Garamendi?

Who's running against him, Beavis or Butthead?

Central Valley Fall Football Follies

Or “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown”

By Frank Pecarich

I was born in Bakersfield and lived there until I graduated college.  In the Fall of the year, the leaves dried and fell to the ground and the smell of autumn was in the air.  Football in Bakersfield in the 1960’s was an iconic ritual and virtually everybody in town was caught up in it.

Well, I don’t live in Bakersfield anymore but in addition to football in the Central Valley it appears that there is a continuing iconic rivalry which is getting to be of huge proportions.  This week the Fresno Bee wrote of the latest version of football “war” that Nicole Parra usually stages at this same time of year. 

http://www.fresnobee.com/49...

It too can be compared to a rival football ritual. A couple of years ago a Fresno Bee article captured all our imaginations by having beleaguered Dean Florez fill in for Charlie Brown and the annual ritual of Lucy Van Pelt pulling the football away from Charlie just as he was about to kick it. 

That time it was because our Charlie had the audacity to propose clean air legislation rules in the Legislature for the betterment of us all.  As Fresno and Bakersfield residents know all too well, their area has some of the worst air quality in the United States.

In so many ways Nicole Parra resembles Lucy.  Most people idolize Charlie who behaves in a humane and understanding manner plus shows a great deal of honesty.  We can relate to that. 

Lucy, on the other hand is smarmy, operates a stand where someone feeling particularly weak and vulnerable can get their ego further trampled by Lucy for only 5 cents.  She seems always around to rain on the Peanuts’ parade and generally is someone who people try to avoid.

We can get our better judgment trampled free by Nicole Parra almost anytime we pick up the paper and read of her latest episodes as a Legislator.  This latest attempt to pull the football away from Charlie (aka Dean Florez) involves Florez’ efforts to try and resolve why the California State Department of Health and the United States FDA seem so inept at solving another near annual ritual… a Monterey County E.coli 0157H:7 outbreak with illness and death across the USA.

Nicole wants Dean to go slow or some such nonsense and has tag-teamed with Republican State Senator John Denham from Salinas and Democratic Congressman Sam Farr from Monterey County.  They intend to hold their own Hearing and have chosen a date well after the November elections.  They sure wouldn’t want the hearing’s discoveries to influence the upcoming election, particularly theirs.

Now I can understand why State Senator Denham and Congressman Sam Farr would want to distract attention from Florez’ potent review of something that seems bad like 9 E.coli0157H:7 toxic outbreaks in the last 10 years. 

These terrible events were on their “watch”.  But what’s Nicole’s interest?  I can’t figure out why she would be interested in pulling the football away again when Dean Florez is about to kick it.  Hey, couldn’t her constituents eat tainted and contaminated spinach and lettuce just like everybody else?  Isn’t that important?

Well, we all know that Nicole has been attacking Florez since she was elected to public office.  There’s nothing new there. Florez seems to do things right while she, well… seems to smoke cigars and drink with the boys.  So it’s natural that some jealousy would erupt when she is probably compared to Dean Florez daily.

But even that doesn’t seem to be enough motivation in this case.  She’s being unusually nasty in her choice of words and attitude for what Florez is trying to do.  Whatever happened to scholarly debate and statesman-like behavior in elected public office?  Heck, she’s in the same party as Dean Florez.  Can you imagine what she’d do if he were a Republican!

But there may be another motive for Parra’s behavior.

Nicole if you recall, was a staffer and employee for Congressman Cal Dooley a number of years ago before she ran for office.  Old Cal has gone on to be in charge of perhaps the biggest food processing lobby (trade association) in the United States and it’s named the Food Products Association (FPA).  Now these guys are big and spend big money each year influencing legislation on behalf of the food industry clients.

It also turns out that Cal’s organization is in big trouble these days in Washington, D.C having employed relatives of White House staff to lobby Congress, among other things. As example is an article from MSNBC news. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id...

The article points out the following:

WASHINGTON - Critics of legislation to curtail warning labels on food have adopted a personal strategy: showcasing ties that some lawmakers have to food industry lobbyists

According to reports filed with Congress, people lobbying against the labeling bill include former House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio staffers Mason Wiggins, lobbyist for the Food Products Association, an industry trade group.

Also listed is Brad Card, brother of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and former top aide to Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y. Brad Card has lobbied on food labeling issues for the Food Products Association. The association is headed by a former congressman, Democrat Cal Dooley of California.

“It’s a perfect storm of insider access, big money and bad policy,” said Andy Igrejas of the Washington-based National Environmental Trust, which did the lobbying research. “They’re sweeping away 200 state laws without a hearing, all because very wealthy interests want them to.”    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id... 

Dooley is identified on the Internet as Treasurer of Food Products Association PAC and therefore very influential in whom they decide to give money to in Congress.

Well, as if it couldn’t get worse for hapless Cal Dooley, now comes the consumers’ friend in California, Dean Florez, who discovers and reports in a public State Hearing on October 11^th some highly inept performance in food safety on behalf of the State of California as well as various Federal agencies.  That’s not good for old Cal because it throws unwanted light on some suspicious goings on which he would undoubtedly just like to go away.

 I also think somebody should ask Nicole Parra what she thinks of her old boss and the hot water his lobbying firm (aka Trade Association) is in these days in D.C.

Well, here we return to California and Nicole “Lucy” Parra tried once again to pull the ball away from Dean “Charlie” Florez.  The Fresno Bee wrote about it as if it was just “good sport” but I believe it is more symbolic and goes deeper than that. 

We need to stop viewing serious politics in the Central Valley as a spectator sport anyway.  We’re not at the Saturday night Fresno Bulldog football game where the stakes are a possible berth in the BCS.  This E.coli 0157H:7 issue and politics is about real life and there is “real life” serious fighting going on here for our food safety. 

The stakes are the lives of people like that 2-year old child who trustingly accepted a fresh spinach smoothie from his parents and then died of E.coli 0157H7 created kidney disease.  That’s not the same as a football score most will forget in a few weeks. 

Those parents of that child and those around them will never forget it either.  You’d think even Nicole Parra, Senator John Denham and Congressman Sam Farr could understand that too.  One would hope…

We might find that Nicole is the one who might fall flat on her face this Fall.  Old “Charlie” is running unopposed in his district.  I guess it’s true, we do like Charlie better… 

How many more times are we going to let Nicole “Lucy” Parra pull the “public interest” football?

Frank Pecarich