Candidates for Tulare County District Attorney and Tulare County Sheriff came together on Thursday, April 24 to take part in a forum at College of the Sequoias. The forum, sponsored by the ACLU of Northern California and the College of the Sequoias Young Democrats, drew approximately 150 people, filling the college’s large Ponderosa Lecture Hall. […]
On Monday, February 10, staff and students were told that after a year’s work, the College of the Sequoias was taken off of ‘show cause’ status and put on ‘warning,’ a much less severe status. The ‘warning’ status is the least serious the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) is able to give; […]
In early December, Virginia Gurrola threw her hat into the ring as a contender for the Fifth District seat on the Tulare County Board of Supervisors. Gurrola, a Porterville city council member, faces off in the June 3 election against two-term incumbent Mike Ennis and recent entry Felipe Martinez, both Porterville residents. If any single […]
Following the last few months of controversy, Porterville’s City Council and those in its LGBT community are looking ahead to the future. Proclamation Debate and Controversy Beginning in June, the council placed itself in the middle of considerable controversy over its LGBT Pride Month proclamation and the actions following it. In June, then-mayor Virginia Gurrola […]
Porterville Councilmembers Virginia Gurrola and Pete McCracken were removed from their posts as mayor and vice-mayor, respectively, during a Sept. 17 City Council meeting. Newly-minted Mayor Cameron Hamilton, Vice-Mayor Brian Ward and Councilman Greg Shelton voted to reorganize the council and make Hamilton mayor during the meeting in a 3-2 vote, with Councilmembers Gurrola and […]
The College of the Sequoias, at best, found itself marking the beginning of 2013 with a bang – but the wrong kind: it was informed that the college was on shaky ground with its accreditation; and, if left unimproved, could be forced to shut down. As the college readies itself for its second round of […]
After an hour of public comment and over 30 minutes of debate among council members, the Porterville City Council voted Thursday, July 16, to create new guidelines for proclamations, strike down the LGBT Pride Month proclamation, and in the same vote replace it with a resolution declaring June 2013 as a “Month of Community Charity […]
Porterville’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community gathered Wednesday, June 26 to celebrate the day’s 5-4 Supreme Court rulings invalidating California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, fully aware that their battle wasn’t over – neither nationally nor locally. The court’s ruling on Proposition 8 came after a series of lawsuits beginning […]
The Porterville City Council voted — after a standing-room-only hour-long public comment session — to add agenda items to their next city council meeting that would allow a repeal of the city’s controversial LGBT Pride Month proclamation. A motion put forth by Vice-Mayor Pete McCracken, seconded by Mayor Virginia Gurrola, to not review the proclamation […]