Redevelopment Agency Wants Structural
Study of Linder Building

Tulare - The Tulare Redevelopment Agency and Robert Linder are continuing to talk about the possibility of the agency leasing or purchasing the historic Linder Hardware Building and two adjacent downtown properties the Linder family owns.

“Everything is still on the table,” Redevelopment Director Bob Nance said. “We're still trying to negotiate some terms. I think both sides are trying to find a way to make it work.”

He said an agreement could come as soon as this month.

The agency has decided to bring in a structural engineer to look at the building, which was constructed in 1918 and sits at 160 South K St. on the northeast corner of K Street and Kern Avenue.

A similar study was done a few years ago but focused solely on the question of whether the building could be used as a public library, Nance said.

The Linder family had offered to donate the building for that use, but the study indicated the weight the books would place too much stress on the structure.

“We're going to go through now just to get a full understanding and evaluate the building,” Nance said.

The engineer will evaluate the building and tell the agency what could or needs to be done to preserve the building, and also what changes would be necessary to meet the needs of the different types of businesses that a renovated building might attract.

The Linder family has granted access to the large building for the study, which is expected to take place this month, he said.

The agency also plans to work with Planning Director Mark Kielty to see how the historic building code applies to the building.

“It gives you some breaks for things like ADA [American with Disabilities Act] compliance,” he said, adding the code also the owner to retain more of the original features of a building.

In addition to the huge Linder Hardware Building, which the 2002 engineering study said was 125 feet by 150 feet in size, the agency is talking with the Linder family about purchasing adjacent properties at 157 South L St., where Minyard Auto Parts is located, and 141 South L St.

When Professor Donlyn Lyndon of the University of California, Berkeley, visited Tulare in 2006, he was particularly interested in the Linder building.

“It really deserves to have some special use in the community,” Lyndon, director of the Mayor's Institute of City Design West, told the Tulare Voice.

There's no doubt the building serves as a major downtown anchor, said Councilman Richard Ortega, who brought Lyndon to town to get his ideas on what could be done to revitalize the city's core.

There has been talk of attracting a micro-brewery, along with other types of businesses, in the Linder building to stimulate more night life downtown after normal business hours, Ortega said.

---

High-Tech Camera Enlisted in Anti-Graffiti Campaign

Tulare - Public safety officials are hoping a mobile high-tech camera with audio features can help them with the difficult task of capturing vandals who paint their monikers all over town.

The digital camera is solar powered and triggered by a motion detector, said Tulare fire investigator Frank Furtaw, who is in charge of graffiti abatement and code enforcement.

“It's voice activated, so you can record a message on it such as, “Stop your graffiti; you're being photographed.”

The set-up is mobile and can be mounted to any hard surface and has a memory card which city employees can access from a key fob to see if there are any photographs.

With a photograph in hand, investigators have a better chance of tracking down the person responsible for the vandalism, Furtaw said.

The city already has ordered the FlashCAM-880 Digital System manufactured by Q-Star Technology, which specializes in graffiti and vandalism deterrent systems, Furtaw said.

The camera is expensive—$5,400— so the city is purchasing only one to make sure it works well before considering additional purchases.

In a meeting with Ken Anderson, regional manager for the Chatsworth-based Q-Star, city officials also were going to discuss the possibility of using the equipment to tackle other types of crimes, including theft, he said.

Graffiti has plagued the city more than usual lately, even with the arrest of a 29-year-old Stephen Edwards of Tulare, who has been charged with felony malicious mischief in connection with an onslaught of vandalism in the downtown area that police say started at least six months ago and became more frequent within the past three months.

Since the mid-April arrest of Edwards, who police allege is the person who used the “Fucto” moniker, the city has seen another rash of activity, including an extensive one-night spree downtown two weeks ago.

“They're a subculture in themselves, so when someone gets arrested like that it would not be unusual to have copy cats or a show of support,” Furtaw said.

The city experienced another major graffiti incident this past weekend when homeowners Bob and Francene Hill awoke to find someone had spray painted racial slurs and other disturbing words and symbols in red on their home, which was scheduled to be shown on a home tour later that day.

Police took a report and the Hills, with the help of painters, neighbors and family, were able to get their home ready for the tour, Francene Hill said. Police estimated the damage at $2,500.

“I have never seen anything this bad,” said Councilman Richard Ortega, who often reports to the city the graffiti he has come across during his morning walks.

Ortega, and others who follow his example, are doing exactly what law enforcement officials say should be done, so the graffiti gets cleaned up as soon as possible and vandals don't get the satisfaction of having a large number of people see their work.

Furtaw said Henry Ramos and Carlos Soto, the city's full-time graffiti abating team, are cleaning up between 30 and 35 sites a day.

Capt. Tom Munoz said residents also can assist police when they see someone doing graffiti by noting their clothing, time of day and other details, even if they cannot see the face of the vandal.

Munoz and Furtaw report their departments also have put their heads together to streamline the way graffiti reports are taken so that the city has a better record of what was done and when it occurred.

“Fucto” had 18 documented reports, however, the actual number of sites his work was found far exceeded that,” Furtaw said.

Munoz said damages have to exceed $1,000 before a person can be charged with felony malicious mischief, another reason to make sure good records are kept.

---

Woman's Clubhouse Needs Renovation

Tulare - Tulare's oldest surviving public building needs major work and the city is seeking grants to renovate and preserve the 125-year-old structure, which for many years served as the center for the community's social and scholarly life.

First known as Library Hall, the Woman's Clubhouse at 88 West Tulare Avenue was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1882 as a recreational center for its employees.

“It still has its original brick foundation, but the grout between the bricks is beginning to crumble and it needs a new foundation,” said Laurel Barton, senior management analyst with the Recreation, Parks and Library Department.

In addition to a new concrete foundation, the building's access points and restrooms need to be brought into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Barton said.

The department would like to use the building as an after school visual and performing arts center for middle and high school students and recently got permission from the City Council to seek an $876,535 grant from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment (CCHE) to renovate and preserve the building.

The grant would require the city to put up matching funds, which the department said would likely come from a combination of Community Development Block Grant money, tax increment financing, the city's general fund, grants, foundation support, local fund raising and in-kind donations of labor and materials.

Competition for the remaining $43 million in CCHE money is keen, so city officials are continuing to look for other sources to pay for the renovation as well.

“That building just as so much history to it,” Barton said. That it has been in continuous use since it was built is “pretty darn amazing,” she added.

Local historians Derryl and Wanda Dumermuth, in their book “Tulare Legends and Trivia from A to Z,” said that although the railroad constructed the building for its employees, it made Library Hall available to the entire community.

In addition to using it as a reading centerthe railroad donated the first books and patrons paid 50 cents per month to access themearly-day Tulare residents held parties, dances and other events in the building, the Dumermuths reported.

Over the years, political rallies, lectures, theater productions, banquets, receptions, school graduations and other events also were held in the building, the authors said.

The Southern Pacific gave the building to the city in 1896 and the community continued to use it as a library until the Carnegie Library was completed in 1905, they said.

The city leased out the building to the Woman's Club of Tulare in 1912 and the organization maintained the building until 1969, when the city once again took responsibility. While the club continued to meet there until it disbanded in 2004, the city also used the clubhouse as a center for senior citizens from 1974 until 1991.

The city continues to rent out the 2,400-square-foot clubhouse with its banquet room, stage, public address system and kitchen to the public, which uses it for a variety of events.

Prior to filing a grant application, an architect looked at the building and found it was “in great shape, given its age,” Barton said.

She expects to learn in September whether the city's CCHE grant application has been successful.

---

History Buffs Find “a Pothole to the Past”

by Don LeBaron

Tulare - The Southern Pacific Railroad, with its two steel tap roots running deep through the San Joaquin Valley, was the seed that made a town called Tulare grow, but it was the water that made it flourish.

And it was the influence of the railroad and the importance of getting irrigation water to the Tulare area that came together on an April afternoon more than 100 years later that proved history is literally beneath our feet.

History buffs and bottle enthusiasts John Schuler, Rick Kanen, Dennis Hutton, and myself—after pouring over maps of Tulare from 1892 and receiving city permission to dig—located that afternoon what appeared to be a cache of history in a century-old outhouse hole in front of the Tulare Woman's Clubhouse at 88 West Tulare Ave.

The bottles and other relics that were unearthed spoke of an earlier pioneering time and even a specific day, October 17, 1903, when folks of Tulare had a heck of a party to celebrate the burning of the dreaded Tulare Irrigation District bonds that had almost sucked the life from the community.

A layer of wine and beer bottles that were dug up corresponded perfectly to that festive day in October. Picture a reveler finishing his Bohemia Buffalo Brew just as nature calls. Down goes the bottle in the hole, never to be seen for more than a hundred years.

The other curious thing on this Easter egg hunt gone mad, was the location of this specific out house hole, just a few feet away from the front door of the clubhouse, which was known as Library Hall for many years after the Southern Pacific Railroad built it in 1882.

Typically outhouses or privies were located at the far reaches of backyards to keep the offending odors away from the residence. Those using the facilities would also dump household trash, including bottles, in the awaiting hole. When the hole would fill up, a layer of ash would be placed on top and the outhouse would be moved to another location.

One theory for this strange location was the hall would be host to concerts and plays and those thespians and musicians did not have time to run all the way to the back privy. A cut glass jar that once contained makeup spoke to that theory. The house could also have been used as a public facility, hence the connection with the bond burning festivities.

Of the more than 50 bottles and relics we found that day, only two originated in Tulare. They bore the labels of the J.J. Lasch, and the Palace Drug stores. The find is being kept in a safe place by the city and would make a wonderful display in a newly restored Library Hall building. This find, this cache, this privy, is truly a pothole to the past.

---

Museum to Exhibit Saroyan's Artwork

Tulare - While William Saroyan is best known for his award-winning books, short stories and plays, the Tulare Historical Museum has agreed to focus on another side of the talented Fresno native's life during a year-long centennial celebration.

Larry Balakian, chairman of the William Saroyan Centennial, recently asked museum curator and director Ellen Gorelick if the Tulare museum would be interested in showing Saroyan's artwork.

“Of course I said, 'yes,'” Gorelick said. “The whole state of California will be celebrating the anniversary of his birth in 2008.”

A selection from Saroyan's estimated 7,000 drawings are expected to be on display in Tulare in January and February before the exhibit travels to other museums and galleries.

The first museum showing of Saroyan's artwork was in 2002 at the Fresno Art Museum, where 95 of his drawings and watercolors were displayed. That exhibit coincided with a three-month, citywide festival that highlighted his works.

Saroyan published more than 4,000 magazine articles, short stories, plays and novels during his life. His first book was “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze,” a widely acclaimed collection of short stories published by Random House in 1933.

He wrote the play “The Time of Your Life” in 1939 and it became the first play to receive both the New York Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

He also authored such well-known titles as “My Name is Aram,” “The Human Comedy (both the screen play and novel) and “My Heart's in the Highlands.”

---