The Citizen sent questions to Special Prosecutor Jordy Stern on April 11 and he responded April 19. ACO Di Giacomo was given an opportunity respond to Stern's response. She did not, likely very busy with intensive training for her new job with the ASPCA.
As the Wizard of Oz said when Toto revealed him pulling levers behind the scenes, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." The public hearing on the general obligation bonds was just theater, the decisions made beforehand and behind closed doors.
After seven months of waiting for the Forristers' trial, the case ends in limbo.
Trees planted 23 years ago sought water from leaky water pipes below. They had to go, according to City Manager Bruce Swingle.
The city asked the legislature and governor for a bail out without acknowledging how its water system got in such bad shape. The dire state of the water system was not reason enough to fund the request.
The city commission held two closed-door sessions to determine who would be the next city manager, directing staff in a brief open session on March 8 to offer Angela R. Gonzales a contract. She accepted and starts April 3.
The Republican Party of Sierra County is hoping that you will believe that protecting LGBTQ persons' rights and women's and girl's rights to seek or not to seek an abortion are somehow an impingement of parents' and conscientious-objectors' rights. It's confusing, which is the point.
I've been accused of lying by a hospital governing board member--that the point of forming a hospital district is not to bring in more tax revenue for Sierra Vista Hospital. Then Sen. John Arthur Smith and Hospital Association advisors to the two hospital boards lied too.
Do not be duped by local government officials into signing the hospital-district petition. It will form a new taxing authority that can levy up to 4.25 mills and issue general obligation bonds that would also increase property taxes--taxes in addition to the taxes already being collected.
Utility fees hit the poorest hardest and T or C residents are among the poorest in the nation and the state. For generations the city has wrongly used utility fees to make up for budget shortfalls, and its only getting worse as neglected utilities fall apart.
General obligation bonds are backed by a governmental entity's ability to levy taxes, sometimes described as "the full faith and credit clause." Despite vague ballot language, voters passed the issuance of $3 million in bonds last November, demonstrating faith in T or C government. Will faith persist? Should it?
Just as the lower-court planning and zoning commission blinded themselves to current city code, so did the Truth or Consequences City Commission. Mayor Amanda Forrister and her husband have been granted a kennel permit, making their hunting-dog operation legal, or at least sanctioned by her fellow city commissioners.