City Offered New Fire Engine

Tulare - If the City Council accepts the offer, the state Emergency Management Agency (EMA) will give the city a new fire engine that the Tulare Fire Department can use on a daily basis as well as take to fight major blazes elsewhere in the state.

Cal EMA is offering the department equipment because of the state's horrific history of fires that have required help from strike teams sent by local fire agencies such as the Tulare Fire Department, Fire Chief Michael Threlkeld said.

“There were departments willing to send personnel, but they didn't have equipment,” Threlkeld said.

Tulare regularly has sent strike teams to major incidents such as the Station Fire in Angeles National Forest last August.

“Since 1987 this department has filled 67 orders for assistance under the California Master Mutual Aid Agreement,” Threlkeld said, referring to the agreement among agencies to help each other out in extraordinary situations.

He said he put in a request to Cal EMA – formerly the Office of Emergency Services – for an engine more than eight years ago.

In addition to giving the city the engine, the state also will cover maintenance costs and inspect it yearly to make sure the city is properly maintaining it, Threlkeld said. The city will pay for the fuel to operate the engine.

The HME Type I fire engine, which can carry a team of four in its cab, will be the first in this operational area and local residents will be able to recognize it because of its lime green color, he said. Tulare's other engines, as well as its fire trucks, are red.
“It's lime green for a reason – it makes it easy to identify it as an EMA engine,” Threlkeld said.

The engine also will differ in that it will have an 850-gallon water tank instead of a 500-gallon one, which most of Tulare's have, he added.

The city will be required to use the engine during its warranty period and then can use it as a reserve.

The city plans to build a new fire station near the intersection of Cross Avenue and Mooney Boulevard, but what the city really will need for that station is a new fire truck, Threlkeld said. (Fire engines have water tanks, pumps and various types of hoses, while fire trucks have aerial and ground ladders as well as other types of equipment to gain entry and help with search and rescue efforts.)

The city recently added a new $425,419 engine to its fleet. The 2010 Emergency One Cyclone II model went into service this summer and is assigned to Station 62, which is at 138 No. E St.

In addition to the engine's cost, the city paid an additional $25,000 to $30,000 to equip it with such things as nozzles, radios, brackets and self-contained breathing apparatus. The Cal EMA engine will come with the basic equipment, Threlkeld said.

Deliver date of the Cal EMA engine has not been set and the Fire Department will have to send personnel to Sacramento for a one-day in-service on the engine, Threlkeld said.

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Lampe Move Sign of Times

Tulare - News Lampe Dodge Chrysler Jeep is acquiring the Surroz Dodge Chrysler Jeep dealership and moving operations from Tulare to Visalia has been greeted with both disappointment and understanding.

“It is disappointing to see any business leave town,” Mayor Craig Vejvoda said
But Vejvoda and others contacted understand Lampe's decision is another sign of tough economic times.

“These are just hard-decision times and I commend him for staying in business,” Vice Mayor Phil Vandegrift said. “I'm aware of the fact that David Lampe and others worked very hard to find another location in Tulare to fit their needs.”

Lampe announced the acquisition and merger with Surroz on Aug. 18, saying the move would enable his business to maintain a much larger inventory of new and used vehicles and to expand its service and parts business.

“Our combined dealerships will make Lampe Dodge Chrysler Jeep one of the largest Chrysler franchises in the San Joaquin Valley,” he said. “We thank Frank Surroz for giving us the opportunity to consolidate both stores at his new larger facility.”

Chrysler, which terminated 789 dealerships before coming out of bankruptcy on June 10, 2009, has been trying to consolidate its dealerships for more than 10 years and Lampe said the company's approval was “the key component” to making this consolidation work. “Naturally, Chrysler wanted us to relocate to the Surroz facility, as it is virtually brand new and much larger than our existing location,” he said.

“I don't feel like we're abandoning Tulare; we're just moving next door,” said Lampe, who was born and raised in Tulare.

The Surroz dealership is a short drive north from Tulare on Highway 99 and off of Highway 198 at 151 No. Neeley St.

The Surroz complex includes a BMW dealership, which Surroz will retain, Lampe said. “They'll just be our neighbors.”

Lampe Dodge is located off of Highway 99 at Paige Avenue on 5.6 acres owned by Brian and Candy Ross, who alerted Tulare City Council members last month that Lampe might not renew his lease and asked them to think about what kind of business he might put into the building if that happened.

The Rosses have run ads for sale or lease of the land.

“I think ultimately, when you get a setback like this, you can either pout about it or say it's an opportunity,” Vejvoda said. “There is property there. It's very attractive, has easy access from the freeway and I think we need to do our part from the city's perspective.”

The city needs to keep its “eyes and ears open” and not “red tape” any potential project to death, he said. “We just want to be really, really business friendly at City Hall and I believe we are.”

Lampe's is one of four new vehicle dealerships in Tulare and together they generated $376,859 in local sales tax from new sales in 2009, although 25 percent of that went to the state under the “triple flip” mechanism the state introduced in 2004, city Finance Director Darlene Thompson said.

In 2005, better economic conditions prevailed and the amount of local tax generated from new vehicle sales was $731,685, nearly double the amount of last year, Thompson said.

Those totals did not include money raised by the half-cent Measure I sales tax, which Tulare residents will continue to pay no matter where in California they purchase their vehicles, City Manager Darrel Pyle said.

Attracting another dealership here will be difficult, city officials said.

“Right now when we're looking up and down the state of California, we're not seeing new dealerships built anywhere,” Pyle said. “Upgrades, yes, a la Merle Stone Chevrolet [which is in Tulare],” he said, adding “I think we'll see more of that.”

Oct. 2-3 will be moving weekend for Lampe Dodge and Lampe said his dealership will conduct a moving sale through September in Tulare.

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Library Dedication a Rare Event

Tulare - Gerry Maginnity, chief of the state Library Development Service Bureau, said the call he received asking him to speak at the dedication of the new Tulare Public Library was a rare occurrence.

For every call like that one, the state library will get a hundred from communities that are closing their libraries or cutting back because of economic constraints, Maginnity said.

“I really take tremendous inspiration from this,” he told the audience that gathered Saturday for the dedication ceremony.

The irony of libraries closing or having to reduce services is that people are using their library more than ever in California as they retrain for new jobs, learn to read and write in English and seek homework help, Maginnity said.

“This is the place you come to when you want something positive to happen in your life,” he said, “You all deserve a round of applause for yourselves.”

Several speakers thanked Mayor Craig Vejvoda, Vice Mayor Phil Vandegrift and Councilman Richard Ortega, who were all present, for supporting the project.

'Political Courage'

Library director Michael Stowell spoke of their “political courage” and Ned Kehrli, president of the Library Advisory Board and a former superintendent of the Tulare Joint Union High School District, gave them credit for “foresight and wisdom.”

The new library did not enjoy unanimous council or community support.

Some thought a new facility was not needed. Others did not want the library to move from its North F Street location in west Tulare, which has been home for the city's first three libraries, dating back to the 19th century when a library was housed inside what is now the Woman's Clubhouse on West Tulare Avenue.

The Tulare City Council, in a split vote, approved plans to build the $11.1 million library on the corner of Cross Avenue and M Street even though local voters had joined others in the state in defeating a new library construction bond measure.

That decision came after a consultant reported that research elsewhere had found the overriding reason for the bond's defeat was that people simply did not believe their communities would benefit from it. Tulare, in fact, twice had applied for state library bond money and went away empty handed, although its application was very highly rated.

“Is this a good day in Tulare or what?” an animated Vejvoda asked the audience. “It's a learning center in the center of our community.”

Noting the building also includes new City Council Chambers, the mayor said other entities, including the Tulare County Economic Development Corporation, the College of the Sequoias Foundation and the International Agri-Center, also plan to use the facility for meeting.

Decisions will be made inside the building that will affect generations for years to come, he said.

'Really Magnificent'

Councilman Richard Ortega praised Stowell, who worked more than a decade to secure library improvements.

“I've never seen a man work so hard for a project he wanted,” Ortega said. “The end product, as you can see, is really magnificent.”

City Manager Darrel Pyle called the library a “tribute to what sound vision can provide” and then drew chuckles from the crowd when he said: “The only question I have now is did we make the parking lot large enough?”

Tony Taylor, president of the Tulare Library Foundation, unveiled the new water feature that Res-Com, the business he and his brother, Mark, own and the Taylor family donated to the library.

Dubbed “A World of Ideas” the granite globe rotates on a bed of water and children are able to touch it and change its course.

Taylor said to the children: “You'll be able to change your thoughts [by reading] and then change the world.”

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Call to Allow Hens Concerns Official

Tulare - The city's chief code enforcement officer will recommend on Sept. 7 that the City Council turn down a Tulare family's request to change the City Code so they and others can legally keep hens in their backyards.

Frankie Miller, the mother of eight homeschooled children, told the council on Aug. 17 that the popularity of the green living lifestyle has caused cities and towns across America to relax their chicken laws.

The Millers had 10 hens before an animal control officer confiscated one that went over the fence into the family's front yard, where she and her children were playing. Two days later another escaped over a side fence into the yard of a neighbor who called code enforcement.

The animals are now at a friend's house in the county, but the family, which includes children ages 5 to 14 who were learning to care for them as part of their schooling, would like them back home.

“Heritage breed chickens are calm, docile and affectionate pets,” Miller said. “Kept as pets and cleaned regularly, backyard chickens don't smell. They make much less noise than many dogs. They do not damage fences or escape and bite neighbors.”

She said she and her husband, Jim, realized too late that they needed to put a cover on the coops to keep their hens from leaving the backyard, but that is something they are willing to do.

Health risks posed by allowing backyard chickens “is minimal and can be controlled by good husbandry,” Miller told the council. “This means that their housing, feed, water and manure are maintained regularly.”

While Miller may be an outstanding pet owner who properly cares for her hens, that is not true of everyone and the communicable disease division of the Tulare County Health and Human Services Agency has outlined enough potential problems with backyard hens to cause him concern, Chief Code Enforcement Officer Frank Furtaw said.

“Chickens are potential carriers and spreaders of salmonella bacteria,” Furtaw said. “This is the reason why poultry farmers wear protective clothing.”

Introducing chickens into residential zones could also increase the presence of blue tick lice and other parasites and they could indirectly bring in the rare but deadly Hanta virus, which is associated with rats and mice fecal matter, because chicken feed is attractive to rodents, he said.

Miller has a list that includes about 25 California communities, including Irvine, Poway, Oceanside and San Carlos, which allow hens. Most require setbacks from neighboring homes.

Furtaw researched only local areas, including Fresno and Bakersfield, and found only Woodlake and Farmersville allow hens.

Farmersville is having a huge problem because of foreclosures, he said. “People are moving and leaving them behind. They turn them out of the coop and they fend for themselves and they're much more elusive than a dog or a cat. They're much more difficult to catch.”

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