BVN Opinion

EDITORIAL: Fresno State Moves In 1000 Students, I Move Out 1 Daughter

EDITORIAL – This last weekend over 1000 college students moved into Fresno State’s Student Housing. Furniture, refrigerators and boxes were trucked into the dorm area and many students began their first adventures away from their family homes. One of those students was my oldest daughter.

At Fresno State, dorm life comes in many different configurations. While around 600 students will live in the traditional dorms with communal restrooms, 400 or so students will experience dorm life in one, two or three-bedroom suite-style dorms with up to six other students. In my daughter’s suite, she shares a two-bedroom suite with five other girls who came to Fresno from all over the state.

EDITORIAL: What is a Public Figure, a Bully and a Journalist? Why Some May Never Know!

EDITORIAL – The law defines a public figure as a person, such as a politician, celebrity, or business leader, who has a certain social position within a certain scope and a significant influence on society or a person who has thrust themselves to the forefront of particular public controversies to influence the resolution of the issues involved.

As the publisher of Big Valley News, I recognize that I have voluntarily placed myself in the position of a public figure. If I didn’t want to be in the public spotlight, I should have probably picked a different line of work. There are others in our community that take to the podiums at public meetings, such as county board of supervisors, school boards, or city councils, and share their opinions or criticize our elected officials. Those people are also public figures and hopefully, they all gave thought ahead of time to what it means to choose to spend time in the public spotlight.

EDITORIAL: The Bullies Continue Attack on Madera Mayor While the Grand Jury Complains They Get No Respect, No Respect at All…..

EDITORIAL – Since December of 2017, the city of Madera’s Mayor Andy Medellin has been on the hot seat. A hot seat created by two land developers who have had a history of grievances with the city.

These two men tried to have the mayor recalled, but failed. They have had their bully-pawns attack the mayor at nearly every Madera City Council meeting over his personal financial issues for the last year. Now they have convinced the Madera County Grand Jury to publish a report full of accusations but with no real “meat”.

Editorial: Lesson Learned, For Customer Service the Local Guys are Your Best Bet

EDITORIAL - When Home Depot announced they were opening a store in Madera, I was excited like many other Maderans. We needed a good place in town to buy lumber and a one stop shop for home improvement. Then a few years later along came Lowes less than a mile from Home Depot. Now we had two large box stores that would stock everything you would ever need to fix up your house.

The only problem was, despite the large inventory of everything you could ever want; they forgot to stock the one thing Maderan’s want more than anything else, CUSTOMER SERVICE. How many times have you walked the aisles of either of these stores looking for an item, only to have NO ONE around to help you find it?

EDITORIAL - Political ‘Want-To-Be’ Bullies City & School District - Now Accuses Local High School of “Institutional Racism” – ENOUGH!

EDITORIAL – Enough is enough! I was recently made aware of a letter that is circulating through-out the Central Valley high school track & field community accusing the Madera Unified School District, specifically Madera South High School of “institutional racism”. The letter was written by a frequent flyer at the public comments podium for both the Madera City Council and Madera Unified Board of Trustee meetings, Ron Montoya a Medical Social Worker for Valley Home Care.

Montoya was a 2010 board of trustee candidate for the Madera Unified School District but was trounced by Maria Velarde-Garcia in the general election (45.8% to 24.7%) and is now talking about a run for the Madera City Council against Donald Holley in District Six. Montoya was also a part of the recall efforts against Madera Mayor Andrew Medillian (acting along with Khalid Chaudhry of Ripon and developer Michael Pistoresi).