City, Kraft ‘Dodge a Bullet;’ Water Levels Big Concern

Tulare - The city and Kraft Foods “dodged a bullet” recently that illustrates the serious impact just one dry year can have on groundwater levels underneath the city and adjoining areas.

When the city lost the variable frequency drive on a well that serves Kraft Foods in mid-June, the Board of Public Utilities gave city officials permission to get it repaired without going to bid to get it back into operation as quickly as possible.

But when the well was turned on, the motor began sucking air.

“We measured the water level and it had dropped over 30 feet in the last month or so!” Public Works Director Lew Nelson reported in a memorandum to City Manager Darrel Pyle.

When a company pulled the pump in preparation to lower the bowls, it found both the motor and pump were worn out.

The city asked the pump company to overnight express a new pump, which they did and then worked through a weekend to install it 100 feet deeper.

The city’s well was no sooner back on line than Kraft’s backup pump started sucking air.

“We dodged a bullet,” Nelson said.

If both wells had been off-line at the same time, Kraft would have had to shut down its plant until water was restored, he said.

'Rather Sudden’

“The groundwater drop seems like a rather sudden response to a dry winter after two wet ones,” Nelson said.

Asked if this were unusual, Paul Hendrix,  general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District [TID], said it is “probably exceptional, but it really varies according to location and who’s pumping around you.”

Nelson said at least one farmer in the area west of Kraft is having trouble with dry wells and Hendrix said he also is aware of  farmers who are drilling deeper for water.

Because this year was so dry with a snow pack runoff  that was 35 percent of normal, the TID delivered only 48,000 acre feet of irrigation water this summer, compared with 300,000 in each of the past two years and “farmers have to pull heavily from the ground,” Hendrix said.

A depth to groundwater survey the TID did in early spring showed groundwater levels rose about four feet from where they were in spring 2006 with the average depth to water standing at just over 98 feet.

TID officials estimate that nearly 190,000 acre feet will be pumped from the underground in the Tulare region and said that will take its toll on water levels. The next survey is scheduled for the fall and will shed more light on the situation.

What is happening this summer underscores the need for the city to stay focused on the joint groundwater recharge program it has begun in conjunction with TID, Nelson said.

The program involves building ponding basins and buying surplus water in wet years to fill them so the water will percolate and replenish the underground water supply.

The City Council was expected this week to consider imposing groundwater impact fees to raise money to purchase land and the Board of Public Utilities is expected soon to consider increasing water rates to raise money to purchase surplus water when it is available.

While groundwater recharging is expected to help the situation, utility board member Ron Quinn said he is worried about whether the city will be able to provide water to all the developments that are on the horizon.

Mandated environmental reports which are filed with each new development proposal consistently note the area’s groundwater overdraft problem, Quinn said.

“We keep over drafting, but it must not concern anybody,” he said. “The most critical thing in this Valley today is the water situation. You keep building, you keep using water. What are we going to do?”

He maintains groundwater recharging programs alone cannot solve the problem, because the city cannot build enough ponding basins to replace all the water that is used.

“What this Valley really needs are one or two more dams to store this water in the foothills or mountains,” he said. “I don’t know why city councils, mayors and others aren’t lobbying for at least one more dam.”

Hendrix said the TID is supportive of more dams.

“The two actually go hand-in-hand,” he said. “Fr us to do a better job of recharging more water, we have to have some capacity to hold that water back so it can be delivered in a more controlled fashion.”

The city in the not too distant future may have to provide water for more than its own residents.

The California Department of Health Services and the Tulare County Health Department have askedand the city has agreedto serve county residents in the Soults and Matheny tracts through their existing water companies.

The Soults system is plagued by a nitrate problem and state officials are unwilling to provide money to drill another well that might also be contaminated, Nelson said.

“They prefer to provide grant money to reconstruct and move the distribution system into the streets, including fire hydrants and meters, and connect to city water,” he said in a memorandum to the board. “They do not object to the existing well and distribution system remaining in service for irrigation.”

A similar situation exists with the Pratt Mutual Water Company, which serves the Matheny Tract, he said.

The city set a precedent for serving county residents who need clean and safe water years ago when it agreed to provide water to the Lone Oak subdivision, after its well became contaminated with nitrates, Nelson said.

When the service was installed, a metered connection point also was provided for the Soults Tract and in June 2004 the utilities board agreed to sell water to the Soults Mutual Water Company.

But the company stopped service in less than a month because water consumption was exceeding 100,000 gallons per day for 34 connections. Leaks in homes and the distribution system, along with the need to water orchards and care for farm animals, were to blame.

The board considered and rejected the idea of providing water service directly to residents because Finance Director Darlene Thompson feared collection problems. Instead, the city will forge an agreement with the individual water districts, which it will bill based on the amount of water used each billing period.

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Fire Department Evolving with the Times

Tulare - Follow the activities of the Tulare Fire Department and before long it becomes apparent this isn’t the same department it was in September 2001, when terrorists launched attacks in both New York and Washington D.C.

The department, for example, organized two trainings on explosives in Tulare  this year that drew more than 120 public safety officers and members of the legal system. Most recently, the department engaged in confined space rescue training at Southern California Edison’s Tulare facility.

“Post 9/11 we are 100 percent better prepared for an emergency than we’ve ever been,” Fire Chief Mike Threlkeld said. “It’s come with a lot of work, dollars and dedication of employees.”

In the intervening six years, the department has:

· Adopted a new Emergency Operations Plan, relocated the operations center to the training room at City Hall and purchased new equipment to assist public safety officials in an emergency.

· Upgraded emergency medical care so front line fire trucks and engines are staffed with at least one firefighter who is also a paramedic. Previously, the highest level of care was provided by an emergency medical technician.

· Trained its fire fighters in confined space and trench rescue as it seeks an Office of Emergency Services Medium Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) designation.

·  Recently become part of the Regional Heavy USAR team and will begin training with the Fresno, Clovis and the Kings County fire departments.

·  Had two members certified in terrorism awareness and first responder operations.

·  Allowed its arson investigator to train with Scott Baker, a retired state fire marshal and arson and bomb investigator who is one of the state’s top explosive experts. This led to the three explosive recognition classes held in the past two years.

·  Purchased new communications equipment so the department for the first time can communicate by radio with the Tulare Police Department, LifeStar Ambulance and other agencies throughout the state.

Funds from the Homeland Security Grant Program has paid for much of the new equipment, including nearly $62,000 worth of items needed for confined space and collapsed building rescues.

“The September 11 tragedy opened up a funding opportunity for all fire departments,” Threlkeld said. “Unfortunately, a lot of people had to die.”

When he began his career 30 years ago, most fire departments in this area were concerned only about what happened within their city limits, but that is no longer true, especially since the terrorist attacks, which were “a kick in the pants,” he said.

“There’s no one department in Tulare County that’s big enough to do it all alone without the assistance of someone else,” he said.

This way of thinking has prompted  the Tulare County Approval Authority for the State Homeland Security Grant Program to purchase a Unified Command Vehicle, a large recreational vehicle with surveillance and satellite equipment that  is stored in Tulare and available to all county public safety agencies, he said.

More steps to enhance public safety continue to occur as Tulare Fire and other departments also participate in regional efforts through the Region 5 Standardized Emergency Management System, said Doug Kennedy, emergency services program manager  for the Tulare County Office of Emergency Services.

“Yes, we are more prepared than we were prior to Sept. 11, although I don’t think we are where we want to get,” Kennedy said. “But we’re on the right track.”

The unpredictability of terrorism and natural disasters make it unlikely any agency, county or region will ever feel satisfied they have done all they could, he said.

“Once you think you are there, you’re going to be stagnant and you’re going to start overlooking something,” Kennedy said. “Everything’s evolving.”

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Release of Misdemeanor Offenders Upsets City Officials

Tulare - When Tulare police arrested five women on prostitution and drug  use charges during a June 9 sweep of West Inyo Avenue and South K Street, they expected the women would spent time in the Tulare County Jail, but they were wrong.

Four of the five, including one who had an outstanding misdemeanor warrant, were cited and released immediately after they were booked, City Manager Darrel Pyle said.

Four days later seven men were arrested on suspicion of soliciting an undercover police officer for prostitution. They were also booked, cited and released, Pyle said.

“We took them off the street; they put them back on the street,” he said.

The action angered city officials who have been trying to rent unused jail beds from the county so people arrested on suspicion of  misdemeanors spend time in jail at least until they are arraigned.

“We’ve got to address the [crime] problem and the problem won’t get better if they [offenders] grow up thinking there are no consequences to their actions,” Vice Mayor Phil Vandegrift said.

The Sheriff’s Department had been citing and releasing unsentenced misdemeanor offenders regularly because the county could not afford to open pods in its new jail to house them. When the county recently opened a portion of the jail that has 100 beds, city officials said they were told Tulare would no longer need to rent jail beds, Pyle said.

“We were under the impression our world was improving with the next 100 beds in use,” he said.

The Police Department has periodically come under criticism because it has been unable to rid the streets of prostitutes and city officials say the citing and release program is one reason why.

“Right now it’s not even an inconvenience to get arrested,” Pyle said.

While initially upset, Vandegrift was more optimistic Monday after learning Sheriff Bill Wittman has contacted Tulare Police Chief Roger Hill and they and other city and county officials are expected to meet this week to try to address the situation.

“I think we’re all going to try to work this out,” Vandegrift said.

Capt. Jim Hinesly, who oversees the jail, said the county has indeed opened 100 additional beds, which are currently filled with prisoners facing or serving time for felony crimes, which are more serious than misdemeanors.

Prior to increasing staff to handle the additional beds, the county had to release even felonsthe less serious onesbecause of the overcrowding, Hinesly said.

“We’re still overcrowded and if we kept the misdemeanor offenders, we would have to early-release sentenced felons,” he said. “Our facilities now are just full of felons.”

The situation is not unique to Tulare County, but is prevalent throughout the state.

“Believe me, if we had a big enough jail and the county had a big enough pocketbook, we’d like to keep them all. It’s a revolving door [for the misdemeanor offenders] anymore.”

Vandegrift said he, and he suspects other county members, want to address this problem without going to court.

“We [the county and the city] have got to fight this thing together,” he said.

The citythanks to voter approval of Measure Ihas hired 15 more police officers since mid-2006 and both the council and residents want to see results on the street.

The City Council is expected this week to discuss a letter from Tulare resident Pat Hillman, who is calling for “a greater and more consistent police presence” in west Tulare.

“The preservation of this historic part of Tulare should be a concern, but the safety of those Westside citizens who might not feel they have a voice in city matters, is of prime concern,” Hillman said.

A June 27 fatal stabbing near Miller’s Funeral Home on June 27 served as “a catalyst in recognizing the myriad problems we have on the west side of Tulare,” she said.

The Rev. Stephanie Bingham, pastor of the First Congregational Church, has also noticed a “steady escalation in criminal activity in the neighborhood” in the five years she has been pastor and is asking for suggestions to stem the trend, Hillman said.

The Congregational Church has had two burglaries this month and a suspicious incident.

“You can imagine the negative effect these events have on the members of our congregation, many of whom are elderly,” she said.

Hillman suggested a police station on the West side might help.

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Code Targets Physician Behavior

Tulare - Registered nurse Amber McPhetridge worked nearly 23 years for Tulare District Hospital and had no intention of leaving until late 2006, when she decided she could no longer stand the physician harassment and took a leave of absence. She resigned in March.

McPhetridge—whose husband, Roger, is a member of the Tulare Local HealthCare District board and himself a former Tulare District nurse—went before the board in April and May to ask how the hospital planned to address the harassment issue.

“I’m not the only nurse Tulare District has lost with these issues,” McPhetridge said. “Three of us in this room have been subject to physician harassment.”

She did not name the other two or the doctors involved, but Kim Adkins, a 21-year Tulare District veteran told the board “spirit breaking” work environment issues, such as physician harassment and verbal abuse from doctors, peers and others, and not better pay, are the main reasons she and other nurses have left the hospital to take jobs at the prisons and elsewhere.

She and six other nurses with 15 years or more experience left Tulare District at about the same time in late 2006, Atkins said later.

“It was a breath of fresh air when I went to the prison [to work],” she said. “When someone said something inappropriate to me, I was told, ‘you don’t have to put up with this.’” She said she was ashamed to admit she had become so use to the verbal abuse at Tulare District that she did not immediately recognize the comment as out of line.

Code of Conduct

In response to concerns about bad physician behavior, the hospital’s medical executive committee has developed a Professional Code of Conduct for physicians, which it asked the hospital board to approve on June 27.

The matter was postponed after board member Deanne Martin-Soares, herself a former Tulare District nurse, cited what she considered deficiencies.

Sexual harassment needs to be addressed because it was a big issue when she worked for the hospital between 1988 and 1993 and, although she believes the situation has improved greatly, she is concerned because “some of the same physicians are practicing in the organization today,” Martin-Soares said.

She also said the proposed code fails to set limits as to the amount of counseling a physician will get before the medical executive committee takes action.

The code states that if a physician’s offending behavior continues, the chief of staff or the vice chief “may hold a series of meetings with the offending individual until the behavior stops.”

Martin-Soares said: “There has to be a time when we have to say enough is enough. Is it one, two, three, four, five, six or seven meetings?”

If  bad behavior goes unchecked, it is the hospital, not the executive committee, that employees will hold responsible, she said.

Her comments appeared to irritate board President Parmod Kumar, who said Martin-Soares has to understand the medical staff is legally a separate entity and not under the jurisdiction of the hospital administration.

“The administration can’t put any teeth in it [the code] because it’s none of their business,” Kumar told her. “It’s not the law of Tulare District Hospital; it’s the law of the nation. Get use to it.”

He continued: “I work in the same hospital. We have never put up with any nonsense.”

McPhetridge, who was in the audience, said that was not true.

“You knew very well my job was threatened at one time,” she told Kumar.

Cal Dooley, the hospital’s attorney, agreed with Martin-Soares that the hospital has liability issues and with Kumar that the medical staff is a separate entity. He suggested a delay in adopting the policy so his office can make sure the physicians’ code matches up with hospital personnel policies.

Atkins and others say they worried the code of ethics won’t be enforced as vigorously as it should because of the small size of the medical staff, whose members are dependent on each other for patient referrals.

Dr. Gary Walter, chief of the medical staff, said at the June board meeting it does the medical staff no good to allow bad physician behavior.

He suspects the reason people who have been involved in such incidents are frustrated is because they don’t hear what action has taken place in response to their complaints,  because it is not a public matter, Walter said.

“I will use this [code of conduct] to enforce the letter of the law,” he continued. “If we have to, we will terminate a physician’s privileges. I will assure you of that.”

At an earlier board meeting, Dr.Prem Kamboj told McPhetridge she was “very well respected by the medical staff,” and assured her the medical staff understands the need to police itself.

Kamboj also said he hoped the public understood this is not a widespread problem but may involve one or two people, “which is the same as at most hospitals.”

McPhetridge agreed with the comment. In a later interview, Adkins said later she wanted to make it clear not all doctors treat nurses and other hospital personnel poorly.

“”There are many physicians who have come to my aid when I have had difficulty with another,” Adkins said. “This also should be recognized. What nurses are asking for is uniformity so they do not hesitate to consult with any individual for fear of demeaning behavior.”

Dr. Ihor Kalicinsky, a family practitioner who is a member of the medical staff, questioned the need for a new policy regarding physician conduct during the June board meeting. He asked why existing medical staff by-laws, which he contended already address such issues, were not employed when a “very senior, very experienced nurse,” whom he did not name, resigned.

The question upset Kamboj, who told him his comments were “irrelevant” and accused him of “trying to stir up some things.”

Walter said existing by-laws are not clear on how to handle physician behavior problems and the proposed policy is more comprehensive and establishes a procedure for handling situations in a step-by-step fashion.

Adkins said problems with physician behavior “cycles every few years” both in terms of time and departments and she agrees with Kalicinsky that the medical executive committee already has the means to handle these situations.

McPhetridge and Adkins said they have spoken with nurses from other hospitals, where the problem appears to be better addressed.

When she asked Kaweah Delta officials about that hospital’s physician/nurse situation, Adkins said she was told a rule that prohibits physicians from abusing nurses was strictly enforced to the point that a physician who called a nurse “stupid” was required to apologize.

“That doesn’t happen at Tulare District,” she said. “It’s not just calling us names, but it’s shaming us too.”

Adkins said she was concerned earlier this year when she read a Valley Voice article quoting local healthcare officials as saying high prison salaries were causing nursing shortages at hospitals and elsewhere.

This is not the case, she said, citing published research in the New England Journal of Medicine and elsewhere that pointed to a “spirit breaking” workplace environment as the real reason nurses leave the hospital setting.

In her own conversations with 12 nurses who had left to work at a prison, Adkins said she found only three left for money reasons . The other nine listed environmental issues, including verbal abuse, as reasons for leaving.

“A national study revealed 98 percent of nurses reported being victims of verbal abuse from physicians, peers, patients and visitors in the form of vulgar language, false malicious and/or unfounded statements that can ruin a person’s reputation,’ she said.

In addition to physician harassment and verbal abuse from doctors and others, Adkins outlined eight other situations, involving assignments, orientation of new nurses, patient loads and other matters, that adversely impact the work environment.

She told the Tulare Voice later that all were factors in her decision to leave.

When nurses leave, human resource managers conduct interviews to discover why but often don’t get an accurate picture because, “as some of my colleagues have stated, they just wanted to leave and get out, not wanting to elaborate on much of anything,” she said.

In McPhetridge’s case, the incident that caused her to finally resign involved her appointment to a case manager position which she had held five years earlier.

“I was told by my director I didn’t even need to interview because I had done it before and done it well,” McPhetridge said. “But the next day I was told the physician advisor said I wasn’t qualified enough for the position.”

Kaweah Delta District Hospital twice offered her a similar position and she now works as a public health case manager for Tulare County and as a per diem patient case manager for Sierra View District Hospital in Porterville, she said.

“To my knowledge, this was the first time a doctor’s been allowed to say, ‘You can’t have a job.’ That sets up a big issue of who likes you and who doesn’t.”

Tulare District officials did re-offer her the casse manager position,” but I would have been an idiot to take it,” because there have been other incidents, she said.

In one case she learned a physician was trying to have her fired, she said. Others instances involved verbal abuse, including the time a few years ago when a physician yelled at her outside a patient’s room for five minutes before concluding his tirade with the comment, “In my country you never question the doctor.”

She did not report that episode to her superiors because “to be screamed at was not out of the norm.”

Both she and Adkins said nurses are fearful of speaking out because they don’t want to lose their jobs.

“One reason I left was that I though at some point I can speak out for the nurses,” Adkins said. “I wasn’t going to be able to speak out before because of the fear of retailiation, not just from physicians but from management and administration. It was never clear there was support from managers or the administration.”

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School Districts Promote Rodriguez, Gist

Tulare - Tulare’s elementary and high school district boards recently appointed new assistant superintendents.

Tony Rodriguez, dean of students at Tulare Union High School for the past 10 years, has become the assistant superintendent for instruction in the high school district and Clare Gist, business director for city schools for one year, was promoted to assistant superintendent for business services.

“I’m just very excited to have him come on-board in the district office,” said Howard Berger, superintendent of the Tulare Joint Union High School District. “He has served as teacher, mentor, dean, assistant principal.  He’s worked also as a summer school principal, so he has a strong background in curriculum and instruction.”

In recommending Gist’s promotion to the city school board, Superintendent John Beck praised the job she has done since she moved to the district office last year to take over the duties of John Caudle, the previous assistant superintendent for business.

“Clare had demonstrated above and beyond that she’s very capable and very knowledgeable,” Beck said.

Rodriquez, 52, said he decided to apply for the assistant superintendent job because of his desire to have a positive impact on curriculum across the board.

“In my position of dean, I was overseeing the English Language Development and the migrant education programs and, when I worked with those programs, I realized there was more I could do district wide,” he said.

He also said he is looking forward to working again with Berger, who was Tulare Union’s principal before he was hired as superintendent in 2006, and with Judy Coble, a Tulare Union assistant principal who was recently promoted to director of federal and state programs.

Rodriguez grew up in Porterville and attended Monache High School before enrolling in the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in math and obtained his teaching credential. He has a master’s degree in administration from the University of San Francisco.

He taught at Watsonville high School before coming to Tulare to teach math in 1990. He was appointed dean of students in 1997.

Rodriguez lives in Tulare with his wife, Rosario, a Cherry Avenue Middle School teacher. They have three children: David, who recently graduated from UC Santa Cruz; Nancy, a senior at California State University, Fresno (CSUF); and son Eric, a recent Tulare Union graduate who will attend California State University, Northridge.

Education is a second career for Clare Gist, xx, a Hollister native who came to the county as a Security Pacific Bank employee and worked as an agricultural loan officer and real estate appraiser before becoming a teacher in the late 1980s.

Gist’s first teaching job was in the Earlimart Elementary School District, where she worked two years before coming to the city school district. She taught three years at Pleasant School before serving as vice principal for two years at Mulcahy Middle School and two years at Live Oak Middle School. She was Maple School’s principal for four years before becoming the district’s business director a year ago.

She has a bachelor’s degree in animal science and agricultural business from CSUF and a master’s and doctorate in education administration from California State University, Bakersfield, and the University of the Pacific respectively.

Moving into a business position with the district has been a rewarding experience, Gist said. “I’m able to take all the knowledge I had before and bring it into the business department…and effectively use monies to create and sustain a safe learning environment for kids and keep the district fiscally solvent.”

Working on the new Mission Valley Elementary School, scheduled to open in August, has been another enjoyable task, she said.

Gist lives in Tulare with her husband, Butch. She has two adult step-sons, Marrs Gist and Brooks Gist, both of Tulare, and a daughter Swannie Gist, who will be a freshman at Tulare Western High School.

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