EDITORIAL - When a man as powerful as Tim Jones has a 59th 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.