EDITORIAL – This is going to be a strange endorsement. Most endorsements are for the best candidates for the job, this one is different. This endorsement is asking voters to again do what is in the best interest of the county and Supervisor Robert Poythress leaving the county board is not what is best for Madera County.

Rob Poythress is a good man. He is actually one of the only honest men sitting on the Madera County Board of Supervisors. He is the only man who will call out Brown Act violations and the only member of the board not sucking at the teat of the Fresno Developers lining their pockets with cash from their billion dollar projects along the Highway 41 corridor.

Before Rob was elected to the board the people of Madera County District Three had to deal with the rants and ravings of Rick Farinelli who tried to push through a raise in pay for the supervisors in secret meetings. Boss Farinelli would sit in the lobby of the government center and take down names of people coming into work a few minutes late and demand their department heads write those employees up. He even fired his own chief of staff because despite the position not being a political appointment, he wanted just that. Damn the civil service rules, he wanted to pick his own staff.

Farinelli would even interrupt citizens coming before the board if “he” disagreed with their issues. He would even throw citizens out of the meetings by armed guards who demanded not to be interrupted by him when he was chairman.

I know I worked very hard to get the word out on Farinelli and the voters soundly rejected a second term for that clown and overwhelmingly picked Rob Poythress to replace him. The word on the street is if this year voters elect  the Republican candidate John Cox for governor, Farinelli has jockeyed himself into a position as front runner for an appointment to replace Poythress should he win a seat on the California State Senate. Do we want to go back to life under Boss Hog? I mean Boss Farinelli?

Rob Poythress ran for supervisor and promised to serve a four year term. I for one am going to hold him to that promise. If in 2020 he wants to seek out a higher position in Sacramento, fine. Frank Bigelow’s Assembly seat will be open and that would be a great place for Rob to start his Sacramento career. But for right now he has a commitment to the county of Madera and that is where he will make the biggest difference.

Rob Poythress is an honest man, who has the best interest of his fellow citizens at heart. He is a true servant of God that puts the needs of others before those of himself.  He would be a great asset to the state senate, but he would be one of fourteen Republican votes against 26 Democrats. If you are a Republican there is not much opportunity for any real change in the current partisan political environment. But on the Madera County Board of Supervisors he can continue to make a real difference.

We need him to stay on the Madera County Board of Supervisors to deal with the criminal activity that Madera County District Attorney David Linn has been warning us about for two years. Just because you don’t agree with the way Linn has treated his staff does not mean he is wrong about what certain members of the Madera County Board of Supervisors have been getting away with.

Supervisor’s David Rogers and Tom Wheeler do not serve the best interest of the voters of Madera County. Supervisor Brett Frazier has drank Madera County CAO Eric Fleming’s Kool-Aid and does only what is in the best interest of Fleming’s friends, the Fresno land developers Tim Jones, Robert McCaffrey and Richard Spencer.

Poythress is the only man with a true moral compass on the board and we need him to complete his term. We don’t need a Republican governor appointing Rick Farinelli back to the position against the wishes of the voters. We don’t need a Democratic governor to pick someone who is loyal to that party that might not be the right man. It’s happened before.

We have the right man in the position of Madera County Supervisor District Three. He needs to finish his work here.

For these reasons Big Valley News is endorsing Assembly-member Anna Caballero for California State Senate. District 12.