Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 3-21-19 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, March 21,, 2019
In My Opinion
STtop 'making it easier to vote!'
hanks to the Fresno County changes to a corrupt Board of Supervisors signing system? The
on to The Voters Choice Act, DMV is incapable
Fred Hall
of handling their current assignment of tags, titles and drivers licenses. Why on earth would any right-thinking person have decided it was a good idea to give them increased
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
elections in Fresno County will be taking on an entirely new look and we’re being told it makes it easier for people to vote. How difficult is to vote how? Personally, I never saw it as some kind of ordeal to go down to the local polling place and cast my ballot. This entire mess is a political solution to a problem which does not exist. Why is it that every time they change the rules it seems to facilitate cheating?
The title The Voters Choice Act sounds innocuous enough and has become something of a standard used by our political class for packaging all these inane political adventures from Sacramento which are shoved down our throats after being “sugar coated” to cover their true intentions. “Now you see me, now you don’t!” If you doubt that assertion check the titles of Propositions 47 and 57 as well as the recent attempt on the part of voters to repeal the Governor’s arbitrary gas tax. That one was so deceptively worded and titled as to result in the voting public counter intuitively voting to keeptaxingthemselves—andthatmy friend, makes no sense at all.
Ballot Harvesting, which we were told was instituted to “make it easier to vote,” is so bad that it is illegal in muchoftheUnitedStates. Wesaw the results of ballot harvesting, in
my opinion, for the first time here in the Valley following our last election. Many races had literally beeen decided by a large number of votes and, yet, when the “harvested” ballots were counted many of the first results were turned on their ears. One would not expect 75-80 percent of those votes from late-comers falling to one party!
One of the biggest problems with the afore mentioned ballot harvesting is that there is no chain of control. Ballots should pass directly from the voters hand to an election official. That alone seems to make this whole process subject to legal scrutiny.
Originally, we were told that absentee ballots or “vote by mail” would “make it easier for everyone to vote” but, considering the bumbling DMV registering thousands of illegals to vote those same absentees are
an open invitation to election fraud and cheating. The simplest solution would be to return to the old system where everyone went to vote in person at their local precinct—with proper identification—unless they applied for an absentee with sufficient documentation. However, that isn’t going to happen. We will continue
to have thousands of ballots floating around to be voted by Heaven only knows who.
Everything has become so ridiculous that it is politically unacceptable to
ask voters to produce identification to indicate they are how they claim to be. Hell, we can’t even ask people if they are citizens!
“Motor Voter” was a dumb idea which was designed to be administered through the Department of Motor Vehicles, but it was implemented
to “make it easier to vote.” Anyone beginning to see a pattern here? Anyone wondering why I am so
cynical about seeing any intelligent
Guest Column
HRobots' next target: farmers
ow’re you gonna keep ‘em The roboticists down on the farm after brag that local they’ve seen... Angus? Not warehouses can
responsibilities?
Fresno County had 200 polling
places. Under the auspices of this new plan, 150 of those will be closing. That, in and of itself, will pretty much lock the voting plan into place since there will be so few places where one can vote in person anywhere in the county.
Most right-thinking Americans see voting as a duty and responsibility
on their part to elect other patriotic Americans who will represent their causes and needs in maintaining a strong free country. That concept seems to have been hijacked by a professional political class whose main goal is the assumption of power and its maintenance. There are times when simply living in today’s modern newhigh-techworldisn’teasy. I don’t believe that the intent of our Forefathers was to make voting an easy, simple matter.
Truth is that time and effort must be investedinmakingeducatedchoices when selecting those individuals who hold such sway over our daily lives.
It takes effort to separate truth from lies and obfuscation when analyzing records of those asking for your vote. We’ve seen too many of them run as one version of who they are then when elected, change completely. No, voting was never intended to get easier and easier!
When I look at today’s political campaigns, I see the hand of Madison Avenue and Hollywood more than
I see anything to do with good governance. Acandidateismuchakin to a product which is packaged as attractively as possible and marketed as one would market a commodity. Charisma, personality, attractiveness and acceptability to the general public are key criteria in a party selecting its candidates. Perhaps we should have casting calls in Hollywood instead of primaries!
The last couple of weeks we’ve pontificated over the damage we believe the current education system is exacting on our children. One
can even extend that by looking at
the recent moral crisis over the way wealthy children are preferentially being admitted to tier one colleges. One could almost predict that someone from the Democrat party would not
be far behind, calling for 16-year
old children being given the right to vote. The more diluted the standards become involving this basic right the more it expands the opportunity for enterprising politicos to cheat!
We believe our politicians are so heavily invested in this process, they will do little to clean their own house. Please, stop “making it easier to vote!”
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Dinuba Sentinel.
Guest Column
Sidewalk vendor law puts brick and mortars at a disadvantage
I
Council on Tuesday. I have been told that a representative from Tulare Health will be present. If you are unfamiliar with this bill, please refer to the City Council Agenda of February 26th.
is a loss of jobs, empty buildings, and eventually blight.
In our municipal code, which is now superseded by this legislation, there was control over where mobile or temporary vendors could operate in regards to existing brick and mortar businesses. There was the need to get permission for setting up on private property and public areas. While some might see this as barriers, I saw it as protection for those
want to share a concern that was brought to my attention. It is my understanding that there will be another hearing on SB 946 Sidewalk Vendors at City
This has been passed into law as of January 1, 2019 and would allow street vendors to set up along sidewalks and within parks, with very limited restrictions. My personal opinion is that this bill gives opportunity to the street vendor while potentially giving an unfair advantage over their brick and mortar competitors, who are held to a higher standard for doing business by the cities, counties, and state.
I further believe by their investments into properties and hiring of employees our local economy is strengthened, and the taxes they pay are what maintain our city and state.
Seeing how street vendors have worked in our area
and at our events, I question what checks and balances
are in place that assure these vendors are held to the
same accountability for taxes, employment practices,
and operational standards, including but not limited to health and building codes, that their brick and mortar counterparts are held to. While some verbiage has been put into this legislation to police these vendors, the question comes back to who is going to take on the policing of these vendors, Tulare County Health for the food vendors, the City Code Enforcement to make sure they are licensed and in compliance, the state CDTFA to make sure they pay sales taxes, EDD to make sure employment laws are followed?
I encourage you to review this legislation and attend
the hearing to support local business. I am all for entrepreneurship and the ability for people to start business, however I also believe in fair and equitable laws that govern business, so that all can succeed. Competition is good and is what makes all of us strive to be better and work smarter. I guess I am a little old school, but I still shop at the small retailers and enjoy it. As we have moved toward the big box model, and now to e-commerce, we have seen many small businesses and retail chains close their doors. You might say that is progress, but what I see
Sandy Sills
who had made a significant investment in Dinuba.
I would also point out that the sidewalk that these
street vendors use, while a public right-of-way, is the responsibility of the residential and business property owner whose property it is in front of. Case in point; the streetscape project in the early 1990’s downtown was financed by the property owners through a bond that was paid back through their property tax.
So again these property owners are carrying the load of maintenance and improvement for access to their business, while others will come and set up shop, may not pay into the local tax base, as they may or may not pay taxes or
may or may not live in the area, in which case they get the benefit without any investment or buy-in to Dinuba.
This has concerned me for over 30 years as vendors showed up selling goods within Dinuba without business licenses, competing with local business for revenue, and taking their profits and those local dollars out of our local economy.
Statistics have proven that small, locally owned businesses, are the foundation of the American economy
at large. Not only do they provide valuable products and services to consumers, they fuel local economies with tax dollars, spur employment, and create community pride and development.
I care about our local businesses, and hope we can find a solution that protects them and their investment in Dinuba.
Sandy Sills is the CEO and President of the Dinuba Chamber of Commerce.
the cattle breed, but the 1,000-pound “farmer of the future.”
Angus is a robot, toiling away on an indoor hydroponic farm that’s soilless as well as soulless. Programmed by
a multimillion-dollar Silicon Valley start-up named Iron Ox, Angus’ homestead is an 8,000-square-
foot concrete warehouse in a San Francisco suburb.
The farm bot is more of a heavy lifter than a heavy thinker, wheeling around the warehouse to lift, move, and hand off large pallets produce
to another robot that, so far, hasn’t earned a name. The human overseers of this robotic animal farm don’t wear John Deere caps, but clean-room hair nets, apparently to prevent anything organic from contaminating the edibles or the bots.
Started by a Google engineer, Iron Ox hopes to install duplicates of its faux farm in metro areas across the country. “If we can feed people using robots,” he says, “what could be more impactful than that?”
How about this: Reconnecting our food system to nature, a democratic economy, and humans?
Jim Hightower
provide fresher lettuce than the mega farms ship from thousands of miles away. But local farmers markets already do that, and the consumer dollars
stay in the community, rather than being siphoned off to Iron Ox and the Wall Street financiers of Angus robots.
The robotic indoor farm
hucksters quietly concede that
their real business plan depends on “sidestepping” the cost of human labor and local farm owners. Instead of democratizing our food economy, their scheme concentrates food profits in a handful of absentee syndicators, rich investors, and technology giants.
Deep in his digital brain, even Angus must know that this is stupid.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
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