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The lawsuit from the well-respected judge sent the County scrambling to test for the presence of mold.  In April the County found Stachybotrys - a cluster the size of a softball growing in ceiling tiles in Krant’s office in the west wing of the building - an addition completed just 10 years ago.  The mold is known to grow on surfaces that are moist with a high cellulose content like drywall, sheetrock or ceiling tile.  The mold may create mycotoxins that can spawn cold/flu symptoms, nose bleeds, rashes, difficulty breathing, dizziness and nausea among other symptoms.

Meanwhile throughout the spring more people said they were feeling unexplained symptoms and began filing workman compensation claims.  Others said they couldn’t work.  Still others wondered if they should be tested to see if they had the mold present in their body.  The County carried out an extensive investigation but assured employees more than once that the court house is a safe environment.

This week staff shortage reached the point that the County was forced to close the clerks office of the Superior Court after 1 p.m. because it couldn’t handle the workload.  Whether mold problems are real or imagined “people aren’t coming to work,” says Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann.  He says 27 of the 84 employees of the court are off due to the alleged mold problem.  This week there were the following new developments:

• Vortmann says the judges, who are state employees, have asked the state attorney general to represent them and have hired their own environmental expert to review the County’s investigation of the situation.  Still Vortmann says despite a finding of one spore of the mold in his office on the third floor, “if I thought the place was unsafe I’d leave.”  Despite the assurance Vortmann is not a happy camper wondering what he has been breathing in for the past months.  He says he hopes their own investigation will be ready in a matter of weeks and “then we’ll take the next step.”  Vortmann asserts that “we need to get to the bottom of the problem” and says that deficiencies in the way the windows in the west wing of the building were installed has meant “rain pours in and soaks the carpet 2 to 3 feet out” at times.
Vortmann says the judges are concerned that the “maintenance and cleaning of the building overall is poor.”

Speaking for all the judges Vortmann says he believes the County isn’t doing enough to solve the problem.

• Superior Court Judge Darryl Ferguson says he has been feeling symptoms for sometime - suffering “breathing problems for more than a year” long before he heard about Judge Krant’s problem.  “They found mold in my department” near Judge Krant’s office.  Ferguson cites the water problems in the west wing saying “I’ve seen ceiling tiles hanging down with water pouring through” apparently related to improperly installed pipe connecting a boiler that constantly overflowed.  He says the County did finally fix that problem but the window leakage is another matter.  “We’ve demanded they fix it,” citing concerns about the computers and “they told us to get tarps for them.”

The judge has filed a liability claim with the County but doesn’t want to quit work.  “I love my job.”  Ferguson has been a judge since 1993.  He says he has been tested for the presence of the mold but is awaiting results.

Ferguson wonders if the ultimate solution for the growing crisis might be to hold court at another location - shut the building down since the problem is apparently throughout the building and clean up the mold problem for good.

• Superior Court Presiding Judge Patrick O’Hara confirms he too has had respiratory problems - a persistent cough that he is “being treated for by a number of physicians.”  As to what he plans to do about it O’Hara says “I’m weighing my options.”

• Krant’s attorney, Visalian Steven Williams, says his office now represents 75 employees of the County who work at the 600 person courthouse.  “There are more that want to sign up,” he says.  He says the employees come from all parts of the big building from the basement - elections dept. to the assessors office on the 1st floor.
As to Judge Krant’s situation, he says because of the way the law works they must file an administrative request with the County - expected to be turned down before going back to court where they file a “late claim.” They have to go through those steps before she can sue the County a judge ruled in June.  Williams says they feel her case will prevail.

Williams has attracted clients in part by offering to pay for the $1300 blood test for the presence of mold if the employees signs up on the lawsuit.  Employees covered by Blue Cross apparently can get the test under their health plan but HealthNet - the second plan employees have signed up with - doesn’t cover the test.
“People want to be tested - they are spending 8 to 10 hours daily in that building,” says Williams.

• That’s the position of over 80 lawyers who work for the County who have demanded in the past few weeks that the County pay for the blood test, says Berry Robinson, a deputy public defender with the County.  Robinson is the agent with the Tulare County Deputy Attorneys Association.  “We have a meet and confer with the County July 28 on the issue,” says Robinson.  Robinson says County employees “know there is a problem” but there is a whole lot of mistrust of the County over the issue.”

“People know how sick Judge Krant is.”  In the meantime, he faults the County’s Risk Management division for not being forthright.  He says they lost credibility after they put out 3 and 4 reports to employees chastising them “for their concerns.”  He says the County continues to find new mold growth arguing that the new mold is not the same variety that was found in Krant’s office.  “They are saying some molds are worse than others,” says Robinson.  Robinson says he understands the situation being a lawyer, that since Krant sued the County they must operate in a different mode.  “They are just trying to protect their butts.”  He says the association has filed a tort claim with the agency to protect individuals right to sue later.  The clock is ticking on the six month statue of limitations and “we want to file to protect our members,” he says.

Robinson says that “if it was up to me I would “evacuate” the building - shut it down for whatever time it takes to clean it.  The cost could be big, maybe $1 million, but that pales to potential liability here.”

He says many employees don’t want to join Wilson’s lawsuit, nor do they want to file claims with the County alleging injury but they are still concerned.  “Many can’t take time off because they need to put food on the table.”

Robinson says widespread mistrust of the County officials has been the legacy through the County department for the past few years, not just in the courthouse.

• The mold crisis is creating a judicial crisis in its wake, says private attorney Susan Gong Ennis, a family attorney from Porterville, says paperwork, claims and reports needed by the court are not being filed, that most mediators employed to assure many family law cases don’t end up taking up court time are out sick as well.  Ennis says her clients and private attorneys are suffering through this - “not just employees.”  Indeed Judge Vortmann says one reason they have decided to close the counter at 1 p.m. now is to catch up on paper work.  Public Defender Robinson says the case files that should be in the hands of judges in court hearings are often not there causing delays in court trials.  Vortmann says the backlog cases means civil cases may have to wait while they prioritize which cases cannot be delayed.
This week the Tulare County Grand Jury weighed in on the mold controversy saying “based on the facts before the Jury, maintenance at some county buildings has been deferred, probably to save money.  This seems to be a risky approach in terms of safety, employee protection and liability.”

• County Risk Manager Gregg Breed says that at press time 73 employees have filed workman’s comp claims with the County but that some of those people are still working.  He says there has been only two positive finding of the Stachybotrys mold and that was in Krant’s office and a small amount in a closet in the basement of the building.  The finding in Judge Vortmann’s office is believed to be a “false positive” he says.  The reports of the mold finds were of a different mold, he says.  “My biggest concern has been “is the workplace safe and our conclusion has been that it is,” he says.  “If the building is sick I’ll be the first to tell people.”  Breed says that the County has hired a new industrial hygienist to test for the existence of the mold.

While it continues to insist the courthouse is safe, sources that the County is considering other options that include court space available out at Sequoia Field in the detention facility - even using the old Cigna building that is now empty, and recently leased by the County for a job center that would open later this year.  There is precedent for shutting down a building plagued with these problems.  In the Midwest a federal courthouse was shut down due to mold.  In San Francisco this summer a 654 person 15-story apartment building associated with San Francisco State has been closed this summer to clean up a problem.

Still scientists say it is tough to prove that mold sickens employees and due to the variety of molds and individual reactions, it is hard to determine unhealthy levels.  Neither the EPA or the State of California tracks mold cases but CalOsha does intervene if worker safety is a factor.   However, some molds are proven health hazards and as it is with many toxic substances - the dose makes position.
Who owns the problem?  While the courts are paid for by state funds, it is up to the County to provide suitable quarters, notes Judge Bill Silvieria who says his biggest concern right now is “people aren’t showing up for work.”

What next? Prisoners who sue because they don’t want to be in holding cells there?  Or what is apparently already happening - - jurors who say they don’t want to serve because of the problem?  The next piece of the puzzle will be the court vs. the County over the adequacy of the investigation to date.  In the meantime - why not fix those windows?

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Visalia - Visalia’s busiest retailer wants to move off the biggest retail street in town in favor of a new 29-acre shopping center at Demaree and Caldwell.  Costco Wholesale has filed an application to build a new 148,000 sq. ft. store - a third larger than their current Mooney location.  But the project has a potential snag.

The shopping center Costco wants to locate in, is not zoned for regional retail uses like Costco, but for community commercial uses like grocery stores.  “That’s why Costco has filed for a general plan amendment and zone change on the center,” says city planner Steve Brandt.  The matter will be heard by the city planning commission and then likely the city council itself, promising another donnybrook over the future of regional retail growth in town.  The last controversy came when Fresno developer Ed Kashian sought to steer Costco off Mooney and out to 198 and Plaza.  But this Costco controversy will involve the future health of Mooney Blvd. if Costco were to leave.

“I think Mooney is the city’s ‘magic boulevard’ and the city council should nurture more development there,” says Gottschalks’ Visalia store manager Joe Pinto who just retired from his position with the company to pursue a consultant business.  “Clustering retail use on Mooney has been the city policy and it’s been a good one,” says Pinto, a perspective that has wide adherence at both malls on Mooney and supposedly a city policy saluted by all the city council.  “I’d call such a zone change a departure from current policy,” says mayor Don Landers.

Costco has been pushing their position in the past few months in Visalia.  One position is to expand where they are working with the city and the property owner.  Secondly, they are being wooed by developer Don Orosco for a site south of Packwood Creek on the west side of Mooney.  Thirdly, they had been talking with the developer of the master-planned 29-acre Granum Partners shopping center about their site.  Now Costco has apparently decided to take the plunge.

Planner Steve Brandt says the project would sit on nearly 15 acres, have a parking lot with some 700 cars and a large fueling station - probably the largest in Visalia.  Costco gas stations are popular to say the least, drawing a huge traffic load to wherever they are located.  It is the traffic impacts that some critics say the city should take a close look at.

Some believe that the south of Packwood Creek operation would be more time consuming and would be impacted by crowded conditions on Mooney. The city asked developers to limit the amount of new stores south of Packwood because of the poor level of service on Mooney.  CalTrans is undergoing a widening plan to six lanes in the next few years from Packwood north.  Developers like Orosco will be expected to put in Cameron - a street to relieve Mooney traffic that will connect to Caldwell on both the east and west.

Orosco says he has worked with Costco both here and at a center he is working on at the coast and finds they are unpredictable at times.

A spokesperson for Costco was not available at press time.  However, senior sales consultant Mike Mele, who is marketing the 29 acres for Granum, says the location is attractive for a number of reasons.  “They like the fact it is close to 99 and 198, the parcel is the right size for their large format store, it’s a controlled location with good access and it’s a good deal for them,” he says, unlike other sites, the site should not have any delays.”  “We’re only altering the approved plans for the center by adding 25,000 sq. ft. to approved uses up to 125,000 sq. ft.,” he says.  Mele works with Grubb and Ellis/Pearson Commercial.

The company has enjoyed robust sales in Visalia - reportedly over $100 million annually.  Their stock report says that the same store sales of the past year are up 9%.  Looking to add additional square footage, the store looks to a model 150,000 sq. ft. footprint that is easier laid out on open land rather than trying to remodel their Mooney store, sources say.

Such a relocation is just what happened in Modesto, say brokers, where the company left one 100,000 sq. ft. store in favor of a new location in town where they opened a 150,000 sq. ft. store in the last 60 days.

An issue with Visalia has been what happens to the company-owned property on Mooney if Costco vacates.  “You’re looking at creating a blighted center with lots of vacancies,” says a merchant considering opening at the shopping center.  The fear is that Home Base will be in trouble without the big partner next door.  But city council members say Costco has said they will bring in a tenant to take the huge space.  In the Modesto case they are still looking for such a tenant.
The Demaree/Caldwell site is attractive to Costco in part because it is an easy shot to both Tulare and Hanford - two of the big markets serviced by Costco.

Rumors that Costco would leave town if they aren’t given the location they want are not given much credence.  Such was the talk when Plaza and 198 shopping center was opposed and the word came that Costco would open in Tulare - a market 1/3 the size of Visalia.  “If they did that, Sam’s Club (owned by WalMart) would be here in a heartbeat,” says a retail broker.  The two warehouse stores are competitors.  Costco has 327 warehouses in the U.S. and other countries.  Annual revenues total $27 billion.

Granum Partners has been working with Zeeb Commercial on ten units for months, after a specific plan was approved by the Visalia city council, for a shopping center.  Granum built a center recently in Selma.  The company has reportedly been in talks with grocery stores and other commercial users.  But capturing Costco would be tremendous for the center since it can attract higher rents for leasing next door.

Planner Brandt says the application filed just this week is in its early stages and will need months of staff work and meetings before it shows up at the city council where it promises to be a hot potato.

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San Joaquin Valley - While we wait to see if a 200 mph High Speed Rail system in California ever comes to pass in our lifetime, Valley officials are prodding Amtrak to dramatically improve passenger rail service here in the next five years.  Sure, Amtrak might not be as glamorous as her imagined fleet-footed sister - she is a far cheaper da te for taxpayers and passengers alike, some say.  Instead of building all new track corridors throughout the state decades from now and spending an incredible $24 billion, we ought to dance with the girl that got us this far, goes the logic.  “I’d love to drive a Rolls Royce but I get along just fine with a Ford,” says Paul Bartlett a Fresno representative on the Valley rail panel.  Especially a “souped-up” Ford.

Governor Gray Davis has given scant support to the High Speed project in his latest budget offering only $5 million on a request of $25 million to the state High Speed Rail Authority to keep the doors of the agency open and carry on environmental studies on the proposed San Diego to the Bay Area and Sacramento rail route.
The issue of high speed rail will be debated in the legislature over the next year before deciding whether to put the ambitious project on the ballot where voters will have to decide whether to tax themselves to pay for it.

In the meantime, Valley officials want Amtrak - the passenger service that serves the state now - to make faster passenger service real and soon.  “Many of us believe the possibility of High Speed Rail happening is nil,” says Bartlett who sits on the San Joaquin Valley Rail Committee.  Bartlett authored a regulation that was passed unanimously by the advisory group earlier this month suggesting Amtrak do more in their current draft five year “Improvement Plan” adopted May 15.

Tulare at large representative on the panel Ty Holscher agrees.  “Its something that will never happen.  They are blowing lots of smoke.”  The committee reports to CalTrans who oversees Amtrak rail operations in the state.

Amtrak carries nearly three million passengers yearly on routes up and down the state.  The new plan suggests Amtrak wants to offer “frequent passenger service at speeds up to 125 mph over existing rail lines.”  That’s fine, says Bartlett but Amtrak is avoiding the “missing link” in the rail line statewide - “no connection between Bakersfield and Los Angeles.”  Amtrak officials have suggested such a link will be up the High Speed rail officials since that is part of their plan.  But Bartlett and others believe Amtrak is avoiding the subject and that with likelihood of high speed rails’ success the state and Amtrak ought to look at bridging the gap themselves.

Bartlett suggests the route over the Tehachapis owned by Union Pacific is not the best but suggests an “aqueduct route” into the Lancaster area from the Valley - at a cost of $3 to 4 billion to build.  In addition, the Valley group is asking Amtrak to increase the amount of double tracks in the Valley to handle more trains.  “Doubling the track means 4 times as many trains can run,” notes Bartlett, “it’s exponential.”
More double tracks and a rail route to LA would help clear car and truck congestion because more freight and passenger trains could run simultaneously.   Truck traffic clogs Highway 99 today making up as much as 35% of the vehicles plying the busy corridor.  Rail advocates say much of truck traffic destined for LA or the Bay Area can be piggy-backed on trains.

Bartlett says when the public pays for a double track to be built next to a private track, the cost could be reimbursed by the private railroad by leasing the line back to the railroads built by public dollars.

Governor Davis has yet to weigh in on what direction to take in the improving of rail service, but does suggest that rail will play an important role in relieving congestion in cities and highways.  Davis is expected to make wholesale changes on the state High Speed Rail Authority which remains dominated by Wilson appointees.  The new appointees could adopt a more moderate “incremental approach” to fixing the rails rather than build a new $24 billion all new corridor in the Golden State.

New federal funds are expected to be approved in congress this year that could mean an extra $3 billion in federal funds for the state rail corridors.

The Amtrak draft plan suggests ridership will grow by 79% in the next five years, that travel time will be reduced 20% to 25%.  Already in the new budget, 70 miles of new double track will be funded along the BNSF route between Bakersfield and Oakland, 20 miles of that is between Bakersfield and Hanford.  The plan says by 2005 there will be five daily round trips between Bakersfield and Oakland, two between Bakersfield and Sacramento and a new service to San Jose.

Holscher says Tulare County could be served by a small commuter rail going up the Union Pacific line (Highway 99) connecting Bakersfield with Fresno.  “That would be a lot more convenient for local people and boost Amtrak passenger ridership,” he says.  “Local cities might want to form a joint powers agreement” to push the state for funding and Union Pacific to let passenger trains again use the tracks.  Holscher says he believes Governor Davis who advocates commuter rail might be apt to support less expensive options like improving Amtrak.

Currently rail passengers from Tulare County have to travel to Hanford to catch the train to Oakland.  Going to LA on rail hasn’t occurred to most people since the train stops in Bakersfield.  Folks have to take the bus to LA just like they have since the Dust Bowl.

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Tulare County - It may not be a coincidence that Tulare Irrigation District chose a political year to resolve their chronic water woes problem.  The irrigation district has been losing water transported from ten miles away in the Kaweah Delta area from the Friant Kern Canal for decades.  The earthen canal brings federal irrigation water from the high sierra on the San Joaquin river into this water short basin.  As the canal winds its way from east of Venice Hill into the rich oak studded Kaweah Delta near Farmersville into eastern Visalia and on to Tulare it leaks, providing both a benefit for water users and a financial pinch for TID.

Until a few years ago Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District helped TID by paying a yearly fee to the agency.  But when the federal government raised the price of water 10 times, the reimbursement stopped and the board of the water agency figured the best thing to do was to cement the canal to prevent the loss of what they say amounts to $300,000 a year.

Opposition to the plan, in the works for the past two years, to line the canal has been building with property owners along the canal, environmentalists concerned about the wildlife, trees and the big nature preserve adjacent the canal and even critics like the city of Visalia who filed suit earlier to force TID to do a new EIR on the $10 million project.

That lawsuit was settled but the court battles are not over.  Currently the rhetoric is heating up as the TID board is being urged to agree to a funding mechanism that would reimburse them for their losses and at the same time the clock is ticking on a construction date in September when the canal work must start to be completed in the off season irrigation season.  “We need to make a decision and without money on the table we’re building the canal,” says board member Tom Clark.  “We’re just plain running out of time.”

Enter the politics.  Being heavily lobbied to broker a deal is congressman Cal Dooley who faces a tough race of his own this November - a man with ties to both Tulare and Visalia.  Dooley’s latest effort presented to TID early in July was to offer a guaranteed 10 year payment schedule that would provide more certainty that federal payment to offset the cost of lining the canal would be made.

 Engineer Dennis Keller had designed a reimbursement schedule that would have paid the cost of the lost water by funding a conservation easement through the federal Bureau of Reclamation that would have meant the old canal would become a linear wildlife preserve.  The plan had gained momentum when TID suggested without certainty that is not part of annual appropriations out of congress the idea while inventive, was not acceptable.  The logic of such a deal makes sense in that TID like other Friant Water contractors pays in to an “environmental fund” every season to restore the environment.  “The reimbursement would be essentially getting back part of what we pay in,” argues Gerald Hill the TID manager.

Again the problem is lack of certainty.  That’s what both Dooley and congressman George Radanovich are trying to broker with the agency to rebate a portion of the monies back to TID - a solution that apparently would make everyone happy.
Even Brian Blain, leader of the POWER group that is currently lobbying to stop the canal lining, says the only solution is to reimburse TID for their loss and worries the rhetoric is getting out of hand on both sides.  But TID members were angered this week then the board members of TID were singled out in a full page ad, paid for by POWER, in the Times Delta with their home addresses and phone numbers.

The POWER group has been making rounds to the Exeter city council where they got support against the project and in a few weeks to the Farmersville city council where they hope to get a resolution against the project as well.  They’ve got speakers going to local civic groups on the Visalia Chamber and this week to the Board of Supervisors.  Also this week Visalia city council member Jim Harbottle came out swinging against critics of the city who fault them for settling (he opposed a settlement however) but saved the best salvos for TID.  In a prepared statement Harbottle said “TID seems hellbent on changing the character of this waterway, regardless of who gets hurt or how much havoc is created with the fragile ecosystem involved.”   Harbottle says he would like the city to host a public meeting on the matter despite the fact they don’t have jurisdiction.  He urges the County to do also, but this week the supervisors said they too have no control.

Some critics have suggested the only way for TID to recover the cost of a $10 million expense is to sell water out of the basin.  They claim that the canal TID uses was a natural creek at one time and that the canal carried Kaweah water that naturally percolate along with federal water.  Property owner Tom Mitts has a suit awaiting the issue of whether the creek bed predates the building of the canal that he figures would give him and other property owners along the way riparian rights.  Concerned about dropping water table in a drought year are highlighting the issue for critics of the lining.  POWER members are working to get business support from builders who they say should be worried that Visalia water supply will be affected by the lining and that home builders will suffer.

But this week the biggest problem seems to be that TID has raised the ante asking that if any deal is made they be reimbursed the $3.5 million they have spent on the project so far and receive annual payment of $450,000 instead of $300,000 as they said before.

At press time Blain says the POWER group and Dr. Mitts have filed their appeal of the CEQA lawsuit and have asked Judge Robbie for a stay that would halt the project.  But Blain says he counts on a political solution, an assessment that may include the city of Visalia, KDWCD, property owners but the lions share being the Bureau of Reclamation who both raised the water prices and now can give some of it back to keep this political environment from exploding in the next few months.

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Visalia - Just a few lines from the U.S. Attorney is making George Ouzounian’s day, says his attorney, Dale Bruder.

A letter, obtained by the Voice, dated July 14 says Ouzounian “has been removed as a target or subject of any federal grand jury investigation” and is signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Cullers, based in Fresno.

Ouzounian was caught up in last fall’s election controversy over an alleged cash offer made in a Visalia coffee shop to candidate Wendy Thomason.

At the time Ouzounian denied any improper offer was made in exchange for support for the Kashian project, which he represented.

Still the controversy was a major issue in the city council election that saw the defeat of Wally Gregory who used his friend Ouzounian as his campaign treasurer and the ascending  of Wendy Thomason who won a seat on the council.

Later a federal probe of the incident and related events and weekly headlines of who testified at the Fresno grand jury offices painted a picture of possible wrong doing by the Visalia real estate broker.

Now, months later, Ouzounian feels vindicated, says Bruder who has advised his client not to speak up just yet.  Bruder says “it’s unusual for the U.S. Attorney to write such a letter.”  In many cases of investigation by a grand jury the potential target’s name is never cleared but the issue just kind of fades away.

“The fact that a grand jury investigation has gone on for months and the fact that it has a low evidence threshold shows there was no case against my client.”

Asked if he has heard from the federal grand jury himself, former mayor Wally Gregory says no - “I’ve never talked to them.”  Thomason had made it clear last fall she never thought Gregory’s re-election campaign had made any offer.

Ouzounian has told friends that the controversy went on for months hurting his business and his pride as a long-time Visalian.

Whether Ouzounian’s actions in the campaign were a mistake or not, the U.S. Attorney is apparently saying they were not illegal.

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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.