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Bassett says the evaluation of the superintendent “is nothing unusual” a matter that needs to be done annually around this time every year.  He says Board clerk Rick Wehmueller will be gathering board members evaluations and the matter is likely to take two board meetings to read and allow the superintendent to respond.  The Board meets again November 16th, the new Board won’t take office until December.

Bassett says Gonzales’ contract calls for a one year extension on the contract if she gets a satisfactory evaluation.  He says that one year extension, if granted, would be announced at the November 16th meeting, if however, the evaluation was not satisfactory the Board could put her on one year probation and offer a listing of items that need correction.  Then the matter would be revisited in a year.  The only other option he says is for the Board to buy out her contract.

Bassett says the last time he was involved in an evaluation was with former superintendent Sharon Tucker.  Then he was one of the new wave of school board members brought in to make changes.

Now Bassett finds himself on the other side of the coin and dealing with a new superintendent who for better or worse became an election issue.  Regarding a series of charges that surfaced over the now infamous “hit-list” document, Bassett says they are “not sitting on our laurels - we have an investigation going.”

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Tulare County - Now that the dust from the recent election night has cleared - there is another race to think about.

Former Visalia mayor Peter Carey will run against incumbent Bill Maze for Board of Supervisors in a race scheduled for March 7th.  Carey says “I will be taking out papers to run November 4th” from the county clerks office.  He then has turn those nomination papers back in early December to make the race official.

Carey is an executive director of Self Help Housing and a public servant with the Planning Commission for five years, a council member in Visalia from 1989 to 1993 and the town’s mayor from 1991 to 1993.

Carey says he is “anxious to improve relations between the City and County.” He said he would detail more issues when the race gets underway.  “I have to begin working to form a campaign committee,” says Carey who also must decide between running here and accepting a possible offer from Governor Davis to run the state’s housing agency.  The nomination has been tied up for months along with hundreds of others in Sacramento.  Carey says when he runs he will notify Davis’ office to remove his name from consideration.

“It would be just as well since I’d really like to remain in Visalia where my kids go to school,” says Carey.  Carey has been active in supporting recent bond issues and on the School Bond Oversite committee.

Carey is married to Cathy and has three kids.  He moved to Tulare County in March 1974 coming here as a VISTA volunteer - an anti poverty program.  He has spent time as a Peace Corp volunteer in Africa.

 Carey will not have to face council member Don Landers who has been weighing a run against Maze as well.  At press time Landers said he has decided not to run hoping to dedicate his time to the city council.  He is the current vice mayor and has a shot to be nominated for mayor as senior council member.  “If asked I would be proud to serve,” as mayor says Landers.

Carey also has the support of former probation officer Don Fielding who has been outspoken on criminal justice issues.

Bill Maze is not taking any of this news lying down, however.  Maze will formally announce his own candidacy Tuesday, November 9th at the Visalia Elks Lodge hall in Visalia.

In a second race Lindsay supervisor Bill Sanders faces an apparent bid from businessman Greg Shirk.  The district includes much of east Visalia.

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Visalia - No election incumbent was left standing in this week as both mayor Wally Gregory in the city council race and two veteran school board members, Louie Montion and Nina Clancy, were all handily defeated.

In the school board election three new members will take their seats in early December, Robert Stephenson, the top vote getter with 6546 votes, Larry Jones who took in 5967 votes and Niessen Foster with 5211.  The two incumbents in the race were far back with Clancy getting 3587 and Montion 2854.  It was about as close to a trouncing as you get.
In the city council race challenger Bob Link, a longtime downtown Visalia merchant and business woman Wendy Thomason out-polled Gregory.  With two seats open, Link got 8485 votes followed by Thomason with 5483.  Gregory was third with 3889 - defeated in his bid for a third time on the council.  Bob Link said to the stunning victory - “I’m overwhelmed.  I appreciate the confidence of the voter.  I think they are saying they want the direction of the city should go along the lines I outlined with the campaign.”  Primary on that list was support for the 2020 growth plan.

Amazingly Link polled some 3 out of every 4 votes cast.

Thomason - a Visalia Planning Commissioner - says of her upstart victory that “I’m on top of the world.  Walking precincts I could tell we had a chance,” she says.  Regarding the growth issue Thomason says “all segments of the community need to be heard on the issue - not just the special interests.”  Regarding whether she would vote to bring in a new retail store, Thomason told the Voice that she wants to study proposals for new development to insure it’s not just a “tax shift.”

Gregory told the Voice that “I thought it would be tight, but the way it turned out its OK.”  He says he guesses the fact that there was lots of anti-incumbent sentiment in town - on the same ballot with controversial school board race, the growth issue and some of the things Wendy said “all hurt me.”

He says he’s been spending more time at his business “and on the coast” where he owns a beach house. “I won’t be involved in the city but I wouldn’t mind volunteering, like for DARE,” he says.

Gregory says he is concerned that the election didn’t sent the message that Visalia is against growth “because that would hurt us.”

Gregory says he will be on hand to hand over his seat next week along with retiring council member Evan Long who decided not to run again.

Development interests have waited until the election is over to sort out their location strategy in town and now a number of projects are likely to be submitted to the city.  They include a new plan at the Paynter shopping center at Walnut and Mooney, a south of Packwood plan brought forward by developer Don Orosco and issue of the sale of 30 plus acres for a proposed shopping center at Akers and 198.  If there is anything certain after the results of this election it is that the 60 acre Kashian project at Plaza and 198 is deader than a doornail.

It was this issue that appeared to hurt Gregory’s reelection bid.

The new council will be sworn in at a special meeting of the city council November 8 at which time the council will select a new mayor and vice mayor to lead the next term.  Don Landers is the vice mayor currently.

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San Joaquin Valley - Across the cornucopia of crops grown in the richest ag region in the world there is a pall over many of the commodities - but not all - and mostly family farmers that grow them.  In many cases the big problem farmers face is over production or what they charge is leveling an unlevel playing field.  (Olives/NY produce scam).

Tied in as we are to a global marketplace many commodities growers here are under pressure because of a worldwide glut of produce.  From cotton to corn, pork to nuts world prices are weighing heavy on Valley farmers big and small.  This past week it was the big guys who were forced to announce how painful it was.

The nation’s second largest private company - behind Cargill-Koch Industries owns the nation’s largest animal feed company - Purina Mills.  Last week century old Purina Mills declared bankruptcy hurt by the collapse in the hog industry and depressed pork prices.  Purina Mills - their familiar checkerboard logo is one of the most recognized in the nation’s farm belt - was hit not only because hog farmers cut back on their feed and reduced their herds, but by the fact that Purina Mills financed many growers.

The company cited its huge debt and reduced demand overseas for pork in Asia and Latin America in the past year.  Pork producers across the Midwest have gone out of business in record numbers and California’s pork producers have been hurt as well.
If pork producers have been hurt, so have the nation’s cotton farmers facing another poor year with record low world prices for their commodity.

Field crop alternatives such as corn have had decade low prices posted as well.  Cotton has been California’s largest crop by acreage although that acreage number has plunged in recent years.

As the farmers have pulled their cotton they’ve planted alternative crops that some say have helped glut the commodity market simply trading one headache for another.  Case in point is almonds.

This fall a record almond crop is forecast at 830 million lbs.   Farmers are facing a large crop with smaller size nuts estimated at half the price the nuts fetched last year and below the break even price.  UC ag economist Jerry Siebert calls the crops the worst glut we’ve seen.”  The oversupply is likely to continue because there is an estimated 100,000 acres of almonds coming on line in the next few years.

In Tulare County there are some 13,000 acres of almonds - less than half the acreage of the other fall nut crops here, walnuts.

Walnuts, too, face a record crop yield and ideal growing conditions, says Jim Hamilton a Visalia grower and dehydrator.  “We’re expecting about 280,000 tons,” says Hamilton - boosted by yields that can easily reach 2 to 2.5 tons per acre, he reasons.  But with prices of nuts at $1.40 per lb. they may be just a bit above production costs.  He says lots of new acreage is coming on line in the next few years helping to increase the surplus.

If the fall nut crop is a problem for many, for olive growers “it’s an outright disaster,” says farm advisor Manuel Jimenez.  That’s because there are fewer canners in the olive processing business and those that are left won’t take any olives from small farms below 20 acres.  In Visalia, Early California Foods has shut down and in Madera Oberti has closed, hurt by a flood of foreign olives coming into the US.  The decision by the remaining canners is forcing growers to pull their trees this year.  “Small farmers had better wake up,” says Jimenez.  “What if this happened in other tree fruit,” he wonders.  Small farm acreage is the backbone of the eastside of the Valley.

Strathmore olive grower Roberto Velasquez says his family has farmed the same place for 70 years.  “We lost a lot when Lindsay Olive went out” in the early 1990s. Now with further consolidation in the olive industry in California the industry went from 4 canners to 2 this year.  “The market is now closed to us,” says the 67 year old farmer since both canners say they won’t take olives from farmers with 20 acres and under.  Velasquez has some 10 acres.  Instead Velasquez says he was forced to sell to a middleman who also owns olives who does have a contract with Musco (one of the packers).

But Velasquez had to sell his crop at a fraction of the price it would fetch in an open market, he says.  “I’ve lost about 50% of my meager income,” he says.  “I’ve written to Ag Secretary Glickman and other Senators but they tell me there is nothing they can do.”
The real problem, says Velasquez “is foreign dumping of cheap olives into this country.”
Low prices for hay have helped dairy and livestock producers, but hay growers call the slump in prices the worst in recent memory.  The San Joaquin Valley Hay Growers Association says mild weather, low grain prices and increased plantings have contributed to the low prices, which may affect farmers’ incomes through next year.  Forecasters predict a 4 percent increase this year in California’s crop of alfalfa hay.

Only on the dairy does the law of supply and demand go by the wayside unless it’s simply that the rest of the nation’s diary industry contracts while we continue to expand.  One analyst has suggested that the California dairy industry will some day supply all the nation’s milk.  Tulare and Kings counties supply more than a third of the state’s total now.

At JG Boswell - the state’s largest cotton farmer - they decided to pull out 7,000 acres of cotton this past year to market it for new dairies that could bring in 55,000 cows.  Whether the company is successful or not it demonstrates why some farmers are ready to sell out to developers and pave over about half this valley - maybe that’s the way to reduce this never ending surplus.

“I’m afraid that agriculture is very good at oversupplying the world,” worries Jimenez.
Even in grapes this season farmers in the southern San Joaquin are facing flat demand and increased supply,says Barry Bedwell, president of Allied Grape Growers.  The 550 member grower organization produces grapes mostly for the wine industry.  Across the state there has been a tremendous increase in acreage in wine grapes.  “That’s fine for the central Coast growers who make wine that goes into bottles costly $7 or more,” says Bedwell.  “But in the Valley the increase in production has led to flat sales,” he says.  There is good prospect that there will be a large crop next year, worries Bedwell.  Indeed statewide an additional 120,000 acres of wine grapes will come on line in the next few years.  “Farmers are getting the message pretty strongly this year,” says Bedwell citing the example of the price they are getting for southern San Joaquin Cabernet Sauvignon  this year.  “In 1998 growers were getting $650 to $1000 per ton for this popular red grape.  That same grape this year is fetching only $225 to $600.”

The bleak picture for farmers here translates into loan trouble for banks and empty seats at local restaurants as farmers make-do this harvest season.  Like the rest of freeze damaged 1999 - they’ve got the commodity blues.

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Tulare County - Many Tulare County orange packing houses went back to work this week as early navels primarily from Kern County flowed in, says Lenord Craft, the Tulare County Ag Commissioner.  The new crop comes after a year when most of the navel oranges in the County were ruined by a devastating freeze near the Holidays of 1998.  California Division of Food and Agriculture figures project an 80 million carton crop is on the trees - a 90% increase over last year’s dismal returns.  This year’s crop is late, large and relatively small size, says Craft - at least to date.

The Freeze of 98/99 probably caused the local economy $1 billion in direct loses, says Joel Nelsen, Citrus Mutual general manager.  Direct loses to growers were half a billion, he says.  “This year’s crop looks good - and tastes good,” says Nelsen who says consumers can expect some navel oranges in the supermarket for Thanksgiving.

Picking of Tulare County’s navel crop is not likely to begin in earnest until late this month and many workers expect to go back to work full-time in January.  The loss of work has put a damper on the County economy for most of the year.  Oranges are grown on over 100,000 acres in the County - the state’s top orange producer. The industry employs better than 25,000 people mostly on the County’s east side.

The orange packing industry in the valley is centered in Tulare County where there are some 60 packing houses, while only a few are located in either Kern or Fresno counties.
The fear of another freeze this year haunts the industry as another La Nina dry pattern has set in this fall.  The spectacle of icicles hanging from the very symbol of a warm Mediterranean climate - California oranges - sends shivers through the locals.
UC Farm advisor Manuel Jimenez says “we need rain now” to provide moisture to the soil prior to Christmas to protect the citrus crop.  Through early November warm dry weather has predominated over the Central Valley as storms are pushed away by lingering high pressure.

“Bad freezes in the 1990s have shown this pattern,” says Jimenez, leading up to a sudden cold spell around the holidays, just as winter is official.

“There is lots of concern in the industry about a cold winter,” says Nelsen.  “If cool temps mean lots of 32 degree days that’s one thing.  It’s the extreme fluctuation down below 25 degrees that worry us.”  Nelsen doesn’t think there is much a grower can do to moisten their soil since most are on low volume drip.

Weather officials have said a La Nina pattern of cooling Pacific waters may mean not only less rainfall for mid California but a chance for variable cold weather.  On the other hand, rain moderates the extreme cold temps.  Orange growers consider the unpopular Tule fog a friend since it keeps winter temps relatively warm.

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In what could be a huge scam on valley produce shippers, 8 USDA Ag inspectors face bribery charges at Hunts Point Terminal in New York City it was announced in recent days.  The charge is that fruit inspectors routinely took bribes from wholesalers to downgrade the rating of the shipments.

The alleged wrong doing was uncovered in an FBI and Agriculture Department operation that lasted two and one half years and was named Operation Forbidden Fruit.  Officials said the bribery may have gone on for the past 20 years.  Some 13 wholesale people were arrested as well.  The NY terminal is one of the nation’s largest.

The issue is a huge one for local growers, says Tokkie Elliot, principle with Wileman Brothers and Elliot of Cutler.  “We believe this practice is widespread across the nation,” says Elliot who has routinely seen shipment of fruit inspected at the shipping end and given a higher grade than when it arrives across the country.  “It may have cost our own company $2 million with our two commodities (oranges and stone fruit) over the past 20 years.”

Elliot says the western grower is at the mercy of the wholesaler and Ag inspector at the other end to be honest and fair, but that hasn’t happened too often.  “There is lots of money at stake and it costs a lot to live in New York City.”  Inspectors and wholesalers work shoulder to shoulder in the workplace month after month and it is the grower at the other end of the country who is on the outside.  The system protects the buyer and not the farmer, he believes.

Tulare County Ag Commissioner Lenord Craft says he has heard complaints in the industry this year about oranges inspected here and found to be at grade were inspected at the other end and found to have freeze damage.  “It looked good to our people,” he says.  County inspectors had to certify that fruit did not have too much damage to be shipped.

Secretary of Ag Glickman commented he was appalled by the news but emphasized that the 8 produce inspectors were a small part of the 100,000 USDA employees.
Elliot believes there may be a need to balance the views of shipping and receiving inspectors.  If a load of fruit is downgraded thousands of miles away the grower doesn’t have many choices, says Elliot.  A $15 box can cost $5 a box to ship back, he says.
Some growers say they are considering lawsuits to recover their losses over the years.

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The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher. 

 

November 3, 1999