High Room Rates Irk Exhibitors
By Julie Fernandez
Tulare - Exhibitors are so upset about “exorbitant” room rates they say some hotels are charging during World Ag Expo that their companies are threatening to avoid overnight stays in Tulare County the rest of the year.
“That is a major concern of a lot of our exhibitors – that they're charged triple the cost in some instances for their stay,” said Jerry Sinift, general manager of the International Agri-Center, which puts on the three-day show each February.
He heard a few complaints about hotel rates after the 2008 show and by early this year the number of complaints had grown significantly, Sinift said.
“For 20 years I was an exhibitor and I attended other shows,” he said. “You understand you pay from 20 to 30 percent more … but to seriously gouge people, that's just wrong.”
Agri-Center officials started talking with the Tulare Chamber of Commerce about the problem earlier this year but didn't pursue it after the unexpected death in late January of the chamber's president and chief executive officer.
The issue was discussed at a World Ag Expo Exhibitors Advisory Committee meeting a few weeks ago in May and Sinift said it was clear then the problem needs to be addressed. He said Mayor Craig Vejvoda, as well as other city and Chamber of Commerce representatives also attended.
'A Real Issue'
“It's gotten to be a real issue for us,” said David Kross, a territory sales manager for Case I-H and a member of the advisory committee.
“The unfortunate thing is where else do you go? It forces the management of our company to take a look at farm shows in general and say, 'What bang do we really get for our buck.'”
Sinift said many companies that exhibit
at the show have representatives who travel through Tulare County throughout
the year and they are so upset that they're threatening to tell their
people not to stay overnight here when they make those trips.
Kross said he and half of the Case I-H group stay at the Best Western
Town and Country Lodge in Tulare during World Ag Expo, while the other
half stays at the Lampliter Inn in Visalia.
“Those two hotels have not been exorbitant,” Kross said. He personally became aware of what others were charging when he tried to find a hotel which could house the entire group next year.
“I have found the rates to be outrageous,” he said.
The Marriott Hotel, which was soliciting business, offered rooms at $250 a night each, which he said caused him to respond: “Thanks for the information. Sounds like you have a great hotel. When you're willing to reduce your rates, I'll need 30 to 40 rooms.”
Several sources who attended the last exhibitors meeting reported a John Deere representative said she had paid $149 for a room in Tulare the week before the show, but the price jumped to about $400 per night the week of the event.
A John Deere spokesman said he could not confirm those figures, but said the room prices affect how many people companies send to show.
“We make quite an investment with all the equipment we ship out there and all the people who work the show … obviously room prices affect our decisions,” said Barry Nelson, public relations manager for John Deere.
But even more important, Nelson said,
is the impact of high room rates on potential customers, who might stay
away from the show if room costs are too high.
“We're not begrudging anybody for having free enterprise work for
them, but our biggest concern is to have competitive rates for customers
and make it a viable show,” he said.
Kross agreed. His territory extends from Redding to Tulare and over to the Central Coast and many of his customers want to attend the Tulare show but high room rates will discourage them, he said.
'That's Ridiculous’
It is not unusual for hotels to increase their rates when they know they will sell out, “but when they're in the $190 to $250 range for Tulare, I think that's ridiculous,” he said.
Another concern is many of the hotel are requiring a four-night minimum stay, which means his company ends up paying for two hotel room for some people on Thursday night because they have to catch a 6 a.m. flight out of Fresno the next day, Kross said.
World Ag Expo is important to Tulare and this issue needs to be addressed, Vejvoda said.
“My thinking is we get people around the table – the hotel operators and the bright minds from the city, chamber and World Ag Expo – and see how we can solve this problem to everyone's satisfaction,” he said.
Patty Rocha, chair of the chamber's hotel task force, is aware of the issue and said she had spoken with Chamber board Chairman Lance Morris and past Chairman Marc Limas and the consensus was to wait until Nona Wilson, the new chamber chief executive officer, was on board to address the problem. Wilson has been on-the-job less than a month.
Tony Cota, general manager of the Best Western for eight years, said his hotel raises its average rate of $84.99 a night to about $150 during the show.
When told at least one hotel reportedly
had charged more than $400 a night during the 2009 show, Cota said, “Whether
it's right or wrong, it's not our place to say.
“We have no control over what other people charge,” he added.
“Our strategy is not to do that … we want them to return the
rest of the year as well.”
The months of November, December and
January are very slow for local hotels and “some may be seeing an
opportunity to catch up and pay the bills,” he said.
One-Stop
Job Center
Coming to Downtown
J.C. Penney Building to Get New Tenant
Tulare - An agreement is nearly in place that would allow Community Services Employment and Training (C-SET) to operate a one-stop employment center in the former J.C. Penney's building in downtown Tulare.
“We're real close,”
said Bob Reynolds, a partner in the Tulare Industrial Center, which
owns the building on the southeast corner of East Tulare Avenue and
J Street.
The County of Tulare had offered services at the site for many years
but recently moved them to county-owned buildings.
The Employment Connection, the name of the one-stop center, would take up about 8,200 square feet on the first floor of the two-story building.
During its first year, about 15 people from various agencies and organizations are expected to deliver employment services to an estimated 10,900 people, C-SET Executive Director Carolyn Rose said.
“We want to grow that,” Rose said.
“The purpose of an Employment Connection, one-stop center is to offer services to the whole community,” Rose said. “Services are not restricted to persons of any particular economic strata.
The center, which is one of four funded by the Tulare County Workforce Investment Board (WIB), could open by Aug. 1, she said.
The Tulare County WIB awarded C-SET a contract to operate Employment Connection one-stop centers in Tulare, Visalia and Porterville, Rose said. Proteus will operate a fourth in Dinuba.
In past attempts to create one-stop centers in Tulare, the agencies simply co-located but WIB Executive Director Adam Peck said the Employment Connection's goal is to go beyond that.
“What we're really striving for is to have a seamless operation, so people don't have to figure out what agency they need to talk with,” Peck said. “We can figure all that out for them.”
Assembled at the Tulare site will be representatives of the WIB Employment Development Department, C-SET, Tulare Adult School and Turning Point, which offers specialized employment counseling for offenders and homeless people, Rose said.
The center will continue services to employers, including those interested in hiring people who need training and having the Employment Connection pick up half of their wages for the first 12 weeks, Peck said.
Palm
Trees Mark
Exclusive Subdivision
By Rick Elkins
Tulare - One of the most exclusive, if not the most exclusive, gated communities in the Central Valley is taking shape in Tulare.
Greg Nunley of Great Valley Builders is developing a 25-lot subdivision in Del Lago that includes three waterfalls and a large pond – part of the entrance – two half-acre playgrounds and more than 250 palm trees.
“I don't think anyone's done this,” Nunley said of his unique Tesori subdivision off of Mooney Boulevard, which he is developing with a few partners. The main entrance will be at Ribolla and San Rocco streets in Del Lago.
Without a doubt, it will be the most exclusive neighborhood in Tulare County. So exclusive, that passersby will only see rooftops from surrounding streets and even the entry way is designed so people cannot see any homes until you are past the gates and well into the development.
“I want it to be really secluded,”
he said as he walked along the entry that includes a large gate where vehicles
will only have access by key code or if a resident allows them in. Even
the entry has a water fall. Also, the entry way itself is separated from
the development by an 8-foot high wall, adding to the privacy of the homeowners
Rob Hunt, a planner with the city of Tulare, said Nunley has spared few
details. “He's paying attention to all the details, going all out,”
said Hunt. “He's going first class all the way.”
“We're not cutting any corners,” added Nunley.
Drivers may have noticed the gathering of palm trees at the site over the past several months. Now, you can notice the entry way and the water falls taking shape. He said he purchased most of the palm trees in the county, but there are many different species of palms, some fairly rare, included in the entry way.
So far, 18 of the 25 lots have been sold and construction on a few of the homes, including Nunley's that is on a 3-acre lot, should begin later this year, with several more to be begun in March. The lots are sold to homeowners, said Nunley, and sold before he even began to market them.
The lots begin at three-quarters of
an acre and go up. There is one more 3-acre lot besides Nunely's. The minimum
size of the homes is 4,000 square feet, with the average, said Nunley, being
7,000 square feet. He added the homes will run about $1.5 million on average.
He said they will be individually designed and built.
“There's probably going to be 10 different architects out here. That's
what I want, everything original, nothing that looks alike,” he said.
Hunt said Tulare has four other gated communities, but none as fancy as Tesori. Gated communities are closed off by gates and the streets are private. There is one other gated community – La Vina – in the Del Lago development.
Even the name – Tesori – is exclusive. Nunley said that means “treasure” in Italian. Following that theme, the streets are all Italian names and all mean a different gem. The street names are Diamante, Rubina and Zaffrio.
Also, he pointed out, every road is curved and not a single road is flat with small hills placed throughout the subdivision.
Nunley, who started as an architect and is now a builder of offices, apartments and homes, has been working on the project for about 18 months since purchasing the 32-acre site. It took him a year to gather the palm trees.
“It's been a lot of fun to do something original. You don't get to do it every day,” he said.
Dodson
Ordained Bishop;
Makes Civil Rights Journey
By Julie Fernandez
Tulare - The Rev. Larry Dodson, pastor of New Life Community Church, recalls that even as a child he was concerned about the “bigger picture.”
In school, for example, his interest went beyond the classroom. “I was always concerned how the school ran,” Dodson said.
And as a pastor, he finds himself looking beyond the local church.
“One of the things I seem called to do is to further advance the kingdom of God on earth,” Dodson said. “To do that, you have to see beyond the walls – your family's walls, the church's walls – and look to the world.”
Two recent experiences have helped validate that call he has felt for the more than 25 years he has served as a minister, first with the American Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and now with the Reformed Church in America (RCA).
The first event occurred at a special Easter Sunday service during which he was ordained a bishop by Bishop Peter Mukango, founder of First Love Church of Kenya, based in Los Angeles and Kenya, Africa.
First Love Church of Kenya is not part of the RCA, but the two churches have worked together on various projects, Dodson said. “Peter was instrumental in inspiring the creation of a healing room in Tulare.”
Sankofa Journey
Dodson's ordination took place before his multi-racial and ethnic congregation at New Life only a few days before he joined other RCA pastors and church leaders on a Sankofa journey. Sankofa, according to the RCA web site, is a West African word that means “looking backward to move forward.”
The journey involved a three-day bus trip in which each participant was paired with a person of another racial or ethnic background and encouraged to share their thoughts as they visited historical sites of the Civil Rights era, viewed videos and engaged in other activities.
Dodson, who is African-American, was teamed up with his friend the Rev. Tim Vink, former pastor of Tulare Community Church and now RCA's coordinator for church multiplications in Grand Rapids, Mich.
“As we were traveling, we were
seeing documentaries and hearing stories that created discussions among
us on how to resolve racial tensions,” Dodson said.
The trip began in Chicago, where the group visited Lawndale Community Church
that has had a dramatic impact as it has worked to bring adequate health
care and housing and racial reconciliation to the community, which is near
the city's west side.
From Chicago, it was on to Selma, Montgomery
and Birmingham, Ala., where the group toured museums, visited the Southern
Poverty Law Center and heard Carolyn Maull McKinstry speak of her first-hand
experience of racism during the 1960s.
“One of the things that touched me as an African American was when
I visited all these places was the blood shed by African Americans and the
intensity of racism that even led to churched being bombed,” Dodson
said.
McKinstry was just 14 years old on Sept. 15, 1963, when white racists bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. She escaped death, but four of her young friends were killed. Only a year later, she escaped another bombing, which destroyed a portion of her home.
Dodson said he was deeply touched and felt his calling reaffirmed, when McKinstry told the group: “Laws don't bring healing; people do.”
Racial reconciliation is very much needed
in our country, Dodson said.
While people now understand that those who are physically, sexually or mentally
abused are going to feel repercussions from that abuse for many years to
come, they often fail to see that more than 200 years of slavery are going
to have lingering psychological effects too, Dodson said.
“You can't think that in 40 years it's just gone away,” he said.
Dr. King's Church
He and the group later visited Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was pastor. A new sanctuary was completed across the street from the original church and Dodson had a chance to address the group “with my hands up in the sky,” he said.
The Sankofa group was told that more visitors than African-Americans attend Sunday service.
“That's what he [King] would have wanted to see – people from all walks of life around him,” Dodson said.
Dodson's spiritual roots are in the AME Church, the church of his youth and early ministry.
After completing training with an AME
church in Santa Ana, he returned to Tulare County and assisted his step-father
the Rev. Grady Holland until 1992, when he founded the first AME Church
of Visalia. In 1996 he was asked to merge that church with Brooks Chapel
AME in Tulare and become that congregation's pastor.
During his seven years at Brooks, the number of active members grew from
32 to 275 but he still felt called to minister in a different setting.
“The Lord cares about those in the church and those outside it too,” he said, explaining it was this thinking that motivated him to found New Life Community in 2003 and “embrace a more racial diverse community and share God-given talents and gifts with all people.”
Tulare Community Church assisted the fledging congregation by allowing it to hold services on its campus without obligation or pressure to join the RCA.
“This church [RCA] is intentionally wanting to work for a decade freed from racism and is looking for opportunities to educate its leaders,” Dodson said. “That is what attracted me to this church.”
New Life officially became an RCA congregation
on June 26, 2005. It has about 140 members of whom about 70 percent are
African-Americans, Dodson said.
Its members, who worship together at 12:30 p.m. every Sunday on the Tulare
Community Church campus, continue their outreach to all ethnic and racial
groups.
“In Tulare County we don't have the greatest reputation of people free of racism, but we have a tremendous amount of good people across racial lines,” Dodson said. “I'd like to see these kinds of people have an opportunity to come and worship God with us.”
Children especially have so much to gain from worshiping in a diverse congregation,” he said. “Why do we have to wait until our children go to college to learn about other people?”
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
June 25, 2009
