High School District Could Move Farm to COS

Tulare - High School trustees will consider Thursday an agreement that could pave the way for the district to move its student farm to the College of the Sequoias campus planned for Tulare.

COS President Dr. Bill Scroggins is expected to attend the 7:30 p.m. meeting at the district office, 426 North Blackstone St.

The proposed memorandum of understanding calls for COS to work with the high school district in determining the location and acreage that will be needed for classrooms, labs, shops and other facilities.

“We will lease them land at our center for $1 a year,” Scroggins said.

While the district would build and pay for construction of the high school farm, COS would allow the district to use its livestock facilities without charge under terms of the agreement.

COS is in the process of moving its ag farm from Visalia to Tulare and Scroggins said bringing the high school farm to the site would help attract more agricultural majors to the campus.

“Tulare Joint Union High School District has in the neighborhood of 800 students enrolled in agricultural programs and to have those students come to the high school farm and be in walking distance from our farm will encourage them in their junior and senior year to take college programs and … to attend [COS] after graduation,” he said.

No Timetable

Howard Berger, superintendent of the high school district, said the district does not have a timetable for building a new farm or plans for the existing farm on West Bardsley Avenue.

“All of those details will be worked out after the board makes its decision [about the memorandum of understanding],” he said.

The high school farm includes nearly 14 acres of facilities on a 73-acre parcel, he said.

COS is asking for a memorandum of understanding now—even though the district has no firm date to move the farm—because the state is requiring the college district to have all the planning in place before giving it money for the new campus, Scroggins said.

He noted the proposed agreement allows both parties to opt out by giving 180 days prior written notice.

Scroggins said COS plans to have all four phases of its campus completed by the fall of 2012.

The college district anticipated receiving $90 million to $100 million in state money and is planning to ask voters in the southwest corner of the county, including Tulare, Alpaugh and Lindsay, to approve a $60 million bond to raise the requiring local match.

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Tulare Crime Down 23 Percent over Two Years

Tulare - In the two years since voters approved Measure I, serious crime in Tulare dropped 23 percent, according Tulare Police Department figures.

The department logged 4,187 incidents in 2005 of what the FBI calls Part One crimes—homicides, burglaries, assaults, auto thefts, arsons and grand theft. That was the year Tulare voters approved a half-cent sales tax increase that the City Council has used to beef up public safety and road repair.

Since then, the city has seen a 6.99 percent drop in 2006 and a 17.4 percent drop in 2007, when 3,217 Part One crimes were reported.

“In spite of an increase in the number of crime reports we are taking and an increase in Tulare's population and geographic size due to annexations and growth, the serious crimes are declining,” Police Chief Roger Hill said in a written statement announcing the figures.

The largest decrease was auto thefts, followed by a “serious drop” in burglaries and thefts, Hill said.

“These are the crimes that affect citizens the most—they involve their personal property—and we are pleased to see that the officers' pro-active work on the streets is having a significant impact,” he said.

The Police Department did not release the number of crimes reported in each category. That information is expected to be included in a detailed crime report Hill plans to deliver to the City Council in March, Capt. Tom Munoz said.

'Feet on the Street'

Capt. Wes Hensley, who heads the patrol division, said putting more “feet on the street” is proving effective in curbing crime.

“More police officers on the street mean that people see us more often and in more locations,” Hensley said. “That tends to discourage criminals and increases our contact with the public.”

The department, which had only 49 sworn police officers in 2005, had 68 as of last June and is expected to have 75 on board by July.

Hensley also credits the public with helping bring serious crime down by reporting crime and looking out for neighbors.

Munoz cited an additional factor. “I think a significant influence…was also the fact the department took an aggressive posture in dealing with incidents that involved drugs or gangs,” he said.

The department brought in the Tulare County Gang Task Force, Probation Department and other resources to deal with specific problems, he said. “We did a lot of special details on gang enforcement, a lot of prostitution details and drug details.”

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Tulare History Intrigues Local Resident

Tulare - Having grown up in a 100-year-old house on North D Street when it still had the original hitching post outside, it is not surprising Bruce Smith has maintained an undying interest in almost anything connected with Tulare's history.

He has collected calendars, ash trays, matchboxes, school yearbooks, letters, postcards, magazines and other memorabilia from years gone by.

From the moment you walk into his home, you are taken back in time.

A 1912 calendar from Linder's Hardware Company is on an entry wall. So is a 1947 calendar from Way's Hardware, which was located at 220 South K St. and had the phone number 581. A third calendar is a 1939 issue by Ashworth's Stationary and Beauty Salon, 135 East Tulare Ave.

“I love Tulare history,” Smith said. “A lot of the stuff is not valuable money wise; it's just valuable to the city of Tulare.”

Smith, 50, said he has considerable time to devote to his hobby because he was forced to retire in the late 1980s after he broke his back and suffered a spinal cord injury while working for Tulare District Hospital's ambulance company.

“I have to stay busy,” Smith said.

E-Bay Finds

He has purchased many of the items he owns off of E-Bay.

“I've found ash trays from places I never knew existed,” Smith said.

He also has a collection of postcards, including one from 1911 which folds upon to reveal 36 photos. “They were talking back then about how Tulare was going to be the eucalyptus capital,” Smith said.

From E-Bay, Smith also found an eight-volume text of the course aviator Tex Ranking taught at Rankin Field during World War II.

“Tex Rankin completely wrote this and his sister typed it,” Smith said.

He later learned he was bidding against a member of Rankin's family, who told him the only other copy in existence was in a museum in the Oregon area where Tex Rankin had trained acrobatic pilots before coming to Tulare.

Rankin family members weren't upset about losing the bid for the textbooks to Smith, after they found out he was from Tulare, Smith said.

Prized Possession

Among his most prized E-Bay finds is an 1897 letter that pioneer Tulare resident M.C. Zumwalt wrote to state Sen. Thomas Flirt opposing pending legislation that would allow irrigation districts to levy taxes to cover costs of running the district without first submitting the question to voters.

“This right of people to vote on a question of local taxation should not be taken away as it will be if this bill becomes law,” Zumwalt wrote.

“The letter is probably one of the most significant Tulare historical things I have,” Smith said.

He also has a framed replica of a $100 bill issued in 1902 by the First National Bank of Tulare.

“The original sold for a little over $14,000 at an auction house,” he said. “I've collected coins all my life and never knew back then they let banks issue their own currency.”

Smith also has three photographs of the old Tulare fire station with a cannon in front of it. The pictures came from his father, Obil Smith, who is in his 90s and worked as a firefighter many years ago.

What was interesting to him was the cannon pictured outside the station, which his father said was fired in code to tell volunteers which part of the city the fire was.

“From there they just followed the smoke,” Smith said.

“That's an interesting story in itself—what happened to the cannon,” he said, adding no one seems to know.

One day Smith said he hopes to have his Tulare memorabilia organized so people interested can visit and provide more information about his finds.

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City Gears Up for Homeless Survey

Tulare - For the second consecutive year, the city of Tulare will participate in a two-county survey to get an idea of how many homeless people reside here.

Non-profit organizations, local agencies and dozens of volunteers in dozens of communities will conduct this year's canvass—called a Point in Time survey—on Jan. 29 in Tulare and Kings counties. The coordinated effort is organized by the Kings/Tulare Continuum of Care on Homelessness.

“We use the information from the survey to be more competitive for federal funding…for transitional shelters or any type of project that serves the homeless,” said Betsy McGovern, who is project manager for the Tulare Redevelopment Agency and the city's representative to the Continuum of Care.

This past year, for example, the group applied for federal funds for a program that would help put the homeless in housing by requiring they contribute only 30 percent of their income—whatever that might be—toward the rent.

“Unfortunately, our application this year didn't get funded,” McGovern said. “We will decide in April whether we want to put in another.”

As she did last year, McGovern will survey the city of Tulare with Code Enforcement Officer Frank Furtaw.

Last year they found seven people living on the streets in addition to those women and children who live in either the Tulare Lighthouse Mission or Tulare County Family Services' transitional facility, McGovern said.

“We don't have an overabundance of homeless people and the majority is women with children in shelters,” she said.

While volunteers are needed to help with the actually count in some communities, McGovern said the Tulare team needs items for incentive bags it is assembling to encourage homeless people to talk with its members.

Needed are items such as socks, tooth paste and brushes and plastic rain ponchos. Money to buy these and other items would also be welcome, she said. Information: 684-4254.

The Point in Time count is a nationwide count that occurs each January over a short period of time to avoid counting people multiple times. It is performed in the dead of winter to maximize the percentage of the population in shelters, where people are easier to locate and count than in outdoor settings.

“A comprehensive count throughout Kings and Tulare counties is critical to measuring the effectiveness of supportive housing and the various initiatives being mounted by our community to end homelessness,” said Kyle Melton, president of the Kings/Tulare Continuum.

“Without a basic understanding of the dimensions of the problem, we can't know if we're making any progress—or worse, losing ground. Street homelessness, in particular, is very difficult to measure, but it is also one of the highest priority populations that the Continuum of Care seeks to assist,” Melton said.

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Tulare Irrigation District Plans Move

by Rick Elkins

Tulare - The Tulare Irrigation District, headquartered at one time on the outskirts of Tulare but now in the middle of the city's growth, plans to relocate about two miles west of Tulare.

“Within the next year and half we'll move off this site,” TID general manager Paul Hendrix said, referring to the district's current location at West Street and Cross Avenue.

The irrigation district has purchased 40 acres of land at West Prosperity Avenue and Road 68 and has plans to sell a 10-acre portion that includes a home and then build on five acres, Hendrix said. The remaining 25 acres will be used for groundwater recharge.

“Our main goal was to get out of town and out of traffic,” he said.

The TID, which sold its present four-acre site to the Tulare Redevelopment Agency more than a year ago, plans to move its maintenance shop and equipment to the new site within a year, then construct a new office and move into it within 18 months.

“We've kind of outgrown our space here,” Hendrix said. “The last 10 years things started happening at a rapid pace out there.”

In the district's third-quarter newsletter he explained the process and need for moving the headquarters from where it has been the past 57 years.

Mounting Traffic

“The Board has been mindful of the rapid pace of residential development westerly of our current location, for many year thought to be essentially the edge of town. Moving heavy equipment in and out of the TID yard is becoming increasingly difficult as the level of traffic has been mounting in this area,” he wrote.

TID was formed in 1889 and, according to Hendrix, the headquarters was located at various sites in and outside of Tulare. Until the 1920s there was not much of a need for a maintenance yard, but then the district began to acquire equipment that was stored in a barn at West Street and Cartmill Avenue. The office at that time was leased from C. Moran in the Bebee building in downtown.

In the 1940s the district develop a headquarters on West in an agreement with the city that also covered several other issues involving city growth and TID land taxes.
Hendrix said the new site is better geographically as it is located at the center of the district.

Cost of the new headquarters will be approximately $2.5 million. The sale of its existing headquarters and the 10 acres on the new site, along with its reserves, is expected to generate enough money to cover the cost and avoid raising assessments or water rates, Hendrix said.

“Fortunately, the city is very accommodating in allowing TID to remain at its current site rent-free for adequate time to design and build at its new location. Like it did 55 years ago, the city is again assisting in TID's relocation, this time with help in moving away from the site once provided to us many years ago,” Hendrix wrote in the newsletter.

Recharge Basins

He said the water recharge basins at the new site will be divided into two or three ponds and that soil studies have been conducted to determine the ground will be good for water to percolate.

The TID already has more than 10 recharge basins covering more than 1,100 acres. The district and the city are also involved in a large underground water recharge project east of Tulare at Road 132 and Avenue 256.

“It's porous enough to take water, about a foot and half a day,” Hendrix said of the land. Project's costs are being shared by the city and TID, with TID paying 25 percent and the city 75 percent.

Recharge basins are designed to hold water so it can percolate into the ground and eventually the underground water system.

Hendrix said underground water depths have dropped on average about 15 feet in the past year in the district. The city relies on underground water for its municipal supply and farmers rely on that water for irrigation.

The Redevelopment Agency has signed an exclusive agreement to negotiate with Pacific West Communities, which wants to build an affordable housing development at the site after TID moves, redevelopment project manager Betsy McGovern said. The project would include 49 affordable apartments and six town houses (duplexes).

“The apartments will be for very low income to low income families,” McGovern said.

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