Page 4 - Reedley Exponent 8-30-18 E-edition

The Reedley Exponent A4 Thursday, August 30, 2018 Editorial & Opinions
Serving “The World’s Fruit Basket” since 1891
A Mid Valley Publishing Newspaper
Founded March 26, 1891, in a two-story building on the corner of 11th and F streets, by A.S. Jones
Fred Hall — Publisher
In my OPINION
Jon Earnest — Editor
Chris Aguirre — Sports Editor Juanita Adame — Panorama Editor Budd Brockett — Editor Emeritus
QUOTE
“Anyone who can handle a needle convincingly can make us see a thread which is not there.”
E. H. Gombrich (1909 - )
Here we go again! The efforts to impeach Donald Trump began even before his inaugu- ration and continue unabated to this very day. Frankly, it’s an unabashed view of just really ugly hatred for a single individual can be!
Let’s stipulate, for the record, that Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016. Thats unarguable! One surely would realize that to be a fact — cut and dried — but it appears that many partisans from ac- ademia, the media, Republican never-Trump haters and members of the Washington swamp that truly is the “Deep State” are having a real problem.
More work, fixes needs to be done before Hope Now shelter opens
Fred Hall
The Hope Now House of Faith emergency shelter still has work to be done before it’s expected to open its doors. That opening isn’t likely to happen until the end of September or October.
Ken Baker, pastor of Heritage Church in Reedley and director of operations for Hope Now Ministries, said the main job to be done is build- ing the surrounding wall on the north end of the property at 1697 W. Hunts- man Ave. The block wall will replace a fence and provide an extra level of security and privacy to the property and the surrounding neighborhood.
Some work also needs to be com- pleted inside the two-story structure, which will be able to house up to a doz- en families for temporary short-term housing. Construction work has been slowed by the lack of available work- ers due to high construction demand during the summer.
Baker said on Aug. 21 that Hope Now Ministries is in the middle of the application process for an on-site manager, which he hopes to have in place by Sept. 1. He said another ma- jor cleanup day will be planned to get the site ready.
“It’s a couple of months behind what we would have liked, but we’ll get there,” he said. He hopes to have an open house in October.
The emergency shelter was ap- proved by the Reedley City Council on
public know — in a transparent man- ner — how the city has used the addi- tional tax revenue to make Reedley what she calls “a safer community today than it was 10 years ago.”
Take the time
to read how Reedley has managed to be a good steward of taxpayer money since the measure was passed by vot- ers in 2008. This report is part of a re- view period written into the measure to ensure that the community is getting good value for its dollars.
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Reedley ag company Gar Tootelian,
Inc. is taking early donations for its annual Feeding Families Fund Drive, which has provided 4.5 million meals for hungry Central Valley families since it was established in 2013. This year’s day-long drive is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 14 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at The Market, 7088 N. West Ave. in Fres- no. Money donations go to allow the Central California Food Bank, former- ly called the Community Food Bank, to purchase meals for the hungry.
Gar Tootelian will match 50 per- cent of every donation made. More information is available — or you can make a donation now — by going on- line to ccfoodbank.org/gar/.
Jon Earnest
All of this in spite of the fact that, under an electoral college sys- tem outlined by our Constitution, enough American citizens affirmed the fact that it was their decision that this was the man to whom they wished to place the destiny of our country for the next four years.
Immediately, it became apparent there were a large of Ameri- cans who are members of the Democratic party as well as the Re- publican establishment who were not going to accept the results of that election. Somehow their candidate Hillary Clinton (Democrats and even some Republicans fall into this group) failed to convince enough people that it had already been ordained by the media and powerful members of her own party that she would become the chief executive by acclamation.
The hard-working rank and file that represent middle America had seen enough of the slouch toward socialism that was so apparent under President Barack Obama. Inane restrictions and regulations had become a huge drag on an economy attempting to recover. The voters were tired of a stagnant economy and were weary of hearing how “America was never that great” and what we were seeing was going to be the new reality in this proud country. A fertile field of divisive politics was being sold with increasing effectiveness by academia, the media and Ms. Clinton’s own political party.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.” Thank heaven
there are enough people left in America who do have the capac- ity to think for themselves. Those bright lights of discernment dur- ing dark times have been instrumental in electing a man to office who displays no pretense.
Donald Trump does not “poll test” everything he says or does. When one sets aside the fact he is a billionaire, Mr. Trump is closer to the thinking of the average American than anyone we’ve had in quite some time, at least that’s my opinion. He is a businessman who has fought the wars required to enrich an economy which had been allowed, even encouraged one might argue, to languish in the doldrums for more than a decade.
Have any of you stopped for a moment to analyze the results of the millions of collars spent to try Paul Manafort on charges inspired and driven by the Robert Mueller “Russian collusion” in- vestigation? Basically, everything derived from this media-driven frenzy could have been ascertained by a basic Internal Revenue Service audit. The man was convicted of tax evasion and tax evasion is certainly within the IRS purview! We simply did not need all of those expensive lawyers.
Immediately newspapers, electronic news reporting services and social media exploded with the breathless reports that Presi- dent Trump was on the cusp of being impeached. Lannie Davis, a Clinton sycophant and attorney for the president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, almost fell over himself to announce that his client had “the goods” on Mr. Trump and would soon spill it all to Mueller. Mr. Davis has since walked all that back, much to the consternation of CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, The Washington Post and The New York Times. It now seems the truth of the matter is that Mr. Cohen knows nothing!
Here we are, well into the second year of an investigation that has revealed nothing which has anything to do with its original man- date: Russian collusion and malfeasance on the part of the Trump campaign. Our understanding that, at this point, the wrongdoing is with the FBI, The Justice Department and the Hillary Clinton campaign. There certainly appears, at least to me, enough overt evidence of interference in a presidential election by the Democrats and their national committee as well as high-placed individuals in the government as to require more than a little scrutiny.
Two years of pursuing an individual with a group that enjoys extraordinary power, financial resources and autonomy and one would be able to indict anyone, including the Pope! This is personal and political and has spun completely out of control when Mueller’s group have dug up charges that are 10 years old to charge Trump associates. No one seriously doubts that those charges, which previ- ous prosecutors passed on, have any purpose than place pressure on Manafort and Cohen to “flip” and invent testimony intended to tarnish the duly elected, sitting president of the United States.
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Jon Earnest / The Exponent
Construction continued Aug. 21 on the wall on the north side of the Hope Now House of Faith shelter facility property.
a 4-0 vote on April 10. Residents living near the site of the former Marjaree Mason Center shelter opposed the proj- ect, claiming increased crime would return to the neighborhood if a shelter facility returned to the area. The shel- ter received $560,000 in grant funding from the California Department of Finance. Neighboring residents filed two complaints against the City Coun- cil, and sent them to the California Fair Political Practices commission.
•••
Below this column is a guest edito-
rial written by Nicole Zieba, Reedley’s city manager. She gives a 10-year up- date on the use of Measure G money that allowed the city to provide addi- tional resources to police and fire ser- vices. Zieba said she wanted to let the
Measure G funding has made Reedley safer
By Nicole Zieba
Guest columnist
Ten years ago, the voting citizens of Reedley made a tremendously im- portant investment in the safety of their community by passing the Pub- lic Safety Sales Tax (PSST) Measure, known as Measure G. This tax is a half-cent sales tax on goods purchased within the city. Very wisely, the citizen task force that crafted Measure G and the City Council wrote into the ballot language a requirement for a decen- nial review (10-year) of the measure to ensure that the community gets good value for the dollars and that govern- ment has delivered on promised out- comes. This 10-year review is in addi- tion to the mandated annual review of all PSST income and expenditures by a Citizen’s Oversight Commission. All of the information provided herein, as well as the full report provided to the formal oversight bodies can be found on the city’s website at Reedley.ca.gov.
Over the course of 10 years, the total revenue received from PSST — from Jan. 1, 2009 through June 30, 2018 (fiscal year) — is $9,793,300. To- tal expenditures from the same period are $9,498,973. PSST funds have been kept in a separate governmental fund account and not comingled with any other funding source. All expenditures have been reviewed and approved by both the Citizen’s Oversight Commis- sion and the City Council. All fund activities have been audited annually.
The ballot language for Measure G called for all dollars receive to go to public safety purposes in a split of 70 percent of revenue for Police De- partment needs and 30 percent of rev- enue for Fire Department needs. Uses were to include: Police Department Patrol services, Gang enforcement, school resource services, and police support services, including facilities and equipment, Competitive salary, retention and benefit compensation for police personnel, and funding for new personnel. For Fire Department: Construction and/or relocation of fire facilities, Specialized equipment, Com- petitive salary, retention and benefit
compensation for personnel, Fire pre- vention programs, and funding for new Fire Department personnel.
The specific PSST expenditures over the past 10 years are as follows:
FIRE DEPARTMENT
• Full-time battalion chief
• Battalion chief vehicle/equipment
• Medical response vehicle
• Four automatic external defibrilla- tors (AED’s) and two trainers
• Emergency medical technician train- ing
• 30 self-contained breathing appara- tus
• 15 spare SCBA air cylinders
• New fire station garage doors and openers (eight)
• New fire command vehicle/equip- ment
• Fire hose replacement (more than 5,000 feet)
• Washer/extractor for PPE
• Drying cabinet for PPE
• On-site storage containers
• Training computers
• Thermal imaging cameras
• New ladder truck
POLICE DEPARTMENT
• Three full-time police officers
• Two full-time community service of- ficers
• Two contract reserve officers
• Two part-time reserve community service officers
• Six new Ford Explorer police inter- ceptors
• One Ford Fusion staff vehicle
• Five Ford Crown Victoria police in- terceptors
• Three Ford Taurus detective ve- hicles
• Ballistic vests – assault weapon threat level
• Front line patrol officer safety equip- ment
• Mobile data terminal upgrades
• Forensic evidence collection equip- ment
• A 4 percent salary re-alignment
• Start-up funding for Boys & Girls Club
Since passage, the makeup of the Citizen’s Oversight Commission has remained relatively stable. This has allowed for a positive, consistent strat-
Nicole Zieba
egy in funding priori- ties and oversight of fund use. The city is grateful for the dedi- cation of the appoint- ed citizens to this im- portant Commission. Their time and dedi- cation ensures that government is truly serving the people
as it should. The city wishes to thank Robert Takacs, Donna Suemoto, Kath- leen Hayes, Carl Smith, Chris Zaczek, and former Commission member Car- los Gonzales for their years of service.
Archived minutes and notes from citizen’s task force and Council meet- ings In the mid-2000s exploring the creation of Measure G reflect a con- cern about violent crime having esca- lated in the community, and the belief that providing additional revenue for the police department, and in some re- lation, Fire Department, would allow more officers to be hired, trained of- ficers to be retained, better training to be provided, additional critical equip- ment to be purchased, and school/af- ter-school programs to be created to deter juvenile crime trends.
In 2005, Part One crimes (violent crime, such as homicide, rape, assault, etc.) exceeded 943 instances.
The latest statistics available for Part One crimes show that they have steadily decreased to a low of 469 in calendar year 2017. A direct correla- tion between PSST revenue and de- crease in crime cannot and should not be made, since a myriad of factors contribute to the safety of a commu- nity. However, there is no doubt that Reedley is a safer community today than it was 10 years ago.
Measure G has funded important equipment, training, and staffing re- sources that have added additional “tools in the toolbox” to combat crime, protect health and life, and create a proactive approach to law enforce- ment. The police and fire departments of the city of Reedley are stronger to- day because of it.
Nicole Zieba is city manager for the city of Reedley.
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