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©1867 -2004 Fresno Republican Newspaper
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    FRESNO, Calif. - A man suspected of murdering nine of his family members apparently was involved in polygamy and incest, fathering two of the victims with his own daughters, police said Saturday.
    The bodies of six females and three males, ages 1 to 24, were found tangled in the back room of Marcus Wesson's home Friday. Fresno's largest mass murder ever quadrupled its homicides for the year in a single night and disturbed officers so much that some immediately needed counseling.
     Wesson, described by police as "very calm," was arrested Friday after emerging from his home covered in blood. Wesson, 57, has fathered children with at least four women, two of whom are his own daughters, said Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer.
    Wesson, described by police as "very calm," was arrested Friday after emerging from his home covered in blood. Wesson, 57, has fathered children with at least four women, two of whom are his own daughters, said Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer."We are exploring the possibility that there were other women he was involved with, either sexually or in some sort of polygamist relationship," Dyer said.
     Police said they believe all the victims are members of Wesson's family, but they declined to release names pending notification of kin. Wesson was cooperating with police, who planned to charge him with nine counts of murder, Dyer said."If this does not qualify for the death sentence, then there is no case that would," Dyer said.
     Six coroners, triple the typical weekend staff, were working Saturday to identify the victims and determine how they were killed, Deputy Fresno County Coroner Sarah Davis said. Officers were originally called to the home Friday afternoon for a child custody dispute.    Inside was a discovery so grisly reduced Dyer to tears.
     The bodies were so entangled in a pile of clothing that it took hours for investigators to reach a final count, police said. Ten coffins lined a wall inside the home's front room."What's making it so difficult is the bodies are not only intertwined, but stacked on top of each other," Dyer told reporters Friday night. Police were not sure of a motive, but Dyer said "there may have been some type of ritual" involved.
     "I've been with the Fresno Police Department for 25 years, and I've never experienced anything of this nature," said Dyer, who wiped his eyes Friday night as officers carried bodies out of the home, cradling the youngest ones in their arms.
     The scene was so gruesome some of the first officers into the house were placed on administrative leave and received counseling Friday night. Six police chaplains were at the house throughout the evening as detectives continued to gather evidence. Officers were called to the home Friday afternoon by two women who said a man had their children and would not release them. 
      The man initially ignored orders to come out, running into a back bedroom as two other women fled the house. They were unharmed. A neighbor, Chris Tognazzini, said he heard two gunshots moments before police arrived.yer said the women who called authorities told them they had given custody of their children to Wesson two years ago and now wanted them back
    The slayings shocked authorities in Fresno, a city of 440,000 about 190 miles southeast of San Francisco. Dyer said the city had seen three murders in the last 2 1/2 months, the fewest number for a 10-week period in more than three decades.the nine deaths represent the largest mass killing ever in this San Joaquin Valley city. Seven people were killed in rural Fresno in 1993
     .Another neighbor, Johnny Rios, said that on many nights he heard loud banging coming from the house, as though the people inside were building something. "There was something up over there," Rios said.

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©1867 -2004 Fresno Republican Newspaper
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~Reprise~
September 23, 1958
The Twisted Cross Alive & Well
at Fresno State College
by Howard E. Hobbs, Editor & Publisher
Fresno Republican Newspaper
[Contains 1,678 words]

    FRESNO STATE -- Prior to the recent wave of popular discussions on the behavior of 'ordinary Germans' under Nazism, this writer has been attempting to focus public and scholarly attention on the life of Fresno State German Language instructor who, while posing as as an American "foreign student" actually was a paid radio broadcast propagandist for the Third Reich in Berlin between 1933 and 1939.
    Karl Leonard Falk, one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of Fresno State College carried into his work in Fresno California many of the Nazi values and traditions he personified while working for the Third Reich in Nazi Berlin as a young man. Falk worked directly under Goebbels, Hitler's Reichs Minister for Propaganda and Re-Education. While in Hitler's employ, Falk wrote a series of propaganda tracts widely disseminate in Czechoslovakia's sudetenland. Falk even managed to draft an anti-American work of over 100 pages which was published by Hitler as a Berlin University text-book on the evils of American newspaper journalism.
    Moreover, as a well-known author of numerous anti-semitic tracts, he had been pondering for a long time the problems of the Jewish controlled news media in Germany. Falk weaves his own views into his 'history of the basic problems with American newspapers' interlacing them with sometimes heavily pedagogical explications on the nature and pitfalls of greed, monopoly, and the 'appetites' of American newspaper readers.
    Berlin was at that time the preeminent urban renewal site in the entire world. Germany through the late thirties was under continuous rebuilding. Berlin, with its position at the center of state and Party architectural policy, experienced Hitler's redesign of the capital and its centralization under the direction of Albert Speer who was given authority to control architectural policy as Inspector General of Building for the Reich Capital in Berlin (Generalbauinspektor fur die Reichshauptstadt Berlin).
    Because of the scale of the urban plan, quarries and contractors, architects and bricklayers were all mobilized by Speer's offices, making his proposals the largest single architectural project in the German building economy. The actual plan, included a north-south and east-west axis at the heart of the City, a concentration of subway and train facilities, a redesign of the Konigsplatz, and a major housing program.
    The north-south axis became the core of the urban design and was meant to function as the main ceremonial boulevard of the new Aryan Berlin. p>The few art historians who have analyzed National Socialist art and architecture have consistently turned to Speer's redesign of Berlin as paradigmatic of the overblown schemes of the Party to project its ideological goals through visual form, to create literally the "word in stone." Scholars have most often emphasized three key components of the Berlin redesign: the massive scale of the plan, the iconography of neoclassical forms, and the choice of materials, above all stone.     
    Alex Scobie, for example, has argued that the scale, materials, and iconography of prestige projects in Berlin were used by Nazi architects and critics to promote an ideological connection to classical political and social institutions. Even Speer, in his Inside The Third Reich memoirs, confirms the following parameters: The Fuehrer style widely claimed by the Nazi Party press was neoclassicism multiplied, altered, exaggerated, and often presented through a distorted point of view. Hitler thought he had found certain graphical relationship between the Dorians and his own Germanic world.  Size, the indestructible nature of stone architecture, and the iconography of neoclassicism were all at play in Speer's extreme ideological mystifications.
    When considered in terms of anti-Semitism, this scholarly concern with architectural form in general, and with the urban planning of Berlin in particular, has led to an investigation of the specific Party and state institutions that used architectural communication to reinforce a connection to a specious racial history or some supposed essence of German Arayaness.
    The destruction of the European Jews has been amply linked to pseudo-scientific Nazi racial theories as such propaganda was reinforced by art and architectural expression in a brutal connection between architectural history and anti-Semitism.
    This writer sees the connection between Karl Leonard Falk's oppression of the Jews initially characterized by slurs and stereotypes that were supported by incessant fallacious racial propaganda spewing out of the Propaganda Ministry and the psychological function of Speer's architectural goals that were integrated into the creation and implementation of state policy against the Berlin Jews.    But this propaganda set-stage was quickly stage-managed with brutal tactics that concentrated the Jewish community in Berlin and eventually led to mass deportation and mass murder.
    To grasp how the work of Karl Leonard Falk played a key role in the decisions made concerning a Nazi policy of extermination of the Jews requires recognition that the formal design of a monumental urban plan for Berlin functioned as piece of the puzzle for developing a final solution through a systematic anti-Semitic policy. To understand this connection it is important to concentrate attention on the implementation of particular economic and social policies aimed at the Berlin Jewish population during the years 1933-1938.
    Specifically, anti-Semitic housing policy (concerned as it was with controlling and then removing the Jewish population) became a focus of key efforts made by Propaganda Ministry tracts, films, and radio broadcasts, and by Speer to complete the monumental plans for the rebuilding of Berlin by 1938.
    Since the rapid industrialization of Berlin in the late nineteenth century, housing had been a perennial problem and concern of the city's building administration and a factor in every major site plan for monumental architectural projects. A lack of suitable housing reached crisis proportions with Speer's attempt to impose a massive urban design on a city that already suffered from an insufficient number of dwellings for the ever-growing industrial working population. Within the context of the housing debate, Speer even interested himself in particular modernist solutions, such as mass-produced prefab housing units.
    It is important to remember the clear historical connection between housing policies in reference to the political uses to which urban planning was put in Berlin urban renewal during this period. While the political function of architecture has been a major focus of a critical discussion of urban planning in Berlin not widely recognized today. Speer's role in implementing policies against the Jews in Berlin was apparent from the Third Reich's systematic anti-Semitic housing policy and systematic development of architectural interests and the oppression of the Berlin Jews.
    For example, documentary evidence indicates that Speer not only implemented but also attempted to formulate an anti-Semitic policy to serve his architectural interests. If Hitler's ideas on urbanization are shockingly like those which were expressed by Karl Leonard Falk in the 1950's in Fresno, California.
    Falk, by that time had been appointed to head the Fresno Housing Authority, a key political position at Fresno City Hall. Like Hitler and Speer before him, Falk's vision for a new Fresno was not a vision Fresno as a center of a rich and growing cultural and socioeconomic diversity but as a site of political power. Falk's architectural plan for urban redevelopment of Fresno concentrated on the downtown area adjacent to the hall of its political power.
   Downtown Fresno, for Karl leonard Falk would be transformed into a base for gigantic government housed in monumental public buildings surrounded by jails and prison buildings, amid a huge public mall, wide expansive walkways, public art, and the absence of evidence of private property. Such were the symbols of Falk's dream of gaining political power through a piecemeal approach that would eventually overwhelm and subdue Fresno's citizens through wide ranging exercise of City Hall's police powers, and wide ranging use of condemnation powers to rid the core of the City of its homes, apartment houses, and small businesses.
    Falk's vision of societal utopia was not one that saw the democratic participation of free citizens and the trading of ideas in the political marketplace, but of the exercise of tyranny of the minority over the majority. It is true that Falk wanted to create an American-style Third Reich. That fact is subtly illustrated in his refusal to buy-American because of his fanatic devotion to Hitler's a mass-produced people's car the Volkswagen, the only car Karl Leonard Falk would own.
     Karl Leonard Falk, then, was at heart, an urban planner and a modernizer who dreamed of creating a consumer society in Fresno, California exclusively for Aryans, like himself, based on conquest by urban renewal funds and block grants from Washington D.C., the darker side of Fresno City Hall and the U.S. Congress between the years 1938-1971. Those were the years of Karl Leonard Falk's New Reich , and of course made possible by his academic tenure and Presidency at Fresno State College.
     Falk cherished his collection of German newspaper anti-Jewish propaganda and pornography in Julius Streicher's smutty German newspaper, Der Sturmer. A representative portion of Karl Leonard Falk's anti-Jewish smut predilection, even prior to his experiences inside Berlin, is available for viewing at the Fresno State University Madden Library, Special Collections, in Karl Falk Collection of German Notgeld.
    The Karl Falk desiderata includes facsimiles of two front pages of Der Sturmer, from the early 1930's. Incidentally, Julius Streicher's work was described in The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler as 'remarkable for those qualities of brutality and bestiality ... in which the Jews were always depicted as sub-human monsters and perverts.' [Robert Payne, The Life & Death of Adolf Hitler, pages 167-168. Praeger Pub. Co., New York, 1973.]
     Incidentally, Streicher was captured by U.S. Military at the end of the war and held to answer for his war crimes. He entered a not guilty plea and was subsequently convicted of treason by his taking part in psychological warfare against the United States.
    Falk escaped prosecution as a war criminal by returning to the U.S. and taking a foreign language teacher job from a Fresno State College president who found Falk eminently qualified to teach undergraduate courses on the German language and Nazi culture.When Fresno State was being considered for University status, Falk's 1939 Technische University of Berlin doctorate. was upgraded by the University of California and Professor Karl Leonard Falk was suddenly transfigured into Fresno State University Social Science department chair status. Transcripts on file with the State of California, however, lacked any record of Falk having enrolled in, much less any completed coursework from any accredited university in Social Science disciplines.

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    FRESNO -- The Texas Supreme Court heard a lively debate recently in a case of first impression that may determine whether satire is a protected form of speech.
     At issue is "Stop the Madness," a 1999 article printed in the Dallas Observer. The article is a mock story with made-up quotations attributed to public officials including District Attorney Bruce Isaacks and Court-at-Law Judge Darlene Whitten of Denton County, Texas, according to lawyers for the newspaper.
     The article was so outrageous that the average reader could not have taken it seriously, the lawyers assert. But Mike Whitten, a lawyer for Isaacks and Darlene Whitten, alleges that some readers did believe the article was true, making it libelous. (The Whittens are husband and wife.)
     The article, over which a box with the word "News" in it was placed, concerned the arrest of fictional 6-year-old Cindy Bradley for writing a book report on Maurice Sendak's children's book "Where the Wild Things Are."
     According to depositions in the case, the genesis of the article was an actual October 1999 incident in which Darlene Whitten ordered the detention of a 13-year-old who allegedly wrote an essay with a violent tone and turned it in at school.
     Isaacks and Darlene Whitten sued the Dallas Observer and its parent company, alleging libel in New Times Inc. v. Isaacks, after the alternative weekly newspaper refused a request by the officials to publish a retraction of the article. A trial court and the state 2nd Court of Appeals refused the Dallas Observer's summary judgment motion, which the newspaper then appealed to Texas Supreme Court.
    Lawyers for the Dallas Observer argued on Dec. 3 that the article was a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment."The ultimate message that the Dallas Observer was trying to convey was that the actions the officials made were misguided," argued Jim Hemphill, a partner in Austin's George & Donaldson who represents the Dallas Observer. "That is an opinion. And that is protected."
     But Mike Whitten, a partner in Denton's Whitten Law Firm, argued that the Dallas Observer went too far because numerous readers allegedly believed the article was true. Whitten said both of his clients received nasty comments from people who were outraged by it.
    " I think if you publish a false statement of fact about someone and it's believed by a reader, then that's libelous whether you label it satire or it's in the driest journal," Mike Whitten argued.
     The fictional article contained fictional quotes from Whitten saying: "Any implication of violence in a school situation, even if it was just contained in a first-grader's book report, is reason enough for panic and overreaction."
     The fictional article quotes Isaacks as saying: "We've considered having her certified to stand trial as an adult, but even in Texas there are some limits." And the fictional 6-year-old Bradley was quoted saying: "It's bad enough people think like [J.D.] Salinger and [Mark] Twain are dangerous, but Sendak? Give me a break, for Christ's sake. Excuse my French."
     Some of the justices questioned Mike Whitten how anyone could believe the article was true based on those quotes.
    " How many 6-year-olds do you know that are familiar with Salinger?" asked Justice Scott Brister, the court's newest member, who was appointed by Governor Rick Perry in November. " Not too many," Mike Whitten replied. "I don't know how many readers know Salinger."
     Also central in the justices' questioning was the application of New York Times v. Sullivan to the Dallas Observer article. That seminal 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found that to win libel cases, public officials must establish "actual malice" to prove that a publication knew its article was false or published a story with reckless disregard for whether it was true or false.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2004
George Bush
State of the Union
By I. M.Wright, Contributor

    FRESNO -- On Tuesday, President Bush delivered his State of the Union address. Contrary to the popular view, the Constitution does not require this annual exercise. Article II only directs the president "from time to time" to give "information on the State of the Union" to Congress.
     The framers intended the president to assist Congress in performing its legislative duties. In modern times, however, that assistance has given way to usurpation, as Congress routinely abandons its legislative powers, leaving a quasi-imperial presidency (aided by a number of extra-constitutional regulatory agencies) to exercise the Nation's sovereign power. It's hard to imagine one man would be up to such a task. George W. Bush certainly was not on Tuesday.
     The president built his address around the consistent theme of his presidency: "compassionate conservatism." The exact meaning of his philosophy has always been elusive, but Tuesday's speech provided a good roadmap for the novice traveler.
     In short, compassionate describes the president's metaphysics and epistemology, and conservatism summarizes his ethics and politics. On all four counts, compassionate conservatism is a philosophy repugnant to the values embodied in the American constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
     Metaphysics establishes the nature of existence. It is rooted in the law of identity—A is A, as Aristotelians would say.
     Metaphysics establishes what is, while epistemology determines how a consciousness can acquire and use knowledge of its existence. This sounds like weighty stuff, but it's important to understand the foundation of any philosophical system.
     In George Bush's philosophy, he views existence as ultimately unknowable; he accepts, without evidence, the existence of God and a realm beyond the comprehension of man's consciousness. This metaphysical view determines Bush's epistemology, since he rejects reason as the sole means of acquiring knowledge. Instead, Bush considers reason and faith to be equally valid methods of cognition.
     Compassion is Bush's shorthand for acquiring knowledge via faith and emotion. The president believes that man's understanding of the universe comes from compassion, which is his emotional acceptance of other peoples'—and God's—perceptions of reality. By this standard, Bush finds truth in the compassionate acts of man towards man. Ultimately, he believes, God reveals himself through such acts, and this makes true knowledge of existence knowable to man on some level.
    This theory of knowledge allows Bush to accept contradictory premises. The best example from his address came when he talked about the prospects for democracy in the Middle East: "We also hear doubts that democracy is a realistic goal for the greater Middle East, where freedom is rare.
     Yet it is mistaken, and condescending, to assume that whole cultures and great religions are incompatible with liberty and self-government. I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom. And even when that desire is crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again."
     Bush assumes, on faith, that man instinctively possesses the knowledge to "live in freedom". But history tells us otherwise. Freedom, liberty, and individual rights are social concepts that took centuries to develop. The United States first brought these concepts into a unified republic. But there was nothing automatic or religious about this accomplishment. And
    Contrary to the president's statement, these concepts are incompatible with many cultures and religions. If they were compatible, why then haven't individual rights republics sprung up throughout the Middle East? Indeed, why haven't they sprung up in Asia or Africa? But since Bush believes they are compatible, all evidence to the contrary, then it must be true, for faith makes it so. On matters of ethics and politics, Bush's compassion melds with conservatism. This means the president views rights as derived not from man's existence, but rather from institutions invested with compassionate or mystical authority.
     Bush referred to rights just once in his speech, saying America's foreign policy sought a "peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman". But the rights he spoke of were not those derived from man's nature, but from man's creator, or God.
     All rights, in the president's view, exist only by permission of established authorities. Or to use a more conventional conservative premise, order takes precedence over liberty.
     In the section of Bush's speech on morals, the president points to four specific problems: illegal drugs in schools, performance enhancing drugs in sports, teenage sexuality, and gay marriage. On each issue, the president relies first, foremost, and finally on the ethical principle of "duty." Consistent with a compassion-based epistemology, all men must judge their actions by the emotional needs of others.
     Students must submit to forced drug testing, not because it's in their self-interest or respects their rights as individuals, but because the president says "we love you, and we don't want to lose you". The children must think of the emotional needs of their parents. Similarly, athletes must stop using drugs, not because it harms them, but because they must be "good examples" for the children.
     On issues of sexuality, the president's compassion meets his fear and bigotry. He calls for doubling "federal funding for abstinence programs" so that students can learn to fear their sexuality as they fear drugs. The very concept of the government directing the education of children about sex—the most important, intimate, and value-based of all human actions—is appalling. If the president believes schools may forcibly test students for drug use, would he also be open to testing students to preserve their virginity? It may sound far-fetched, but once the government claims ownership of the mind and the body, I have difficulty ascertaining the limits of that authority.
     And then there's gay marriage. This section of the speech may have been the most morally repugnant. The president openly coddled the bigotry of those Americans who would deny homosexuals their right to form and raise families on equal footing with other Americans. Bush pledged to "defend the sanctity of marriage," as if it were something other than a man-made institution. The president couldn't bring himself to acknowledge the existence of homosexuals, much less respect their rights. Instead, he offered this moral gem: "The same moral tradition that defines marriage also teaches that each individual has dignity and value in God's sight". Notice he didn't say individuals have "rights", only dignity and value.
     The moral tradition Bush cites—Judeo-Christian morality—has not had a good track record through the centuries. Indeed, this tradition was invoked in support of the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, slavery, the American civil war, segregation, and now homophobia. From an objective moral view, there is no difference between Bush's defense of gay marriage's bigoted opponents and George Wallace standing in the doorway at the University of Alabama in defense of the "moral tradition" of segregation.
     Finally, we come to Bush's politics, the outgrowth of his conservative ethics. Since Bush relies on "moral tradition" to define his ethics, it's logical that he relies on institutions—rather than man and his nature—to define and implement the scope of man's rights. This is why you'll never hear this president call for the abolition of any government department or major program; his conservatism requires institutions be treated with delicate care bordering on reverence. 
     Consider the president's position on healthcare. His only veto threat of the night came when he vowed to stop "and any attempt to limit the choices of our seniors, or to take away their prescription drug coverage under Medicare". In other words, seniors have a right to prescription drug coverage because the institution of Medicare gives it to them. Now Bush's defenders will argue the administration spearheaded Medicare reforms, notably a limited health savings account program. This is a potentially useful reform, I'll grant you. But it does not mitigate the president using a government program to create a new "right" that exceeds the government's constitutional power.

And while the president said a "government-run health care system is the wrong prescription," these words rang hollow. We already have a government-run health care system. Unlike the systems in Canada or Europe, however, the American government relies on quasi-private managed care companies to ration health care. Managed care firms receive government subsidies and special legal protections, and they charge prices consistent with the government's Medicare rates. Yet despite this, Bush shows no signs of seeking to undo this system. If anything, his healthcare policy requires strengthening managed care, something that will only prevent the free market from taking hold.
     The other major institution Bush reveres is public education. He reveres it so much, he bragged about a 36% increase in the federal budget for education. And he won't stop there. Bush asked for expanded aid to colleges and students. He claims this will train workers for better jobs. The fact that individuals already can receive this training without extra tax dollars is lost on the president. Bush does not judge ideas on its rational merits, but on the level of "compassion" it causes him to experience. Certainly helping people attend college is charitable, but when that charity comes at the expense of innocent taxpayers, it is also robbery.
     Bush's education policy demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of education, which is not surprising given his non-reason-based epistemology. In one passage, he makes a tautological argument: "Some want to undermine the No Child Left Behind Act by weakening standards and accountability. Yet the results we require are really a matter of common sense: We expect third graders to read and do math at third grade level - and that is not asking too much. Testing is the only way to identify and help students who are falling behind."
     When I was in third grade, I read and performed math at what New York State considered a seventh-grade level. But I was not allowed to leave third grade early, and in other states, my proficiency would have been fixed at different levels. The point is, grade levels are a construction of the government-run school system. They have nothing to do with education. Individual students learn according to their own abilities and opportunities. But government schools focus on the collective at the individual's expense. Many parents have long recognized this fact, and either educates their children at home or place them in a private school more conducive to their child's learning style (such as the Montessori Method).
     American healthcare and education suffer from the same political-economic design flaw: the free market in both has been replaced by a government-directed rationing scheme. Consumers are generally not free to purchase their own healthcare and education without working through the rationing scheme; even if they can, they're still required to pay taxes to support the schemes. Bush never addresses this basic problem, because to do so would force him to renounce the underlying institutions, something his conservatism (and his compassion-based epistemology) won't allow him to do.
     At the end of the day, we are left not with the bold, visionary leader that some conservatives believe George Bush to be. We are left with a small man promoting small ideas. Bush may talk the rhetoric of a pro-capitalist, pro-individual rights leader, but his actions are that of a man who sees the role of government as that of a grand charity, where acts are judged by compassion rather than reason and merit.
     But charity is not a moral basis for government; charity is a byproduct of a successful society that produces a surplus of wealth that be shared according to the values of its producers. Unless the government is built on an unimpeachable foundation of reason, individual rights, and capitalism, true charity is not possible; what you have instead is "compassionate conservatism", a philosophy that promotes emotional, intellectual, and political stagnation.

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©1867 -2004 Fresno Republican Newspaper
All Rights Reserved.

Monday, January 26, 2004
McClatchy to Publish
Fresno State's Mock
Journalism News
By Howard Hobbs PhD, Editor & Publisher

    FRESNO -- According to the Fresno Bee Newspaper, today's early edition describes a brighter future for Fresno by 2015 which is depicted as having 3% unemployment, clean air, a downtown lake surrounded by fine restaurants and upscale homes, a monorail and top-notch schools. Bee editors see one hitch, however. "The only hurdle: the community itself." To overcome public resistance, however, McClatchy, the publisher of the Fresno Bee has a plan.
     The thinking goes somewhat along this line, a quote from Pablo Lopez, in today's Fresno Bee "Local & State" business pages - "Mock newspaper sees bright future for Fresno... in 2015..." and discusses a mythic "New Valley Times" newspage which might or might not be distributed as another Fresno Bee pull-out for home-delivery and news rack availability. 
    What suddenly brought this on? It's origins seem lost in the tule fog some where back in a 1998 brainstorming session among Fresno State students in a "government" class in which a curricula covering other myths like affordable housing, zoos, parks, a new university plan focusing proximity to the ski slopes and sandy coastal beaches were the center focus of discussion.
     Enter, Fresno State President John Welty and Ken Newby, president of the Fresno Business Council who will now step forward in the glare of another public news spectacle today and announce the launch of yet another university mission impossible.  Already being quoted in the Fresno Bee prior to Dr. Welty's scheduled news conference later in the day, "It's important for Fresno's future to get as many people working on the changes that are needed," Welty said. "The newspaper will get people thinking about what's possible by 2015... Fresno State is taking a leadership role because it has the resources -- professors, lecturers, students, staff and libraries -- and a public institution's duty to improve the region in which it is located."
    Ashley Swearengin, chief executive officer of newspaper project and executive director of Fresno State's Office of Community and Economic Development, is already loaded up with job duties in the Regional Jobs Institute, trying to create 30,000 real jobs in five years or less. Now she has a theoretical 24-page "New Valley Times" publication to get out on timely basis. The vision to accomplish this is getting blurred, however. First off, how to get hundreds of people to work for nothing as unpaid and non-insured volunteers.
     Then, of course, someone has to proof-read the sources of the stories, proof-reading, and fact-checking, data entry, type-setting for real-time and Internet communications, and so forth. If this, as yet, nonexistent newspage will be distributed to local schools, then composing, printing and distributing the mock newspaper presents insurmountable fiscal and accounting regimens not presently faced by local school officials. Ashley Swearengin, by the way, while the executive director of Fresno State's Office of Community and Economic Development, she told reporters today that she will continue in her present job responsibilities at Fresno State and as chief operating officer of the Regional Jobs Institute.

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Thursday January 22, 2004
Indian Gaming
Measures on Ballot?
By Caroline Woon
Cal Daily Bruin Contributor

     FRESNO -- Two years after overwhelmingly passing Proposition 5, the Indian Self-Reliance Initiative, voters will once again be asked to give gaming on tribal lands their stamp of approval this March.
     Proposition 1A would allow for the opening of two casinos on each of the 107 Indian reservations in California and authorize the negotiation of gambling compacts with federally recognized tribes. Another proposition on the ballot would affirm a compact tribes made with the state government in 1998.
    "Proposition 1A is a constitutional amendment that will make clear, once and for all, that Indian gaming is legal," said Waltona Manion, communications director of the Yes on 1A Californians for Indian Self-Reliance coalition.
    Although the original version of this measure passed by nearly a 2-to-1 margin in 1998, its provisions violated the state constitution, which strictly forbids certain types of casino games.
     A lawsuit filed by Nevada casinos resulted in the California Supreme Court overturning Proposition 5 last August. Proposition 1A, however, would remove a century-old ban on the operation of slot machines, and banking and percentage card games such as blackjack.
    This possibility has raised concerns among certain groups which believe that legalized gambling will have a negative impact on the state, both socially and economically. 
    "Prop 1A is bad for everyone involved, including Native Americans," said Leo McElroy, campaign coordinator for the Stop 1A-No Casinos coalition. "Our main issue with it is the massive expansion in gambling and the problems that it causes," he said. "We are really on the way to becoming 'Nevada West.'"
    The measure would in fact up the number of casinos allowed in California from 41 to 214, while nearly tripling the number of slot machines. It would also lower the minimum age for gambling to 18.
    "I have societal objections to 1A," McElroy said. "It will be giving false hopes to people who think that if they sit at the table long enough, they'll get rich. And the billions of dollars that go into (building) these casinos will come right out of California's economy."
    Advocates of 1A said tribal gaming promotes American Indian self-reliance by providing jobs and funding for education, housing and health care. "It's all about Indian economic survival," Manion said. "Because of gaming, the Sycuan tribe in San Diego can now offer badly needed services such as a health clinic, fire station, preschool and a library."
     According to Manion, approximately two-thirds of American Indian employment opportunities are created by tribal gaming. "Indian lands are located in remote areas, with no infrastructure, and no available labor pool," she said. "Gaming has been the most effective economic development tool that tribes have had in 200 years. It has literally removed entire communities off of welfare."
    Even if passed, opponents say that a court challenge to Proposition 1A is inevitable, since it violates the constitution's "equal treatment clause," which guarantees that "a citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges and immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens." But in 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Indian tribes are sovereign entities and have the right to offer high-stakes gaming. This decision was reaffirmed by Congress the following year.
    A competing measure that also addresses the issue of gambling on tribal lands is Proposition 29. Its approval would lead to the enactment of a different set of tribal-state compacts negotiated in 1998, but only in the event that Proposition 1A is rejected."Tribes were forced to sign these compacts under the threat of U.S. attorneys stepping in and closing them down," said Sal Russo of Russo, Marsh & Raper, a public affairs and political consulting firm. "A compact should be a good faith negotiation. From the perspective of Indian sovereignty, the compacts of 1A are a better product in the sense that there is agreement, there is a willingness," he added.
    Proposition 29 also contains far more restrictive provisions, limiting the total number of slot machines to less than half of what Proposition 1A would allow. This set of compacts provides control for local citizens over casino locations, guarantee workers' rights and regulate licensing procedures. Not a single Indian tribe in California has pledged its support for Proposition 29.

Comment

©1867 -2004 Fresno Republican Newspaper
All Rights Reserved.

    FRESNO STATE -- Communities with casino gambling have higher crime rates than communities that don't have casinos, according to researchers at the universities of Georgia and Illinois.
    There was no increase in murder rates, said UGA economics professor David Mustard, who co-authored the as-yet unpublished paper with economist Earl L. Grinols of the University of Illinois and Illinois graduate student Cynthia Hunt Dilley.
    But six other felony crimes did increase, Mustard said: aggravated assault, rape, burglary, auto theft, larceny and forcible robbery. Auto theft showed the sharpest increase -- 30 percent higher in counties with casinos -- followed by robbery, at 20 percent, according to the study.
    Overall, casinos push up the crime rate by nearly 8 percent, the study concludes. The researchers timed the release of their study to coincide with the final report of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, which is expected today to propose steps to halt the spread of gambling.
    The higher crime rates don't show up right away, but tended to appear in the third year after a casino opened -- perhaps because it takes chronic gamblers that long to exhaust their resources, Grinols suggested. About 2 percent to 5 percent of the gamblers in casino areas can be classified as ''pathological'' or ''problem'' gamblers, according to Grinols.
    Earlier studies have shown conflicting results -- that crime stayed the same, increased or even decreased after casinos come in, Mustard said, and some experts have even argued that casinos cause crime to go down because they increase employment in an area.
    But those studies were limited by a small time frame or a small area of geographical study, he said. ''What makes our study unique is that it's the most exhaustive study on the subject,'' Mustard said.
    The researchers included census data from every county in the United States and looked at crime data over a 20-year period beginning in 1977. They also introduced statistical control factors to account for 50 variables that might affect crime rates, including things like the age of the population in the area, income levels, race and population growth.
    Nationally, crime rates have been steadily decreasing in the 1990s after steady increases in the 1970s and 1980s. The number of counties with casinos has increased from 14 in 1977, all in Nevada, to 167 in 1996.
    According to the national gambling commission, total legal wagers have grown to about $600 billion a year in the United States -- more than is spent by Americans on cars or groceries. And the poor bet more, according to the commission.
     According to the commission report, gamblers with household incomes $10,000 a year wager three times more money than those with household incomes exceeding $50,000 a year.
    Nationally, casino revenues were $26.3 billion in 1997, the commission says. But the increased crime came at a cost of some $12.1 billion annually -- about $63 for every adult American, according to the researchers.
    The point, said Mustard, is that ''What you want to do is evaluate the costs and benefits of the casinos. Crime is one of the costs, and you want to look at all the costs and all the benefits,'' he said. Mustard pointed out that the study was unfunded -- that the researchers took no money from either pro- or anti-gambling sources.

    [Editor's Note: Go to Yosemite News for latest local area casino up-dates. And for pro-con positions see Casino Economics.]

Comment

©1867 -2004 Fresno Republican Newspaper
All Rights Reserved.

    SACRAMENTO -- In 2002 and 2003, the Commission on State Mandates determined that 23 sets of state laws impose state reimbursable mandates on local governments. The commission estimated the state's cost to reimburse local agencies for these mandates is about $400million.
     This report reviews the newly identified mandates, and offers recommendations as to whether each mandate should be repealed, funded, suspended, or modified. This report, submitted in fulfillment of Chapter 1123, Statutes of 2002 (AB 3000, Budget Committee), reviews 23 sets of state requirements that the Commission on State Mandates (CSM) identified as state-reimbursable "mandates" in their 2002 and 2003 reports to the Legislature. These newly identified mandates are in addition to over 100 ongoing state requirements that the CSM (or its predecessor agency) previously determined to be state-reimbursable mandates.
     The Legislature's intent in requiring the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) to prepare an annual analysis of newly identified mandates was to ensure that it had information regarding each new mandate at the time the Legislature considered the annual mandate "claims bill." Pursuant to Government Code Section 17612, the claims bill (1) usually provides the initial state reimbursement for newly identified mandates and (2) gives the Legislature some opportunity to review commission actions. After a mandate receives its initial reimbursement through the claims bill, the Legislature traditionally funds a mandate's ongoing costs in the annual state budget.
     Given the mounting costs of state mandates, the Assembly held hearings to review mandates and the mandate reimbursement process. Because of the state's fiscal difficulties, however, the Legislature did not introduce a claims bill to reimburse local agencies for newly identified mandates -- provided no funding for ongoing mandates in the 2003-04 budget -- declared its intent in Chapter 228, Statutes of 2003 (AB 1756, Budget Committee), to continue deferring mandate reimbursements through 2004-05 -- acted to reduce local agency mandate responsibilities and associated state liabilities by suspending local agency requirements to implement 39 mandates in 2003-04, including eight newly identified mandates.
     This report, submitted in fulfillment of Statutes of 2002 (AB 3000, Budget Committee), reviews 23 sets of state requirements that the Commission on State Mandates (CSM) identified as state-reimbursable "mandates" in their 2002 and 2003 reports to the Legislature. These newly identified mandates are in addition to over 100 ongoing state requirements that the CSM (or its predecessor agency) previously determined to be state-reimbursable mandates.
     The Legislature's intent in requiring the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) to prepare an annual analysis of newly identified mandates was to ensure that it had information regarding each new mandate at the time the Legislature considered the annual mandate "claims bill." Pursuant to Government Code Section 17612, the claims bill (1) usually provides the initial state reimbursement for newly identified mandates and (2) gives the Legislature some opportunity to review commission actions. After a mandate receives its initial reimbursement through the claims bill, the Legislature traditionally funds a mandate's ongoing costs in the annual state budget.
     Given the mounting costs of state mandates, the Assembly held hearings to review mandates and the mandate reimbursement process. Because of the state's fiscal difficulties, however, the Legislature:

    This report reviews the newly identified mandates and offers recommendations as to whether they should be repealed, funded, suspended, or modified. In addition, in some cases, we recommend the Legislature request the CSM to reconsider its quasi-judicial "Statement of Decision" regarding a mandate, or modify the mandate's reimbursement methodology (referred to as the measure's parameters and guidelines, or "Ps&Gs").

    Figure 1 displays the newly identified education and noneductaion mandates that are the subject of this report, along with the CSM's estimate of each mandate's costs. In reviewing Figure 1, readers should note that it includes one mandate (school site councils) listed in the CSM's 2002 report, but subsequently invalidated by the court. Because the state has no responsibility to reimburse school districts for this mandate, its costs are excluded from the figure's revised total. Readers also should note that the CSM reports as two mandates any set of state requirements that apply to local agencies and K-14 districts. Because four mandates reported by the CSM have such a dual application, the list of unduplicated state requirements imposing a mandate totals 19.

    Local government animal control agencies care for stray and surrendered animals in California communities. Such care includes housing, medical care, and vaccinations. These agencies also pursue the successful adoptions of the animals in their care and euthanize those animals that are not placed.
     Seeking to reduce the euthanization of adoptable stray animals, the Legislature enacted Chapter 752, Statutes of 1998 (SB 1785, Hayden). Prior law provided that no dog or cat impounded by a public pound or specified shelter could be euthanized before three days after the time of impounding. Chapter 752 requires the following:

Analysis

    Costs Exceed Legislative Expectations. The Legislature did not anticipate incurring significant, if any, state-reimbursable mandate costs when it enacted Chapter 752. Instead, the Legislature expected that much, or all, local agency increased costs to care for animals longer than three days would be offset by (1) increased adoption and pet recovery fees and (2) savings from avoided euthanizations. As we discuss more fully in the 2003-04 Analysis (see page F-133), however, the commission determined that Chapter 752 imposed a broad mandate and local agency claims for mandate reimbursements likely will total $10 million annually.
     Parameters and Guidelines Lack Clarity. Both our office's and the Bureau of State Audits' (BSA) review of this mandate's Ps&Gs found areas of ambiguity that allow local agencies to claim some costs that appear to exceed the range of activities mandated by Chapter 752. For example, the BSA reviews notes that the Ps&Gs allow local agencies to receive reimbursement for capital costs not associated with Chapter 752. In addition, our review found that the Ps&Gs are not sufficiently explicit regarding the requirement that offsetting savings and revenues be deducted from reimbursement claims.

    Recommendation

    Because the measure's costs greatly exceed the Legislature's expectations, we recommend that the Legislature reconsider Chapter 752 and make modifications as necessary to reduce the scope of the requirements imposed upon local agencies. While we acknowledge the importance of the humane treatment of animals, such a reconsideration of Chapter 752 is appropriate given the mandate's higher-than-anticipated costs and the fiscal constraints of the state. Accordingly, we recommend that the Legislature revise Chapter 752 to reduce the overall requirements imposed on local agencies and the associated state mandate costs. Until such a revision is enacted, we recommend that the Legislature continue to suspend this mandate in the annual budget bill.
     In the alternative, should the Legislature wish to maintain all the requirements of Chapter 752, we recommend the Legislature direct the commission to revise the Ps&Gs to make changes to address the issues identified in the BSA's report and the 2003-04 Analysis. The following language, included in a future claims bill or other legislation, would provide the commission this direction:
     The Commission on State Mandates shall review the parameters and guidelines for the Animal Control mandate and make revisions consistent with the findings of the Bureau of State Audits and the 2003-04 Analysis by the Legislative Analyst's Office.

    Brown Act Reform

    We recommend the Legislature change certain requirements of the Brown Act imposed in 1993 (requiring agenda postings by local advisory bodies and disclosure of matters discussed in executive sessions) into advisory guidelines, because detailed rules governing advisory bodies do not necessitate a statewide mandate. Should the Legislature, in the alternative, wish to maintain these requirements, we recommend that the Legislature direct the commission to reconsider its mandate determination in light of a recent California Supreme Court decision.
     In 1953, the Legislature enacted the Brown Act, declaring, "all meetings of the legislative body of a local agency shall be open and public, and all persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting of the legislative body." Since 1953, the Brown Act has been amended many times to expand or clarify its requirements—and to delineate the legislative bodies to which the act applies. 
   Article XIII B of the California Constitution generally requires the state to reimburse local governments for the cost of complying with "new programs" or "higher levels of service." Article XIII B specifies, however, that the state need not reimburse local governments for costs to comply with state mandates enacted before 1975. The original requirements of the Brown Act, and its pre-1975 amendments, therefore are not state-reimbursable mandates.
     Chapter 641, Statutes of 1986 (AB 2674, Connelly), modified the Brown Act to require local agencies to prepare and post agendas for public meetings at least 72 hours before the meeting. In 1988, the commission found that local costs to implement this Chapter 641 requirement constituted a state-reimbursable mandate. Since this date, local agencies have been reimbursed for agenda preparation and posting, at a rate of about $100 per agenda. This mandate is commonly referred to as the "Open Meetings Act" mandate.
     In 1993, the Legislature enacted measures to further clarify and modify Brown Act requirements (Chapter 1136, Statutes of 1993—AB 1426, Burton; Chapter 1137, Statutes of 1993—SB 36, Kopp.) Local agencies, in turn, filed a test claim with the CSM, contending that these changes constituted a state-reimbursable mandate. On April 27, 2000, the commission ruled that the Legislature created a state-reimbursable mandate by enacting these two measures because they (1) subject some additional legislative bodies to the Brown Act (specifically, local bodies created by state or federal statute and committees with less than a quorum of legislative members) and (2) place new requirements on local agencies regarding the disclosure of matters discussed during executive sessions. These additional Brown Act requirements are commonly referred to as the "Brown Act Reform" mandate.
     Earlier this year, the commission reported to the Legislature that reimbursing noneducation local agencies for the Brown Act Reform mandate would total $8.8 million, with annual ongoing costs of about $1 million. Because the commission's cost estimate is based on information reported by fewer than half of the local agencies eligible for claiming reimbursement, the actual ongoing costs of this mandate may be considerably greater than the commission's estimate.

    Analysis and Recommendation
    
    The public policy goals of the Brown Act are indisputable. Representative government depends on an informed and involved electorate and open meetings are a vital part of this process. The key question for the Legislature regarding the Brown Act Reform mandate, however, is not whether the state should require local agencies to hold open governing board meetings. Rather, this mandate raises the issue of whether the state should detail all the rules regar