Block-Long Downtown Project Proposed

Tulare - Zumwalt Park could become the front yard of a proposed five-story. block-long downtown project that would include retail and office space, apartments and underground parking.

Developer Opal Capital of Westlake Village has asked the Tulare Redevelopment Agency for help in acquiring the seven parcels on the west side of M Street between Kern and Tulare avenues, across the street from Zumwalt and within a stone’s throw of City Hall.

The agency is interested and its board has asked for more information, City Manager Darrel Pyle said.

The parcels on the block include: Nielsen’s Restaurant; the city-owned Civic Affairs Building, which includes the City Council Chambers and offices leased to three private businesses; Bank of the West and other businesses.

Such a mixed-use proposal is exactly what City Councilman Richard Ortega had in mind when he focused the community’s attention on downtown during his tenure as mayor two years ago

“This would really be the kick-off for the revitalization of downtown,” Ortega said.

The project would establish the market for mixed-use projects in Tulare, Pyle said.

A recent workshop on the future of downtown drew about 60 people, most of whom seemed to like the idea of constructing mixed-use buildings in the downtown.

Ortega did not seem surprised the city’s first mixed-use proposal is for property across the street from Zumwalt. When he brought a University of California, Berkeley, professor to Tulare to help generate ideas for downtown revitalization, Ortega said the planning expert told him: “You’ve got one of the most beautiful parks I’ve ever seen.”

The park has under gone a massive renovation in recent years, including the addition of a gazebo-style bandstand, new restrooms , sidewalk and landscaping.

Neither Pyle nor Ortega knew if the developer has contacted any of the other property owners on the M-Street block about the project, but said those meetings will happen.

“The Redevelopment Agency has a strict process for insuring discussions with property owners to see if they are interested,” Pyle said.

Opal Capital’s concept plans were designed by Newman Garrison Gilmour+Partners, an award-winning Newport Beach architecture and land-planning firm that has extensive experience in mixed-use building projects.

The plan calls for about 100 apartments on the upper four levels, including studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. A residential club house also is proposed.

While the city would lose its existing Council Chambers in a project such as this, Pyle said the city is in a good position to consider another use for the Civic Affairs property.

“I think now, with the library project moving forward, it’s easier to consider a project like this, because the Council Chambers get relocated to the library building,” he said.

The city plans to build a new library on the southwest corner of M Street and Cross Avenue.

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Crows Return En Masse Downtown

by Rick Elkins

Tulare - They’re back.

The hordes of crows that once literally dotted the landscape of downtown Tulare have returned, but city officials hope for not too long.

Last week the city began broadcasting a tape of a crow in distress in parts of the downtown in hopes of driving the birds away from that area.

“It’s bad, very bad,” said Milt Stowe, city of Tulare Parks, Recreation and Library director—and you can now add chief crow chaser.

Crows in the thousands come into the city at sunset to roost. For the past several weeks they have called downtown home and their droppings can attest to the problems they cause.

“It’s not only a mess for my cars, but it takes away from our city with all the droppings on the ground,” said Chris Beck, owner of Motor Cars Inc. at the corner of K Street and King Avenue.

Crows in the thousands first appeared and stayed for three or four months last year at about this time and then left, Beck said. They returned about three weeks ago.

For him the droppings are a major problem as they can damage the paint on the cars in his lot. Watching as thousands of crows descended on downtown one night last week, Beck said sometimes it sounds like rain from all the droppings. And, he demonstrated, if you go outside, they seem to gather in greater numbers, as they did that night.

When the birds showed up last year, Beck said it was costing him $2,000 a month to keep his cars clean.

Jerry Magoon, Tulare Improvement Program coordinator, is pleased the city is trying to do something to rid downtown of the nuisance.

“We have to do something. We have to get it cleaned up,” Magoon said, commending city crews after they began cleaning areas of the downtown last week. “I hope it works.”

This is the not the first time the crows have invaded downtown, where they can be seen congregated in many trees. When the city had the same problem about four years ago, the taped distress sounds drove them off. Stowe said the signal will only drive them away from the downtown area and he does not know where they will go from there.

Because the crows are protected, the city cannot kill them. Trapping them would be futile due to their numbers and the fact they will eventually find their way back.

The city will run the tape every night from about dusk until 8 p.m. to get the crows to move elsewhere, Stowe said, adding people will also hear the sounds.

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U.S. Cold Storage Campus to Expand

Tulare - The East Walnut Avenue campus of Tulare’s United States Cold Storage will continue to expand in 2008 with two new warehouse buildings and about 40 new jobs, says regional manager Rod Noll.

The business, which stores frozen, refrigerated and dry products for food companies, hopes to have both buildings underway in January and in use by August, says Noll.

The two buildings will be 120,000 square feet and 139,297 square feet – one on either side of the company’s present dry goods warehouse on Walnut.

“When we are done here, we believe our Tulare facilities will be the largest cold storage operation in the U.S.,” Noll says.

The company already employs 65 workers at its two large buildings – the original located on Continental and the dry warehouse on Walnut. In the past few years the company purchased 60 acres between Levin and Bardsley avenues that it has set aside for expansion and to draw other food companies who might use its services.

United States Food Storage has been negotiating for some time with an unnamed food company and Noll confirms an agreement may be near that could bring more business and jobs to town. The firm would use its cold storage space.

Noll says the growth of the company in Tulare has been fueled by expansion of the food industry, particularly the dairy food business.

United States Cold Storage, Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Kingdom- and Hong Kong-based Swire Group in 1982. The Swire Group, founded in the United Kingdom in 1816, now has substantial investments in refrigerated warehousing, shipping, road transport, soft drink manufacturing, aviation, property and trading in the United States, Australia, Asia and the United Kingdom.

Since its acquisition by Swire in 1982, the public warehouse firm has grown in size to more than 150 million cubic feet of refrigerated storage space at 30 warehouse and distribution center facilities that employ approximately 1,400 people.

The company provides regional and national distribution from locations in 10 states, including California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

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First TDH Clinic Could Open Soon

Tulare - The first of three rural health clinics Tulare District Hospital wants to open could begin operating this month in a mobile van on hospital-owned property at Gem Avenue and Terrace Park, Interim Chief Executive Officer Bob Kelley said.

The Tulare Local HealthCare District board’s unanimous decision to move ahead with a rural clinic system was made Nov. 28, after a consultant reported the move typically has had a favorably impact on the bottom lines of other Valley hospitals that have gone this route.

The clinics are expected to reduce the number of non-emergency cases that show up in Tulare District’s emergency room and help address the unmet need for health care services.

Board members asked consultant Kelly Hohenbrink of TCA Partners, whether a hospital clinic system would hurt Tulare Community Health Clinic in Tulare.

“I don’t want to do anything to hurt that clinic in any form or shape,” board President Parmod Kumar said.

Hohenbrink assured board members that won’t happen, because the unmet medical needs of the district are so great that even a doubling of existing providers would still leave people without care.

The first clinic will operate temporarily out of the hospital’s mobile clinic, which will park at the Gem and Terrace site until the corner building that Dr. Frank Alvarez formerly occupied is approved as an interim clinic.

Meanwhile, the hospital will have to look for a permanent location, because the Alvarez building will be demolished to make way for parking once the hospital’s expansion begins.

Board Member Dr. Prem Kamboj said he would like to see clinics established in Woodville and in west Tulare.

Hohenbrink told the board the hospital could realize a $100,000 revenue gain in the first year of clinic operations. Medi-Cal provides larger reimbursements for patients who get non-emergency care in rural health clinic as opposed to the emergency room, he said.

Interim Chief Executive Officer Bob Kelley said that when he was at Madera Community the hospital opened an outpatient clinic that added $500,000 to $750,000 to the bottom line.

Pamela Ott, chief executive officer at Sierra-Kings District Hospital in Reedley, said the addition of five rural health clinics and the resulting higher Medi-Cal reimbursements have helped her hospital to break-even financially.

The biggest advantage, though, is being able to recruit quality physicians, Ott said.

“We handle the cost of the building, the employees, healthcare insurance…all that business end of things that doctors did not go to school for,” Ott said. “They want to walk in, provide high-level care and go home and be with their families at the end of the day.”

Their reimbursements for treating Medi-Cal patients are also higher than if they saw them in a private office, she said.

The clinics also have lessened the load in the Emergency Department, as patients now have an alternative to ER care, she said. “Some of our rural health clinics have after-hour care up to 8 at night and Saturday and Sunday coverage.

The clinics also save money for patients with insurance who might have a co-pay of $10 at a hospital clinic versus $100 for an emergency room visit.

“It’s a win-win for everyone, including our state government, which doesn’t have to pay emergency room fees for patients who don’t need emergency room care,” she said.

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Martin-Soares Urges Colleagues to Settle Two Suits

Tulare - Deanne Martin-Soares has publicly asked fellow members of the Tulare Local HealthCare District board to settle the voting rights lawsuit filed by six Tulare-area residents and to abandon its legal action against former Chief Executive Officer Bob Montion.

Her comments were made in a prepared statement she read at the board’s Nov. 28 meeting, when others, including Montion, also urged the board to settle the matters.

Even though she might not agree with the lawsuit or all the issues involved, Martin-Soares said it was in the best interest of the district to settle the matter and allow voting by districts.

Several doctors and members of the public—including the Rev. Larry Dodson of New Faith Community Church—also urged the district to settle the voting rights and Montion matters and not incur the high costs that often accompany legal battles.

“Lawsuits for this community is the wrong way to go,” said Dodson, who added he was willing to help “reconcile the situation.”

Martin-Soares was the only board member to vote against suing Montion, whom the district maintains is waging “a mean-spirited vendetta” against the district in violation of an agreement he signed when he resigned on March 28 for health reasons.

(The 4-1 vote came in a closed session in October and was reported to the public after the board’s meeting last week. Hospital counsel Kris Peterson said the state’s open meeting law allowed the board to delay announcement of the action until after the lawsuit was filed.)

“While some may believe that such a position suggests that I have loyalties to Robert Montion, they are mistaken,” Martin-Soares said. “I simply believe that the district should focus on the future, not the past, and that the costs of such lawsuits are too great.”

Both she and Montion made reference to the last time the district sued a former CEO and the financial costs to the district.

“The hospital ended up spending $2.35 million,” Montion said. “We hurt the reputation of the Green family, Mr. Ken Nunes and Mr. Jerry Boyter. The hospital suffered 10 times the dollar amount in bad will in the community.” He publicly apologized to the Greens, Nunes and Boyter for his role in the matter.

Martin-Soares’ statement covered other matters, including her displeasure with how the interim administration was handling parking issues in conjunction with the hospital’s planned expansion.

She charged she was not informed of a public meeting held at Garden School to discuss a parking plan and only found out about it after when someone called to inquire if she planned to attend.

“To make matters worse, I watched those presenters at that meeting claim that the board approved the proposed plan and that they had discussed the plan with select City Council members.

“Interestingly, this was the first time I had seen portions of the proposed plan and the first knowledge I had that someone from the district had discussed this matter with the City Council.”

Later during a discussion on physician recruitment, board member Dr. Prem Kamboj accused Martin-Soares of “double-talk” on that and the parking issue and said she had seconded his motion to close Gem Street.

Martin-Soares angrily replied there was no vote during the October closed session. Board President Parmod Kumar quickly gaveled the meeting to order and returned the discussion to recruitment.

In her statement, Martin-Soares also said she had lost confidence in the hospital’s current legal counsel and requested the board solicit requests for proposals to find new counsel.

She noted Dan Dooley of Dooley and Herr and asked the board to give him six months to “prove his worth.” Over the past nine months, she said, Dooley has attended three regular meetings and none of the special sessions. He also has announced he is leaving the firm to take a job with the state.

Martin-Soares also complained:

·  Her e-mails to Interim CEO Bob Kelley go unanswered and she was told she could not e-mail Interim Chief Financial Officer John Church. Kelley had no comment on the allegation.

·  The board’s agenda packet has shrunk by one-third and “contains very little information about the proposals to be discussed at the open session, while at the same time the closed session items increase.”

·  The hospital is spending more than it should—more than $2.1 million since July.

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