Hillman Street Widening Progresses

Tulare - The first phase of a project to widen Hillman Street from Leland Avenue north to just past Cartmill Avenue has begun.

The Hillman work is the first of many major road projects slated for Tulare over the next several years, including improvements to Cartmill Avenue and Highway 99, as well as that interchange, and an overpass on Cartmill at the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.

“By June 2012 we won't look like the same place anymore,” Tulare City Manager Darrel Pyle said.

Installation of three grade separations — two overcrossings and an underpass — at the Union Pacific tracks, construction of a new Highway 99 interchange at Commercial Avenue, and the widening of Cartmill to six lanes between the railroad tracks and Mooney Boulevard are all scheduled to occur over the next four years, Pyle said.

Also by 2012, Hillman (which becomes Demaree or Road 108) will be a four-lane road all the way to Visalia.

The widening of Hillman is the only major road project going on in the city now.
“We'll take our city portion of the (Hillman) program about 700 feet north of Cartmill,” said Pyle, adding that Measure R funds are helping to fund the project and will eventually pay for the Demaree work as well.

The first phase of that project will include the entry (Corvina Avenue) into Blackstone Professional Ranch, a large office and medical complex that has been under development for several months. The first phase will end where Hillman narrows into two lanes. The next phase, which will extend to north of Cartmill, will begin in the 2009-10 fiscal year and finish by late 2010, Pyle said.

Craig Smith, one of the brokers for Blackstone Ranch, said the paving will include the Covina entrance into the 10-acre development.

The project will include 100,000 square feet of office space, of which 50,000 will be built in phase one. Building sizes will range from 6,144 to 7,244 square feet, but a customer could build a larger building if needed.

“We want to get a structure started as soon as possible,” Smith said. The first building has not been leased, but the developers are working with three perspective customers who would either lease or build their own building, he said. “We had a lot of interest at the start, but it's slowed down some because of the economy.”
Once they get started on construction, Smith said he expects to see a lot more interest.

“The project is upscale professional offices and for medical uses,” Smith said. “We feel the project is well needed.”

The parking lot planned off of Covina will be paved once the street is constructed and that is where the first phase will be developed, he said.

Besides the 10 acres for offices, the project also includes 11 acres for multi-family residential. There is no time set for when that project will begin.

---

Hospital Board Members Say
Good-bye to Martin-Soares

Tulare - Her colleagues on the Tulare Local HealthCare District board praised Deanne Martin-Soares for her intelligence, passion and ethics during her final board meeting.

Martin-Soares, a nurse and healthcare administrator who did not seek re-election in November, has served on the board for eight years. Richard Torrez, who was elected to the board on Nov.4, will replace her when he and newly re-elected incumbents Dr. Parmod Kumar and Roger McPhetridge are sworn into office at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the conference room at Evolutions.

“Deanne, you have been one of the most intelligent members of the board,” Dr. Prem Kamboj told Martin-Soares after the board presented her with flowers and a plaque.

Even when they disagreed — which at one time happened frequently — Kamboj said he never doubted her commitment to and passion for helping the hospital.
“One thing I promise to you … this institution you're leaving to us will be in better shape…and hopefully you'll still be guiding us,” Kamboj said.

Jayne Presnell, director of Evolutions Fitness and Rehabilitation Center, thanked Martin-Soares for her support through the years. “Deanne actually named Evolutions,” Presnell said. “That was her creative thought.”

That comment prompted board President Dr. Parmod Kumar to recall how he and Martin-Soares together fought hard to convince fellow board members to support Evolutions, despite a price tag that came in $500,000 over budget.

Martin-Soares said she remembers sending at least 20 faxes out on that issue, encouraging community members to show their support for the idea.
The plaque the board gave Martin-Soares included the following quote by the American author Harper Lee that board members and administrators agreed reflected her commitment to do what was right and ethical: “The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”

'Done Her Grieving'

Martin-Soares said it was a hard decision to not seek re-election but she had “done her grieving” and was ready to leave.

Her last term had been a difficult one for her and the board. Two incumbents were voted out of office in 2006, the hospital's long-time administrator had become seriously ill and resigned and an interim-administration — one that Martin-Soares publicly had complained would not answer her requests for information — ran the district for a year. Board members also were openly hostile toward each other until they took steps to learn how to work together despite differences.

Civility returned to the board and earlier this year it unanimously hired Shawn Bolouki as its permanent chief executive officer. Martin-Soares said in an interview after last week's meeting that she felt good about Bolouki being at the helm of district operations.

“I think that Shawn Bolouki needs to keep doing what he's doing,” she said. “I believe in him as chief executive officer. I know he's going to have some hard decisions ahead … primarily to keep the bottom line strong and encourage and promote growth.”

Bolouki encouraged Martin-Soares to stay in touch and make her opinions known. “You don't have to be on the board to make a difference,” he said.

He told the board that after the election he invited both Skip Barwick and Sherrie Bell, who ran and lost their bids for a board seat, to dinner, because he wanted them to know they didn't have to be on the board to share their thoughts with him about district matters.

---

Homeless Mom Grateful for
Rescue Mission's Help

Tulare - Felicia Renee Stewart said she has a lot to thank God for this Thanksgiving, including Tulare's LightHouse Rescue Mission which has played no small role in helping her put her life back together.

“I am very grateful to have been a guest at the LightHouse Rescue Mission,” said Stewart, a 42-year-old mother of seven, ranging in age from 3 to 21. “Had it not been for this particular program, I truly don't know where I would be today.”

The shelter, she said, has allowed her to strengthen her relationship to God and to reconnect with her children and other family members who had lost confidence in her because of her lifestyle and where she was living.

“I thank God for all the staff at the mission,” she said. “I feel that they have let God use them to set an example of how we as women and mothers should carry ourselves.”

Two months after arriving at the shelter, Stewart and her two youngest children are ready to leave and move into their own two-bedroom apartment.

Stewart's life has been a series of ups and downs and prior to moving into the shelter two months ago. She was on a downward spiral and depressed.

She was living in an “unhealthy” situation in which “the people I was involved with wanted to keep me down and dependent on them,” she said.

She knew she had to “get up on my feet,” but after she made her first call to the LightHouse, “I let someone talk me out of it,” she said.

The depression that overcame her made it difficult for her to even get out of bed and kept her off work. While her counselor initially estimated it would take six months for her to return to work, her therapy and LightHouse experiences made it possible for her to return after only three months, she said.

“Every day there's some class where we have to talk about God and our lives,” Stewart said. “You can't help get stronger.”

Not only does she now have a part-time job, but Stewart has enrolled at College of the Sequoias to study to become a paralegal, which she and her academic advisors believe will take only two semesters to complete.

The Tulare native graduated from Tulare Union High School in 1983 and then attended California State University, Fresno, for a year.

“I was pre-med; I was going to be a doctor,” she said. But when she returned home for the summer, she met her first husband and got pregnant. “And that's all she wrote on that one,” she said.

She later attended the Tulare Adult School, San Joaquin Valley College and COS, where she earned an associate of science degree in business management in 2006.
“I've had good jobs,” she said, explaining it was her involvement with drugs, alcohol and an abusive relationship that were the problems.

When she leaves the shelter, Stewart said she plans to continue with her early morning Sunday Bible classes at Sunrise Community Church and to attend services at the House of Love.

“I need to be conscious of my relationship with God to survive,” she said. “I know I won't survive without a relationship with Him.

LightHouse Rescue Mission is a faith-based shelter that is affiliated with the Tulare Association of Churches.

In addition to temporary housing for single women and women with young children, the shelter provides in-house recovery, anger management, parenting, budgeting and Bible study classes. Tutoring is provided to children.

Linda Long, the mission's director, said the shelter has accommodated 492 women and children since its opening Oct. 13, 2006. About 46 percent of the women helped have found housing.

Many churches, businesses, non-profits, civic groups and service clubs have helped LightHouse Mission since its inception, Long said.

“We want all to know your donations are appreciated,” Long said. She also said she hopes the community will remember LightHouse with monetary gifts during the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.

---

Richard Torrez Christmas
Parade's Grand Marshal

Tulare - Richard Torrez, a Tulare alternative school teacher who heads up a boxing club founded by his father in 1948, is the grand marshal of the Children's Christmas Parade, which will kick-off 7 p.m. Monday in downtown Tulare.

Torrez, who was elected Nov. 4 to the Tulare Local HealthCare District board, said he was told of his selection prior to the election but the Tulare Chamber of Commerce—which doesn't endorse candidates in local elections—wanted to wait until last week to make the announcement.

“This is an awesome opportunity; I'm really honored,” Torrez said.

“We can all be especially proud of the work that Torrez champions for in our community,” Mark Limas, chairman of the chamber board, said in a prepared statement. “His greatest achievement, which will certainly leave an indelible impression on this community, is his eagerness to invest and mentor our most valuable resource—our community's youth.”

Torrez was selected because of his countless hours of work with young people in the Tulare Athletic Boxing Club, which recently added a tutoring program to make sure young boxers maintain a “C” average in school.

“My wife [Kim Torrez] is the driving force on that one,” Torrez said. “She does the tutoring and I do the boxing. We make a great team.”

Councilman Carlton Jones, a friend of the Torrez family and a boxing club supporter, called Torrez' selection as grand marshal “awesome.”

“Richard took the baton from his dad [Manuel Torrez],” Jones said. “We all got scared that when his dad passed away, the program would end, but Richard didn't miss a beat … and magnified his father's dream.”

Torrez organized the annual Manuel Torrez Boxing Classic in memory of his father, who chamber officials said was instrumental in bringing never-before-sanctioned boxing events to the Central Valley by creating the Central Valley Central California Boxing Association.

He called Kim Torrez the “fuel of Richard's fire” and said they are “just a dynamic couple.”

Torrez has a bachelor's degree in both physical education and history from California State University, Fresno, and is working on a Master's Degree.

In addition to his wife and their two children, Maggie, 11, and Richard Jr., 9, the 42-year-old science and history high school teacher said he wants to have his “boxing kids” with him in the parade.

---

New Olympic Mural 'Stunning’

Tulare - The new downtown mural saluting the Olympic accomplishments of Tulare athletes Bob Mathias and Sim Iness in the 1948 and 1952 games is “an awesome tribute,” Mathias' wife, Gwen, said after last week's unveiling.

She wasn't alone in her admiration for the work of artist Colleen Mitchell-Veyna, a 1982 Tulare Union High School graduate who quit teaching to become a full-time artist and has painted many other murals in Tulare and elsewhere.

“It's just beautiful,” said Ellen Gorelick, curator and director emeritus of the Tulare Historical Museum. “I don't use that word a lot to describe art…but it's just stunning.”

The mural, installed on the west wall of the Tulare Chamber of Commerce to honor the two late athletes, was painted on two sets of three panels artistically linked by a painting of an Olympic gold medal and a scroll that will include the names of donors contributing $500 or more to the project.

“I hope a lot of people will give $500,” Gorelick said. “These are the positive things. I'm just thrilled to death about it.”

Iness' son, Joe, told the crowd gathered for the dedication that he thought the mural was beautiful and had been sending images of the work to his friends via computer. Iness' wife, Delores, also attended the unveiling.

David Mathias spoke on behalf of the Mathias' family and said his uncle – up there with his good friend and teammate Sim Iness — would be honored to know the mural is located near the East Tulare Avenue/K Street corner where he and Iness were honored with a ticker tape parade when they returned from Helsinki in 1952.
“Truly, Bob was as proud of being from Tulare and as Tulare was proud of Bob,” Mathias said, adding he hoped the mural would serve as an inspiration to some youngster to become “the next boy wonder or girl wonder” from Tulare.

Bob Mathias' older brother, Dr. Gene Mathias and his younger siblings, Jim Mathias and Patricia Guerrero, also attended the groundbreaking.

The new mural replaces another one painted on the site of the Tulare Youth Services Bureau building on South K Street in 1998 as the community celebrated the 50th anniversary of Bob Mathias' decathlon gold medal in the 1948 Olympic games in London.

That mural — also painted by Mitchell-Veyna — was destroyed when “a young man driving a small imported car was driving too fast and drinking too much” and crashed into the wall, said Steve Presant, president of the Tulare Cultural Arts Foundation, which continues to gather donations for the $13,200 project.
Many observers noted the images on the new mural bore a greater likeness to Mathias and Iness.

With the first mural, Mitchel-Veyna said she was working with “teeny weeny” photographs, which made capturing the likenesses more difficult.

The photographs were far superior this time and she has more experience as an artist, she said.

“I was happy with the outcome,” she said. “I am happy to have the other one replaced…because I prefer to get my updated work out there.”

Veyna-Mitchell has painted other murals in Tulare, including Linder's, 160 South K St., Rankin Field, 509 East Tulare Ave.; The Bears, 333 East Tulare Ave.; and The Yokuts of Central California, 125 South M St.

She also did two murals inside City Hall, the mural on the side of the Black Bear Diner on East Tulare Ave., several others in Exeter and Vale, Oregon.

---