Valley Of The Poor
Dooley Pushes For New Markets Tax Breaks

San Joaquin Valley - If the San Joaquin Valley were a struggling third world country - we would have a pretty good argument for the need for foreign aid.  Truth is - in many ways we are.

We are a valley of contrast.  If the eight counties of the Central Valley were considered one state, we’d be the number one ag state in the nation, but also the state with the highest unemployment and 49th out of 50 in per capita income.

In a nation experiencing a 4% unemployment rate and boom times across the US, the Valley stands in marked contrast with a 98' rate at over 13% and higher in some parts.  Our own Tulare County in March 2000 suffers from 19% unemployment a year after recovery from the freeze.  That number was second highest in California.  Indeed, 19% doesn’t tell the story in many small farmworker based communities like Earlimart, London and Cutler where unemployment routinely stands above 35%.

Recognizing that some areas of the US had been “left behind” during good economic time, President Clinton has embarked on a series of cross country tours to highlight a legislative proposal to provide tax breaks to areas who suffer isolation, persistent poverty and low school test scores.  Clinton has visited Watts, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, East St. Louis and the Mississippi Delta last year championing the need to invest in both inner cities and rural areas.  Last month he continued the tours even on the same trip he visited California to declare a national monument here - he traveled on to East Palo Alto to encourage private industry to partner up with the government to help bridge the “digital divide” on access to the Internet.  He went on to North Carolina pointing to the high 7% unemployment there.  In Tulare County where unemployment has been about 16% average for the past decade - we would have a party with a 7% rate.

Now, Democratic Congressman Cal Dooley who represents portions of Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties, is on a mission to convince Clinton the next tour stop should be the Central Valley - an indication of administration support for including this region in what now has grown to a $15 billion bipartisan tax proposal that is likely to be funded this coming budget year.

Dooley prepared an economic profile of the San Joaquin Valley in February of this year and submitted it to Clinton hoping the busy president listens.   “We’re in great need,” says Dooley who submitted the new profile of the valley as “new Western Appalachia” referring to a February 99' National Journal article.  That piece suggested the valley has grown a “large permanent culture of deep rural poverty whose face may change from one wave of immigrant to the next, but whose condition never improves.”  Ironically, Appalachia in West Virginia’s high unemployment rate is 6.6% -half the valley average.

The profile report submitted to Clinton suggests among other things that the region has consistently the highest unemployment rate in the state, the highest number of children living in poverty (Tulare 37%, Fresno 36%); the greatest number of births to teens; highest dropout rate; lowest reading scores.  Our per capita income is $18,689 - the lowest nationwide behind Mississippi who remains $600 behind.  The report notes that the need to diversify the economy and pressure to maintain our agricultural character are often in a tug of war with a back drop of an expected 1.8 million additional residents expected to live here in the next 20 years.

Our youth population is especially vulnerable.  The Dooley figures show fully 62% of children and infants in the County are eligible for the federal WIC program based on low income needs.  Fully 25% of our children have limited English proficiency according to the State Department of Education.  While the number of children living in poverty in the County is 37% (ages 0-17) the number of young children (0-4) in poverty is higher - nearly 45%.

The profile is convincing that if Clinton and Congress want to earmark monies in this a time of federal surplus - “based on need there is no more deserving region,” says Dooley.  Not wanting to raise expectation, Dooley has not trumpeted the possible tax designation but there are indications he is making progress.  “We understand there were meetings on a cabinet basis last month,” says Dooley who expects “something is going to come out of this.”  That something could mean a visit this summer by Clinton and support for inclusion of the Valley on the list he will submit to congress when they take up the New Markets bill.  Last November Clinton and Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert agreed to move forward together to support the New Markets proposal.

That proposal calls for $15 billion of investment in Community Development entities - public private partnerships where a business investment in a census tract would get 25% tax credit.  The proposal says the federal funds will generate $3 of private investment for every one dollar of federal money.  Even with support from Clinton, a designation would have to go through a competitive process to be funded - not unlike the recent empowerment zone rounds.  The proposal would also increase the number of empowerment zones - adding 10 new ones this coming fiscal year and increase the benefits within the zones that are already designated.

Dooley’s profile suggests a model for a public private partnership is the Fresno-based Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART) program.  The CART program is a partnership that includes Clovis/Fresno school district and a number of private partners who funded an education center set to open soon to help train students in high tech skills.

While Tulare County communities enjoy some state incentives to offer industry to expand here, federal tax breaks - especially tax credits that come off the amount of tax a company pays Uncle Sam - are the plum.  If the government is prepared to fund private/public partnerships - a local agency in Tulare County for example - needs to gear up to fill the bill.  The Tulare County Business Incentive Zone (BIZ) already offers site state tax benefits to qualified communities.  A New Markets designation would likely not include more prosperous census tracts like Visalia, but would include places like Goshen and most of the rest of the County.

A recent University of California report on demographics suggests that by the year 2050 US population is projected to increase 50% while California doubles its population.  Immigration is a part of the reason. Currently immigration accounts for one third of the US growth while in California it accounts for 74%.  The National Journal article suggests the one reason there is high poverty in rural areas is that in the past few years enforcement against illegal immigration has prompted Mexicans, who had historically returned to their home, to stay here permanently filling small rural towns like Earlimart and Huron.

Cynics will tell you that Dooley and Clinton’s motivation have more to do with the fact this is a political year with pronouncement about tax breaks.  Clinton is not popular here anyway and his recent Sequoia Monument proposal has made some angry even blamed for a likely loss of jobs here in the timber industry.

But it may take a political year - and year with a projected $210 billion federal surplus to break loose the money to provide incentives to a part of California where the great divide is tangible.  In fact, it may be only in a political year you can get politicians to move off the dime. 

---

College Eyes Downtown
by Miles Shuper

Visalia - San Joaquin Valley College is growing and company officials are exploring even more plans including the possibility  of moving corporate headquarters to downtown Visalia, opening a fifth campus and even developing a four-year bachelor’s degree program.
Mike Perry, president and co-owner of the private college, told the Voice this week that efforts already are underway to develop a four-year degree program for such professions as dental care, teaching, nursing and related fields. He said the college is committed to the project for five to six years but added that it might happen considerably sooner.
SJVC currently has campuses in Visalia, Bakersfield and two in Fresno.
Another growth option SJVC is considering is relocating its corporate headquarters from its current location north of Highway 198 near Plaza Drive to a downtown site. Perry said the company is looking at the former Visalia Municipal Court building at Church and Center streets which has been declared surplus property by Tulare County. Perry said one option would be to use the 32,600 square foot property to house its corporate headquarters and the San Joaquin Training Institute (SJTI),
Eventually, Perry said, the company could opt to clear the downtown site and construct a multi-level headquarters. He said moving SJVC headquarters downtown would provide employees and students access to retail shopping and restaurants within walking distance.
On May 16, Tulare County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to open sealed bids for the property with minimum bid set at $500,000, according to Jim Larsen, the county ‘s assistant director of resource management.
Perry did not say if the SJVC has submitted a bid.  Sources say a restaurant is also looking at the site.  The county designated the site as surplus after receiving no interest from government agencies and other non-profit entities including the City of Visalia, the Visalia Unified School District, the Tulare County Department of Education, the Tulare County Housing Authority.
Larsen said the building, most recently used as the county’s juvenile court, has an 11,000 square foot main floor and a 1,000 square foot basement. The site contains 50 parking spaces.
The building was constructed in 1965. Larsen said his research found that in 1919 the Visalia Masonic Lodge occupied the site and later the county’s road department was located there until it was moved to the current county court house built in 1957,
Larsen did not say if any bids for the site have been received, explaining that bids for surplus property usually are submitted close to the deadline. When bids are opened by the supervisors, oral bids can be accepted by the board. They must be a minimum of 5 percent of the highest written bid, he explained.
Perry said SJVC’s interest in the downtown site is being weighed against expansion of the highway 198 site.  Additional expansion is coming to that site but enrollment growth and other factors will be weighed  before a final decision on how much and how soon is made.
SJVC currently has campuses in Visalia, Hanford, Bakersfield and Fresno and is ready to expand into San Jose with a dental health campus, Perry said. This week he returned to Visalia after a fourth trip to seek a lease site for the fifth campus. The company is looking for a site in the 15,000 to 20,000 square foot category. They are extremely costly and becoming much harder to locate, Perry said. On each of his four site location trips, Perry said, the cost gets higher and the sites less appealing. Company officials hope to find a site soon, he said.
Concerning the attempt to offer a four-year degree program at SJVC, Perry said only one  other private business college , Humphries College in Stockton, offers upper divisions degrees. Humphries, which offers law and related business degrees, is over 100 years old, Perry said.
San Joaquin Valley College is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, an instructional accrediting body recognized by the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation and the U.S. Department of Education. 

---

Ruiz Foods To Grow

Dinuba - Dinuba-based Ruiz Foods plans a major expansion of its Dinuba plant adding an estimated 65,000 sq ft of cold storage, retrofitting the plant and its cooling system, relocating the main entrance of the facility and pushing through a new street in the Suarbain industrial park.  The plant would add an additional 400 employees to the existing workforce of about 1100 currently, say Dinuba city officials.  City manager Ed Todd says the cold storage facility is valued at about $5 million while the current remodeling of the facility now underway is valued at $1.5 million.  The company said they could not comment until construction contracts are awarded later this week.
Ruiz Foods makes a variety of frozen Mexican food entrees including the new taquito varieties pictured above.  In recent months, Ruiz Foods has introduced an Egg, Cheese and Bacon Breakfast Flour Taquito with response already ahead of initial projection, says the company.

Ruiz Food Products, Inc. is a privately-owned company dedicated to premium quality, frozen Mexican foods selling to all channels of distribution: retail, convenience store, clubs, vending and foodservice.

Construction of the new cold storage facility is expected to take 1 ½ years.  The current remodel work will allow the work room at Ruiz to cool down helping to slow any bacterial growth.  That in turn will be a labor saving measure for the big food processor.
The Dinuba industrial park has another major expansion in the works.  The big Best Buy facility will add another 350,000 sq ft sometime next year, Todd says an official recently informed him.

---

Got Hamburger?
Visalia Eyes Start-Up Plant

Visalia - A state-of-the-art slaughter facility utilizing dairy cows is being proposed for the city of Visalia likely out at the edge of the city’s industrial park, assistant city manager Dianne Guzman.
Visalia is one of three sites being looked at, says consultant to the start-up firm, Don Newcome who is affiliated with the Ontario-based Milk Producers Council.

In a letter to Guzman, Newcome says the company plans an “ultra modern facility” with high “performance and development standards.”  “USDA and international standards are far more stringent than those under which the existing meat packing plants were constructed and operating today.”

“The facility (the operating/processing line) engineering is well along, the business plan, the proforma and the financial package near complete.”

“We’ve been working with a start-up company,” says Guzman and “should have some more definitive news in about 30 days,” she says.

The large number of dairy cows in the area made this a location they were looking at, says Guzman.  The good news, she says, is that because of the strength of the dairy business in the Central Valley “these are jobs that won’t go away.”  The plant is expected to be about 70,000 sq ft that would be sited on about 30 acres and would employ 150 to 200 workers.

Guzman says while the perception of a slaughter house is not a good one in the public’s eye, “this operation will be so clean it will be able to export to Europe” who have very high standards for plant management.

She says the city is satisfied so far that the company is sound and has the financing to carry out an ambitious multi-million dollar investment.

Sources say the facility will be able to handle anywhere from 600 to 1000 head a day.  Older dairy cows are especially suited only for hamburger.  It’s possible the plant could process higher grades of beef as well.

Guzman says the enclosed facility would have little environmental effect.  “There won’t be much odor,” she believes.  The industrial park already is surrounded by a number of larger dairies.
Once built the facility could be within an hours drive of as many as a million head of dairy cattle by one measure.

---

Kaweah Delta Puts Parking Garage On Hold

Visalia - The Board of Kaweah Delta Health Care District applied the brakes to a $5 million parking garage to be located on their main parking lot at Willow and Locust.  The Board decided to appoint a task force to study strategic planning at the district campuses.  The parking garage had already been approved by the Board and the city adding 153 parking spaced for the hospital.

But a memo by administrator Tom Johnson points out that the board could use that money “in pursuit of a second campus” referring to a decision last month to locate a new hospital campus within the next 10 years.  It said it could use the money alternatively to fund a patient service or other capital needs.  The memo suggests the hospital’s capital budget for the coming year is already $5 million over.

The hospital utilizes the city built parking garage across Locust but at most times that space fills up along with the main parking lot.  One possibility - the city is working on a parking garage for the downtown’s west end - could that help the medical campus?

The April 25 memo suggests the Board, if they decided to pull the plug on the garage, could add additional parking around the hospital by buying property around the campus and even across Noble.  It says they could “move patient accounting to the Orthopedic Associates building when they move out in a year-and-a-half.”  The hospital has been in discussion with the owners of the building to buy it.

Board chair Margaret Foley says the parking garage issue will be tied to plans to grow the district’s acute care beds.  The Board decided last month not to do a major expansion downtown but to relocate some patients to the old Visalia Community site on Court while increasing critical care beds downtown.

In other KD news, the Board awarded a contract to a Colorado architect to design a new 40,000 sq ft Cancer Center on Akers, likely near the Lifestyle Center.  This week the Board also rescinded a request of the hospital’s Foundation to raise money for  the new project - the Sequoia Cancer Center because of controversy over the project.  That controversy is generated in part because the hospital is “partnering with local doctors” in the project.  Despite the lack of the Foundation’s participation, the hospital plans to build the center.  “The Foundation’s board is unanimous in the belief that a regional cancer center is a good thing,” says the memo from V.P. Dena Cochran.

Return to Archive