Thread: Cutler-Orosi fights back

This is a direct result of illegal aliens and amnesty. You are lucky if you don't live in this area, but we do. It's all about culture...

Violence and poverty won't stop the Tulare Co. area from going forward.
By Erik Lacayo / The Fresno Bee
02/01/08 22:52:41

The twin communities of Cutler-Orosi mirror the problems of many small unincorporated towns across the Valley.

Poverty. Gang violence. Decay.

But all of those issues are magnified here in northern Tulare County, where towns separated by less than a mile on Highway 63 have a combined population of about 13,000 that represents the largest unincorporated community in the central San Joaquin Valley.

"Cutler-Orosi has gotten really bad lately, especially in the last year," Orosi resident Isaac Aceves said.

The headlines in that time have included two fatal stabbings in Orosi; the arrest of a former Cutler resident for allegedly killing a sheriff's detective; the arrest of an Orosi woman for allegedly abandoning three of her babies in town; and a drive-by shooting that forced officials to lock down an Orosi elementary school.

The bad news didn't end with the police blotter. A national study labeled Orosi High a "dropout factory," and some students there protested a new dress code -- intended to eliminate gang colors on campus -- by staging a walkout.

Residents and county officials are fighting back: El Monte Middle School in Orosi opened a new gymnasium and eight new classrooms in December; a sheriff's department substation opened Dec. 10 in Cutler; and the county got a $175,000 federal grant to fight crime in Cutler-Orosi, with a chance at five years' worth of funding that could total $1 million.

And they're not done. An anti-gang summit is scheduled at El Monte school March 12.

Some even dream that one day there will be a strong enough local economy to support incorporation, giving residents city services such as their own police department.

"There are a lot of issues in this community," said county Supervisor Steve Worthley, whose district includes Cutler-Orosi. "I see some opportunities here. Growing population creates challenges and opportunities."

Without a city council or staff, many in the community look to the county and local school district for help.

The new Sheriff's Department Cutler substation is the headquarters for 20 deputies who patrol a vast area in northwestern Tulare County.

Lt. Gary Chambers, who commands the substation, said the area's problems are no different than other rural communities in the central San Joaquin Valley.

He said there is a big gang problem, but can't say whether Cutler-Orosi has seen a significant increase in crime recently.

Yet, there is no denying that Cutler-Orosi has seen its share of recent negative news.

An Orosi mother was arrested last year for allegedly abandoning three newborns in the area during a 21/2-year span. The December 2006 death of one of the babies, later named Angelita DeOrosi, or "The Little Angel of Orosi," made national headlines.

Jorge Gomez Banda, who is awaiting trial in the December killing of Tulare County sheriff's detective Kent Haws in nearby Ivanhoe, grew up and lived in the area, attending school in the Cutler-Orosi Joint Unified School District.

Between 50 and 75 Orosi High students walked out on their final exams Dec. 14 to protest a dress-code policy banning gang attire including the colors red, blue and brown. In the days leading up to the protest, several fights erupted on campus and rumors of a drive-by shooting prompted officials to close the campus.

In January, Chambers took county supervisors Worthley and Phil Cox on a tour to highlight how officials plan to use the federal money.

Chambers pointed out sneakers dangling on utility lines that he said signify where someone was "jumped" into a gang.

Cutler-Orosi fights back
02/01/08 22:52:41
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These shoes and other eyesores, such as walls covered with graffiti, serve as uneasy reminders of the troubles plaguing the community.

The federal government sees Cutler-Orosi as a community that has "suffered because of criminal activity and social decay," according to the U.S. Attorney General's Office.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice awarded 38 communities each $175,000 "weed and seed" grants. The Sheriff's Department could receive up to $1 million by the end of the five-year grant.

The funds will allow deputies to conduct anti-gang and drug sweeps, graffiti abatement and start neighborhood-watch programs.

During a January sweep, deputies netted 13 arrests and recovered five guns, Chambers said.

The grant also enables the school district to open "safe haven" after-school sites at Cutler Elementary School and Golden Valley Elementary in Orosi, which was locked down for about 90 minutes last May after a drive-by shooting in the neighborhood.

Logan Robertson, the district's assistant director of community services, said the community suffers by not having a youth center such as a YMCA or Boys & Girls Club that helps keep children off the streets.

Because Cutler-Orosi is unincorporated, Robertson said, there is no city Parks and Recreation Department to help fill that void -- so the schools must seek outside money to pay for after-school services.

"The school district takes a leadership role in a lot of initiatives in the community," she said.

Some have worked well, such as the junior high school and high school Advancement Via Individual Determination programs, which were named AVID national demonstration schools for others to emulate.

The district's superintendent, Carolyn Kehrli, was honored in 2007 as the California Adult Education Administrator of the Year for her work with the adult-school program.

Despite the recognition, Orosi High School was named a "dropout factory" in a Johns Hopkins University study released in October.

It is a dubious designation that Kehrli disputes because she said the study didn't count students who left the high school for charter programs.

"We are certainly not a dropout factory," she said.

Kehrli said she chooses to focus on the positive things happening in the community, such as the December opening of the El Monte gym.

"We're not about the guy who gets stabbed in the parking lot," she said.

March's gang summit, aimed at educating families, will take place at the new gym.

"Kids see a first-class facility and it gives them a chance to step up," Supervisor Worthley said. "I'm very hopeful for this community."

During the tour, Worthley pointed to an empty lot near the sheriff's substation along Highway 63. He said it would be nice to see a new shopping center there.

The community needs to figure out ways to attract businesses to create a sales-tax base that could support a Cutler-Orosi city, Worthley said.

Despite the obstacles facing this community, Kehrli remains optimistic.

When El Monte students buried a time capsule in December, Kehrli said she envisioned an incorporated Cutler-Orosi with a freeway connecting it to Visalia by the time the capsule is opened in 50 years.

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/sv/story/367778-p2.html

What the heck, we did have some good news today:

Deputies seek parolee

Richard Rivera, 26, a Fresno parolee who eluded deputies on two occasions, is sought by the Fresno County Sheriff's Department.

Rivera, an admitted gang member, eluded deputies Wednesday and Thursday, a sheriff's spokesman said. On the second occasion, he crashed a car near Clark and Austin avenues and eluded officers on foot. A companion, Ruben Morales, 33, also a gang member, was captured.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Rivera is asked to contact the Fresno County Sheriff's Department at (559) 488-3111, or Crime Stoppers at (559) 498-STOP.

Two arrested after meth, weapons found at house

Two Fowler men were arrested Thursday on narcotics and theft charges by Fresno County sheriff's deputies.

Guillermo Bravo Monje, 38, and Robert Williams Bingham, 42, were booked into the Fresno County Jail after deputies served a warrant at Monje's residence on the 3800 block of South DeWolf Avenue, a sheriff's spokesman said.

Detectives reported seizing more than 11 ounces of methamphetamine, a .45-caliber handgun and a .25-caliber handgun.

As detectives continued to search, Bingham arrived at the location to pick up methamphetamine in exchange for copper wire, the spokesman said.

Monje was charged with possessing methamphetamine for sale, possession of cocaine for sale, being armed in the commission of a felony and possession of a stolen gun. Bingham was arrested and booked on charges of grand theft and possession of stolen property.

Man found dead behind Orosi business identified

A man found dead Wednesday behind an Orosi business has been identified, Tulare County sheriff's investigators said Friday.

Dead is Ramon Mejia Rusiles, 62, of Orosi.

An autopsy Thursday showed no signs of trauma or foul play, sheriff's detective Martin King said.

The cause of death remains undetermined pending the results of a toxicology study.
Stolen gun recovered

A Fresno Police Department-issued gun stolen two months ago from an off-duty police officer's car was recovered Thursday after a Sanger man was stopped for a traffic violation, police reported.

Sgt. Andy Mercado said officer Danny Castro was at Ashlan and Cornelia avenues in west-central Fresno when he stopped Felix Lopez, 18, for a traffic violation.

Lopez was carrying the stolen pistol in his waistband, Mercado said. He was arrested on suspicion of possession of stolen property and carrying a concealed weapon.

Lopez, who Mercado said was a Bulldog gang member, was also arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana for sale. Several bags of marijuana were found in his car, Mercado said.
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/sv/story/367778.html

http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/367827.html

Well someone has to drive the illegals and their children around:

Measure C shows results
Unlike the original, the sales-tax extension puts emphasis on transit.
By Russell Clemings / The Fresno Bee
02/01/08 23:24:36
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Seven months after taking effect, the 20-year extension of Fresno County's half-cent transportation sales tax, Measure C, is showing modest but visible results -- including new public transit for long-underserved areas.

Children in a remote reach of the county's west side now get rides to a day-care center.

Bus riders 65 and older throughout the county can climb on board without paying fares.

Expanded van pools and car pools are being planned, with cash incentives for participants. An average of more than $750,000 per month is flowing into city and county street repair budgets.

Money also is accumulating for highway projects, such as improvements to Fresno's congested interchange of Highways 41, 168 and 180, and for other purposes such as merging the city's two parallel sets of main line railroad tracks.

But unlike the original 1986 Measure C, the extension -- which voters approved by a more than 3-to-1 margin in November 2006 -- puts an emphasis on public transit.

And public transit is where the early effects of the new measure are most visible.

Sylvia Leon lives in Squaw Valley, where public bus service has been nonexistent. Now that is about to change as a county transit agency plans to open a route there.

"We're all looking forward to it," she said. "We're on limited incomes, and gasoline is so expensive."

The bus fare waivers for riders 65 and older have proved unexpectedly popular, said John Downs, transit planner for the Council of Fresno County Governments and Fresno's FAX bus system.

"Senior ridership is going through the roof," Downs said. The FAX system carried 106,000 free riders in December, compared with 51,000 one year earlier.

Downs said most of the difference was 65-and-older riders, who can board for free just by showing proof of age. They can also get a permanent pass from FAX by calling 621-RIDE.

In the original Measure C, transit got no guaranteed money. Back then, in the mid-1980s, the tax had one overwhelming focus -- completing a metropolitan freeway system that had languished on yellowed plans since the late 1950s.

With help from an infusion of state and federal funds, the freeways were built. So were major local streets and rural thoroughfares like Highway 41 south of Fresno and Manning Avenue west of San Joaquin.

But as its 20-year term neared an end, the old Measure C attracted critics. Besides neglecting transit, it also turned over 25 cents of each dollar to city and county governments, with few controls on use of the money beyond the requirement that it be for "transportation purposes."

Only a little of that local money found its way to transit. Meanwhile Fresno city officials, for example, spent $1.4 million on decorative tinted concrete circles for intersections downtown.

Partly in reaction to those criticisms -- and to the 2002 defeat of an earlier extension effort -- the new Measure C devotes almost one-third of its yield to transit.

It also beefs up reporting for local agencies. And it established a citizens committee to review how the local funds are spent.

Sales tax collections under the new Measure C began July 1, and local agencies began getting money from it in mid-November. But funds from the final months of the old Measure C are being used to fund several remaining projects. Among them are completion of the Highway 180 freeway between Clovis and Temperance avenues, where work is scheduled to begin in March.

Under the new Measure C, funds for major projects are accumulating at the Fresno County Transportation Authority, said its executive director, Ron Peterson.

How soon construction will start on the new projects depends on their costs and the amount of planning and design work that remains, Peterson said.

One that might move forward quickly is the last part of Friant Road's widening between Fresno and Millerton Lake.

"The county has been working on that for five years, and that's essentially ready to go," Peterson said. "They're chomping at the bit."

One that may be years away is the consolidation of Fresno's Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad lines into the Union Pacific corridor along Highway 99. The measure provides only about $100 million over its 20-year life; additional funding estimated at $600 million to $900 million will be required from other governments or private sources to complete the consolidation.

Fewer barriers of that kind stand in the way of local street maintenance work or public transit improvements. As a result, local agencies have moved quickly to take advantage of the new funding.

The Fresno County Rural Transportation Agency provides bus service outside the Fresno-Clovis metropolitan area. It has budgeted $500,000 from the new Measure C for service and equipment upgrades in the current fiscal year, said its general manager, Jeffrey Webster.

Webster said the agency is buying 11 new buses and has added second buses to existing routes in Firebaugh, Fowler and Kingsburg. Like FAX, it is also waiving fares for riders 65 and older. And it is planning the new south Sierra route to serve Dunlap, Miramonte, Pinehurst and Squaw Valley.

That area needs bus service partly for the sake of people who have to get medical treatment in Fresno, said Maureen Dupras, member of a group called Foothill Seniors.

"There are people who move to this area and then have to move away when they get an illness," she said.

The new Measure C cash has also given Webster's agency a way to meet requests for better service from agencies like the I-5 Social Services Corporation, which operates a day-care center at Cantua Creek in remote far western Fresno County.

"Cantua Creek has all of the classic characteristics of an isolated rural community," said Javier Guzman, spokesman for the social service agency. "The only transportation systems that actually go out there are Jeff Webster and his group."

Guzman's agency sought twice-daily bus service to its day-care center. With Measure C money, the transit agency began service late last fall.

Ten to 12 children, mainly from farmworker families, ride regularly. Guzman said that number could double with a bigger bus, which Webster said is coming soon.

In the cities, Clovis started free fares for riders 65 and older in November, and added Saturday and Sunday service to its fixed bus routes at the same time.

Fresno's FAX system plans to use Measure C money to maintain 15-minute intervals on four of its busiest routes after the expiration of a federal grant that now funds the service.

The city also plans to fund several street improvements this year, in addition to routine street maintenance.

At the top of the list is widening Ashlan Avenue to four lanes between Highway 99 and Blythe Avenue. Also, a gap in the Sugar Pine trail at Shepherd and Willow avenues is expected to be closed late this year using Measure C funds.

http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/367819.html

Please remember these folks as you fill out your tax returns.