Manuel Toledo Veterans
Parade Grand Marshal

Tulare - When Manuel Toledo suffered his most severe World War II injuries in the Philippines 64 years ago this month, the then 26-year-old Tipton resident never dreamed he would live to be 90 years old.

But not only did Toledo celebrate his 90th birthday on July 13, but at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, he will serve as grand marshal of the first Veterans Parade in Tulare in at least two decades.

And what a parade that is shaping up to be. The hard-working Central Valley Vietnam Veterans (CVVV) already has 60 entries lined up, including various veterans organizations and local school bands.

“We have a good commitment from World War II veterans and Korean vets,” said Steve Riley, CVVV vice president. The parade is scheduled for Nov. 8 to avoid a conflict with the long-established Veterans Day parade in Porterville.

CVVV is charging no entry fee, Riley said. “We just want to get it on and have as many people come as possible. The whole reason for the parade is to honor veterans of all wars.”

Military groups, clubs or individual veterans interested in participating are invited to call event coordinator Mike Garcia at 684-0552 or Riley at 738-8373.

“That's really an awesome thing if you get veterans marching in the parade,” Riley said.

Garcia said three fellow Marines he served in Vietnam with are coming from Los Angeles for the parade.

World War II veterans will be first in the parade, riding on a troop carrier, Garcia said, adding CVVV is trying to line up military vehicles for all the veterans who may be unable to walk the 1.1 mile route.

A parade is “a nice way” to honor veterans, Toledo said, adding he has never missed a parade in Porterville since he was a boy.

“My Dad was in the service —the Portuguese Army — and he use to like the parade,” he said.

One-Year Stint

Toledo, the oldest of 11 children born to Azorean immigrants John G. and Carmeline Borges Toledo, left school during his freshman year at Tulare Union High School to work on the family ranch, where he remained until January 1941.

That's when he and 52 other young men from the Tulare area signed up for a one-year stint in the Army, Toledo said in a 2005 article written by his daughter Yvonne Toledo in “Veterans Magazine.” But with only a few days left to serve, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

“Amazingly, all 53 of us survived the battles in the Pacific,” Toledo wrote. “Most of us came back wounded, maimed and scarred for life, but we made it home alive.”
Toledo, who served with Company B of the Army's 17th Infantry, 7th Division, received his first injuries in the Aleutian Islands off the Alaskan Coast, but it was in the Philippines where he was most severely injured.

On Oct. 29, 1944, his regiment was hit hard by machine gun fire that wounded or killed 50 soldiers.

“A 25 mm mortar shell shot through a banana tree, took a piece of it and blasted through me without exploding,” Toledo wrote in “Veterans Magazine.”

The attack left “huge open wounds” in his chest and back and he was knocked unconscious and mistaken for dead.

“As the troops advanced, three of my buddies from Tulare (Timmy Lopez, Tommy Fikes and Manuel Sotelo) happened to glance at the bodies and they recognized me,” he wrote. “They checked to see if it was me, felt for a pulse and yelled for a medic.”

After a harrowing run carrying him through a swamp, Toledo's friends left him at a field hospital, where he said he heard a doctor tell a medic to leave him alone and care for the others because he wasn't going to make it.

'Guinea Pig'

But Toledo, who was paralyzed on his right side and suffered damage to his right lung, did make it even though it was touch-and-go for a long time even after he was brought to Baxter General Hospital in Spokane, Wash., where he said he “became a guinea pig for several surgeries.”

He returned to the Valley in June 1945 and underwent rehabilitation at the Fresno VA Hospital. He also became involved with several veterans groups, learned a new trade and purchased a jewelry store which he and his family operated from 1947 for 61 years, closing just a few months ago.

Despite his injuries, he signed up in 1948 for the California National Guard Reserve, where he served nearly 20 years.

Toledo is a charter member of the Tulare Veterans Memorial Board and a charter member of the Manuel Toledo AMVETS Post 56, founded in 1948.

He has held local regional, state and national offices with AMVETS and is still on the board of the AMVETS Service Foundation. He was awarded the Department of California AMVET of the Year Award in 1965 and received the national organization's prized Silver Helmet Award in 1986.

Because of his commitment to veterans and their organizations and causes on the local, state and national levels, he became known at one point as “Mr. Veteran.”
He proudly reported last week that his great-grandson Dave Thompson has just joined the Marines.

“And I signed him up in AMVETS a few weeks ago,” Toledo said. “Veterans come first with me.”

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TDH Expansion Plans Go to State

Tulare - The 450 pages of drawings for Tulare District Hospital's $120 million expansion are complete and ready for state review, which is expected to take about 18 months to complete.

Hospital officials celebrated the milestone with the community last week by unveiling a model of the 115,000-square-foot, four-story expansion, which will include a state-of-the art emergency room and a helicopter pad on the roof. They also provided the gathering with a virtual tour of the new tower.

“We are on schedule for all our activities so far and also in budget,” project manager Mike McGuire told the crowd. The hospital expects to start construction in May 2010 and complete the project in 2012.

Dr. Parmod Kumar, chairman of the Tulare Local HealthCare District, said the board was “excited to share these exciting plans with the community.”

Chief Executive Officer Shawn Bolouki thanked the community for its support in 2005 of an $85 million bond measure for the hospital and said “we want to be a good custodian of your resources.”

Bolouki noted, among other things, the second floor operating suite will include the capacity for robotic surgery “because it's going to be the next generation” of health care.

The equipment in the new tower will be on par with such hospitals as UCLA, Stanford and Cedar Sinai, he said.

Tulare District plays an important role in both the physical and economic health of the community, Bolouki said, reporting the hospital provides $64 million in uncompensated care each year and its presence is a plus for the city in its efforts to attract new businesses.

The hospital provides well-paid jobs with its 570 full-time employees earning an average salary of $52,000, which is considerably above the $38,300 median for the city, he said.

He urged the public not to look at the $85 million bond it passed as a burden, but rather as an investment in the community.

Jeri Sell, president of the Tulare Hospital Foundation, said the effort it took to get the bond measure passed three years ago proved the late anthropologist Margaret Mead spoke the truth when she said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”

The next two years will require a re-dedication to the project, Sell said.
“We may turn to you again for your support. Please stay with us.”

$40 Million Goal

The $85 million is $35 million short of what the hospital expansion will cost and Bolouki said the difference will have to come from improving the hospital's cash reserve, the bottom line of its operating budget, and its fund raising efforts.

He has asked the hospital foundation to set a goal of raising $40 million over the next five years for the hospital, which both he and Sell agree is probably not realistic.
“But you can't set your goals low,” Bolouki said, reporting he has told the foundation, “I will give you any support you need.”

Sell said the foundation is considering an employee campaign and is talking with three different marketing groups and expects to select one to help it decide what its next step should be.

“We're going to take it slow, because we do have new board members coming on in January,” she said. “We're excited.”

She said she hoped the community will attend and support the hospital's upcoming Festival of Trees on Nov. 23, which is one of the foundation's major fund raisers. Tickets are $50 per person. Information: 685-3438.

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Kumar: Hospital Never Made Money

Tulare - Asked during a recent forum why Tulare District Hospital has lost money over the past two years, hospital board candidates Skip Barwick and Sherrie Bell harshly criticized the board while incumbent Dr. Parmod Kumar contended the hospital never made money.

“I believe that the board and management of this hospital have been asleep at the wheel,” Barwick said during a candidate's forum earlier this month.

While a June 30, 2007, financial report prepared by the interim administration of Chief Executive Officer Bob Kelley showed expenses outpacing revenues, the hospital is only now, under the leadership of a new CEO, beginning to work on a strategic plan to address the situation, Barwick said.

“In private business, if you wait 1 ½ years to come up with a plan, you're going to have problems,” he said.

Bell agreed, saying the hospital paid the interim chief $20,000 a month and did not expect any accountability. “Shawn Bolouki [the new CEO] ended up with a huge mess.”

Board members need to demand accountability, Bell said. She and Barwick both expressed confidence in Bolouki's ability to show strong financial leadership.
Kumar, chairman of the board, said his colleagues in the race “have been misled” and contended the hospital never made money although officials publicly said it had.
“That's why we had a change of administration,” Kumar said, in an apparent reference to former Chief Executive Officer Bob Montion, who retired for health reasons in early 2006.

Kumar also said later the hospital board doesn't run the hospital, the executive team does.

Roger McPhetridge, the only other incumbent seeking re-election in the five-person race to fill three seats, did not comment on Kumar's remark during the forum.
Deanne Martin-Soares, an incumbent not seeking re-election, was in the audience and said later she disagreed with Kumar.

“I think that during the time I was on the board, we couldn't have a $24 million reserve without making money,” Martin-Soares said.
“I do think that during the time the interim management was there, I do think they had their eyes off the road,” she said.

She also confirmed Kelley and interim Chief Financial Officer John Church both made close to $20,000 a month during their tenure with the hospital.
During the year the interim-administration was in place, Martin-Soares frequently complained Kelley and others would not answer her questions about finances and other matters and that the hospital was not moving forward quickly enough to recruit new doctors.

Asked later if Kumar was correct in saying the hospital never made money, McPhetridge said “it's a difficult question to answer because we never made a lot of money, but that is what we were told.”

The hospital has a .05 of a percent operating margin, which means “all it takes is a few minor issues to put us in the red,” he said. “It's just a real fine line.”
He also said the new administration has found problems in the system “that showed we weren't as well off financially as we thought we were.”

He disagreed with Bell and said that during the interim administration there was accountability. “It's not like he [Kelley] had a free rein in running the hospital.”
The hospital's financial situation is the result of many factors, including doctors keeping patients too long in the hospital (Medicare pays for only a set number of days depending on the severity of an illness), low insurance reimbursement rates and sharp cutbacks in Medi-Cal funding, McPhetridge said.

Richard Torrez, another board candidate, said the hospital has not done a good enough job in promoting itself.

“The hospital is a good place to be…but people don't know about it,” Torrez said, adding the board needs to build up confidence in the hospital.

Bolouki won't comment on how prior administrations operated the hospital, saying he does not know all the circumstances they faced, sees no purpose in commenting and thinks the hospital needs to keep its focus forward on the expansion project and other important matters.

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School Board Candidate
Against COS Bond

Tulare - Derek Thomas, a candidate for a seat on high school district board, surprised fellow candidates and others recently when he voiced opposition to Measure J, which would raise money for a College of the Sequoias (COS) campus in Tulare.

Measure J would raise $60 million for the proposed East Bardsley Avenue campus and enable the Tulare area and surrounding communities to receive more than $128 million in matching state funds.

“I'm not opposed to COS or to the satellite campus,” Thomas said. “I just oppose bonds, because bonds are no more than a tax … We as a city, we're already inundated with bonds.”

He supported Measure Q, which allowed the Tulare Joint Union High School District to sell bonds for phase one construction of Mission Oak High School, but “I really had to wrestle with that one.” Thomas said. “I supported Measure Q because I knew we were in dire need for a high school.”

The fact the economy has taken a drastic turn for the worse since then and that college is an option and not a requirement also played into his thinking on the COS measure, he said. “This is not the right time.”

He said the main COS campus in Visalia is just 10 miles away for students who want to attend.

With the passage of Measure J, Thomas, who works for the state Department of Corrections, said he would be paying $400 a year on top of his regular property taxes. “I'm trying to keep some money in my pocket,” he said.

If passed, Measure J is expected to cost property owners $24.71 per $100,000 of assessed valuation.

Thomas' colleagues in the school board race unanimous support the bond measure. A sampling of their comments:

· Samantha Cushing, trading assistant: Noting the projected average cost to property owners would be $31.53 a year, she said she doesn't think that “is too much to ask to make sure our kids have somewhere to go once they graduate … I say we do it now, prevent headaches later.”

· Frank Fernandes, a farmer and dairyman: “I'm voting for it … because I think it's going to be great for Tulare. I know it's going to come out of my tax dollars, [but] I think it is a great investment in our educational future. It totally is my cup of tea.”

· Cathy Mederos, a homemaker and community volunteer: “I don't see how anyone cannot be for this … To be able to offer higher education to the people of Tulare is great for everyone. They don't have to travel anywhere.”

· Elva Strawn, retired health technician: “I am all for it. Education is my top priority. The bond is less than $2.50 a month for the average person … Can you imagine the infrastructure we'll have available to us, if we have this college here…Even I plan on using it …Tulare is so receptive to education and I'm so proud of Tulare because of it. We don't look at bonds as being an issue. We look at the importance of education.”

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Lawsuit Filed Against Meat Plant Project

Tulare - A lawsuit has been filed challenging the environmental impact report prepared for Western Pacific Meat Packing's proposal to build a beef slaughterhouse and meat processing facility at 2600 West Paige Ave., next door to the city's wastewater treatment plant.

The city, City Council and Planning Commission were served with a notice Friday that Tulare resident Roger Catron was taking legal action involving the project, City Manager Darrel Pyle said.

The project underwent an extensive environmental study, which city officials had hoped would discourage such action.

The lawsuit was filed by Hanford attorney Raymond Carlson, who also represented opponents when the developer tried to build a similar plant in Goshen. Western Pacific later found the Tulare property and abandoned its Goshen plans.

Pyle said he believes Western Pacific is in for the long-haul on the Tulare project and won't be looking for another location.

“I think they recognize that wherever you go, there's going to be someone out there trying to beat you back,” Pyle said.

During the environmental review process, opponents raised concerns about the loss of water that will result when a well is drilled to a depth of 700 feet and below the Corcoran clay to serve the plant.

Even though the city has a groundwater recharge program, the water the city will bring in will never get to the lower aquifer, Carlson told the City Council in September.

“The only way to reach below is if you put in an injection well,” he said, adding the city did not consider that possibility.

Lew Nelson, the city's public works director, has said the northeast is the preferred area for the city's recharge basins because it is well beyond the eastern boundaries of the Corcoran clay and “the aquifer below the Corcoran clay will absolutely be recharged.”

Western Pacific officials called water a non-issue because the plant will recycle 80 percent of the water it uses back into its system.

On the procedural front, Carlson has contended the city erred in not circulating the formal Statement of Overriding Considerations, which explains why the city believes the project should move ahead despite expected environmental impacts.

Two More Actions

After approving the project, the City Council took two more actions related to the project at its Oct. 7 meeting.

The council has agreed to contribute an additional $220,000 in federal grant money to Western Pacific, which was allocated up to $375,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds in November 2006 for pre-construction professional services.

Cost for the mandatory environment impact report exceeded the original amount because of the additional study and legal review that was needed, said Bob Nance, economic and redevelopment director said.

The city is allowed to use the federal money for the project because of the anticipated 152 new full-time jobs the plant is expected to create within three years of opening.

The council also has approved a disposition and development agreement in which Western Pacific agrees to purchase the 66.5 acre plant site from the city for approximately $560,000 — about $8,421 an acre.

The agreement calls for Western Pacific to pay $300,000 in cash in addition to a $10,000 deposit and to provide $250,000 in power generated by the project's planned co-generation facility.

If surplus electricity is not available for sale, then the company will make payments.
The agreement also calls upon the company to reimburse the city $126,833 for costs associated with the EIR.

Western Pacific is proposing policies that emphasize hiring local Tulare-area residents for the plant and contracting with and buying goods and services from local businesses, provided price, terms and delivery schedule are competitive.

The plant is expected to cost between $70 million and $80 million and take 14 to 18 months to construct.