Water Meters Installed at Rapid Speed; Complaints Result

Tulare - The rapid speed with which more than 750 high-tech water meters were installed during the first week of May led to complaints from customers about discolored or sandy water and other problems that city officials say they are addressing.

Johnson Controls, under contract with the city, began installing the meters, which have remote reading capabilities, on May 1.

“The new meters will be read by a laptop computer in a vehicle as it drives down the street,” Public Works Director Lew Nelson said.

The city wants every household and business hooked up to a new meter within 12 months. This including the 47 percent of city’s customers—6,740 addresses—who have never had a meter and pay a flat rate. The state is requiring water meters for all properties by 2025.

Installers are paid according to the number of completed jobs, “so they move very fast, even running between homes,” Nelson said.

As a result, the city has heard from a number of customers who experienced discolored or sandy water because the system was not flushed thoroughly, he said.

“We are working with the contractor to be sure that their employees flush the system completely through an outside faucet before moving on to the next home,” he said.

Other complaints came from customers who returned home to find their water turned off. The water is typically off for only 30 minutes during installation.

“After the meter is installed and the water is turned back on, the indicator on the meter turns if there is water flowing,” Nelson said. “If the installer doesn’t wait long enough to refill the pipes in the house, he may mistakenly determine that there is a valve open inside the house and, rather than risk flooding and water damage, the water is turned off.”

The city has asked the contractor to caution employees to wait at least a minute to refill the house pipes, before determining that a valve is open in the house, he said.

Nelson said complaints had pretty much died down by the end of the second week of work.

Checking for Leaks

One of the pluses with the new meter systems that the little silver star indicator on the top of the meter turns if there is water flowing through the meter, Nelson said.

“You can easily check for leaks in your home by checking the top of the meter,” he said. “If all of your faucets are turned off and the silver star is turning, you have a leak.”

The leak is most likely in the toilet, but a dripping faucet or leaking sprinkler system could be the culprit, he said.

“This is your opportunity to find the leak and repair it,” he said. “Hundreds of gallons of water can run through a very small leak in a month.”

Homes built in Tulare since 1992 already have water meters, as do locations where homeowners voluntarily requested them.

“Based on the experience of Fresno and Clovis, metered water users are expected to use half the water per day as unmetered customers,” Nelson said.                   

The city is installing meters without charge and Nelson said he expects the savings in pumping costs that will result from lower water usage to cover the cost.

During installation, the water is shutoff for 30 minutes to an hour, so anyone having special water needs should notify the Water Department at 684-4324.

Commercial meter customers will be notified of water shutoffs in advance.

The city recently discovered it had omitted 2,000 non-metered customers in a report given to Johnson Controls, which resulted in the company buying fewer meters than needed.

As a result, Nelson said he has asked the company to install the new devices at non-metered addresses first, since the goal is to get the entire city on meters and conserve water.

The city’s water division will order additional meters and do the retrofitting Johnson doesn’t do, he said.

The city is not charging customers for the meters, because the Public Utilities Board concluded the savings in pumping costs that come from reduced water usage and the delay in the need for new wells will offset the cost of the meters, Nelson said.

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GATE Students Produce Award-Winning Documentary

Tulare - Four talented Tulare sixth graders who weren’t exactly sure what they were getting themselves into last September have produced a 10-minute documentary that landed them in the finals of the state History Day competition in Long Beach.

Sophie Paggi, Raquel Ramirez, Allison Ross and Chelsea Wells competed in the state contest, where they were among eight finalists, after winning the Tulare County Office of Education’s History Day competition.

The girls, all students in teacher Natalie Gordon’s Gifted and Talented Education class, exude confidence and excitement as they recount their adventures producing the documentary about the triumphs and tragedies of the California Gold Rush.

Not only did they do all the research and writing for the documentary, but the four—with the help of Tulare Western High School student Andrew Reagan—learned to use the Pinnacle Studio video editing computer software that allowed them to produce an award-winning product with special effects.

“I love this stuff,” Ross said. “I’m going to do this forever, even if I don’t become a film editor. I already have people asking me to take their home videos and make them into a movie.”

Paggi said she is interested in becoming a teacher “and history has now become one of my favorite subjects.”

The experienced surprised Wells, who said she didn’t think there was much more to learn about the gold rush than what she already knew.

Ramirez agreed and added that what she knew was not very exciting.

“I use to think the gold rush was kind of boring,” she said.

But the word “boring” is no longer a part of the students’ vocabulary.

Certainly not after spending an estimated 150 to 200 hours on the project—including time after school and on weekends—and traveling to Jamestown and the Sonora area to get a first-hand look at where the gold rush began and interview Josh Vick, who gave them hands-on instruction in the Placer gold mining technique.

Ramirez and Paggi said their knees and backs were hurting and their miner’s hats were flopping over as they stood in the cold river with Vick, a mining expert.

“The water’s cold and they didn’t even have rubber boots back then,” Paggi said.

Gordon was with the team throughout their experience.

“Natalie was wonder,” Chelsea Wells’ mother, Dawn Wells said. “She was their cheerleader. If they fizzled, Natalie would infuse her energy into them.”

As for Gordon, she couldn’t be prouder of her students..

“Their technology, I thought, was not only on-par but excelled anything I saw [at the state competition],” she said. She noted the girls conducted interviews by telephone and in person, and produced a 14-page bibliography that included three pages of primary resources.

The students are not finished with the project yet, having decided to revise segments they are not satisfied with and offering a copy of the documentary to every school library in the district so fourth grade students, who study California history, can see it.

“I’m going to encourage my students to not only get that DVD made, but also create a study guide for the teachers,” Gordon said.

Her own daughter is teaching fourth grade and is excited about showing the documentary to her students, she added.

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City Still Waiting for Answer on Jail Bed Proposal

Tulare - Impatient officials are still waiting for an answer from the county about the city’s proposal to rent unused Tulare County jail beds for misdemeanor offenders, who are now released back into the community after their arrest, because the county cannot afford to house them.

When City Manager Darrel Pyle and Mayor Craig Vejvoda broached the county with the idea in mid-March, they had expected an answer in about two weeks, but the issue has become stalled in the County Counsel’s Office because of a legal question, Pyle told the City Council Friday.

The council  asked Pyle to talk with County Administrative Officer Brian Haddix about the delay.

“I will tell Brian we need answers and can’t wait six months,” Pyle said. “I’ll tell him we’re willing to go to the Attorney General for an opinion.”

The legal question involves potential liability to the county, which does not have the money to open all the jail space it has built.

“The question is what liability exists, if any, if beds are being taken up by the city’s misdemeanor offenders when it [the county] is kicking out felons,” Pyle said.

City officials say they don’t think a liability risk would exist because the beds would become the city’s beds not the county’s, just as the 100 beds contracted to the state are state beds.

“I’m kind of getting tired of waiting for them,” said Vice Mayor Phil Vandegrift, who has long conveyed his disgust at how prostitutes, thieves and other minor offenders often  beat arresting officers back to the streets because of the lack of jail space.

The city hires the best police officers it can and he would hate to have them feel the work they do is futile, Vandegrift said.

Police Chief Roger Hill said Sheriff Bill Wittman has no problem with the plan, but he does not have people available to staff additional beds and the city might have to provide the additional staff.

Vandegrift said he suspects other cities in the county will want to subcontract for the city’s beds.

If the city can get a “handful” of misdemeanor offenders off the streets for 160 to 180 days, “it would make a huge difference,” Pyle said.

Hill agreed.

“Because there are no consequences now, it’s only an inconvenience to be arrested.” he said.

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Developer Concerns Stall Groundwater Impact Fee Plan

Tulare - Local builders are taking issue with the city's plan to charge new groundwater impact fees on existing subdivision lots when the developer pulls building permits.

A public hearing on the proposed fees had been set for Tuesday's City Council meeting, but was postponed after Bob Keenan, president and chief executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Tulare and Kings Counties (formerly the Building Industry Association) and six developers met with city officials. The hearing has not been rescheduled.

“They were all telling us that the state subdivision map law prohibits adding fees that were not in place when they brought in their maps years ago,” Public Works Director Lew Nelson said.

The city attorney has said the developers misread the law and fees created after a subdivision map is approved can be applied when permits are pulled, Nelson said.

Officials estimate about 5,000 “paper lots”—lots that have been approved for development but not built—exist in Tulare. If the city could not impose the impact fees on those lots at the time of build out, it could lose more than $5 million in fees.

Imposing the new fee on previously approved lots is not fair to the developer, who had no way of factoring in that cost earlier when calculating the feasibility of a project, Keenan said.

The developer can charge a higher price, but for every additional $1,000 added to the cost of a house, more than 23,000 people are priced out of the housing market in California, he said.

He also cited a 1992 study that indicates impact fees collected on homes prior to occupancy have an impact two to four times the actual fee, depending on when it is collected.

Unexpectedly Higher

Based on a study by the Provost and Pritchard Engineering Group of Fresno, the groundwater impact fees the city is proposing to collect are:
· $1,073 per single-family home;
· $483 per multiple-family unit;
· $3,717 per acre of commercial development.
· $3,548 per acre of industrial development.

Much to the surprise of Nelson, who had said the study would likely produce rates in the same ball park as the city of Visalia's, Tulare's proposed rates are about four times higher.

Provost and Pritchard consultants explained this is because agricultural land annexed for development in Visalia uses pumped water—just like the city—and not irrigation water, so the impact is less, Nelson said.

“In Tulare, all the land being annexed for development is in the Tulare Irrigation District and all the land is irrigated with surface water from ditches, so there's a big difference in the impact on groundwater,” he said.

The proposed impact fees and soon-to-be proposed water rate increases for city residents are critical steps in the city's strategy to recharge the underground water supply.

Development has caused the groundwater supply to drop 20 to 30 feet between 1952 and 1999, according to Provost & Pritchard.

The City Council and Board of Public Utilities have insisted the city must act to replenish the water supply if it is to continue to approve development projects.

The plan is to use groundwater impact fees to purchase land and construct ponding basins to store excess water in wet years. Water rate increases—Nelson has told the City Council a 7 percent increase would likely be proposed—would pay to buy the water to sink in those basins.

Nelson said he has asked the city's water engineering consultants to calculate how much the city would have to raise water rates without the impact fees.

Getting a program in place is a priority for the council and Board of Public Utilities (BPU).

“I actually think this action is the most important thing this council can do,” Vice Mayor Phil Vandegrift said after Nelson discussed the proposed plan in April.

Other council members and BPU commissioners have made similar comments about the critical nature of the problem.

Water Purchase

In March 2006 the BPU borrowed $250,000 from the water fund's fixed asset replacement reserves and authorized the Tulare Irrigation District (TID)to purchase 10,000-acre feet of excess surface water that a wet winter and spring had produced and put it into an existing recharge basin east of town. (The city pumps about 15,000 a year, Nelson said.)

“We could have bought a lot more, but the issue was money and where to put it,” Nelson said.

Vandegrift and Mayor Craig Vejvoda, along with BPU Chairman Wayne Hinman and Commissioner Scot Hillman, are meeting regularly with representatives of the Tulare Irrigation District to address the problem and the search is on for land suitable for ponding basins.

The city could conceivable borrow from the water fund again—which has about $5.6 million—to buy the land and build the ponds, Nelson said, adding the fund would be reimbursed when development impact fees start coming in.

One site under consideration is land to the west of the cotton gin on Cartmill Avenue, west of the Union Pacific Railroad Tracks.

If the cotton gin board is interested, the city and TID want to bring in a land appraiser and check to see if the soil is suitable, Nelson said.

The city recently tried to drill a well at Prosperity Sports Park, but had to abandon the plan after discovering a layer of Corcoran clay beneath the surface, he said.

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Trustees Hire New Assistant Superintendent,
Mission Oak Principal

Tulare - Two new Tulare high school administrators, one who will serve as assistant superintendent for human relations and the other as principal for Mission Oak High School, will start their jobs in July.

Alfonso Gamino, director of personnel for the Bakersfield City School District, will fill the $118,110 a-year assistant superintendent position, which was  vacated earlier this school year when Fernie Marroquin left to join the Visalia Unified School District.

Isidro Carrasco, principal of a Texas high school and former head of the language department at Tulare Union High School, will return to Tulare as principal of the district's third comprehensive high school, which is under construction and expected to open for the 2008-09 school year. His salary was set at $107,498.

Both men were recommended to the Tulare Joint Union High School district board by a committee that conducted interviews and checked backgrounds.

Alfonso Gamino

The search committee was impressed with not only Gamino's experience in personnel work, but with his demeanor, said trustee Adrian Holguin, who represented the Tulare Joint Union High School District on the committee.

“He came across as a very approachable and kind person, very caring,” Holguin said.

The committee's impression was reinforced by a visit Superintendent Howard Berger and interim-assistant superintendent Jasper Land made to Bakersfield, Holguin said. “His [Gamino's] secretary said he was the best boss she ever had.”

Trustee Craig Hamilton said Gamino has “a good basic understanding of the position” and appears “personable enough to be accepted well by the staff.”

Gamino, 39, will be in charge of the hiring process for both teachers and classified personnel and other personnel matters, said he is looking forward to his new job, which will bring him a little closer to Firebaugh, where he grew up and taught for 4 ½ years.

“For me, family ties are really important,” he said.

Gamino also served as a vice principal and principal in the Eastside Union School District in Lancaster, before going to the Bakersfield City School District in Aug. 2003 as principal of College Heights Elementary School. He was promoted to director of personnel two years later.

While he was principal of Eastside Elementary School in Lancaster, the school's API score rose 150 points between 1999 and 2003. At College Heights, the score rose 43 points in one year. In 2006 he was named professional of the Year for the Region 21 [Bakersfield] Migrant program.

Gamino is a graduate of California State University, Fresno, where he received his administrative credential and master's degree in school administration. He has completed the Association of California School Administrator's Superintendents Academy and expects to get a certificate in school business management from the University of Southern California.

“My goal in Tulare is to be a very visible, positive, community member,” Gamino said, adding he does not want to spend all his time in his office. “I really want to get to know every employee by name and the only way to do that is going to see them and talking to them. I really want to feel like I'm part of the team … and they to feel like they're part of the team.”

Isidro Carrasco

Carrasco, the new principal, returns to Tulare as a known entity, having worked at Tulare Union from 1990 to 2003, when Superintendent Howard Berger was the school's principal.

“We had recruited him a number of years ago in Texas to come and teach for us when we were trying to get more Hispanics,” Berger said.

“The committee was really impressed with him and his background and his qualities and abilities to work with people and his energy and vision for Mission Oak,” he said.

Holguin agreed.

“He's got experience as a principal and he's bilingual—he's going to be having Tipton and Pixley students at the school and he's going to be able to communicate with them and their parents,” he said.

Carrasco related well with the kids when he was here previously, Holguin said. “They liked him a lot.”

Carrasco impressed Hamilton with his demeanor, organization skills and how he related to parents.

“I think it was important to bring in someone who had experience in our district; who had a feel for our culture,” Hamilton said.

Carrasco, 44, worked for the Clear Creek Independent School District in Texas, serving as assistant principal and then principal during the past four years. His last assignment was as principal at Clear View Education Center, a charter school for at-risk students in grades 7 through 12.

The most important task he will face in opening a new school is establishing good communications and keeping everyone involved “in the loop,” including students, parents, teachers and other staff members, Carrasco said.

Although he was born and raised in Texas, Carrasco said he is happy to return to Tulare.

“Mr. Berger was my principal here and the way that he structured school learning and teaching is what I grew up with and thought very highly of,” he said.

Carrasco is a graduate of the University of Texas, Austin, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics with a minor in Spanish. He also has a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth; an administrative credential and masters of education degree from California State University, Fresno, and is working on a doctorate of education in curriculum and instruction at Texas Southern University in Houston.

Other Changes

Other recent administrative changes include:

· The resignation of Ross Gentry as assistant superintendent for instruction. He is retiring at the end of the June after decades of service and the district is recruiting for his replacement.

· The resignation of Karen Davis as vice principal at Tulare Western High School. She is retiring.

· The appointment of Lucy Ferreira Van Scyoc to take Davis' place.

· The appointment of Judy Coble, assistant principal at Tulare Union, to the district office as director of state and federal projects and assessments.

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