Page 3 - Sanger Herald 9-27-18 E-edition

By Dick Sheppard
In what may not be an unprecedented action - but it's certainly unique in the dozen years I've been editor of the Herald - a planning commissioner has filed an appeal with the city council over a planning commission decision.
Dick Sheppard
A copy of the appeal filed with the city was obtained by the Herald under the California Public Records and the Freedom of Information acts and it contains a mixture of environmental concerns and frustration over what Wall perceives to be misinforma- tion and a lack of timely and relevant infor- mation that was made available to the com- mission.
The council will hear the appeal at a spe- cial meeting at 6 p.m. on Oct. 8, city attorney Hilda Cantu Montoy told the Herald.
The council can "affirm, reverse or modify a decision of the commission," according to city code section 90-1000 (b).
The council has 40 days from the hearing date to render its decision and its decision "... shall be final and shall have immediate effect," according to the code.
Wall, by the way is only one of six appel- lants listed on the formal appeal filed with the city at 9 a.m. on Sept. 20. The others are Joseph Villalobos, Donna Bailey, Efren Rubio, Melissa Beasley and Henry Provost.
•••
I couldn't help thinking, as I was reading
through the appeal and remembering Wall's comments at the Sept. 20 city council meet- ing, how reminiscent all this is of complaints and charges by and from members of the Measure S Citizens Oversight Committee that triggered the most recent grand jury investi- gation.
Not coincidentally, most of the appellants listed on the planning commission appeal sat through those Measure S oversight meetings that were at least as contentious as the Sept. 13 planning commission meeting.
The common denominator is the city staff and its obvious strategy of using deadlines to leverage responses it wants from commis- sions, committees and council.
The staff, under the current administra- tion, routinely waits to present issues until just before a deadline looms and then pro- vides only information and material that will solidly support the staff's recommendations.
And the same council, which will be hear- ing the appeal, has let the staff and its boss, city manager Tim Chapa, get away with it for a few years now.
Wall, speaking to the council at its Sept. 20 meeting, said, "If you are not going to hold
the staff accountable, we will hold you [the city council] accountable."
Good luck trying to do that through talk, threats or formal appeals.
My best guess is that the only way and place to bring about change is with a ballot at a polling place.
•••
I was appalled at that council meeting
when one of the councilmembers asked the city manager to put something on the agenda for the next meeting and the city manager replied - and I'm only paraphrasing ever
so slightly - "I can do that, but there may
be nothing you [the council] can do about
it" - and not a single councilmember had the cojones to let the city manager know it was his job to put the item on the agenda and the council's job - not the city manager's - to determine what, if anything could be done about it."
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
- Desiderius Erasmus
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Random thoughts Another city government issue to puzzle over ....
I guess it could go without saying that the commissioner who filed the appeal, Vincent Wall, voted against the decision.
Here's part of the story from last week's Herald about the decision that's being appealed:
"An agenda item for the Sept. 13 planning commission meeting said it was a request for a 'minor revision' to a conditional use permit [for Algonquin Power.]
"A memo from senior planner David Brletic recommended the planning commis- sion approve the revised permit allowing Algonquin Power to increase its number of hours of operation. The memo even spelled out reasons why each of five necessary 'Find- ings' could be made by the commission.
"Simple?
Not the way commissioner Vincent Wall saw it."
Wall wound up being the lone dissenting vote. Commissioners Johnny Perez, Ken Garcia and Monica Yamada voted to approve the permit.
Wall's reason for dissenting at the com- mission meeting seemed to be that Algonquin would be increasing its number of hours of operation and therefore it would be putting more pollutants into the air. So, in exchange for approval of the permit it should be required to provide an offset, like trees for parks to help rid the air of the additional pol- lutants, said Wall.
However at the Sept. 20 city council meet- ing where Wall, an attorney, announced he had filed the appeal, he seemed to indicate it was not as much about the power plant or the environment as it was about calling attention to the city staff not doing its job of provid- ing timely, complete and unbiased informa- tion that could be used by the commission to make fair and equitable decisions.
In my OPINION
Bureaucrats are not the only threat to
small business survival in California
SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, September 27, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
We welcome guest columns at the Herald
Last week was one of those, which was problematic for us.
This opinion piece may have been more timely had it run Sept. 20. It's about some of the seemingly malevolent machinations of the California Agriculture Labor Relations Board against a local grower, Gerawan Farms, a major employer in the Sanger- Reedley area. The results of an election con- ducted five years ago were finally counted, thanks to a court order, delivering an over- whelming victory to Gerawan in its struggle against all the forces the ALRB had aligned against the Sanger company.
The news of that delayed vote was released past deadline.
Frankly, the real winners of this govern- mental oversight fiasco would be the employ- ees of Gerawan. They made their wishes known through a genuine democratic process and finally, thanks to that court order, those wishes have vindicated and the workers, not the California government nor the United Farm Workers Union, have the final say in their futures.
After all of this, however, the malignancy remains with the ALRB's skewed view of labor in its dealing with employers with this present board. Although there is no apparent need for its very existence, the original struc- ture of the organization was at least seen
as an honorable one. This board was to be a balance of labor and management when first conceived. That is no longer the case, and the current body seems to embody an agenda that is not fair to all. Something should and must be done to remedy the present miscar- riage of what passes for honest oversight in such cases.
Farming is indeed an admirable, labor- intensive vocation with the mandate of this fertile valley to feed much of the burgeon- ing population of our world. However, the farming profession with its perennial need of adequate water and sunshine is not the only business under outside pressures over which it has little control.
Governmental control, restriction and reg- ulation along with a special group of “bottom feeders” add to the uncertainties of surviving as a business in this high tax state.
For all of you in this area who operate small businesses, you must be very careful. Challenges come not just from rogue state agencies.
Case in point: An out-of-control law firm from San Jose and its "rainmaker" are back in the Central Valley perverting the good intentions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was passed by George H.W. Bush. Having said that, it's best to assume they
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By Fred Hall
Early deadlines experi- enced by today's commu- nity newspapers can, from to time, create some very real difficulties for those
of us who strive to fill the columns of your newspaper with fresh and interesting news of fellow community members.
Fred Hall
never left and are always lurking about in search of some small retailer willing to pay their ridiculous and often scurrilous and punitive reparations demand rather than shoulder the expense of going to court.
A rainmaker can best be defined as a pro- fessional client working in collusion with a law firm to generate business. Or they can be someone affiliated with the firm who helps generate legal business. Standards estab- lished by ADA can be quite strenuous and are prone to change on a regular basis.
Such is the wont of our bureaucratic sys- tem.
Many merchants make a good faith effort to comply with mandates before finding that some requirement (example: counter height) may be off by as little as one inch. One can bet that client will be able to ferret out the rampant malfeasance but is willing to settle for a few thousand dollars rather than go to court.
"Slip and fall" claimants have about the same degree of honesty as most of the cases filed by legal firms such as this one that have sprung up around the country. No wonder there is a veritable plethora of lawyer jokes. Guys such as this, who are obviously shame- less, do a huge injustice to the honorable, hard-working members of the American Bar Association. It just seems that the justice sys- tem would do a better job of putting its house in order.
Indeed, there are valid reasons for the disbarment of lawyers and their firms from around the country every year. They always remind me of the “creepy porn lawyer” of Stormy Daniels fame. Integrity, to them, is optional.
Bad lawyers add nothing to the economy of America since they produce nothing of value nor raise the standard of living for anyone but themselves. As a matter of fact, if one were to delve deeply, there probably should be state paid housing made available for their occupancy that always employs special security! Given the cavalier attitude of the Bar Association, it would seem that disbarment is not an option.
With the exception of New York, California is already one of the least business friendly states in the country. Law firms, short of scruples such as this one, can make it extremely tough on little guys when they resort to these sorts of shenanigans. Perhaps it's time for those members of our legislature to step up and pass some law which would restrict this sort of predatory behavior by the legal profession.
Wait a minute! That isn't going to work because most of the men and women who represent us in Sacramento are themselves lawyers.
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.