School Board Recall Election Halted

Great news today! The Kern County Superior Court has decided to halt the election on April 4th while the court determines whether or not to disqualify the election completely. This is one step closer to stopping the 9th street gang's effort to take control of the school board and fill it with a bunch of idiots and criminals.

Here is an article that was published in the Bakersfield Californian.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/032906_BakCalif.pdf

McFarland Sex Offenders

I came across a Megan's Law website that tracks sex offenders in the state of California. I did a search for sex offenders in the city of McFarland and three people came up on the search. The light blue squares on the map are the locations in town that they have listed as their residence.
http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/

I would encourage people to run this search and be aware of who these people are.

School Board Recall Flyer

A flyer is being distributed to advise the community to vote against the school board recall election that is taking place on April 4th. The goal of this flyer is to inform people of the type of candidates that are trying to replace our existing board members. We hope that this flyer will encouage people to ask tough questions and determine the true intentions behind this recall effort.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/032306+School+Board+Recall.pdf

Criminal Records for School Board Candidates

We were doing some research into the background of some of the candidates that are running to replace the current school board members. All of the information posted here is taken from a Kern County website that lists criminal records and court hearing dates.
http://www.co.kern.ca.us/courts/crimcal/crim_index_def.asp

Emma Garnica apparently has quite an extensive history of charges against her. We were able to find 4 different items including charges for:
1. Driving under the influence of alcohol.
2. Two separate instances of possession of illegal drugs.
3. Driving without a license or registered vehicle.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Garnica_Oct13_1998.pdf
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Garnica_Sept3_2002.pdf
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Garnica_March20_2003.pdf
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Garnica_Jan25_2006.pdf

This person thinks she knows what is best for our school district and our children? It looks like she is in need of some personal counseling. I believe that a record like this says a lot about the character of a person and I would say she is unfit to make decisions that may affect our students. I think that our community should hold our city leaders to a higher set of standards.

For Marin Ortega and David Arquello we found records showing that they have a hearing date on March 21st regarding the charges that they face for illegally collecting school board recall signatures.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Ortega_March6_2006.pdf
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Arquello_March6_2006.pdf

More Unethical Behavior from Melendez

Apparently the mayor was quite intimidated by the recall effort. I found out a few weeks ago, that he was trying to disrupt the recall process by approaching the employers of people that were assisting in collecting signatures. Melendez was actually bold enough (and stupid enough) to contact the employer of a former city councilman that was supporting our recall to complain to the employer that their employee was out collecting signatures to recall him. What the heck is this guy thinking? The poor guy truly believes that he has the power to get people fired or have them reprimanded for acting on their political beliefs. I have heard stories that this guy has a large ego and is on some kind of power trip but now I truly believe it.

March 9th Council Meeting

I was reading through the council agenda and two items caught my attention. One of the items brought up was the issue regarding the operation of the wastewater plant. Apparently, the $400k contract with Severn Trent has not worked out as well as the mayor said it has. At the January council meeting Melendez defended the contract and even went as far as to say that no other city around us could operate their wastewater facilities at such a low cost. Well if you read the agenda excerpt it appears that city staff has concluded that operating the wastewater plant in house would be more cost effective. So if we have such a good deal with Severn Trent, why are we once again shopping around for another solution?
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/030905+Meeting+Agenda+Items.pdf

Another item that was placed on the agenda was a proposal to modify the fee collection process with R&F. Former city administrator, Anthony Lopez, recommended that the process should be changed so that R&F conducts their own billing and we stop collecting fees through the property tax billing. Here is a copy of Mr. Lopez's reasoning for why the city should stop handling the billing. I wonder though, why isn't Sunset Waste being asked to conduct their own billing? Reading through this proposal it is clear that this is simply a personal attack on R&F and Lopez does not have a clear grasp of what a great position the city is in to be collecting the garbage fees upfront through property taxes. The claim that we are subsidizing costs for customers that don't pay their garbage fees is false. A property owner that doesn't pay his garbage fees would have a lien placed on his property and the city would eventually recover any lost fees through a tax lien sale. This is a very rare occurence in McFarland if you research tax lien sales in Kern County. Also consider what would happen if someone doesn't pay their garbage fees once R&F does their own billing. In that situation, R&F would not be obligated to pick up garbage at these sites leaving trash to accumulate and create an eye sore, potentially decreasing our property values.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/031406_Lopez_Recom.pdf

Here is a rebuttal to Lopez's recommendations.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/031406_Rebuttal.pdf

Submission of Council Recall Petitions

Another key milestone in the recall process has been completed. The recall petitions were finally submitted to the city clerk this afternoon. We were told that the minimum required number of signatures to approve a recall election is approximately 620 for each person. It looks like our volunteers have collected more than enough. Next step in the process is to wait for the city clerk and county elections office to verify the signatures. We should have some type of response within the next 30 days.

http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/031006_PetitionReceipt.pdf

Estimated number of signatures for each person are as follows:
Melendez ~765
Cantu ~665
Santillano ~700

We would like to thank all of the people that hit the streets to collect signatures and all of the people that supported this effort by signing.

School Board Election Ballot

I received my ballot for the school board election and as I started to read through it some of the names were very familiar. Note how two of the people running to replace the current school board members are people that were recently charged with a crime by the district attorney. These people are David Arguello and Marin Ortega. Both of them are correctional officers, how ironic.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/Recall_Ballot.pdf

A third person named Emma Garnica was also running to replace a school board member. She appears to have a criminal record for drug possession. This is all public information from the Kern County website.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/EmmaGarnica.pdf

People of McFarland, why are we putting up with this kind of behavior? We came so close to having our school board being taken over by people with these qualities. Let's wake up and make a better effort to stop this from occuring in the future. I hope people take the time to investigate who these people are and what local leaders they support so more people can begin to see the light.

I would like to thank all of the wonderful people that put in long hours to fight this school board recall attempt. You have done a great service to our community and our students.

School Board Recall Fraud

A story was reported today on KGET 17 news regarding the effort to recall some of our school board members. The district attorney has decided to file charges against six individuals for fraudulent activity while collecting signatures. This school board recall was supported by councilman Manuel Cantu and the people from the 8th street group, a gang of illiterate people that are Melendez supporters.

http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/030706+School+Board.pdf