Visalia - Minutes before the VUSD Board was set to consider her contract in closed session, embattled superintendent Linda Gonzales announced she was leaving when her contract was up in 18 months. She cited sickness in her family.
Trustee Chuck Lindahl says he “was not surprised” by the announcement. Lindahl and fellow board member Russ Bassett are subject to a recall campaign themselves, even though the recall group has made it clear they seek Gonzales’ ouster as well. Incumbents who supported Gonzales lost in last month’s election making it clear to the superintendent herself that her work here may be coming to a close.
Lindahl says Gonzales announced she would not seek renewal of her contract nor remain here after 2001 - in 18 months when her current contract is up. She has been on the job about 18 months to date.
Gonzales spoke to the Voice this week after the school board meeting. She said she made the announcement because members of her family - both elderly parents and he brother - were gravely ill. In addition she made the announcement to “clear the air.” She told the Voice that she wanted to make a statement to both the community and the new board that “if they want to make any changes I don’t want to stand in the way.”
Gonzales said that while she had no plans to move right now she would like to be closer to her sick relatives.
Now that she has told Visalia she is going to leave she is free to look for another job and the board is obligated to find another superintendent. “We don’t know if that superintendent will start this year or later,” says Lindahl.
The assumption is that Gonzales will begin a job search. The way the contract reads is that if she finds another job that paid the same amount, the district is not obligated to pay the remainder of her contract.
Some critics believe Gonzales should go on paid administrative leave, while the board investigates the charges she tampered with files in the case of the complaint brought by former staffers including two former principals.
For Lindahl that doesn’t ring true since “she was hired by this board to come in make changes and that’s what she did. Oh, we might have done things a little different.”
He says that after Gonzales leaves it won’t make the problems go away. Nor will they go away “if we are recalled.”
Tops on those problems is the fact that about 63% of the school kids in Visalia aren’t operating at grade level. In addition, he says she has brought more money into the district than any other superintendent in Visalia adjusted for inflation.
Gonzales’ contract had been noticed at recent board meeting for a closed door consideration. It was her annual evaluation. When no word of new contract came out it was clear the board was either putting Gonzales on a probation period or renegotiating with her on the contract.
The assumption was that the board was exploring ways Gonzales would move on without the end game being clear. The average tenure of a California superintendent is 2.9 years, says Chuck Lindahl. “The job consumes you.”
Gonzales then made the announcement at this week’s special board meeting that she was choosing of her own accord to leave - but not immediately.
The board meeting was the last for the old board. Now three new members come on December 14 and Gonzales’ contract and the contracts of two other top staffers - Don Trigg and Georgia Renne will be in their hands.
Critics of the proposed contract with Trigg and Renne say a new superintendent ought not be saddled with the old team and that some benefits in the contract are overly generous. The contracts are extended for three more years. But the current board put off consideration until the new board takes their seats.
Board chair Russ Bassett says the three new board members “are already legally sworn in” on the advice of county counsel. He says if the board wants to hold another special meeting like they did this week, it would involve the new board members after December 3.
The betting is the new board chair will be Rick Wehmueller - the current board clerk.
Gonzales says that she hopes the announcement will “refocus the spotlight back on the kids.” Gonzales reminds Visalia that 2001 is coming. “2001 - it’s famous as the Space Odyssey but it’s really just around the corner. In June of that year all high school kids will have to take an exit exam. Estimates statewide are that 50% or more will fail.
“We have no control. We’ll get the state regulations in the mail. Then those kids will not get their diploma. I hate to think about the look on the face of parents if their child does not get their diploma. That’s why while I’m sympathetic to all the things that have been brought up as important in the past few months. But don’t you think that a kid not getting the diploma is a pretty big deal?” She says that’s why she has focused so hard on curriculum changes.
Visalia - 'Tis the season and even Visalia city officials can’t resist a mall shopping trip - to Salt Lake City, that is. That’s the headquarters for Visalia Mall’s owner JP Realty who bought and redeveloped the shopping center into the top mall property in the two county area. Now Visalia wants to help the owner of the mall take the next step.
This week Visalia mayor Don Landers, council member Bob Link and city manager Steve Salomon are flying to Salt Lake to meet with company officials about the possibility of expanding the Visalia Mall. “We’ve heard all sorts of rumors about expanding in this direction or that,” says Bob Link. “We want to go see for ourselves just what they have in mind.” He says that “if they are serious we, as a city have to do what we can to facilitate it.”
The mall is 95% full, land locked, squeezed for parking, surrounded by big streets like Mooney and Walnut both scheduled for major expansions in the next few years. If Visalia Mall is to expand with another major department store - as expected - they will need to add more parking. But where?
They already have a 1100 car parking garage on the mall’s southside. The area likely for development is the northeast corner of the mall where a parking garage and department store could rise if the city is able to pencil out an adequate amount in redevelopment assistance.
Reportedly Arkansas based Dillard's department store is interested if the numbers are right. Dillards has department stores across the nation but only a few to date in California - Palmdale and Stockton - for now, but with plans for more stores. Dillard's has over 430 stores in 30 states and sales of nearly $8 billion. The company is publically traded but still managed by family members. They are a competitor to Gottschalks at a similar price level.
“I think the mall needs to go vertical,” says Visalia Gottschalks' manager Joe Pinto. “Now that the issue of development on Highway 99 is dead it’s time for JP Realty to step up to the plate.” Pinto expects if Dillard's were to come in they would want a store of similar size to Gottschalks - 150,000 sq ft or larger “since we are competitors. In return Levy will want more space,” expects Pinto about his boss. He expected JP Realty after “sinking $37 million into the center will want to keep their center number one and that means expansion.”
Bringing in another major department store at the Visalia Mall would probably allow the mall to double deck the existing corridor to add a second story of stores.
Council member Link says there is a possibility of a collaboration between JP Realty and Tustin developer David Paynter who is working to develop the old Sin City spot nearly 15 acres right across from the mall on Mooney. Paynter’s project is up for city council review December 6th.
“What we do on the Paynter property depends in part on what happens at Visalia Mall,” says Link.
Presumably some sort of partnership or deal between the two developers would mean the properties are tied together by a pedestrian cross walk or even multiple parking garages. Such a pedestrian overcross is in the works downtown crossing another state highway (Locust) that will tie the existing city parking garage to a new one to be built by Kaweah Delta.
The timing of the trip to Salt Lake City is in part because the city is just beginning the approval process for two shopping centers at the edge of town - south of Packwood and Akers and 198 as well as the Paynter project.
That application by Paynter - developer of the Costco Center in Visalia - to allow a grocery store to be part of his 15 acre shopping center planned for Mooney and Walnut. Staff and Planning Commission have previously turned down the application in part because the center has a Mooney address and grocery store uses aren’t allowed in the future on Mooney and secondly because a new Albertsons or Ralphs would wipe out the mom and pop store - Best Buy - less than a country block away.
Paynter has high costs built into his project and seeks a grocery store in part because they will pay higher rents than some regional retail uses. In fact the line between grocery store and mass merchandisers is blurring considerably. Witness Visalia’s busiest Mooney grocery store - Costco. Should they be banned from Mooney?
Paynter suggests his grocery store would really be on Walnut and there will be other regional retail stores in the 150,000 sq ft center. Why does a grocery store want to locate at Mooney and Walnut? It has homes in 360 degrees unlike most of the available grocery sites in town, industry sources say. The council will weigh in on this December 6th.
The city is already committed to a huge $5 million widening project on the intersection of Walnut and Mooney in the next few years and has probably only enough redevelopment assistance as a project itself will generate. If a new center can generate lots more sales the property becomes far more valuable and the increase in taxable value can be used to repay redevelopment.
It isn’t clear what will come out of this visit to Salt Lake City, but with Visalia deciding it wants its future retail close in - not out on highway 99 - the mall has a unique opportunity to capture trade and solidify its position as the number one shopping center in the trade area. If JP Realty asks too much of the city - more than it can afford - the city has no option but to turn them down. Trade then will go to so called power centers and Dillards could likely go down the street to Sequoia Mall which is on the up now and expanding.
Officials from the Visalia Mall along with those from Sequoia Mall were outspoken against the Kashian project noting the benefit of clustering regional retail on Mooney. JP Realty’s president, Rex Frazier, in a previous interview earlier this year confirms the mall would like to expand and suggested it had plenty of contacts with stores who would be possible participants. In recent months the mall owned restaurant property operated as Unos Pizzeria has closed and has not reopened providing an opportunity to the mall to reconfigure that space.
Other options have been mentioned in the past. Moving the Beech St. Post Office to allow more expansion that way. Buying the row of houses behind the mall, expanding over Walnut to the Orchard Supply block (Orchard would move). All expensive options.
Salomon is trying to get politicians and business leaders to listen to an idea to expand store square footage on Mooney by easing parking requirements at the sea of parking lots at Mooney shopping centers. How can he suggest that?
By allowing the employees at the big malls to park at COS - completely empty on the weekends when the biggest retail trade takes place - and riding a frequent shuttle up and down the strip. So far he says he hasn’t got anybody to salute on this idea. Salomon says he figures 10% of the cars at the centers are employees.
Salomon has been working on the mall expansion for awhile and there is some indication JP Realty’s expectation of assistance are too high. Visalia Mall is a wonderful property but it isn’t the only game in town. This week the council is discussing two other new shopping centers that would add at least another 60 acres of new retail to the city. Those locations are prime - on bare land - and far cheaper to build.
Now we’ll see if this high level delegation can bring home the
bacon for Visalia.
Visalia - Visalia Mayor Don Landers got a chance this week to suggest face to face that Governor Gray Davis consider “a four year facility in Tulare and Kings counties be considered for the largest under served population in California.” Landers says he got a chance to deliver the message both in writing and in person when he was one of a few who had the opportunity to address Davis in a question and answer session at this weeks economic summit in Fresno. The all day meeting was attended by local and state politicians and leaders appreciative of the fact Davis would come to this oft ignored part of the state.
“Just the fact Davis recognized the need of the summit is important,” says Landers, bringing with him all of his top staffers and department heads to the meeting November 30th at Selland Arena.
Davis made news by offering to fund the speed up of the UC Merced opening to 2004 as well as allowing residents to take UC Merced courses even before it opens at other colleges. As good a news as a new UC Merced is, that’s still a long way from Visalia or Tulare County rural communities of Woodlake, Lindsay or Tipton, all 2 to 2 ½ hour drives to Merced. “Even with this UC campus, there is a 100 mile stretch between Fresno and Bakersfield with no 4-year public university,” Landers told the governor.
In Tulare County a Visalia Chamber led task force is working to get more 4-year education close in Visalia including private schools like Chapman college who recently expanded. Member of the task force, COS President Kim Badrkhan, says he would favor a delegation of the task force to visit the governor who has suggested education is his top priority - to site a new CSU in the two county region. State colleges are a lot closer together than they are in the Valley over on the coast, says the COS president. He suggests that even a commitment by the governor to work on the idea would galvanize the south valley community. Responding to Landers’ statements, the governor suggested he would respond in writing.
In the meantime, both Landers and Badrkhan suggested we work with the Fresno State University to expand 4-year offerings at the Visalia campus. In addition, work continues to attract a UC Center to Visalia - something that Joe Castro, head of the UC Center Extension, says its in the cards.
Tulare and Kings counties are among the lowest regions in the state with the number of four year college graduates and level of education. “Research has proven that if you provide a 4-year school nearby, people will go,” says Badrkhan. Landers notes that if the mission of the governor is economic development, a college is a key. Companies come looking “for well trained workforce,” he says.
Landers notes that not only does Tulare County seem to lead
the state annually with double digit unemployment, but rural communities in
Tulare County generally suffer 40 to 50% unemployment. “You have to
show the leaders the facts,” he believes.
Visalia - Visalia’s second largest medical group - Kaweah Sierra Medical Group - will break up after the first of the year confirms board chairman Dr. Jim Foxe. “We’re all heading in different directions,” says Foxe, with each establishing private practices and a planned closure of the Court St. offices by February.
Foxe says the corporation’s assets are being liquidated to pay bills.
Foxe himself will go with Dr. William Roach establishing a new office in the Central Park office complex off Walnut. Drs. William Holvik and Ted Sobieralski will relocate to the 5 story medical building next to Kaweah Delta - 202 W. Willow. He says Dr. Mark Tetz will join Visalia Family Practice on Noble. Dr. Ihor Kalicinsky will move his practice to Tulare. Dr. Richard Jopling has not finalized plans.
Foxe says a letter will be going to patients in early December to notify them of the changes.
Foxe says the reduced fees offered, under managed care and the high overhead of a multi discipline medical office compounded to squeeze the Kaweah Sierra group like it has done across the state of California and indeed the nation.
Foxe says most of the doctors will continue to honor the Health Net plan that many KSMG patients have. Most have contracts through June, he says. “It will be weird to start over after 15 years,” says Foxe who says he “looks forward to a smaller more intimate medical practice,” even though he will have to administer the practice himself.
Dr. Foxe says the draw of the medical group was that dedicated physician, won’t have to worry about the money but simply practice medicine while letting staff carry out the business part of the practice. But reduced fees offered by HMOs to care for patients per head have squeezed physician groups, sending scores of them into bankruptcy.
“We hope that won’t happen to us, we have a lawsuit against it but hope it can be settled without bankruptcy.” Last year KSMG laid off their administrator and some doctors left the medical group. In recent years the group included specialists and primary physicians but all the specialists left the group to go on their own a few years ago. It was renamed KSMG Primary Care. The group was originally founded by doctors from Sierra Medical Group who practiced at the old Visalia Community Hospital before it was purchased by Kaweah Delta.
Dr. Ron Marconi who left the group in the past year to join
the Lifestyle Center says the founders of the Sierra Medical Group built Visalia
Community Hospital. The founders included Drs. Kleyn and Manuele - both
GPs who in the early 1970s brought in Drs. Ellis and Long, the now famous
OBs who practiced across the street.
Now that larger medical office across from the old hospital will be empty
as of February.
Marconi who helps manage the property says he doesn’t know if
it will be put up for sale or what. It’s designed for a big physician
group with two stories, 23 exam rooms and a score of office space. But
the big physician groups are in short supply these days.
Visalia - Recent cooperation between the city of Visalia and County over economic development plans in Goshen could lead to expansion of the Goshen Redevelopment district into Visalia city limits - a cross jurisdiction redevelopment zone. That expanded zone could take in portions of the Visalia Industrial Park suggests Visalia city manager Steve Salomon. “It’s something we would look at,” he says. Such a plan could have benefits for both entities says Billie Shawl, coordinator of the Goshen Planning Committee.
“Actually a joint venture was the original plan,” says County Planning Director George Finney who says they would take a fresh look at the idea.
The city of Visalia tried and failed to establish an industrial park redevelopment zone in 1998 after opposition from some property owners and suspicion over the intentions of the city sunk the project. The project was also criticized by some at the County for being too large that could have the threat of reducing county property tax revenues for a period of time.
But recent cooperative efforts to attract Leprino Foods to the area has the city of Visalia and Goshen redevelopment officials cooperating since Visalia has the sewer and Goshen has the redevelopment power. “It became clear Visalia could not compete with other communities that have redevelopment zones” in this competitive exercise of seeking to woo a large industry. Only a jurisdiction with the power of redevelopment can use its future tax revenues to subsidize a project making its start-up costs less.
Instead of fighting, the two entities are cooperating to land the big dairy processor who could hire 300 at a new $45 million plant. The rest of the competitors - Lemoore and Tulare - each are using their redevelopment power to package a deal for Leprino.
Now Salomon, for one, would like to see if the city can piggy back on Goshen’s redevelopment district that comes right to the city’s industrial park boundary along Goshen Ave. It is along this corridor on both the Goshen and Visalia sides that the case for blight can be made - a necessary finding under redevelopment law. An expanded redevelopment zone might be smaller than the zone proposed in 1998. One beneficiary of the joint zone could be Goshen Ave. itself that has been widened on the city side but needs lots of work on the Goshen side - up to freeway 99.
It seems clear that if some acreage from the city of Visalia could be included in the Goshen district, that Visalia would be in a cost/benefits sharing agreement with the County within the district. Such a tax sharing agreement was recently worked out on County Line Road with Delano over extension of water and sewer across the Tulare County line along with promises to share tax revenues from development on the Tulare County side with Delano.
Salomon says there is precedent for other City/County redevelopment zones including one in Orange County.
In the most recent agreements the city offered to make a grant request to the federal government to expand the Visalia sewer system. If Leprino would land in Goshen at a 65 acre site they are looking at, the $2 million hook up cost to the city of Visalia would be written off. In addition, the County submitted a grant application to pay for a $2.4 million project to extend Betty Drive over to Riggin in the Visalia Industrial Park and make other infrastructure improvements nearby. Making it easier to reach Highway 99 will benefit the Visalia Industrial Park which has been touted as the state’s premier distribution hub. The new access way would meet Plaza and Riggin - the location for a now expanded Mid State Distribution Center - Industrial Park now planned for 300 acres long term along Plaza.
“We already told the new city council we want to cooperate with them in anyway,” says Goshen’s Billie Shawl who is working with CalTrans on reconfiguring the Betty Dr. interchange long term that could benefit both Goshen and Visalia. “We share lots of concerns.” Goshen is in the midst of reworking their 22 year old community plan. “We’re rethinking lots of assumptions of the past,” says Shawl.
Sources say a joint ventured redevelopment district was seriously discussed with the city by County staff some years ago before the city decided to try to do one on their own. “Now the process is full circle,” says a County staffer.
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
December 1, 1999
