Page 3 - Sanger Herald 1-25-18 E-edition

By Fred Hall
only one perfect man ever walked the face of the earth and Donald Trump is not that man, but we should all be above the current level of hate filled garbage which is spewed from the media and our president's detractors on a daily basis.
The hate Trump Syndrome is not only damaging for the country but we believe will deeply harm those who cling to such bitter- ness. When will all the irrational behavior stop and the people - the product of public education - accept that a majority of states in the electoral college selected Mr. Trump as our president (coach) for the entire United States.
Based on all the empirical evidence I have been able to gather, he seems to be doing a pretty good job for the rank and file. Maybe it's just the “bitter clingers” of the establish- ment, academia and the deep state who aren't mature enough to accept the situation.
It would appear that Ms. Clinton's identifi- cation of Mr. Trump's “basket of deplorables” showed all Americans how the Democrat party views their devotion to their deity, fam- ily, character and American way of life that they were able to forestall the steady down- ward slide of this country toward socialism.
Whether it's a game of football, basket- ball or it's politics, there is never anything uglier than a sore loser. With the realities of what is happening with our economy in America under this President there appear to be no losers. The refusal to participate in America's return to greatness is entirely at the discretion of the individual.
But, as always, that's only one man's opin- ion.
It was just brought to our attention that the High Speed Rail has requested another $2 billion for The Central Valley section. We've all become so accustomed to those high num- bers from government as to become immune to what they really mean. Remember, that's $2,000 million ($2,000,000,000) taxpayer dol- lars.
We'll talk about that next week!
In addition to the Sanger Herald, Publisher Fred Hall oversees three other Mid Valley Pub- lishing newspapers - Reedley Exponent, Dinuba Sentinel and Parlier Post. He can be contacted by phone at (559) 638-2244 or by email at fred@ midvalleypublishing.com.
An award winning 2018 member of the California Newspaper Publishers Association
The Sanger Herald is owned and published by Mid Valley Publishing, Inc, 740 N, Sanger, CA 93657 It is an Adjudicated Legal Newspaper
General Circulation in Fresno County, Order No 85500, Dec 1951 Sanger Herald subscriptions are taken by mail in advance
SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
Random thoughts Paranoid behavior is not the best way to promote credibility ...
By Dick Sheppard
No white smoke puffed from a chimney at the school district office on Monday evening.
White smoke from the
Sistine Chapel chimney
at the Vatican is how the
selection of a new pope is
announced. That concept wouldn't work for several reasons when it comes to the school board selecting someone to replace superin- tendent Matt Navo at the end of the school year. San Joaquin Valley air quality standards would prevent any smoke signals even if the schooldistrictofficehadachimney. Sothe process of deciding how to decide who to choose will go on.
No one will comment for the record, but from rumors and speculation overheard in the hallway it seems like the special Monday evening meeting that lasted for more than two hours was maybe focused on trying to decide whether to continue a district tradition and promote from within or hire a headhunt- er and do a national search.
I hope the tradition will continue.
Seems like it would be a shame to bring in someone from outside who would undoubted- ly want to make changes in a perfectly good school district.
If it ain't broke, why try to fix it.
•••
Monica Yamada and Vincent Wall, newly
appointed planning commissioners who will be officially sworn in at this evening's meet- ing, won't have to wait long for a couple of pressing issues to come before the commis- sion.
Tombstone residents want the city to extend its water system to the small unincor- porated neighborhood just south of Sanger because their wells are going dry. The com- mission may get involved in some kind of feasibility study and recommendation even though the city is not likely to be wildly enthusiastic about the project.
Maybe it's a better project for a commu- nity service organization than for a city that has never expressed any interest in annexing Tombstone and, for that matter, Tombstone residents have made it clear they are not interested in annexation anyway, they just want the city water.
While looking at the Tombstone water situ- ation the commissioners are likely to also be involved in a process that would lead to a rec- ommendation to the city council about allow- ing a medical marijuana dispensary to oper- ate somewhere in the city. Councilmember Humberto Garza asked the city council to consider getting that process in gear.
•••
Members of the Measure S Citizens
Oversight Committee had better get their
stuff together before they lose so much cred- ibility they are compared to the boy who cried wolf too many times in Aesop’s famous fable. The tale is about a shepherd boy who gets a reputation for crying wolf, asking for help, when there really is no wolf attack-
ing his sheep. Then, when a wolf actually shows up and the boy calls for help, villagers believe it’s another false alarm, and the sheep are eaten by the wolf.
It appeared to most Sanger villagers, except apparently to some members of the city council, that the oversight committee had good reason to cry wolf when city manager Tim Chapa obviously violated city ordinance 1094 by failing to let the oversight committee vet several costly expenditures from the des- ignated public safety fund before bringing the stack of bills to the council for approval. That was just one of several apparent raids on the sheep, or public safety funds, the com- mittee has been trying to protect.
Each early raid was met with a more or less civil and measured response at the coun- cil and oversight meetings, asking the city manager and council to follow the rules.
The reaction, however, was less civil when the oversight committee’s very reasonable request for an inventory of its sheep and an accounting of their comings and goings, a compliance audit, was so obviously thwarted by the city manager there could be little doubt by anyone, except apparently some members of the city council, that it was an
in your face move, with no apparent fear
of reprisal, to prevent any accounting for how many sheep may have been improperly culled from the flock and secretly served on the city manager’s dining table with a tasty rosemary and garlic sauce.
Those almost constant raids with at least a majority of the council looking the other way were probably good reason for some, if not all, oversight members and their supporters to become downright paranoid.
Good reason maybe, goaded probably, but it won't help their cause to become irrational.
Measure S paranoia is exemplified by an apparent belief that everyone at city hall is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and is complicit in a devious plot to bypass the oversight commit- tee and use designated public safety money
for inappropriate purposes. Maybe a purpose like funding Sanger’s capital improvement projects which consist mostly of street recon- structions with money coming from county, state and federal sources - not from the city's general fund. There are just too many sheep- dogs at all three levels of government for anyone to easily get away with any monetary monkey business.
That kind of indefensible, paranoid specu- lation at last week’s council meeting was not good for the oversight committee’s cred- ibility. Neither has been the recent disarray of oversight meetings where agitated com- mittee and audience members are allowed to rant about all sorts of suspected conspiracies and injustices whether the allegations have anything to do with the posted agenda or not. (That’s actually a violation of the Brown Act.)
The committee appears to be spinning
out of control and if it doesn’t get its stuff together it’s likely to wind up appearing to be about as credible as the boy who cried wolf too often.
If there really is a dastardly plot afoot to raid the Measure S piggy bank in order to balance the general fund budget - not just
a series of rather remarkable and unlikely coincidences - this current spate of paranoid, illogical and almost hysterical behavior by members of the oversight committee and their supporters is playing right into the hands of whatever wolf in sheep's clothing might be orchestrating the plot.
Maybe that was the end game all along. Checkmate in three moves?
•••
Don't forget to stop by the 29th annual
Apache Football barbecue fundraiser at the Oasis this Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.
Enjoy a tri-tip and chicken dinner while making an investment in another exciting Apache football season.
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.''
Mark Twain
Comments, complaints and suggestions may be emailed to sangerherald@gmail.com or maybe made by calling 875-2511
Dick Sheppard
In my OPINION
What a difference a new coach has made
for the Bulldogs and for the United States
Realizing that the great
Central Valley is, in general,
a hotbed for team sports
this week's discourse on the
political landscape will be
based on a sports analogy.
We'll use the four years
of a president's term as a
complete game, with each of
those four years being represented as a quar- ter.
Obviously, the past eight years - represent- ing eight quarters and two complete games using our analogy - would be considered losses by most objectively thinking people. The economy dragged along, never having experienced growth which approached even two percent; employment and wages grew little and were basically stagnant; record numbers of people were out of the workforce; poverty levels grew; the numbers of those on public assistance continued to swell; respect for America fell; our dependency on for-
eign energy continued and I.S.I.S. remained unchecked, terrorizing the free world seem- ingly unimpeded.
What a change has been realized by chang- ing Obama for Trump as our new coach with last November's election.
The stock market seems to set new records - almost on a daily basis - and is now northof25,000! Economicgrowthhasnow more than doubled compared to that experi- enced under Obama; unemployment is down; more people are working; Trump's new tax plan has already begun pumping millions of dollars back into the economy rather than allowing government bureaucrats to spend
it; companies have announced higher wages; many of those who took their business else- where under Obama because of tax and regulation burdens have announced plans to return production to the United States and consumer confidence is at the highest level in manyyears. Manybusinesseshavealready announced the return of tax dollars from overseas depositories because of the new tax reform. What'snottolikeaboutthosenum- bers?
How much of what was just cited have you read about in your newspaper or seen onthenightlynews? Asfaraswecantell,
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Fred Hall
Watergate on steroids
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