By Julie Fernandez
New neighborhoods interest teens
Tulare
- Turnout was low at the city's Dec. 1 workshop on creating new types
of neighborhoods more conducive to walking and riding public transportation,
but there was a bright spot: the presence of teenagers who took seriously
the opportunity to help decide how their town would grow.
“I plan after I go to college to come back and live here,” Juan Venegas, 17, said as he explained why he was attending the Transit-Oriented Development workshop.
Venegas, who is Tulare Union High School's student body president, said when he does return he hopes to find a community that is safe and has good transportation.
Maria Carrillo, a Tulare Western High School student active with the Associated Student Body, also attended and both she and Venegas thought the TOD concept could be successfully used in the downtown and west side of Tulare.
“I think it is a good idea to incorporate the west side,” Carrillo said. “I think it's vital.”
Many of the 14 other people attending thought the same, saying they thought the TOD could be a good tool to help revitalize both downtown and West Tulare. And almost everyone seemed to agree the two potential TOD sites a consultant and city staff members identified near the new College of the Sequoias campus made good sense, because of the growth likely to occur there.
Developers were conspicuously absent from the workshop but consultant David Early, said his firm would conduct one-on-one interviews with developers, housing and transportation advocates and environment groups as the process continues.
Consultants plan to have an analysis of potential TOD sites completed before the end of winter and to schedule another community workshop in the spring.
Fulfilling a dream
Samantha Banks Fletcher's family is proud of the young Tulare woman and rightfully so.
Her father, the late Bruce Banks of Tulare, was very athletic and participated in several 10K races, but he died from cancer in February 2009 before he could fulfill his dream of running a full marathon.
Per his request, Samantha accomplished that feat for him on Sunday, Nov. 6, when she ran in Fresno's two-city marathon event. Not only that, she raised $1,600 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Great news
Balzer and Blondina Scherr, retired Tulare educators, have had good news they've been sharing with family and friends.
Not only is the diffuse large b-cell lymphoma found in grandson Michael Scherr, 13, in remission, but the Make-a-Wish Foundation provided the young Nevada resident with a trip to visit one of his best friends in Pocatello, Idaho.
Young Michael's father is Brenden Scherr, who was born and raised in Tulare.
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