By Julie Fernandez
Tulare - While the Tulare Industrial Site Development Foundation has won praise for the many industries it has attracted to Tulare, it has not entirely escaped controversy over the past four decades.
Nearly 20 years after TISDF's founding in 1972, Tulare resident Don Manro and others drew attention to the close relationship between the for-profit foundation and those elected and appointed city officials who were either shareholders or held a position with the foundation.
Manro's allegations of conflicts of interest in votes that had or were scheduled to take place were hard for many involved in the TISDF to understand because of the history of how and why the foundation was formed.
Many of the Tulare residents who invested in the effort at $100 a share said they wanted to help create more jobs to keep the city's young people here after high school and college graduation. They considered the money a contribution rather than an investment.
But in the end it was clear state law required City Council members, Planning Commissioners and others who served on city boards and commissions and owned TISDF shares to declare a potential conflict whenever the foundation was involved with a transaction requiring their vote -- and to report their TISDF holding on annual financial disclosure statement.
TISDF also was involved in the controversial Tulare Motor Sports Complex to the extent it assisted the developer in assembling properties, other than the acres owned by the International Agri-Center, that would have been needed had the project moved forward.
The racetrack proposal, which the developer, TISDF, city officials and local economic development experts maintained would have boosted and diversified the local economy, sharply divided the community.
The controversy led to: the firing of a city attorney who raised red flags about the project; the resignation of a City Council member in connection with a related lawsuit; and the accusation that a council member who served on the TISDF board voted on racetrack matters in violation of state law. A state agency later ruled no legal violation had occurred.
Fallout from the controversy also led to the resignation of the city manager, who had strongly supported the project.
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