World Ag Expo Could Get Competition

By Rick Elkins

Tulare - An association of equipment manufactures that made an inquiry to purchase World Ag Expo 18 months ago is now planning its own ag show, which is tentatively scheduled for the same time as the Tulare event.

Jerry Sinift, general manager of the International Agri-Center which produces World Ag Expo, said the Association of Equipment Manufactures (AEM) had expressed interest in purchasing or partnering with Tulare.

“We told them we weren't interested in selling or partnering with them,” said Sinift, explaining Tulare is a unique show put on by volunteers for the ag community.
Sinift said the association, which has about 750 members, including the Agri-Center, has begun planning its own ag show to be held for the first time in 2011 in Orlando, Fla.

“So, we're concerned and not pleased,” he said.

World Ag Expo, begun in 1968, is the largest farm equipment and technology show in the world. Held the second week of February every year – rain or shine – it attracts more than 2,000 exhibitors and more than 100,000 visitors from all over the world.

Sinift explained that AEM controls most trade shows – mining, logging, construction – but “what they don't control is ag.” Many of the companies that exhibit at World Ag Expo exhibit at many of the other trade shows and many are members of AEM.
He said AEM is looking for a bigger venue to place the show, such as Las Vegas where it holds the large Con-Ag show every three years in January.

But the uniqueness of the Tulare show, Sinift said, is that prospective buyers can drive equipment on the grounds and see what it can do. “You can't demonstrate your tractor in downtown Las Vegas or Orlando. We offer more. The only missing piece of the pie is hotel sites and entertainment.”

Motor Sports Complex

That is why the Agri-Center is partnering with the people proposing a race track, drag strip, hotels, restaurants and other amenities adjacent to the Agri-Center.
“When AEM heard about the track here, it caused them to pause,” Sinift said. “If we do have hotels here, they'd have a tough time competing. Having a racetrack means year-round events.”

He said AEM and other exhibitors have been telling World Ag Expo that people want a “Tier 1” experience, that is they want to go to a large city with plenty of hotel rooms, upscale restaurants and entertainment opportunities, such as those found in Las Vegas or Orlando.

The need for more hotel space in the Tulare area was magnified last year when some attendees were caught in a multi-vehicle pileup near Fresno during the show. That fog-related crash had many attendees asking if there were places closer to Tulare in which they could stay to avoid the commute in fog, Sinift said.

One thing that has set World Ag Expo apart is the electronic registration that was introduced last year. That gives it a data base it can show exhibitors as to the type of visitors that are attracted to the show, such as business people, ranchers, farmers or other potential buyers.

“They want to invest in a place that shows them a better return on their investment,” Sinift said. “We're still the best show for the dollar. We're still attracting the right people.”

The association has not come up with a name for its ag show and has not officially announced a date yet. Sinift attends its meetings and is keeping a close watch on developments.

Saying it is competition where they haven't had competition, he added:
“While we're concerned, there will always be a World Ag Expo.”

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Security Enhanced
Merchants, Police Tackle Downtown Crime

Tulare - With Business Crime Watch, Band of Neighbors and possibly surveillance cameras in the future, downtown merchants are becoming more active partners with the Tulare Police Department in protecting their businesses from crime.

“I'm tired of apathy,” said Lee Myers, owner of California Office Liquidators, explaining why he is involved with the Crime Watch and Band of Neighbors efforts. “We need to take more control over our community.”

One feature of the Business Crime Watch, which both members and police have found beneficial, is the daily log the department e-mails to members, informing them of police activity in the downtown within the previous 24 hours.

“They [merchants] very much like the activity logs we're getting from the Police Department,” said Jerry Magoon, coordinator of the Tulare Improvement Program (TIP).

“It's very helpful to me to know what's going on in the neighborhood,” said Marmie Fidler, owner of Barnes Memorial and member of the TIP board.

Capt. Tom Munoz said when the log recorded a string of false alarms, officers suspected a burglar might be at work in the downtown and, indeed, a business without an alarm soon was hit.

A second cycle of false alarms put both the department and merchants on alert again, this time with more success. “Sure enough, one of our officers caught a burglar in progress a couple weekends later,” Munoz said.

Measure I, a sales tax measure voters passed in 2005, has put more officers on the street and Munoz said he had no problem recently when he asked for volunteers “to adopt downtown” and check on its happenings whenever they had down time in their shift.

“We have five officers [one per shift] that are doing that and we have 24/7 coverage,” he said.

Two community service officers — Julia Franco and Pam O'Neil — are also working with merchants and that too has been helpful, Myers said.

At a recent meeting, merchants learned how to more effectively report suspicious activity to dispatchers, Myers said.

He also praised the police for their quick response when they are called.
“I called the dispatch number about a guy walking with a backpack in the alley and they were there in two minutes — I mean two minutes,” Myers said.

Magoon said so far everybody's remained enthusiastic about the program. “And the people who go to the monthly meetings with the Police Department enjoy it and also get a lot out of it.”

Because the Crime Watch program is only three months old, he said it's too early to assess its impact on crime.

The program, which basically offers merchants strategies for looking after themselves and each other, has been offered in other communities.

“Most programs, if they have active members — it's ongoing communication between business owners and the Police Department — they've been very successful in attaining their goals,” Munoz said.

Downtown is not a high crime area, but it is a concentrated business district and experiences problems with graffiti, loitering and other activities common to business areas, he said.

He said the Police Department is also introducing the Business Crime Watch program to merchants along the Inyo Avenue business corridor.
Band of Neighbors

Another indication of the “take control” attitude that Myers speaks about is the Band of Neighbors program that was launched July 1 in the downtown.
A new start-up company housed in the Central Valley Business Incubator in Fresno devised the program, which combines cell phone technology with an Internet-based communication system to pass along an alert generated by one subscriber to all the others.

Member merchants can use a special number to record a message about possible shoplifters or other suspicious activity and it will go out to the other subscribers within 45 seconds, Michael Wanke, chief executive officer, said.

Wanke, Myers and the Police Department all emphasis the call does not replace calling 911 in an emergency. Franco and O'Neil also get the calls, but they are not dispatchers.

Only 14 or 15 merchants have paid the $15 monthly fee and signed up for Band of Neighbors, but Myers hopes many more will join the system soon.
“I'd like to encourage fellow merchants to participate,” he said. “All you need is just one call to make a difference in someone's life.”

Cameras Next?

TIP members have long talked about the need for several surveillance cameras in the downtown and that could happen soon if the Tulare Redevelopment Agency approves its request Wednesday for funding.

The system TIP is considering would cost $20,000 and include four security cameras and a monitor, said redevelopment project manager Betsy McGovern.
“We'll have our own monitoring station and there will be a Web site a business person can log into,” Magoon said.

Merchants are hoping such a program can prevent or at least help police capture the people responsible for incidents such as one that occurred last month in Tower Square, where $10,000 in damage was reported after a vandal drew etchings on numerous windows.

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Fresh & Easy Grocery Store
Approved for ‘Miracle Mile’

Tulare - Nearly 60 years ago, Moses Ametjian, Roland Canby, John Laspina and other land and business owners along East Tulare Avenue, east of Blackstone Street, had plans to beautify and make the corridor into a showcase retail center they referred to as the “Miracle Mile.”

The initial drive and excitement fizzled out in the early 1960s for economic and other reasons, but now there is excitement again about what is happening along the mile-long corridor between Blackstone and Mooney Boulevard.

The latest good news came out of last week's Planning Commission meeting, where commissioners gave enthusiastic thumbs up to Everygreen-Devco's request to construct a Fresh & Easy neighborhood grocery store on the corner of Tulare Avenue and Laspina Street just east of a new Rite-Aid Pharmacy.

“I like seeing this happen along the Miracle Mile,” said Commissioner Chuck Miguel, who was just kid when Canby's and other East Tulare Avenue businesses used that moniker in their advertising.

Ametjian Farms owns the grocery store site and the Ametjian family is excited about that project and others it hopes will have a large, positive impact on the retail corridor.

“Our plan is to get Tulare Avenue cleaned up,” said Dean Ametjian Vlasakis, grandson of the late Moses Ametjian and his wife, Pepper, and son of their daughter, Paula Ametjian Vlasakis.

No 'Cookie Cutters’

“We had been looking for a grocery store for that area,” Vlasakis said. “We didn't want the ordinary cookie cutter, big, huge Von's or Save Mart.”

Fresh & Easy stores are typically 10,000-square-feet—although the Tulare one will be nearly 14,000—and carry groceries ranging from “the everyday staples to the gourmet,” the company's Web site said.

“Fresh and Easy absolutely has great prices and the quality of their food, from what my mom tells me, is absolutely wonderful,” Vlasakis said.
“The idea of a neighborhood grocery store coming back into vogue is very refreshing,” Commissioner Deanne Rocha said prior to the Planning Commission approving the project.

Commissioners were told the grocery store will likely bring 21 to 30 new jobs Tulare and will operate from 6 a.m. to midnight seven days a week.

In a “best-case scenario,” construction would start in January and wrap up in June, said Aaron Lamoureux, project manager with Evergreen/Devco.

The Tulare and Laspina site currently hosts Marcelo's Auto Mart, which city planners said will be demolished to make way for the grocery store.

Ametjian Farms' long-term plans for that site also include renovation of the small retail center on Laspina Street, adjacent to the planned grocery store, “to match that higher-end retail commercial look,” Vlasakis said. That center includes a bakery, barbershop and other businesses.

Sequoia Club

The Ametjian family has other projects planned for the Miracle Mile—including construction of the Sequoia Retail Commercial Center on 7.68 acres on the south side of the street between Mountain View and Aronian streets.

Grading work already has begun for the first phase of the project, which will include two nearly 5,000-square-foot buildings on the western portion of the property, where the former Sequoia Club building sat before a 2007 fire destroyed it. (A Chinese restaurant and tile shop were the Ametjians' last tenants.) The two will be “shells” with lease space for a maximum of four tenants each.

Future plans for that site call for five more buildings.
The biggest project the Ametjians have pending is the Vineyards Light Commercial Complex, which they have approval to build on the north side of the 1800 block of East Tulare.

The Vineyard will be “one of the higher-end commercial developments in the county as far as building design and the way it's laid out,” Vlasakis said.

Ametjian Farms has spent the past five years planning the project, including two years designing it “so that coming from either side [of East Tulare], all the buildings in the Vineyards are visible and not hidden,” he said.

Tulare Polaris is the first building in the complex, Vlasakis said, explaining a structure that had previously housed muffler and T-shirt shops, was stripped down to the wooden structure his grandfather built years ago and redone using all high quality materials.

Like the Polaris building, the new buildings will be constructed with the same high quality materials, he said.

“We've had some interest from fitness centers, tile stores…we've had a lot of inquiries about it…but unfortunately the Sequoia club burned down, so we had to jump across the street,” Vlasakis said.

Once the Sequoia and Fresh and Easy projects are done, Ametjian Farms will be ready to resume that project, he said.

Tuscan Square

In addition to the Ametjian Farms projects, other changes are either in progress or expected to start soon along East Tulare Avenue.

Daley Enterprises is working away on Tuscan Square, which will include six 2,500 square-foot buildings in the 1300 block of East Tulare Ave. on the north side, that can accommodate one or two medical practices or other types of businesses, Vice President Scott Daley has said.

Once those buildings are completed and leased, the company plans to construct a seventh building for itself.

The Daleys are incorporating energy-efficient features in the construction, including insulated concrete forms that dramatically reduce the amount of air conditioning and heating required.

Rigo Aguirre, owner of the Pick-Em Up Truck Store at 100 So. Mooney Boulevard, also has plans to construct a 4,758-square-foot business plaza on East Tulare.

Miguel said he's not surprised to see all the interest in remodeling and constructing new buildings along the Miracle Mile.

“I think as the city grows, you're going to have areas that were not thriving turn around, because there will be more customers,” he said. “Maybe what wasn' the ideal location 40 or 50 years ago is a good location now.”

Planning Director Mark Kielty said many of the parcels earmarked for development on East Tulare Avenue are under-utilized and the new development occurring east of Mooney and south of East Tulare is creating a demand for more retail services in that area.

“You're seeing that on the west side too with the new drug store going in on the corner [of West Tulare Avenue and West Street],” he said.

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Bethel Prayer Garden Offers Final Resting Place

Tulare - When the Rev. David Sunderland first came to Tulare to pastor Bethel Assembly of God Church, he couldn't help but notice how often survivors and friends would hold car washes to raise money to pay for funeral and burial costs.
One of the first funerals he conducted here was delayed twice because the family did not have the money to pay for the funeral, Sunderland said.

From these experiences grew the idea to build a columbarium, which is a structure with individual compartments that offers a storage place for the cremated remains of a person.

Cremation is a less costly alternative to in-ground burial, although those who chose it often do so for reasons other than economic, Sunderland said.

Dedicated on May 18, Bethel's columbarium has 720 niches along two walls that comprise the south and east boundaries of a gated prayer garden. In the center is a concrete mountain with water flowing off of it on three sides and flowers and shrubs surrounding its base.

“I wanted more than anything a place people could go to that was restful; where people could contemplate and take time with their memories,” Sunderland said. The church has plans to add benches, artwork and special lighting to the garden.
While Bethel's columbarium is the first of its kind in Tulare, it is not unique, Sunderland said. “There are a lot of churches doing it.”

The practice of cremation makes it possible for churches to restore the churchyard tradition in which members of a congregation were buried on church property, he said.

In this case, though, people who are not members of Bethel also are welcomed to purchase a niche for $800, which also includes a service.

“It's open to the whole community,” Sunderland said. “We work with every funeral home. It [the columbarium] is not in opposition to funeral homes.”

The project was a mission of love by church members who not only donated money but their time and effort to construct the columbarium and prayer garden.
Board members insisted the materials used on the project be strong and “never deteriorate,” Sunderland said.

The columbarium is made of concrete steel and each of the 720 placards are made of Corian, a very strong material, he said

Bill Daley, who served on Bethel's board when the project was proposed, said the board looked at the photographs and plans of different churches, including one in Arizona, but came up with its own design.

Building a columbarium was an idea Daley said he could readily embrace.
“If you're going to be cremated, it's a good idea,” he said. “It's just a spot to be so people can come and sit down and mourn for you and have some quiet time.”

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Report Supports City's Push
To Rehabilitate Vacant Building

Tulare - A structural engineer hired by the city has concurred with Chief Building Inspector John Karlie's opinion Olga Jordan will have to make structural changes to her building at 201 South K St. before California Office Liquidator can rebuild.
Much to the disappointment of downtown and city leaders, Jordan's building has sat vacant for two years since a downtown fire destroyed California Office Liquidators to the south and damaged her building, which had housed several tenants.

Lee Myers, owner of California Office Liquidator has said repeatedly—and Karlie has concurred—that he cannot begin to rebuild his business at 225 South K St. because activity on his site could cause Jordan's building to collapse.
Jordan has applied for a permit to improve her structure, but it did not include all the structural improvement Karlie had called for, so the city hired Lane Engineering of Tulare to take a look at the property.

“They gave us a report and we have since sent that to Olga Jordan and her architect and engineer,” Karlie said Friday, reporting the information was sent either July 9 or 10.

“The report said the south wall requires some positive anchorage to both the floor and the roof diaphragms through blocking and steel straps,” he said.

'Just Smoke'

The city's report doesn't tell them exactly what to do—Jordan will have to pay her engineer to figure that out—but it makes it clear structural improvements are mandatory, Karlie said.

Karlie has been with the city for five months and wasn't involved with an earlier assessment in which the city concluded “there was just smoke damage,” he said.
When Karlie inspected the building, he disagreed with that conclusion as did Myer's contractor Jeff Blagg had done earlier when he agreed to take on the project.
“I want her building to stand alone, as if nothing was ever built there, for the next 100 years,” Karlie said.

This domino effect, in which a fire in one building necessitates structural improvements in adjacent buildings, is not unique to Tulare, Karlie said. “This is a problem with all downtowns.”

Long Wait

Tired of waiting for Jordan to make safety changes so her son can rebuild his business on her property, Michele Myers went to the Planning Commission on June 7—before the Lane Engineering report was complete—with one question.

“How can you OK a façade [improvement], when the building is not structurally safe?” she asked, referring to Jordan's request for design approval of her plans to improve the outside appearance of her building at 201 South K St.

Planning Director Mark Kielty told Myers and the commission that when Jordan gets her building permit, her plans will have to show she is bringing the entire structure up to code.

Myers asked when Jordan was going to do that—2008? 2009? 2011? “Nobody seems to know,” she said. “I'm 70 years old and I'd like to see another building put up (on my property).”

Commissioners seemed to share her frustration and asked more questions to get a clearer picture of what was happening.

“This has drugged on long enough,” Commissioner Sandi Miller said before asking Kielty if there were any “incentives” or “push” to get Jordan, who lives out of town, to move on her project.

Kielty said the city had given her a timetable and when Miller asked for specific, he said: “She has until the end of August to make substantial repairs and improvements on that property.”

Commissioner Richard Nunes asked what will happen if she doesn't.

The city will issue an order to tear the building down, Kielty said.

The commission approved the new façade plan unanimously.

“I hope our vote today really moves this along,” Commissioner Dave Kinard said.
The Tulare Redevelopment Agency board has allocated $30,000 from its façade improvement program to help Jordan with that portion of the project.

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