Editorial

EDITORIAL – In Madera County the ballots are in the hands of the voters and our month long “Election Day” has begun. For the next four weeks voters will select a new Governor and pick who will represent them in the United States Senate and Congress, State Senate and Assembly, School Boards and City Councils. We will also be selecting a new Madera County District Attorney.

In the following few paragraphs we will be sharing our recommendations for the local city council races. These are only our opinions based on past experience, candidate’s performances at public debates and public statements. We recommend that every voter take the time to research each candidate and the issues on their own; then form their own opinions.

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.

EDITORIAL - Well it is official Khalid Chaudhry and Mike Pistoresi’s efforts to recall Madera Mayor Andy Medellin were a total failure. After over nine months of questioning the integrity of our mayor and calling him corrupt and incompetent, these two men (one with a known criminal past) failed to gather more than a handful of members of the Friends of the Madera Animal Shelter and individual members of the Madera Votes group to sign the petition.

These two developers and the Madera Tribune would have had to gather 3000 plus signatures in order to hold a special election to ask the voters two questions, do they want to oust the mayor and who do they want to replace him. Despite working every weekend for the last two months gathering signatures at Citizen’s Business Bank on Howard Road, the group turned in only 67 signatures last Friday to the Madera County Elections Department. They were just a little short of the 3000 plus goal.

EDITORIAL -  In March of 2017 the Madera County Board of Supervisors violated the California Ralph M. Brown Act which insures that public business will be conducted in the public view. During that March meeting the Madera County Board of Supervisors instructed Madera County Department of Corrections Chief Manuel Perez to “fully comply with all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requests” before releasing felons lacking legal permission to live in the U.S. It also said they directed the county counsel’s office to “expedite their actions.”  All this was decided during ‘closed session’ but was not on the meetings agenda.

While the Madera County Counsel Regina Garza claimed a lawsuit filed against the county in July of 2017 by the American Civil Liberties Union had no merit, the ACLU asked a Madera County Superior Court judge to declare the county board violated the Brown Act and order the supervisors to comply with the open meeting and notice requirements of the Brown Act. This lawsuit ended up costing the County of Madera over $36K in legal fees the board was forced to pay the ACLU following the settlement of the case.

EDITORIAL – During the last Presidential election Donald Trump claimed he was going to drain the swamp that has flooded the political process with lobbyist and politicians looking to line their pockets with special deals and contracts paid for with taxpayer’s dollars. That swamp is not exclusive to the Federal Government or the California State legislature in Sacramento. There is a swamp bubbling up all around the Madera County Government Center and in the last eight years it has grown both deeper and wider.

Whether it’s called “quid pro quo” or “pay for play”, developers and county vendors have learned that the best way to gain access to county contracts is through donations to Supervisors’ campaign bank accounts and social agendas. No one on the county board has taken more advantage of this than the Supervisor from Chowchilla, David Rogers.

EDITORIAL - When a man as powerful as Tim Jones has a 59^th birthday party the Madera County Board of Supervisors drop everything to help him celebrate. This weekend at the Lodge at Riverstone on Avenue 12 and Highway 41 a celebration for the Fresno Attorney and real estate developer will take place and the Madera supervisors will pay homage to the man who was able to build where no man has been allowed to build before.

While the ink is barely dry on the settlement agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union that resulted from the Madera Supervisors violating the Ralph M Brown Open Meetings Act, a quorum of the board is expected to show up for this private party outside of the view of the public or media. You would have thought the board learned their lesson from the $35K payment they had to make following an illegal closed door meeting with the Madera County Department of Corrections and the District Attorney’s office regarding granting Federal ICE agents access to prisoners in the jail.