Tulare's Battered Women's Shelter Needs Help

Tulare - Two years ago a sewer back-up contaminated Tulare's Battered Women's Shelter and the agency that runs the program has been hard at work ever since then, overseeing the rehabilitation, remodeling and expansion of the facility.

Now Family Services of Tulare County, which has lined up grants and donations to cover most of the cost, is asking for the community's help in raising the remaining $40,000. The non-profit organization is encouraging 400 Tulare residents to give $100 each toward the effort.

The completed facility will function as a transitional shelter for battered women and their children, rather than an emergency shelter, when it reopens in early summer, Family Services' executive director Karen Cooper said.

“We recognized we had a huge need for transitional housing,” Cooper said.

In emergency shelters battered women and their children can stay a maximum of 30 days with one possible extension.

But the majority of families using the Tulare shelter needed more assistance than they could get in one or two months, said Linda Compo-Blazek, domestic violence program manager for Family Services.

Almost all women need that time for themselves and their children to recover from the trauma of living with constant fear and intimidation, she said. Then many need additional time to get training or more education to land a job that will allow them to find affordable housing.

The renovated shelter will allow residents to stay for up to 18 months while they gain work and life skills, continue counseling for themselves and their children, save money for future moving costs, and establish or clean up credit.

The expanded shelter will have three separate living areas, including a new building on the property. Each will have its own kitchen and living room in addition to bedrooms.

Rent for most two-bedroom apartments in Tulare exceeds the $625 a month that a woman with two children can receive from Temporary Aid to Needy Families, Cooper said.

Women in the transitional shelter will pay 3 percent of their income to Family Services for rent, Cooper said, adding a portion will be set aside in savings so they will have money for housing when they leave.

Family Services operated a battered shelter in Tulare for 10 years before the contamination that required the stripping of the existing facility down to bare studs occurred.

“The most daunting challenge at the moment is to raise the funds still needed to complete the shelter renovation and open the doors,” Cooper said.

Grants from the California Endowment and the California Department of Health and local donations helped with the initial work. A state housing bond loan and donations from Union Pacific Foundation, the Carolyn S. Kruse Foundation and the Tulare Rotary Club has aided construction. Darryl's Mini Storage in Tulare also has donated space for the items Family Services is collecting to refurbish the expanded shelter.

Family Services has operated an emergency shelter in Visalia for battered women for nearly 25 years. About 40 percent of its residents are from Tulare or the South County, Blazich said.

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Meridian Finds New Site; City Continues
Search for Downtown Developer

Tulare - The Meridian Property Company will not build medical offices and a new public library along the downtown Pine Avenue corridor and has found a new site for its proposed project.

Tulare developer Greg Nunley and the Great Valley Land company were scheduled to ask the Planning Commission this week to allow Meridian to construct 16 buildings with 101,303 square feet of office space on nine acres on the west side of Hillman Street at the Corvina Avenue alignment.

(Nunley is also seeking a general plan amendment and zone change on the nearly 40-acre site that would also allow a 200-unit apartment complex on 10 acres and future commercial development north of Corvina. The property is currently zoned for small-lot residential development.)

The City Council had had a 180-day exclusive-right-to-negotiate agreement with Bay-area based Meridian, which wanted to explore the possibility of a joint venture with the city that would put medical offices and a new public library downtown.

But the company, which has built medical offices in Hanford, Clovis, Fresno and other Valley communities, did not find the project feasible.

“They couldn't acquire the land they wanted to the west of the library property,” Vice Mayor Phil Vandegrift said.

The city owns and has earmarked the downtown block bordered by Cross and Pine avenues and M and L streets for a new library and the Tulare Redevelopment Agency has acquired additional acreage along the Pine corridor and is looking for developers. The goal is to attract projects that will not only revitalize downtown but provide a revenue stream that will allow the city to build the library.

City Manager Darrel Pyle, Vandegrift and others have tried unsuccessfully to convince the Tulare Local HealthCare District to relocate downtown, instead of expanding at its current site.

They are, however, continuing to invite hospital officials to consider the downtown for outpatient services, a move they said would not only revitalize the heart of the community but better serve west Tulare residents and reduce congestion around the main campus.

The idea of moving outpatient services off the main campus did not come from the city.

Before voters elected two new members in November, the hospital board had been prepared to consider a joint venture project with a private developer that would have included medical offices, an outpatient surgery center and other services on hospital-owned property adjacent to Evolutions.

The hospital board has held no public discussion of that plan since its new members took office nearly four and a half months ago. Neither has it scheduled a study session, which at least one new member had requested to consider all options.

He wants to make it clear to hospital officials the city is not trying to tell them what to do, but only let them know that if they decide to move services off the main campus the city stands ready to help with a downtown site.

Another group is getting ready to make a proposal for downtown property, but Vandegrift said he does not know what that might entail or even if the group has a firm plan.

“I anticipate they would like to have the opportunity to explore a number of options that would include medical and other possible uses,” he said.

Mayor Craig Vejvoda said he remains very optimistic about finding a good project for downtown.

“It's just a matter of time to find the right fix—the right mix,” Vejvoda said. “We don't have to rush it either. We don't want to get the wrong thing in.”

The possibility still exists, he said, for having a “significant medical-type facility downtown.”

As for Meridian, the Hillman location is at least the third site the company has seriously considered for a medical office project.

A year ago, company representatives were considering building an 11-acre professional and medical office complex on the northwest corner of Mooney Boulevard and Prosperity Avenue. That site reportedly was abandoned because of infrastructure costs associated with developing the land.

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COS, High School District Continue Farm
Program Discussions

Tulare - Officials from the College of the Sequoias and the high school district are continuing to discuss the possibility of combining their farm programs on COS' Tulare campus.

The talks, which began more than a year ago, continue to be very preliminary, stressed Howard Berger, superintendent of the Tulare Joint Union High School District, who plans to discuss the topic at the April 19 high school board meeting.

“They (COS) would like us out there,” Berger said.

He and Ross Gentry, assistant superintendent for instruction, met with COS President Bill Scroggins and trustees Sue Shannon and Lori Cardoza on April 10 in Tulare and were assured all COS trustees support locating the high school farm at COS' Tulare campus, which is just down the street from Mission Oak High School that is under construction.

The Tulare district has a very vibrant program that has launched many students on a successful career in farming and related agri-businesses and a combined effort could strengthen both the district's and COS' programs, he said.

“We'd have two different facilities, but we could share animals and pens,” he said. “It would be great if our kids had access to some of their teachers too for additional resources. And also, I think it would provide our students with an opportunity to see a college program first hand.”

If successful, a coordinated program could also serve as a model in other areas as well, he said.

COS, the high school district and the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine have worked in partnership since 1997 on plans for a 1,000-cow teaching research dairy on a 400-acre sit north of the research center in Tulare, but funding has been a significant issue.

“Ultimately, we still hope that all three programs will be coordinating the things they do,” Berger said. “Unfortunately the UC thing hasn't progressed as fast as some people would like to see it.”

Berger and Scroggins plan to schedule another meeting, this time including ag faculty members from both schools as well as trustees.

In the meantime, Gentry will talk with Eric Mittlestead, COS' facilities director and planner, about the design and construction of facilities for the high school and Gentry will explore additional funding sources suggested by Scroggins, Berger said.

Scroggins also has agreed to have COS architects prepare a cost analysis for the proposed high school facilities.

The district's current farm is on 70 acres on West Bardsley Avenue. When the discussions with COS first began last spring, then Superintendent Gerald Benton said a merger of the sites would create surplus land for the district to sell or reuse.

The high school's ag program serves about 1,000 students, who are bused to the farm from their home campuses.

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Police Could Get 10 New Positions; Fire 3

Tulare - The Tulare Police Department could gain 10 new positions in the city's 2007-08 budget year, thanks in large part to the estimated $3.38 million the Measure I sales tax measure is expected to generate.

The budget could also include three new firefighter/paramedic jobs—a move that would help put the Fire Department in a position to open a fourth fire station before the end of the decade—and an additional code enforcement officer.

City officials were expected to conduct a town hall meeting this week to explain how Measure I money has been spent in the past year and how they will recommend it be spent in the upcoming fiscal year, which will begin July 1.

Margee Fallert, administrative services director, reported Measure I, which was passed in November 2005, is already funding 16 sworn and unsworn police positions—including 12 the City Council approved before asking voters for the half-cent sales tax increase.

Four existing firefighter/paramedic slots and a code enforcement officer position are also supported by the measure and an additional $500,000 has gone to road repairs in the current fiscal year, Fallert said.

“Measure I is a major success,” Police Chief Roger Hill said. “This community ought to be really pleased.”

When the City Council put the measure on the ballot, it promised voters the money would be used to beef up public safety and repair roads.

“Public safety has been and, I believe, will remain the top priority of this council,” Mayor Craig Vejvoda said. “Our Measure I money is coming in better than expected and that's what it was all about—public safety and roads. That's what we should use it for.”

City staff is recommending the City Council allow the Police Department to hire two new dispatchers—which will allow the department to operate with three on duty around-the-clock—and six more police officers, Fallert said.

Four of the sworn officers would work investigations and two would be assigned to the traffic division, she said.

The Tulare City School District has agreed to pay half the cost of two additional officers, w ho would work on the middle school campuses in much the same manner as the two officers who work on the high school campuses, Fallert said.

The city will pay its share of the cost with general fund money, rather than Measure I, City Manager Darrel Pyle said.

The need for additional detective positions is the nature result of putting more patrol officers on the streets and giving them more time to checkout situations that look suspicious, instead sending them non-stop from one call to the next, city officials said.

“Our detectives—we're running them ragged,” Pyle said.

Adding more officers in the next fiscal year also will allow the Police Department to revive programs such as Problem Oriented Policing, which places a small contingency of officers in a problem-ridden neighborhood until those problems are resolved, Pyle said.

City staffers also are recommending the council earmark another $500,000 in Measure I funds to finish the reconstruction of West Street, which was begun in the current fiscal year.

Space Crunch

With the influx of new investigators, space has grown scarce at the police station, where Hill said rooms built for four people are now housing seven or eight.

“We can't put in anymore,” he said. “We have two investigators working off a folding table.”

The Tulare Redevelopment Agency is negotiating to purchase a house behind the station, which Hill said his department will likely use for additional office space until the agency decides to demolish it to make way for another project.

Police Substation?

Phil Mehan told the Tulare Voice recently he wants to build a police substation for the department at The Village Shopping Center, which is on the southwest corner of Prosperity Avenue and Cherry Street.

“I just have always loved the Tulare police,” said Mehan, who owns the center with his wife, Iris. “They've always been there when I've needed them and I just want to pay them back for all the things they've done for me. Those guys are my favorite police.”

The Mehans live in Southern California but spent a lot of time in Tulare, especially during the early days of the center, which was built in the 1970s. Officers would always come around and check on him if he was camped out at the center overnight to try to thwart would-be burglars who were working in the area, he said.

“Phil's offered us office space almost from the time he built the center,” Hill said, adding the city has not asked him to build a substation. “If he had office space available in the future, we would consider that.”

Pyle said he was unaware of the offer.

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Tulare Garden Wins Statewide Award

Tulare - A friend visiting from Oregon suggested Bob and Francene Hill move the rear fence of their corner lot on North Manor Drive out eight feet, an idea that marked the beginning of an award-winning landscaping project.

The California Landscape Contractors Association presented Plant Systems by Cox with a first palace award last November in the large residential landscape renovation category. The Visalia firm worked with the Hills in redoing their front and back yards.

Area residents who buy tickets for the Valley Oak Garden Club's annual home tour will be able to visit the garden from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 28. Tickets for the tour, which also features five homes and one other garden, are $15. Information: 686-4681.

Even more important than award their yards received, the Hills ended up with garden areas—especially in the backyard—that they enjoy immensely.

“This is the center of all our family entertainment,” Francene Hill said.

It is also a place of serenity.

“It's so great to sit out in the evening and thank the Lord for his blessings,” Bob Hill said.

The renovation was no small task, but Francene Hillwho is an avid gardener and past president of the Garden Club—said working with Steve Cox and Susan Garvin was a pleasure.

“She knows and understands flowers like no one else I've worked with before,” she said. “She does the shopping for flowers and then oversees and works with the crews to replant for every season.”

As for Cox, he brought in 27 tons of rock for the foundation of the front garden to get the natural look they wanted, she said.

The front entry features a newly designed walk, seat wall and fountain that reflect the simplicity of Asian design that is a signature of the home.

In the backyard, a rose garden that was part of the landscaping when the Hills purchased their house 33 years ago was moved to the northwest portion of the yard. The roses are framed with a boxwood hedge and a custom-designed wrought iron trellis with espaliered citrus trees. A garden swing in front of the persimmon tree is a favorite spot for relaxing and enjoying the blooms.

Other features of the yard include:

· A fence designed and built by the Hills that incorporates the grape stakes of their old fence between new slump stone pillars.

· Garden gates of steel and copper that Francene Hill designed to reflect the slump stone pillars.

· An aviary that includes Bob Hill's favorite tropic bird Chloe, a rose breasted cockatoo, and Regis, a regent parrot who greeted judges from the California Landscape Contractors Association with “What's you doing?” when they walked into the backyard.

· A flagstone walkway that includes a grouping of Japanese maples and features dwarf coral bells, Irish moss, elfin thyme and armeria.

· A variety of flowers, fruit trees, coastal redwoods and dawn redwoods are among the many other backyard treasures.

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