Dysfunction Junction Former Woodlake City Administrator Bill Lewis has a bone to pick with State Assembly candidate and Woodlake Mayor Rudy Mendoza. At the September 16 Candidate’s Forum, Mr. Mendoza claimed that, while mayor of Woodlake, he converted a $1 million dollar deficit to a budget surplus and completely replaced the city’s dysfunctional staff. “As […]
Man on Fire During the September 4 gubernatorial debate, Neel Kashkari summed up Gov. Brown’s legislative successes for the month of August as: banning plastic bags, regulating high school football practices, and allowing pets on the patios of restaurants. We know Gov. Brown has accomplished a lot more than that, but Mr. Kashkari’s was painting […]
Can This Marriage be Saved? The debate rages between Tulare County and SEIU. The county is filing an Unfair Labor Practices charge against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) for bad faith bargaining. Kathleen Bales-Lange, county counsel for the Tulare County Board of Supervisors (BOS), explained that there […]
Virginia Gurrola Starts Off Running The official campaign season doesn’t start until after Labor Day, but Virginia Gurrola, candidate for Tulare County Supervisor in the 5th District, has already assembled her team and fixed up her campaign office. Her headquarters are at 238 Main St. in Porterville, and the official ribbon cutting is today at […]
Mayor Ashley Swearengin in the Cat Bird Seat Who could have asked for a more perfect series of events? Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin discreetly sits as a candidate in the November election for California’s State Controller, while her two Democratic opponents battle it out for second place. It was generally accepted that the Democrat who […]
Pete McCracken – More than a City Council Member It was a sad day in Porterville when Renaissance Man, Pete McCracken, passed away June 21st. Mr. McCracken had just been re-elected to his third term on the Porterville City Council. Being on the city council, and having served as mayor, were just two of Mr. […]
Primary Predictions In the May 15th issue of the Valley Voice, I published my predictions for the June 3rd primary. I made predictions for the first and second place winners for six races, and first place winners for District Attorney and Sheriff. Out of my fourteen predictions I got twelve correct. Of the two predictions […]
People’s Sexiest Men Alive It’s old news who the Tea Party hates more than a Democrat–the same person who a Democrat loathes, a moderate Republican. Actually, Democrats don’t hate them: They fear them. Enter stage right, Neel Kashkari. If Mr. Kashkari decides to run again in 2018, no one will be more of a threat […]
Nate Silver is notorious for his uncanny accuracy in predicting presidential elections. Between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Mr. Silver correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. But local elections can be a bit trickier. Mr. Silver had the advantage of many national polls from which to choose and […]
Decoding City Council Elections Why is Porterville having its city council election in June instead of November like everyone else? Well, according to Juan Duran, they don’t really know. Mr. Duran, one of the candidates himself and president of Centro Mexicano American Latino, said, “The city council election used to be in November, but a […]