Editorial

EDITORIAL - The Madera County Board of Supervisors race for District 5 has gotten highly nasty in the last few weeks. A flyer is circulating in Eastern Madera County alleging candidate Mark Reed has a criminal record that includes drug and weapons convictions. That flyer was followed up by a professionally produced video on YouTube highlighting the allegations of the flyer and questioning whether the candidate's son might be a white supremacist as it alleges that the grown son has a NAZI Swastika tattooed under his eye.

Reed followed up with a political mailer that called out individual Madera County residents who have opposed his campaign. He accuses five Eastern Madera County women of everything from a socialist to a lesbian, a witch, and even “GASP,” a Democrat. The Reed flyer even attacks one of the unions representing one of the county employee's sixteen bargaining units. The most shocking attack in the flyer for me was why Reed would feel the need to question why his opponent supports a movement like 'Black Life's Matter,' because Reed’s opponent in this campaign is a black man running for the position of Madera County Supervisor.

EDITORIAL - Disgraced former Madera County CAO Eric Fleming has been hired by the one Fresno contractor who reaped the most financial gain from Fleming’s time on the fourth floor of the Madera County Government Center. Richard Spencer, who has donated thousands of dollars to almost every elected county official’s campaigns and profited from several brand new county buildings, hired Fleming as the new Vice President for Harris Construction’s Central Coast Division earlier this month.

In a press release posted to the company’s Facebook page, Spencer says, “He brings more than 20 years of public sector management experience. Additionally, he was a licensed general contractor with years of experience in construction operations management. Most recently, he was the County Administrative Officer (CAO) for the County of Madera, a position that oversaw 22 department heads and nearly 1,500 employees.”

EDITORIAL – Big Valley News had a booth at the Madera Fair in Hatfield Hall earlier this month. It was a great chance to meet some of our readers and talk about the issues in Madera that concerned them. You would think with all of the problems facing Madera with Freeway 99 traffic, homelessness, and the overgrowth of vegetation in the Fresno River, there would have been many more important topics to discuss. Still, the one thing on everyone's mind was what has become of the Madera Tribune since the death of its publisher, Chuck Doud, and what the future holds for the struggling twice-weekly newspaper.

The one phrase I heard multiple times was how happy I must be that the Tribune was on its last legs and would soon become part of Madera's history. My answer, I think, surprised many when I told them what has been happening to our city's newspaper over the last five years is not only tragic for our community but breaks my heart personally. I am the last person in Madera who wants to see the Madera Tribune close. That paper is the heart and soul of our town. It is the voice of our community. Big Valley News cannot be the "voice of a community" as long as it is only my voice.

EDITORIAL – The City of Madera receives federal grant monies to provide an hourly bus route to the Madera Community College. You would think students would have no issues getting to the college campus that the powers that be decided to build two miles outside Madera. Unfortunately, you would be wrong, as already two weeks into the school year, and the city has failed to staff the bus for the college route.

Now when I say the city has failed, I mean that a vendor out of Dallas, Texas (MV Transportation) has not only been unable to hire enough drivers to cover the scheduled bus routes and dial-a-ride service, their offices in Dallas are closed. No one is there to answer questions. In addition, the local bus office is also closed to the general public, and the city employee who oversees the contract with MVT and compliance for the grants, David Huff, refuses to leave his house and work out of his office in city hall because of the pandemic.

EDITORIAL - There are always two sides to every story. This past Friday afternoon my phone was blowing up because apparently, Madera County Supervisor Tom Wheeler (78) stepped in another big patty of cow dung. This time with a female reporter from the Fresno Bee seeking what she believes to be “public records”. Did Mr. Wheeler respond to a request for public records with an insult towards the reporter? Yes, he did. Did Mr. Wheeler intend for his opinion of the reporter to make it back to her and be public? I do not think so. I think it was just Tom being Tom.

For the last month, Fresno Bee reporter Yesenia Amaro has been seeking information about the July 2020 murder of Calley Jean Garay (32) at the hands of her husband, and a lawsuit filed by the victim’s family against the county. According to Wheeler, this Fresno Bee reporter kept pushing the supervisor for information about what the Madera County Supervisors had talked about in the closed session portions of their meetings.

EDITORIAL – Just when we thought we would see a way out of California Governor Gavin Newsome’s PURPLE covid-19 tier, Madera County has been pushed back down again with several more weeks or months of businesses in our county being forced into bankruptcy and permanent closures. All the while our neighboring counties to the north, south, and east have been allowed into the RED tier where gyms, churches, and indoor restaurants are free to operate under safe conditions (as of today they are also back in purple). Our community has already been locked down since March; 36 weeks of our economy shut down and some lady (Our County Health Director, who happens to live in Fresno County) wants it to be even longer?

A few weeks ago Madera County met the arbitrary number set by the state on positivity rates and should have moved into the RED tier, and then Madera County Health Director Sara Bosse pulled the rug out from under our county’s economic base yet again saying our Covid-19 numbers doubled and our county’s businesses are put on hold for two more weeks. At the same time, she was upset with the Madera County Board of Supervisors for releasing county numbers before our state’s governor got to do it on his nearly daily television hour. The health department director scolded the board because the information she shared was “embargoed” until Governor Newsome released it.