandtheattorneygeneralarepull- ing it would certainly be a nice fit with their agenda.
Sadly for that group, there remains a sub- stantial number of common sense people who call the Golden State home and completely disagreewithbiasedliberalthought. We're doing our best to stop them from completely overrunning us!
It seems to us to be a rather small request that bureaucrats honor subpoenas and for- mal requests from those to whom they are mandated to report; elected politicians and theirbureaucraticminionsshouldbeaware that even though they are in power, there is no provision in our system that was imple- mentedtoallowthemtoabusethatpower. I would remind them that as sure as we're talk- ingherethatadayofreckoningiscoming— The United States of America has withstood all kinds of challenges—many of them much stronger than this current crop of dunder- heads. Whenallelsefails,returntocommon sense.
But, that's only one man's opinion.
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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