Funding for Two Grade Separations Recommended

Tulare - Tulare residents could soon get what they have lobbied city officials for for decades—a way to cross the Union Pacific Railroad tracks when trains are passing.

Construction of two grade separations—at Bardsley and Cartmill avenues—would begin in 2010 if the California Transportation Commission (CTC) adopts a staff recommendation to award the city nearly $18.5 million in Proposition 1B funds

City officials were ecstatic Friday when they learned CTC staff had recommended awarding Tulare $7.2 million for a grade crossing at Bardsley Avenue and $11 million for one at Cartmill Avenue. The crossings are 4 miles apart.

The amounts represent 50 percent of the cost of these projects and the city must come up with the other half, which City Manager Darrel Pyle said the city can do.

“It's not in the bank—we're not going to count our chickens before they're hatched—but it's sure good to still be alive in the process,” Mayor Craig Vejvoda said.

The state commission will consider the staff recommendations at its Aug.27-28 meeting in Sacramento. “Wherever the meeting is, I'll be in the front row,” an excited Pyle said Friday.

That the city's application for funding has gotten this far is attributed to several factors, Pyle and council members said. They include:

• Hard and persistent work of city staffers, who at the direction of the City Council a few years ago began getting the projects ready so they could qualify for any funding opportunities that arose;

• The council, which additionally authorized the spending of $6 million in revenue bonds to hire a consulting firm to do the design work and to begin right-of-way acquisitions.

• The County of Tulare, which put Measure R, a sales tax increase for transportation projects in the cities and county, on the ballot. (The CTC staff is also recommending $12.2 million for a grade separation at Betty Drive and the Union Pacific track in Goshen.)

• Voters who in 2006 approved Measure R, which raised in its first year $26.5 million, part of which can be used to leverage additional money through the sale of revenue bonds.

The CTC staff is recommending money for the Bardsley application come from a $150 million pot earmarked only for projects that made the California Public Utilities Commission's grade separation priority list.

The city learned about the PUC funds—which have not been allocated—just days before the April application deadline, but because city staff and consultants were already getting the proposed projects ready for the deadline was met.

“We had to spend a little money and hustle like crazy, but we did it,” Pyle said.

Of the remaining $100 million in Proposition 1B funds, higher priority was given to projects that would not use state funds as a match. The city and county have the option of leveraging Measure R revenues to build the Tulare and Goshen grade separations or to get bank loans for the projects, Pyle said.

“Measure R helped in our applications, because the state said, 'prove to me you have your match,'” Pyle said.
The city also is looking for funds to construct a railroad grade separation at Paige Avenue.

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Montion Exits Hospital Race; Barwick, Torrez In

Tulare - Bob Montion, the former chief executive officer of Tulare District Hospital, has dropped out of the hospital board race and businessman Skip Barwick and Richard Torrez, a teacher and boxing club director, have entered the contest.

Incumbents Dr. Parmod Kumar and Roger McPhetridge also have filed papers seeking re-election to the five-member Tulare Local HealthCare District board of trustees. Deanne Martin-Soares, a third incumbent, is not seeking re-election. The deadline for filing was Wednesday, after the Tulare Voice deadline.

Montion said he decided to drop out of the race after learning Lucy Reimche, a former chief financial officer whom the hospital board fired in late 2006, has filed another lawsuit against him and the hospital district.

“I withdrew from the race because there was an additional allegation made against me and the hospital and I'm the person who needs to address it because it occurred during my time,” he said Saturday.

“This is one too many things to handle,” said Montion, who is involved in three other lawsuits, including one Reimche filed earlier in Tulare County Superior Court against him and the hospital district. In the second action, the hospital district is suing him, alleging he violated terms of a separation agreement he signed before retiring for health reasons in early 2007. In the third, he has charged a former interim chief financial officer with slander.

'Move On'

“It's time to move on,” said Barwick, who took out papers last week and said he will return them this week before the deadline.

The hospital board has taken steps to move beyond the rancor and turmoil that began prior to the 2006 campaign and intensified for a time after the election of two new board members, but that is not enough, he said.

“I don't think we can truly move on until we get new voices, new faces in there,” he said. “You can't move on until the angry parties move out.”

“Moving on” is critical because the hospital needs to get the new tower built and to recruit new doctors, Barwick said. “I have a business background and a banking background and I welcome the challenge. I think this is critical to Tulare.”

He voiced strong support for another candidate, Sherrie Bell, a real estate agent who qualified for the ballot last month. “I think she'll bring a lot to the board and I'm hoping to work with her,” he said.
Barwick, 57, is owner of Skip Barwick Realty with offices in Bakersfield, Visalia and Tulare, and he also owns a soil amendment business.

His banking career includes 14 years with Crocker Bank, where he started at age 19 and held positions of increasing responsibility until he changed careers, he said. When he left, he was the bank's marketing and sales manager for a district that ran from Modesto to Bakersfield, he said.

Barwick said he has no ties to the hospital and feels “very strongly I can be objective in my decisions.”

He is a member of the board of directors for Happy Trails Riding Academy and the Tulare Noon Rotary Club.
While he has lived in Tulare for only seven years, Barwick said his association with the community goes back to the early 1980s when he was assistant manager of Crocker and later branch manager.

He and his wife, Mary Jane, have a blended family of five children and eight grandchildren.

'Front lines’

Torrez, who works with kids not only as a classroom teacher but as executive director of the Tulare Athletic Boxing Club, which his father founded in 1945, said he is running because of the problems families have getting medical care.
“I'm seeing numerous situations in which families don't have access to health care,” Torrez said. “I feel if you want to help, you better get in the front lines.”

He describes himself as “an outsider, basically, who's in the front line with these kids.” The mother of one of his boxer's, he said for example, has a brain tumor and the family doesn't know where to turn for help.
Asked if Kumar, who volunteers time with the club, has encouraged him to run, Torrez said the board chairman did not have anything to do with his decision.

“In fact, he's probably going to see it [the news] in the paper and wonder what's happening,” he said.
The voters of Tulare deserve options and “I'm someone new and different being brought to the game,” he said. “One more person in the fray doesn't mix it up, it just makes it better.”

Born and raised in Tulare, Torrez, 42, is a 1984 graduate of Tulare Union High School and received his undergraduate degree and teaching credential from California State University, Fresno. He is finishing a master's degree in education administration at National University.

He taught junior high school history at Palo Verde School in Tulare from 1992 until 2000, when he went to Valley High School in the Tulare Joint Union High School District. He teaches history and science.

He and his wife, Kim, live in Tulare with their two children, an 11-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son.

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Meat Plant to Get Airing

Tulare - Plans for a large modern meat processing plant on the city's western edge is scheduled to go before the Tulare Planning Commission for approval Monday and, if approved, the environmental impact report will go to the City Council in September.

“We are pleased that we finally have a chance to get a hearing,” said the project's general manager, Tony Brady, who represents Rod Balcao and Western Pacific Meatpacking.

“Rod's been working on this for seven years,” Brady said. “We've been planning this new location in Tulare for two and a half years.” Balcao originally planned to build the slaughterhouse in Goshen, but withdrew the plan in the face of opposition.

The EIR on the project had been delayed for about 18 months, but “now we're ready to go forward,” Brady said.
The project is expected to take 15 to 18 months to build and open and to employ 360 during the first year of its operation, he said.

“When you add all the other jobs that go with it, our state-of-the-art meat plant will generate about 1,500 jobs,” Brady said, adding those jobs are expected to come in such areas as livestock hauling, meat distribution, USDA spec plant maintenance and in the hotel and restaurant industries.

“We see a huge need for a modern meat processing facility, considering all the meat recalls and other problems in California,” he said, reporting the plant's meat processing line will be fully traceable to ensure consumer satisfaction and health regulations.

”It makes sense to put it here in the middle of the largest concentration of cattle in the West.”
Asked if the plant had received full financing, Brady said that information was confidential. The talk around town is the big project had received some interest from foreign investors who have reportedly been involved with the other mega project in town – the motor sports complex. But Brady would not discuss it.

Second Opinion

The city has been working on the EIR for the project for months, asking for second opinions from environmental attorneys to ensure the project is as bullet proof as possible if it faces a court challenge, which is considered likely. Comments have been received from two potential opponents of the project.

A potential court challenge in October could mean further delays while a judge decides if the EIR is adequate or requires some modification to pass muster.

The project was challenged in court in Goshen as well and was a lengthy legal battle when Balcao, a Chino cattle businessman, decided to try Tulare. The plant site is near the water treatment plant on the southwestern edge of the city.

Concerns have been raised about truck traffic, smells and flies related to the project. The EIR addresses all these concerns. The question is – are their planned efforts good enough?

The EIR went through a draft process and was circulated to other agencies and received comments. Once the project has all its approvals in place, it will move forward unless someone goes to court.

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Council Candidate: Don't Expect 'Cat Fight’

Tulare - Investment advisor Wayne Ross, the only challenger in a Tulare City Council race in which three incumbents are up for re-election, says don't expect “a cat fight” during the campaign.

He will face Mayor Craig Vejvoda, Vice Mayor Phil Vandegrift and Councilman Carlton Jones in the Nov. 4 contest. A fifth person who took out papers did not return them.

“I'm sure people would love to see a good cat fight, but no,” said Ross, who became an official candidate Friday. “I think everybody that's running is running for the right reason—they want to be a positive influence.”

Ross, 43, a near-native who moved to Tulare at age six months when his father opened a dental practice here, said his main purpose is to make sure projects the city supports “fit with the character and quality of life in Tulare.”

The most controversial project on the table now is the Tulare Motor Sports Complex and Ross said he has doubts about the proposal but has not done enough research yet to make up his mind.

“When I take a simplistic view, I can't make sure I can make things add up, but I still have to get my hands on the EIR [environmental impact report],” he said. “My initial reaction—my instinct—is, I don't see it. But that doesn't mean that with more facts and figures, I can't formulate a stronger opinion one way or another.”

Whether Ross, if elected, will have a say about the project is uncertain since the current timetable would send the decision to the City Council in October just prior to the election.

Ross has worked in the financial field for nearly 20 years, spending a short time with Security Pacific Bank before going to Smith Barney, where he stayed for more than 14 years. He spent two years with Citi Corps Investment Services before opening Ross Wealth Manager 2 1/2 years ago in Tulare.

“I stayed out of the fray before because I worked in Visalia and lived in Tulare,” Ross said. “I think I should work in the town I'd like to be a representative voice of.”

He is a 1983 graduate of Tulare Union High School and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance from California State University, San Diego, where he played football and was a starter for four years after joining the team as a walk-on player.

A punter, he was drafted later by the Washington Redskins in the National Football League and cut early in his second year, he said.

He and his wife, Colleen, a teacher, have three daughters, ages 7, 10 and 13.
Rachel Dysart, a strong voice in opposition to the race track project, had taken out papers for the race but did not return them.

“My kids are young; it probably wouldn't be the right time,” Dysart Friday. “Maybe in four years.”

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