Recycling Bill from McFarland Resident

A couple of months ago, all homeowners in McFarland received a billing statement for their recycling services. A creative McFarland resident was upset about receiving this billing statement for a recycling can that he doesn't utilize, so this person decided to submit his own billing statement to the City of McFarland for rent to store their recycling bin on his property.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/062506_BilltoCity.pdf

I have been told that many other residents have decided to protest this recycling bill by withholding their payments on it.

Letter from Grand Jury to Melendez

One of our McFarland residents filed a complaint against our city council with the Kern County Grand Jury. This person received a response from the Grand Jury regarding their investigation on the city.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/letter_062306.pdf

The following letter is much more interesting. It is a letter written by the Grand Jury and addressed to Rafael Melendez. This letter should be enough to convince people that Melendez, Cantu, and Santillano have failed. To summarize the letter, it basically states that these guys are doing a terrible job in running our council meetings and that the recycling contract that was awarded to Sunset Waste was to the "detriment of the citizens".
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/letter_062306_2.pdf

The Grand Jury seems to suspect that something strange is going on and they plan to recommend that the investigation continue into the following year. I smell trouble for these guys, something similar to what the mayor of San Jose is going through at the moment. Looks like he may have accepted bribes from a garbage contractor and he was arrested yesterday. I wonder if the Kern County Grand Jury will discover that these guys on the McFarland City Council were involved in a similar type of fraud. I wouldn't be surprised. What else could explain why Melendez, Cantu, and Santillano would award the recycling contract to a company that bid nearly twice as much for the same service?
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/arrested.pdf

Letter to FPPC written by Cantu

Here is a copy of a letter that was attached to Melendez's letter to the state attorney general (shown on post of June 1st). This letter was written by Manuel Cantu and in it he is complaining to the Fair Political Practice Commission (FPPC). He complains about the school board's decision to hire lawyers to stop the school board recall after discovering that many of the signatures on the recall petitions were collected illegally. He claims that the motive for hiring the lawyers to fight the recall stems from the desire of the board members to retain their health benefits package at all costs. Most of the letter is amusing, it's almost like what I would expect to read from a child trying to make an argument. The last sentence where he points out Mr. Kasiner's Oklahoma license plate number is kinda goofy. I'm sure this letter left a good impression on the folks at the FPPC. I can almost guarantee where this letter eventually ended up.....directly in the trash.

Letter to FPPC:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rrodartejr/mcrg/060806/060806_CantuLetter.pdf

More expenses for Melendez

I received some more documents showing how Melendez is abusing his position to treat himself to expensive personal equipment. In the latest documents that we have received we find that he has spent ~$700 on a cell phone and $1000 on a laptop computer. Should the citizens of McFarland be obligated to pay for all of this? Just because this guy can't afford to purchase his own communication and computer equipment, why should we bear the burden of this cost? I guess the trips to Las Vegas and Korea were not enough to fill his ego and make him feel important.

Cell Phone Expense:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rrodartejr/mcrg/060806/060806_Cell.pdf

Laptop Expense:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rrodartejr/mcrg/060806/060806_NB.pdf

Another Trip to Las Vegas

It looks like Manuel Cantu is enjoying his last few weeks as councilman by taking another trip on the taxpayer's dollar. Looks like he attended some kind of event in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. Here are copies of expense records that I was given by the city.

http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/060806_LasVegasTrip.pdf

Measure "E" and Biosolids Issue

Last summer, I took a bit of interest in the biosolids issue. For those of you that aren't familiar with it, over the past year Dean Florez has been supporting an effort to ban outside counties from importing their sludge or biosolids into Kern County and applying it on our farmlands. This sludge consists of human sewage and industrial waste made up of hundreds of compounds, many of which are untested and cannot be scientifically confirmed to be safe. Our community (Delano, McFarland, Wasco) is basically becoming their dump yard. I will be voting "Yes" on Measure "E" and I urge our other residents to do a bit of research into this and hopefully you will come to the same conclusion.

Here is a website with more information regarding Measure "E".
http://www.keepkernclean.com/

I wondered where these biosolids were being applied and I had contacted a local agency for this information. They sent me some maps of the farms that are currently allowed to apply this stuff. Here is the information that I received from the local official.

"Biosolid Locations:
1. State Hwy 119/Enos Lane. SW Kern County RBM Inc.
2. Garces Hwy/ Corcoran Rd. NW Kern County Honeybucket Farms
3. Garces hwy/Scofield Rd. NW Kern County Honeybucket Farms
4. Gun Club Rd/Patterson Rd. NW Kern County USA Transport, Inc.
If you have further questions please call me at 661-862-8708.
Guy Shaw"

Along with the locations he also provided satellite maps identifying the locations. Note how 3 of these locations are located right in our backyard.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/biomap1.pdf
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/biomap2.pdf

Here is a copy of the article that sparked my interest in this whole issue. Last July, there was a story in the Bakersfield Californian reporting on some waste "ash" being dumped in Wasco and there were concerns over the contents of the "ash". I have family in Wasco, plus since Wasco is not that far away from McFarland I had concerns about this. The city council reviewed it but I don't believe that they ever came to a firm conclusion.
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/072105_BakCalif_Wasco_Ash_Piles.pdf

Letter to Attorney General

Here is a copy of a letter that Melendez wrote to the California State Attorney General regarding the McFarland school board recall. After reading this letter I felt so incredibly embarrassed by the fact that someone like Melendez is representing our city. Besides being poorly written, it is packed full of lies. He points out that some of the signatures that were submitted were invalidated but doesn't quite describe all of the circumstances behind the illegal collection of the signatures. His wording in the letter also implies that the county granted an election even after they had invalidated the signatures that were collected illegally. This is false. The election was granted before one of our citizens informed the county of the illegal activities.

He also states that the county of Kern opposed stopping the election. This is false, once the county elections department was informed of the manner in which the signatures were collected, she cooperated with the district attorney's office in their investigation and the county elections office came out in support of stopping the recall.

Also, note that Cantu has written a letter in support of this. Once again he goes out of his way to support a cause that was undertaken by a group of corrupt people that are currently going to trial for their crimes. I can't believe that they also sent copies to Dean Florez and Nicole Para on this. We need to get these guys out before they embarrass us further.

At least I had a good laugh when I read the end of the letter where it was signed "The Honorable Rafael Melendez". Yeah, sure. I would change it to "The Dishonorable, Incompetent Rafael Melendez".

http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/060106_LetterAttGen.pdf