See DEBATE

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On Monday October 3rd, the Veterans Memorial District hosted the Clovis Unified School District School Board Candidate Forum in the Liberty Ballroom of their facility.

The school board candidates present were Samantha Bauer, Joanne Burton, and Chuck Der Manouel all who were running for the vacancy in Trustee Area 1. Deena CombsFlores was the final candidate present at the debate, representing her hopes to be elected to Trustee Area 6, the vacancy opened by the retirement of board member Betsy Sandoval.

Those not present were Clint Olivier for Trustee Area 1 and Bill Whitmore running for Trustee Area 6. They did not get the chance to speak at the debate.

Tiffany Stoker-Madsen was also not present at the debate, however she is running unopposed and will continue to represent Trustee Area 3.

CUSD Superintendent Dr. Eimear O’ Brien was present and relayed her hopes to continue the “sixty-two year legacy of Clovis Unified.” She then went on to state that she was anxious to hear the visions for the school district that the candidates held and recognized her duty to implement the vision that ultimately stems from the school board.

The candidates then had one minute to verbally answer questions thrown at them by moderators Larry Powell, former superintendent for the Fresno County Office of Education, and Guillermo Moreno, talk show host from KXEX Radio.

To open, various questions were asked pertaining to candidates’ backgrounds and how they would best represent CUSD as a board member.

Samantha Bauer, mentioning she began her career in statewide public education policy in Sacramento, believes that she is qualified for the job of school board because of her past experience “working for superintendents of boards of education for two of the largest school districts in California.”

Candidate Joanne Burton believes that by attending both a parent town hall meeting and several CUSD school board meetings, she became dignified to understand the problems that she would like to address if elected to the school board. “The parents were feeling their children were not up to academic grade level, particularly after the shutdowns and mandates.”

Chuck Der Manouel stated that “As a parent, as a community person, dealing with other parents, one’s that I’ve spoken to more recently, in the last two years, one of the things I’ve noticed is that because of this pandemic all the parents are starting to pay attention. As I’ve spoken to them I think that our priorities have veered away from what our standards should be.” He then said that he would like to be the “voice of the parent”, and “treat the parent like a customer”.

Finally, to open, candidate Deena Combs-Flores was asked how and what community activities related to a school district she had been involved with. Her answer began with the statement that her children had been products of CUSD for the past sixteen years that she has also lived in the Clovis area. All the while she has also been a teacher in Madera Unified, Merced, and currently works in the Fresno County Superintendent‘s Court School teaching math. “I also, through this time, was a stay at home mom…so I was very involved in PTA, coaching my kids in soccer.”

One question was posed to the four candidates by a student from Buchanan High School. The student asked how the candidates propose they bridge the communication gap between the school district and the community regarding opportunities for students.

Candidates’ answers ranged from factors such as social media, over-communication, not enough communication, and using the CUSD app to notify the public.

A few questions were also asked from Clovis Chamber of Commerce President Greg Newman.

One question asked by Newman related to the candidates’ stance on how CUSD could potentially work with the local business and manufacturing community to prepare students for workforce readiness coming straight out of high school.

Samantha Bauer: “In my experience in Elk Grove Unified School District in Sacramento County we actually had a partnership. It was a certification with a networking company and these kids came out of high school making six digits, so it’s definitely doable…It’s absolutely critical that we continue to find partnership with industry and certify our teachers so that these kids have meaningful skills upon graduation from Clovis Unified.”

Joanne Burton: “Well I think we have to preface it by saying we all acknowledge that vocational ed and technical training had been removed from the schools and now they’re trying to build it back in. Well that was a big mistake and I hope that I will be a big supporter of bringing that back in. This college trap is not for every kid.”

Chuck Der Manouel: “What I’ve learned is we have to prepare students for many, many different jobs that don’t necessarily require college. So we not only have to prepare them for college, we prepare them for any other job that’s meaningful and [to] make a living in their life.”

Deena Combs-Flores: “…I also worked for Madera adult school and they had a partnership with Workforce. And so I’m all in favor of having a partnership with Workforce because the reality is although there’s a lot of students that will be A-G qualified, there’s many who will not be and Workforce provides an opportunity for these students to get another type of career in their lives.”

The candidates were asked various other questions all pertaining to the school board responsibilities which include communication on a school board, how to properly conduct a school board to superintendent relationship, and several other questions regarding personal ideologies of how to represent one’s area of the community. Candidates were then given the opportunity to close the debate with final thoughts and conclusions.

To watch the CUSD Debate: https:// fb.watch/fYMpsPUoTr/?mibextid=C8kmS4

JT Gomez/Clovis Roundup

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bate was mediated by Greg Newman, CEO of the Clovis Chamber of Commerce and Lorenzo Rios, Clovis Veterans Memorial District.

A portion of the debate was ran in a “lightning round” format. This “lightning round” was conducted by moderator Greg Newman in which he asked Yes or No questions to the candidates. Newman explained that the questions were asked by citizens from Clovis and received through the Chamber of Commerce website.

First question: Have you lived in Clovis for over five years? Des Haus and Diane Pearce were the only candidates who did not raise their hands.

Second question: Do you work at or own a business in Clovis? Des Haus, Drew Bessinger, Guy Redner, Joe Hebert, and Matt Basgall all do not work in or own a business in Clovis.

Third question: Did you graduate from a Clovis school? Joshua Phanco, Des Haus, Drew Bessinger, Diane Pearce and Joe Hebert all did not graduate from a Clovis school.

Fourth lightning round question: Do you support vaccine mandates? No candidate raised their hand, meaning none of the eight candidates present at the debate support vaccine mandates.

Fifth question: Would you support a sales tax measure to support adequate funding for the Clovis police department? Each candidate except Diane Pearce and Joe Hebert would support a sales tax to further fund the police department.

Sixth question: Do you support the city having more reclaimed water projects? Every candidate supported this question, all raising their hands when prompted.

Seventh lightning round question: Do you support the twice a year curbside pickup program in Clovis? All hands raised in support.

Eighth and final yes or no question: Are you active in a non-profit in our [Clovis] community? Those not active were Guy Redner, Drew Bessinger, and Kyle Chaney.

This concluded the lightning round but questions and answers alike were then discussed over the course of one minute intervals by each candidate.

All eight candidates were also given the opportunity of providing opening and closing statements to the crowd and to a live broadcast presented by CMAC, the community media center for Fresno.

At the end of the debate Lorenzo Rios gave a statement that vindicated the need for events such as this.

“We’re gonna have three seats in a council of five, that’s very important…Today was one sampling of listening to these wonderful candidates provide you what’s in their heart.”

Rios then urged the public to vote come election day on November 8th, “Please, do your part, and go and vote.”

The Clovis City Council debate can be found at the link below on the Clovis Veterans Memorial Facebook page.

You can also visit ClovisRoundup.com to read profiles on each of the candidates.

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At the October 3rd City Council meeting, an appeal hearing was held in regards to a suspension by the Clovis Police Department of a local nightclub’s entertainment permit.

The nightclub, “The Palace” had its entertainment permit revoked for serving alcohol to underage attendees at their nightclub on multiple occasions according to the Clovis PD.

Police Corporal and officer in charge of entertainment permits, Chris Hutchison was present at the meeting and detailed several occasions where The Palace nightclub was believed to or seriously suspected of serving underage patrons at their bar.

One event came after a traffic stop of an eighteen year old driver in which they were found to have a .05 blood alcohol concentration and were arrested for DUI. The juvenile later said they were drinking at The Palace.

In another incident, two eighteen year olds were outside in a large crowd that had gathered after the closing of most bars in the area and were found to be intoxicated. They too later stated that they were drinking at The Palace.

Clovis PD began taking a closer look at the establishment after receiving an anonymous phone call from a concerned parent in the Clovis community who believed that their eighteen year-old child had been drinking at The Palace nightclub after they came home intoxicated.

The police department’s efforts included an incident in which they entered the establishment without notifying the Palace ownership and searched for underage drinkers, along with the Alcoholic Beverage Control agency who ran their own undercover operation.

In light of finding “inconsistencies with security practices” such as not checking identification at the door, Clovis PD nor the ABC found any underage drinking.

On Friday August 12th, written notice was given to The Palace nightclub notifying them of the entertainment permit suspension.

What this suspension withheld was the playing of loud or live music in addition to the prohibition of live television, videos or jukeboxes played within the establishment.

This suspension was to be held until the end of the 2022 calendar year, but the ownership of The Palace, which includes Cesar Lossley, a self-proclaimed investor in the business, filed the appeal with the hopes of allowing their operation to play music until 12 o’clock midnight.

This had been a prior allowance under a separate entertainment permit suspension after the nightclub was host to a shooting last year that claimed two lives.

Chief Curt Fleming came to the defense of Officer Hutchison’s decision when he stated, “My concern is we’re gonna have an underage girl in the bathroom being sexually assaulted, which we’ve had in our bars in the past, we’re gonna have a DUI crash where teenagers are getting killed and if we do this to prevent that from happening, then I’d rather do this to educate the bar owners to make sure that in the future this is not gonna happen again.”

The hopes of the City Council and the police department is that the nightclub goes through the proper training in order to learn how to properly check for fake ID’s, something that Fleming said was “not the responsibility of the police department.”

The council voted to uphold the suspension of the entertainment permit until the end of the year by a vote of 4-0 with the absence of a vote from councilman Drew Bessinger who was not present at the meeting.

JT Gomez/Clovis Roundup

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A new bill has been signed into law in California creating a new project grant program that will pay for fentanyl awareness, outreach, and overdose investigation.

AB 2365 received unanimous support in both Senate and Assembly floors and was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom last week.

Assemblyman Jim Patterson first introduced the bill to allow other regions to recreate successful efforts by Fresno law enforcement, education and health leaders who have collaborated to fund law enforcement efforts to track down dealers after an overdose, and to fund billboard campaigns, PSA’s at local movie theaters, radio ads and TikTok videos.

Patterson, in a Zoom meeting addressing the public revealed, “We’re celebrating the passage of the bill anticipating the six programs of California, but we’re also just as serious as we possibly can be about getting a handle on this both through education and mental health, and through law enforcement.”

Fresno County Supervisor Steve Brandau, representing District 2 and speaking on behalf of Fresno County stated that the board of supervisors have “..now authorized hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last year in the ongoing educational campaign over fentanyl.”

Flindt Anderson, Founder and President of PAIN, Parents and Addicts in Need, who also spoke at Clovis North recently, relayed, “I wanna thank Governor Newsom for signing this bill and all that were involved in getting this thing passed today. It is something that is one of the most vital and important topics in the history of the United States and in the history of California.”

Jim Patterson spoke again on the importance of reaching a specific demographic of the public, “It doesn’t do any good if we put together messages that bore young people or are not put together in ways that will attract their interest, particularly in this age of the large amount of kinds of photography, kinds of language, kinds of methodology of communication.”

A final piece of information that Patterson believed “indicates the seriousness of our leadership up in Sacramento” was that the California State Assembly had authorized the organization of a select committee on fentanyl, addiction and recovery. Patterson stated that the committee has already been organized and that the Speaker of the Assembly has asked Patterson to join the committee.

This committee will hold hearings up and down the state as they work toward helping to bring awareness and additional legislative and funding recommendations.

“It’s gonna take a lot more funding than this bill puts forward, but this is the example, this is the test case.”

Photo contributed

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member Harry Armstrong, will now have enough space for constituents to meet with transit staff. This is important to Berube because at the current Transit Center, there is simply not enough room to have these sorts of meetings.

Berube also believes that with the extra room in the Transit Center, employees will be able to have a safe space to come and go as they please throughout the day. This is for employees such as drivers who are nearly never locked in at the center, but rather walk in and out on their way to their vehicles.

The William H. “Harry” Armstrong Transit Center will provide easy access for transit drivers as they will have their own entrance access when arriving to the area. Upon leaving from the center, drivers will exit through the same area as everyone else, yet will enter through their own alley so as to cut down on traffic.

The new senior center, named the Clovis Senior Activity Center - A Smittcamp Family Legacy, will house activities for seniors and once again creates a safe space for employees as well.

Once again employees were thought of first and asked their opinions on certain aspects of their jobs when building administrative offices. This was done in order to fulfill employees’ needs with which they believed they could better help the seniors who venture into their building.

But not only has the senior center afforded more space for their employees, a number of senior center activities will now also have separate rooms for their interests.

This includes but is not limited to a new pool hall, an art room or a room specifically designed for artistic ventures, and a three way split multi-purpose hall where activities such as zumba, bingo, or dance lessons can be held at separate or the same times.

The Clovis Senior Activity Center- A Smittcamp Family Legacy will also have a hall located towards the west end of the building that can hold up to 450 people.

The hall can be rented out for separate events such as weddings, or receptions as well. For any and all senior center activities, there will be available space just outside of this reception hall that can open up to the outside for seniors to embark in art classes or further activities.

In addition to a few select benefactors and the Smittcamp Family, donations for the Senior Center were made by the two Kiwanis Clubs of Clovis, PG&E, and St. Agnes who will have their own wing at the senior center. It is unknown what St. Agnes will officially use the 4000 square foot space for as of yet.

The current Clovis Senior Center, which had its 40th anniversary last Friday, has been in need of either renovation or new construction, and like the Transit Center, it took the latter.

The thought behind completing both at the same time was to create a space that could house both for public use by Clovis residents all the while being in one area. With this new location, the City of Clovis has done just that.