Bikers Help Makes Dreams Come True

Tulare - Rick Allison's American Thunder motorcycle accessories shop was a hub of activity one recent morning as he alternately answered work and cell phones while carrying on running banter with step-son Gerrid Climer, who works with him, and customers and friends who had dropped by just to chat.

“Sometimes there will be 12 people in here and they're all talking,” Allison said. “Do you see anybody buying anything?”

Nobody wants to leave because they don't want to get talked about, he adds with a laugh.

One of the topics that day was the shop's annual Christmas Dreams Come True Ride.

Allison started the ride in the mid-90s when he was manager of the Eagle's Nest, a motorcycle accessories shop that his late friend Leland Fried owned. The first year, he and fellow-bikers delivered gifts to four children.

This Christmas the names of 18 kids were on his list and the Poncho Villa Riders Motorcycle Club of Fresno joined the event for the first time. Customers and friends, who have supported the ride for years, donated $3,000 to buy gifts and scores of riders, led by Allison in a wool Santa outfit that once belonged to his grandfather, delivered them.

They visited five homes, giving each child new clothes and tennis shoes as well as a much-desired gift.

“If they want a bicycle, we give them a bicycle,” Allison said.

For Tony Dagliero, the ride is an event not to be missed.

“You get to see how happy the kids are,” Dagliero said. “They jump up and down and they give you hugs. Sometimes kids cry because they're so happy.”

Nannette Byrd, Allison's fiancée, once again shopped for the gifts. While in previous years only she and friend Eleanor Cantrell would wrap the presents, spouses and children of other bikers formed a committee to help with the 2006 ride.

In addition to providing a happy Christmas to needy children, the annual run also sends a message that bikers are not bad people, Allison said.

In his Blood

Motorcycles are in Allison's blood. A picture of his father, Bill Allison, as a teenager on a motorcycle hangs on the west wall of his 515 East Cross Ave. business.

“He rode motorcycles in this town too,” Allison said, adding his father passed along that passion for bikes to his four sons.

“We started with dirt bikes and all three of my brothers [Mike, Larry and Steve Allison] raced them,” he said, adding that as they grew older they graduated to street bikes.

His father stopped riding in 1981 after Steve was killed in an accident while riding on Prosperity Avenue, Allison said.

After graduating from Tulare Western High School in 1975, Allison worked at mostly construction jobs until the early 1990s when he linked up with Fried, who had started the Eagle's Nest in downtown Tulare.

In addition to Fried's dairy design business and his wife's tattoo shop, the Eagle's Nest also include a motorcycle accessory shop that Allison managed for two years until Fried's death.

He then opened American Thunder on Prosperity Avenue, where he operated for about five years before moving to East Cross Avenue five years ago. The shop specializes in Harley Davidson parts and accessories and also carries accessories for Metric Cruisers and dirt bikes. He sells accessories at a discount rate, he said, so people can afford their hobby.

Allison owns five Harleys, including his favorite, a 2005 Electra Glide, which he said is the “Cadillac” of Harleys.

It is not unusual to find Allison and his friends gathered in the back shop, building custom bikes. Two of them, a 1993 Heritage Soft Tail Custom Harley and a Custom Rigid Chopper, have won awards in local shows.

About two years ago Allison and his friends adopted another hobby—customizing golf carts. They paint and upholster the carts according o their taste and raise the suspension and install stereos, Allison said. His personnel favorite is a four-wheel golf cart he painted to match his orange Harley.

“I use it to cruise around the neighborhood and I've taken it to the desert too,” he said.

Allison is also the owner of two local bars: Slicks on East Tulare Ave. and the RB Bar in Tipton, which is also known as the Regal Beagle. In December, he opened yet another business called Off the Wagon, which is a licensed cocktail service.

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Tulare Residents Upset About Mental Health Contract

By Julie Fernandez

Tulare - Local residents upset that Tulare County did not award a one-stop mental health services contract to a Tulare pastor with extensive experience in the targeted African-American community plan to meet with the advisory board that reviewed contract proposals.

Rosalinda Avitia said she and others plan to attend the Mental Health Advisory Board's meeting at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jan 9, at the Tulare County Government Plaza, 5957 South Mooney Blvd. They want to discuss their concerns about the decision to award the one-stop contract to Living Ministries, which also is the contractor for Lindsay's program.

“Let Tulare take care of Tulare,” said Avitia, who was vice chair of the implementation committee involved with obtaining the funds for the programs.

County officials, following the initial recommendation of the advisory board, were on the verge of signing a $2.4 million contract with New Life Ministries of Tulare County this past summer when they changed their mind and refused to give director Larry Dodson a reason why.

When contacted by the Tulare Voice in September, Cheryl L. Duerksen, the county's mental health director, would only say the contract was tabled.

Dodson and others are convinced allegations by three former church members that Dodson had misspent and embezzled New Life Community Church funds were the reason for the county's abrupt action.

The Classis of Central California, which has jurisdiction over Dodson's church and other Reformed Church in America congregations, had investigated the allegations earlier in 2006 and found no wrongdoing.

“Not only did we find no wrongdoing, we found a very consistently tender hearted, selfless individual who was trying to do the right thing with the money that was given,” Classis President Tim Arensmeier told the Tulare Voice in September.

Dodson's New Life Ministries, which is a separate entity from his church, had submitted its proposals in conjunction with Kings View, a long-time mental health services provider in the Valley, which was going to be the program's fiscal administrator.

Norma Burns, another Tulare resident who served on the implementation committee, called the county's action unfair.

“They didn't even give him [Dodson] a chance to find out why they took the contract away from him,” Burns said. Avitia agreed.

“They judged him. They condemned him for what?” she asked.

Avitia and Burns said the county's decision was not only unfair but detrimental to one of the major goals of the one-stop program, which is to provide mental health services to the underserved African-American community.

“Who else [but Dodson] in Tulare County would be ready to come and put in a program like that,” Avitia said.

After the county put out a second request for proposals in the fall, Dodson applied and when he learned he did not get the contract he said he was “real upset, shocked and surprised too” but was not going to fight the decision.

At the county's request, he recently met with a Living Ministries representative who, Dodson said, asked for his help in finding African Americans for the staff he was assembling for Tulare.

“My first human reaction was, 'Heck, no!'” Dodson said. “But then when I thought about it I said, 'Don't be the reason people don't get served.' I want to see people, particularly African Americans, get served.”

He provided the Living Ministries representatives with resumes he had on file, he said.

Dodson met on Dec. 27 with Duerksen and other county officials, who he said encouraged him to support the Living Ministries program in Tulare. He said he intends to do that.

County officials also wanted to encourage Avitia, Burns and others who have concerns or questions about the process that led to the contract award to attend the Jan. 9 meeting, he said.

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Morris Levin & Son— 2006 Large Business of the Year

By Julie Fernandez

Tulare - Morris Levin & Son Hardware has served its customers well for more than seven decades, but what makes the Tulare business even more special to people like Diane Friend is its unwavering commitment to the community at large.

“Youth ag organizations know they can always depend on Levin's to support everything from livestock auctions to donations for scholarships,” Friend said. “But the giving doesn't stop with just ag. Levin's is also a strong supporter of many other youth programs, sports teams and projects in the community.”

Because of its community commitment, business ethics and philosophy of service, Friend nominated Morris Levin & Son Hardware for the Tulare Chamber of Commerce's 2006 Large Business of the Year award.

The chamber will honor the business on Friday, Jan. 26, at its annual awards dinner at the Heritage Complex.

Adair & Evans, the 2006 Small Business of the Year, and Willard Epps and Connie Conway, the 2006 Man and Woman of the Year, will also be recognized. Tickets for the event are $32 for chamber members and $40 for non-members and are available by calling 686-1547.

Morris Levin & Son, which also received the 2006 California Small Business Recognition Award for the 34th Assembly District in May, was founded in 1934 when newcomers Morris Levin and his son George opened the Tulare Junk Company and Morris Levin and Son Plumbing Contractors at the corner of Inyo Avenue and L Street.

The business continues today on South K Street under the direction of George Levin's son-in-law, Paul Atlas, 68, his daughter, Marilyn Atlas, 65, his grandson David Atlas, 45, and David's wife, Tracy.

The award was “a total shock,” said Paul Atlas, who is the company's chief executive officer and president.

The family credits their employees, many of whom have worked decades for them, for the company's success through the years. “Our people make the difference in all facets of our business,” said Marilyn Atlas, the company's vice president. “The employees are a part of the family. Some have practically grown up here.”

Getting Started

Morris Levin moved from his native Russia as a young man in the early 1900s to avoid serving in the army, where Jews were treated poorly. He settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he learned the plumbing trade before moving his family to Southern California, where he had a small plumbing business and sold chickens from a horse-drawn wagon.

He later moved to Fresno, where he worked for Levy Iron & Metal. When son George graduated from high school at age 16, he attended junior college for awhile and then joined his father at the iron and metal business, his daughter Marilyn Atlas said.

Because Levy found the Levins trustworthy, he gave them vouchers with no limits when the father and son decided to open their own business, the family said.

The Levins chose Tulare because of its location in the heart of the Valley and its easy railroad and highway access.

At first the business was mostly iron and scrap metal but soon included a plumbing shop. Having outgrown its downtown location, the business moved in 1937 to 1816 South K Street.

Family members worked hard to make the company a success, Marilyn Atlas said. She remembers as a child her grandmother Celia cooking, unloading trucks or doing whatever else was necessary and her mother, Millie, working as bookkeeper.

Her father's keen business sense resulted in the company's growth, including its expansion to include a retail hardware store.

“It was my father who made the business,” Marilyn Atlas said. “My grandfather had the desire, but he didn't have the health and his English skills weren't good.”

In 1945 George Levin was drafted into the Army, where he served as a combat engineer in the Philippines and Japan.

“It was traumatic, but the business went on,” Marilyn Atlas said. Her uncle, Cecil Levin, who later became a school teacher and school psychologist in Tulare, came home from college to help her grandparents with the business while her father was gone.

While in the Army, George Levin learned the skills needed to obtain a contractor's license and when he returned the business was able to expand its mechanical engineering to include refrigeration, sheet metal, electrical sewage and septic tank installation.

He and Bob Grissom, who continues to work for the business, went to a school in Texas in the mid-1950s to learn how to do air conditioning.

More Expansions

“Air conditioning was in its infancy at that point,” Paul Atlas said. After visiting his brother-in-law's rental business in Omaha, Neb., George Levin returned to add yet another service—a rental department which grew to become one of the largest rental equipment facilities in the Valley.

Prior to that, people would ask to borrow tools and they were not returning them, so the rental business made sense, Paul Atlas said.

George Levin took an active role in the community, becoming involved in many civic groups, including the Tulare Rotary Club and the Tulare Chamber of Commerce. He also was active in the PTA and the Boy Scouts, which awarded him a life time membership, and in Future Farmers of America, which awarded scholarships in his father's name.

He served four years on the Tulare Mosquito Abatement District Board, but is perhaps best remember for his service on the Tulare District Hospital Board.

His father-in-law decided to run for the hospital board in 1970 after he became aware of what he considered serious inefficiencies, Paul Atlas said. “George decided he needed to do something about that because he loved that hospital … and he wanted to make sure it was a viable institution for this community because he loved this community,” he said.

Elected in a landslide vote, he served for four years, two as chairman.

Upon George Levin's death in 1983, David Ellis, then-editor of the Tulare Advance-Register, recalled with admiration how he had “unhesitatingly spoke his mind” about the hospital and other matters.

“There are too few people like George Levin in any community, who are willing to stand up and be counted on any issue,” Ellis wrote.

Paul Atlas joined the business in 1960 after graduating from UCLA with a bachelor's degree in political science and marrying Marilyn Levin. When her father retired in 1981, the Atlases took over the business.

Under their direction, the business has seen even more growth and development.

The increasing success of the rental and parts branch, for example, prompted construction in 1992 of a new Rental and Parts Center on five acres across the street from the main hardware store. The business also added a Porterville store in 1991.

The Atlases' son, David, and his wife, Tracy ,joined the business in 1993. He is secretary/treasurer of the company, runs the hardware store and rental yard and is general manager for the Porterville store.

'Code 1'

Paul Atlas believes the company's tradition of good customer service has allowed it to survive in an era of “big box” hardware stores.

“Most of the customers are known on a first name basis,” he said. “A customer's name is the most important word they can hear and we strive for that. The second most important thing a customer can hear is 'I'll take care of it.'”

The company is well-known for the “Code 1” system that George Levin started in an effort to link customers with someone who can help them as soon as they enter the store.

“George Levin may have started the tradition of 'Code 1' when customers walk into the store, but it was Paul Atlas who has carried the motto of customer service to the 'nth degree,' Friend said in her nomination letter.

The company's tradition of community service also remains intact.

The company organizes food and clothing collections and blood drives and sponsors many other local efforts such as Tulare's Relay for Life in support of the American Cancer Society. As it has for decades, Morris Levin & Son also sponsors youth athletic teams and helps FFA programs, churches and schools.

Paul Atlas is on the board of the Tulare County Symphony, a past member of the Tulare Chamber of Commerce board and remains on the board of the Tulare Local Development Company, where he served as president for 21 years.

David Atlas has served on the South K Street Project Area Committee for

Redevelopment since its inception and has also sat on city graffiti committees.

The business also gives developmentally disabled adults the opportunity to work and has employed a crew from Social Vocational Services in the hardware store for many years.

The company employs more than 160 people, including many who have been with the company for decades or who have followed in the footsteps of their parents who worked for the business.

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Study Explores Race Track Impacts

Tulare - The questions Tulare residents are asking about noise, traffic and other quality-of-life issues surrounding a proposed 700-acre motor sports complex are similar to those asked in other community's where the possibility of hosting NASCAR races exists.

In the case of Kitsap County in Washington, county commissioners appointed a citizens task force to pose questions to people living in six other communities with large race tracks.

The answers they got were generally positive regarding the racetracks with most people citing economic, community and recreational benefits and identifying the major concern as traffic, according to the study's executive summary.

Tulare City Manager Darrel Pyle said he was interested in the study because “we're trying to figure out what kind of neighbors a race track would be” and was “pleasantly surprised” with its findings.

“If they were bad neighbors, you would hear more about it; you don't hear bad neighbor stories about NFL stadiums or the SaveMart Center in Fresno …and with racetracks you won't find noise is an issue,” Pyle said.

The Kitsap County Citizen-to-Citizen Racetrack Task Force Livability Study was issued in January 2006 after the task force talked with 25 people who lived near Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Ariz., Chicagoland Speedway in Joilet, Ill, Kansas City Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., Pocono Speedway in Lake Pond, Penn., Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tenn. or the Watkins Glen International in Wyandotte County, N.Y.

While the 25 residents were selected from a scientifically established sample of 119 representative households, the findings are not considered statistically significant and do not predict what others from the same communities might say, according to the executive study.

The consistency of the answers from community-to-community, however, did give the task force “greater confidence in the findings,” the report said.

“I think if the answers had been more sporadic, it would have probably required them to expand their survey,” Pyle said.

A Dec. 25 Associated Press story said a poll of Kitsap County residents taken in the fall found them evenly divided over the proposed track. Unlike the Tulare Motor Sports Complex partnership which is proposing to build a one-mile race track and a quarter-mile drag strip here with its own financing, the developer with the Kitsap proposal is asking taxpayers to pay for half of the $345 million facility.

Highlights from the Kitsap County study include findings that:

· Traffic congestion occurs in all racing venues, primarily following the end of big NASCAR events, but residents tolerate it because it happens only a few times a year and they consider it an acceptable trade-off for its economic benefits.

· Residents described track events as well-managed with “outstanding collaboration” between track and local officials who communicated well with local residents about event schedules.

· Litter and security were handled well at events and “track campground security, together with a curfew at the infield gate, apparently contribute to a finding of little aggressive behavior and few drunk-driving incidents.”

· No one was bothered by the sounds of the racetrack.

· Track engine noise was audible but sporadic and not a nuisance and did not penetrate indoors. It was heard outdoors up to 10 miles away when it was cloudy and depending upon the terrain.

· Sometimes property values increase in the area of a track.

· Condos and townhouses are being developed around some tracks.

· Fans spend “a lot of money” in race communities and much of it is spent on services, food and facilities at the track.

· Race fans were credited with keeping some hospitality businesses going.

· There appears to be few opportunities for local vendors or few family-wage level jobs associated with the tracks.

· The effectively of the rack to spark economic development appears dependent upon the co-location of other recreation or shopping destinations.

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Tulare Native Ron Lee Coaches Rose Bowl Team

Tulare - Helping guide the University of Michigan Wolverines to the Rose Bowl this season was Tulare native Ron Lee, who is in his first year as an assistant coach with the football team.

Lee, who coached the cornerbacks and worked with the punt return team in his first season with Michigan, is a 1984 graduate of Tulare Union High School. He was one of several new assistants that Coach Lloyd Carr brought aboard in the wake of the 2005 season, which was the Wolverines worse in more than two decades.

Lee still has family living in Tulare, including his cousin Louis Early who was scheduled to attend the Rose Bowl with his wife, Maria.

“We're just real excited to see him,” Maria Early said.

Lee also recruits players, a task that recently brought him to the Valley and Tulare, where he visited relatives, she said.

This was not Lee's first bowl game. Prior to joining the Wolverines, he had participated in 11 bowl games during his career, 10 as a coach and one as the defensive back for the Washington State Cougars in the 1988 Aloha Bowl.

Before joining the University of Michigan, Lee spent three years as the defensive backs coach at the University of Wisconsin, helping to guide the Badgers to three consecutive bowl games: the 2003 Music City Bowl, 2005 Outback Bowl and 2006 Capital One Bowl.

He spent the 2001 and 2002 seasons as the defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at San Jose State before joining the University of Michigan staff and, according to a report on the university's web site, he was the only coach who could boast three players ranked among the top 100 nationally in interceptions in 2002.

Prior to his stint in San Jose, he spent eight seasons at Colorado State, winning five conference titles and helping the Rams lead the nation in turnover margin during the 1997 season, according to the web report. He also coached Greg Myers, who won the 1995 Jim Thorpe Award given to the nation's best defensive back. Ten of Lee's players have played in the National Football League. Lee, 39, is married and he and his wife, Eileen, have five children.

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