Hospitals Want To Dump Health Plan
Visalia - If health care in Tulare County were a patient - its status would be “critical” says Tom Johnson CEO of Kaweah Delta Hospital.
Bill Sanders, chair of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors agrees the situation amounts to a crisis. “We have one of the largest percentages of poor MediCal patients in California - perhaps 30% of county residents - but the lowest reimbursement rate in the state” for servicing that large population.
All four hospitals in Tulare County have signed a letter to the state Department of Health Services asking the agency to abandon managed MediCal plans set to switch into mandatory enrollment in November. Tulare County had been selected as a pilot program for the “two plan model” MediCal managed care in 1994 while much of the rest of the state’s MediCal population remains under the fee-for service plan.
Managed care “is not working” says Tulare hospital administrator Bob Montion. “It was supposed to increase health care access to the poor and its done just the opposite.”
The plan was supposed to get patients into their primary care doctors and not clog the emergency rooms with patients who could be cared for by primary physicians. But Montion says, “they still present to the emergency room but Blue Cross - one of the two HMO’s “doesn’t pay adequately”. Instead, they pay for the visit at a lower rate, says Montion. At the Tulare Hospital, “it’s like they took $1 million away from our budget.”
Montion says while managed care for Tulare County MediCal patients has been optional for the past year, the number who have been enrolling within the county has been climbing to about 50% of eligible participants and “Now we’re feeling it”. In a few months that number goes to 100% when all MediCal patients must select between Blue Cross or HealthNet for their health care.
Kaweah Delta’s Tom Johnson adds that, “there is an inadequate panel of specialists” that have signed contracts with the HMO’s - Blue Cross and HealthNet - and the extra load is falling on our specialists.” Montion says patients sometimes have to travel out of the county to see a specialist.
“The number of patients who have no health care or even those with a plan who still come to the ER for specialty care is impacting the doctors on call,” says Bill Sanders, “and the low reimbursement or no reimbursement is making it hard to attract specialty doctors here.”
Besides these problems Johnson says the promise of managed care to emphasize prevention has not panned out.
The letter dated August 29 is written by the hospital’s trade group the Hospital Council. The letter points out that the California Department of Health Services implemented this two plan model in 1993 hoping to improve the delivery of health care to the poor of Tulare County. The two health plan assumes there must be an adequate population to spread the cost over. But enrollment in 2000 is now expected to be 9% lower than in 1994, the letter says. “The population is too small to make it work,” says Montion. Still the population of eligible persons is some 54,688 says the letter spread over a large geographical area.
With this and other mutual concerns the boards of both Kaweah Delta and Tulare District Hospital will meet this week in Tulare to “look for ways we can cooperate,” says Margaret Foley, chair of the Kaweah Delta board. Among issues being discussed is the handling of indigent patients in the county - a sore point for Tulare. Foley says her hope would be to have both Tulare and Visalia “take care of patients from their own area.” The county failed to give the Tulare District a contract to handle these patients.
Among other issues Kaweah Delta has been impacted by the fact the County won’t give Tulare a contract to care for the County’s indigent forcing some Tulare patients to seek care in Visalia. That in turn has boosted visits to Kaweah’s ER and other departments. Kaweah and Tulare hospitals have not always been on the same page on a number of issues, but not that appears to be changing. The two may further pressure the County to offer a contract to both.
Joint lobbying in Sacramento is likely to be a big subject of board discussion. Bill Sanders says he has been enlisted by the hospitals to go to the state to plead the cases of both the hospitals and and overworked on-call doctors. “They are impacted not just financially, but physically as well,” says Sanders of the on call physicians who work sometimes 3-day shifts.
He believes the state can give Tulare County a waiver on the issue of managed care and on higher reimbursement for MediCal that is county by county.
But Montion says that the state is paying the same amount to take care of patients in Tulare County, but that the difference is that the HMO’s are taking 20% off the top and “denying payment for health care.”
The case for more money for hospitals to take care of MediCal patients was made to the state earlier this year and a bill passed to the Governor increasing the reimbursement to hospitals. But to date - Governor Davis has not signed it and he may not. “That’s $211,000 we have plugged into our budget that we don’t have,” says Johnson, although physicians were given an increase signed by the Governor.
There will be other issues at the joint meeting of the two boards. Kaweah Delta is counting on its Cardiac Care Unit in Visalia to help carry other departments within the hospital, that aren’t money makers, but take care of a vital community need,” says Margaret Foley. Instead “they want to carve out private pay patients,” says another physician, but not take care of the entire population base we have here in Tulare County. But now there is concern that the same company who built Bakersfield Heart Hospital is considering putting a similar specialty hospital in Visalia. The parent company Med Cath Inc. partners with private physicians at 10 hospitals nationwide. “There have been meetings, but I doubt there is the population base there to support one,” says Tom Johnson.
There is also concern about County plans to offer a Kaiser health plan to employees for the first time. Approval of the medical contract with Kaiser and Blue Cross is set for September 26. Bill Sanders says the option to choose that health plan is only for employee patients that live within the Kaiser 35 mile radius to their Fresno site but he understands the HMO would like to offer services in Tulare County with a clinic site.
If that happens, Tulare’s Bob Montion is concerned. “That is millions of medical dollars could leave Tulare County” if thy funnel their hospital’s patients up to the Fresno Kaiser hospital. Tom Johnson says that “if they did take medical care out of the county it would be a blow.”
Johnson says some of the budget crunch problems could be improved if only the HMO’s would improve their slow pace of payments. “They tend to call us for more information, put cases in the medical review category and do other administrative delay tactics,” says Johnson. He hopes the new state Department of Managed Care and improve timely payments by state HMO’s. “We want them to live up to the standard of paying 85% of the claims within 30 days,” he says.
Low and slow payment to Alta Hospital in Dinuba has been a major factor in the possible closing of the long time Dinuba hospital that has been on the ropes over the past year.
Margaret Foley says the Kaweah Board hopes to meet the Sierra View (Porterville) Hospital Board as well to discuss these common patient care problems.”
Tulare County - It's amazing what $2 a gallon gasoline will make you do - plus a little push from the EPA. Supervisor Bill Sanders who is our rep on the San Joaquin Valley Air District Board has suggested the County look into buying a number of new low emission/high milage "hybrid" vehicles made by Toyota - the Toyota Prius. "We're looking at adding 10 to 20 cars to our fleet," says Sanders.
After the car's clean air technology was highlighted at a recent Air Board meeting, Sanders asked the local Toyota dealer, Don Groppetti to let supervisors take a spin and last week they did. "We were impressed," says Sanders. The sedan seats four or five comfortably.
The four-door Prius cars - new for 2001 - have both a small fuel efficient engine and operate as well on a battery that is charged when the car runs - no need to plug it in at night or look for charging stations as has been the problem as fleet buyers both private and public look to buy electric cars. The state of California has mandated that the car makers offer 10 percent of their fleets at zero emissions.
At 52 miles a gallon in the city "we're looking at cutting our fuel bills in half," says Sanders, saving the County about $10,000 every 100,000 miles. The County's motor pool turns over every 3 to 4 years.
Groppetti says Toyota expects there to be strong demand for the new car and has only one on his lot right now.
Sanders says they will negotiate with Mr. Groppetti in hopes of getting a fleet price. The car is sticker priced at $19,995.
Unlike pure electric vehicles that feature zero emissions these "hybrid" vehicles made now by Toyota, Honda and Nissan will soon be coming from both Ford and GM.
The Honda Insight is said to get 70 mpg on the highway and 61 in the city. Of course the Insight is only a two seater - one reason the County is more interested in the Prius.
Helping to boost the image of these cars is the use of light weight but extremely strong materials. The new GM Precept will feature the lowest aerodynamic drag of any existing automobile.
Honda, not to be left out for long will offer a Honda Civic gasoline electric hybrid next fall that will seat four, Honda officials say in a recent Wall Street Journal article. The Honda official says that they expect 10% o f the market in the US will buy hybrid vehicles by 2005 to 2010 "as long as there is no additional financial burden.”
Honda may build a hybrid pickup to woo generation Y, the story says.
The County wants to lead the way "in part because we want to show we will do our part to clean the air," says Sanders, coming at a time the Valley faces tougher smog rules out of Washington. EPA is set to designate the valley a notch lower in the ranking (Serious non attainment) prompting a time table the Air District must comply with to help clean the Valley's air. While cars are far cleaner than they were a decade ago, there's so many more of them that our air has gotten worse.
This time around the County will try to buy locally rather than suggest they might buy out of the County. A flap a few months ago brought a letter from Mr. Groppetti to the County after a County employee said they couldn't find a certain car they needed from a County dealer.
Sanders points out that private buyers should look into incentives offered to buy these low emission vehicles. The smaller hybrid cars are coming to the market just as gas guzzling SUVs are getting all the bad press.
Fuel economy could quadruple in the next 20 years, say experts as hydrogen powered fuel cell cars become available - a move that could decrease demand for oil and therefore the price of oil. "The stone age did not end because the world ran out of stones and the Oil Age will not end because the world runs our of oil," says Don Hubert, head of Shell Hydrogen.
US EPA is set to designate the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin to "severe" non attainment status setting in motion more plans to help reduce emissions. The Valley Air District is working on an upcoming federal one hour "severe" attainment demonstration plan. Mobil sources for nitrogen oxide account for 65% of the Valley's inventory. In another action the EPA is considering a nationwide 95% reduction in sulfur content for diesel fuel. But the timing of the regulations and its impact on off road equipment is not clear.
Visalia mayor Don Landers says the city will look at the new hybrid cars as well for its fleet. He notes the city recently received a grant to convert buses to natural gas in the city.
Visalia - Sources say Costco officials and their real estate agent will meet privately with Visalia city council members next week to test the water. The question will be, do council members look favorably on the big warehouse retailer’s application for a 150,000 sq. ft. store at Chinowth and Demaree?
A few weeks ago the warehouse store operator filed a plan for a general plan amendment on the site because it is designated as a regional retailer and plans included a store larger than one allowed in the current zoning.
Now fearing they may lose that battle, Costco has applied to the Planning Commission and council for a conditional use permit and pulled their application for a general plan amendment.
A Costco spokesman confirmed a letter was sent to the city this week.
The story is that although the shopping center is designated for less intensive retail use, the 150,000 sq. ft. store is only 25,000 sq. ft. larger than one allowed at the site. Another big box retailer, Home Depot, is right across the street. The CUP process is simpler and easier to get approval although the council must make certain findings, but it too, has its critics.
“If a conditional use permit were allowed it would have had a precedent,” says chair of Regional Retail Task Force Phil Laird who says that if Costco doesn’t fit the designation of regional retail, who does? The city council has a long set policy and put regional retail uses on Mooney and along 198, but designating Caldwell and Chinowth will make the entire development regional. He wonders about traffic impacts and impacts on homes near the big retailer.
Filing a CUP application may not be advised, city attorney Dan Dooley told council recently although the company is free to try to get approvals using the process if it wants. It may be difficult to defend if it were challenged legally, Dooley told those attending the meeting.
Costco wants a bigger store and could expand at the site on Mooney. But apparently, they prefer to start with a new site.
Developer Don Orosco has been working with Costco in the past and may yet again work with the company on a new site south of Packwood Creek.
Orosco sent a letter to the city outlining the shortcomings of the proposed site at Chinowth and Demaree from a planning point of view. The letter was from Orosco’s planning director.
Costco officials were present some weeks ago at a growth hearing and heard the Planning Commission and Council suggest hesitation about the proposed Costco plan. But the bodies don’t like to change the 2020 plan and Costco may have been advised that getting the site approved under a CUP might face less controversy. The company reportedly seeks to get into the new site as quickly as possible. But on the other hand, they don’t want to stir up a huge community backlash over the proposal, say sources.
Meanwhile, the Visalia city council will have to make a judgement call on the new application not wanting to lose the town’s biggest retailer but at the same time not make an “end around” the 2020 plan.
San Joaquin Valley - Looking to regionalize the approach to economic development, President Clinton this week signed an executive proclamation that creates a six-county San Joaquin Valley Empowerment initiative. “It doesn’t make sense that we keep applying for special federal zones for each small town and census tract,” says Congressman Cal Dooley who worked with Clinton and Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman to announce the designation Thursday.
In the past few years towns like Parlier and the Tule Indian Reservation, Mendota and Goshen - all needy - found themselves competing against one another for federal empowerment zones and other designations. With this regional zone in effect Dooley expects coordination between federal agencies that will result in more federal efforts and funds and perhaps tax breaks for development coming down the pike.
An inter-agency task force will begin work right away to identify plans to boost the sagging Valley economy. The task force is modeled on the Southwest Border Economic Development Initiative, which was created by President Clinton in 1999.
As part of the Initiative, the President has created a federal interagency task force, which includes the White House and the full range of federal departments, agencies and services. Working in partnership with Valley communities, businesses and non-profits, the interagency task force will, for the first time, create a dedicated team of experts from across the federal government to promote development and economic opportunities in the Central Valley. This team will identify and develop specific policy initiatives.
The Initiative will cover a six county area in the Central San Joaquin Valley and includes Fresno, Kings, Kern, Madera, Merced and Tulare Counties.
The task force will meet before the end of the year with local leaders to set motion programs that could help the area. Among the possibilities is designating the entire six county regional federal empowerment zone that would offer businesses who invest in the zone tax breaks. This would be part of the President’s New Markets Initiative that began in Appalachia. Now some are calling the six county Central Valley the “Western Appalachia - a permanent culture of deep rural poverty, where conditions don’t improve,” says a Dooley briefing paper on the plan.
Dooley says focusing on the needs of the region helped bring $2 million in the past year to the Central Valley to fight a regional problem - meth labs. He says focusing on the common threads across the valley - high employment, highest percentage of children living in poverty, needs of schools and hospitals, for example. Taking a regional approach has been the approach of the Tulare County Hispanic Roundtable in recent months in their Valley of the Poor workshops looking for solutions.
UFW/Rose Grower Build "Partnership"
Wasco - Like many of the elections in California’s farm fields in the last few decades the vote at a Wasco rose grower in 1994 was hotly contested and contentious. But the UFW won out at Bear Creek Roses - the nation’s largest rose grower with workers at the huge 4000 acre ranch choosing to be represented by the union. Things did not go well the first year, remembers Bear Creek’s Human Resource manager Tom Selim. “In the first 15 months of the contract with the UFW there were 136 grievances filed by employees. Complaints were over favoritism, seniority and hiring and firing.” The union and company, as has been the case with many other contracts, remained very much adversaries.
Then after a difficult first year, Bill Williams president of Bear Creek, picked up the phone and called UFW president Arturo Rodriguez “there must be a better way to resolve our differences and work together. Let’s meet,” said Williams.
That’s when the thorns in the relationship started to bud into flowers. Today - some four years later - a blooming “partnership” has developed, says UFW organizer Eddie Cuellar. Not only is there improved relations between worker and employer saving the company money, the relationship with the UFW is now grown into marketing the brand.
In fact this week Bear Creek and the union announced the company that grows as much as 10 million plants annually in all varieties of bare root roses has developed a new Lady of Guadalupe rose - a rose that will be “blessed” by Archbishop Roger Mahoney Thursday Sept. 21 and sold through Bear Creek’s mail order company Jackson and Perkins. Proceeds of the sales will go to fund scholarships and another assistance to Latino communities across the nation.
Bear Creek is also developing a Cesar Chavez rose.
During those early meetings “we aired all our dirty laundry,” says Tom Selim of Bear Creek and an agreement came out that settled many of the back pay issues. The company paid out $50,000.
After those meetings the union and Bear Creek began regular meetings, says Eddie Cuellar who meets regularly with management at Bear Creek. During those early meetings a leadership group from both the UFW, the workers at the ranch and Bear Creek managers formed numbering 120 people. They decided to make this an annual meeting to assess the progress the partnership is making and meetings have been regular, says Cuellar.
“We’ve developed a process,” says Tom Selim, that works on communication, and quality and control. Classes in leadership training became so popular that they are now accredited by Bakersfield College.
The bottom line for Bear Creek “we’ve become more productive,” says Selim. “More profitable.” Selim says in the past year rose quality has improved ver 30% improving profits. As profits have gone up, at least some company costs have gone down. These include an 80% reduction in loss days as a result of injuries, lower litigation costs over compensation, a cut in half of the number of disabling injuries over a 3 year period. Grievances were reduced from 136 in 96/97 to 16 in 98/99. Meanwhile worker pay went up from $7.62 to $8.07 between 97 and 99. The company says as a result of cooperative atmosphere, they have reduced their peak season supervision staff from 115 to 46. The company has as many as 1200 workers during peak season from October through January. Off season employment is about 250.
Selim says to make money for the company in off season, Bear Creek plants grass and harvest winter vegetables. “We’re just starting to go down this road,” he says.
Today instead of advocating strikes and boycotts, Cuellar says the union is committed to a new path. “We’re no longer trying to shackle the company,” says Cuellar, “we seek to become their business partner.” This is a model for what we would lie to do elsewhere, he says.
Cuellar has spent 18 years as administrator working for the state ALRB until August 1999 and joined the UFW. He teaches History at COS. “What the partnership entails is looking at growers more as customers than as the enemy,” says Cuellar, “and allowing more shared decision making by the workers.”
Selim says the work at Bear Creek today does not allow for direct sharing of profits with workers but that they are looking into doing just that “gain sharing.”
Now the test will be can the UFW find others who will consider this way of “progressing together.”
“Antagonism can’t go on for ever,” says Bear Creek’s Tom Selim who says the grower got the cold shoulder from others in the farming community some years ago. But today “its just the most sensible way to manage the business."
Visalia - Talks have broken off between Tulare Irrigation District (TID) and opponents to the district’s plan to line a ten mile stretch of earthen canal with concrete. News of this was made public in a joint statement issued Monday, Sept. 18.
Talks were aimed at providing an alternative compensation plan to continue the same volume of federal water coming into the region and not lining the canal. A statement issued by both parties said as of Sept. 18th, “all of the parties now believe that further discussions will not be fruitful.”
Members of the POWER property owner group, the City of Visalia and Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District had offered to reimburse TID’s costs of water lost as it winds its way through the Kaweah Delta area. The water originates near Woodlake (from the Friant Kern Canal) and meanders nearly 10 miles into the district.
TID claims some 10% of the water bought is lost as it seeps into the ground. The parties offered TID a package that amounted to $ 400,000 annually over 25 years, says Brian Blain a property owner near the canal and leader of the POWER group. That’s $10 million over the 25 years the money would be paid.
TID announced they would postpone plans to build the project August 20th - put off the canal lining and removal of over 200 mature oaks in its path - until October 10th to allow chances for the talks to succeed. At the time TID general manager Gerald Hill says the district needed to start construction in October to have a chance of completing it this winter.
The irrigation district had announced earlier they would begin construction of the canal in late August but continued dialogue between the two sides and pending court action played a part in the delay.
Now there is bitter disappointment on the part of POWER leader Brian Blain who had pushed compromise and negotiation as the best tactic for dealing with the irrigation district’s controversial plan. But Blain admits “it seems they never considered this deal was an option,” he says he expects TID to immediately begin the canal lining process. “I’ve told them that this issue is not going to go away.”
Visalia mayor Don Landers said that this afternoon the council will discuss the news at a closed session scheduled for 3 p.m. Nevertheless, Landers said he was “extremely disappointed and frustrated.” He wonders why TID changed their mind. “What changed it and when did it change?” The break off of talks is a “detriment to the entire area.”
The irrigation district has only until next spring to complete construction before the canal is full again with irrigation water for the Tulare area farms it feeds.
TID has a contractor - the same company who is completing the west 198 freeway project - ready to begin the $10 million plus project. But expected court action in coming days will test whether the construction work actually begins.
TID has controlling interest in at least three other canals that course through the Kaweah Delta - some through Visalia. They have said in meetings that they would divert waters that go in these ditches to the lined TID canal resulting in less water coming through these creekbeds as well. The ditches include Packwood Creek and Evans Ditch - both which pass through Visalia and Tulare Irrigation Canal as will its main intake canal they want to line.
TID has vowed to “water bank” the water that comes in the ground to be used later. They apparently feel that lining the canal will make it more efficient. But other water experts says they could water bank without lining the canal.
Of major concern to critics of this plan is that TID rejected the offer of compensation that included the stipulation they continue to bring in at least 87% of the historical average of federal water they’ve brought in in the past. But TID now says they will bring in as little as only 50,000 acre feet annually. In wet years in the past they have brought in excess of 100,000 acre of water in this water short basin. TID is “entitled” to as much as 171,000 acre feet of water in wet years although they have seldom exercised the option.
In a letter to TID dated August 25, the opponents to lining suggested one reason they would offer $10 million because the district says the Bureau of Reclamation water was too expensive “our participation financially will lessen the economic burden to TID and insure importation of critical water supplies of the Kaweah basin,” said the letter signed by Blain, Visalia city manager Steve Salomon and KDWCD director Mark Watte. The proposed agreement rejected today suggested that TID “could use the water for groundwater recharge or direct delivery to farmers within its boundaries,” Does that mean they couldn’t sell the water?
The proposed agreement had suggested that the three parties, KDWCD, the POWER group and the City of Visalia would pay some $400,000 a year to TID and the lost seepage water amounted to only $273,600. The difference - $126,400 would go toward TIDs legal expenses and delay costs on the lining project. The total this would service is $1.8 million suggests the city proposal.
The news that TID would end talks came as surprise to Blain who heard only last Friday in a meeting with principals of TID. “This is the end of it,” says Blain. He promises a Wednesday September 20th news conference to announce the POWER group’s next step.
Even while talks were underway, TID did not halt efforts to gain title to one stretch of land along the canal that will be needed to construct the project. In the case of one vocal opponent, Dr. Tom Mitts, the district went to court in early September to declare its need to take immediate possession of Mitts property right along the canal under the public district right of eminent domain. Mitts had earlier sued TID in a case that is pending.
On Tuesday, Sept 12, Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann denied the TID request for immediate possession putting the matter off until a trial date of September 28. TID wants possession by October 2. In an argument against the TID’s request, Mitts attorney, Don Mooney argued that no immediate possession was needed - in part because talks to settle the matter were underway. TID argued that settling the issue of Dr. Mitts water right was separate. Mitts has argued he has the right to remove water from the canal - an argument challenged by TID. Clouding the issue is the fact that TID uses the canal to run both federal irrigation water and natural Kaweah water it has rights to.
Mitts attorney Don Mooney who also acts as POWER group’s attorney has said TID doesn’t have the right to line the canal because it has such an impact on surrounding lands. Some property owners fear the lining will drop their water level to the point that some wells will go dry in drought years.
In a separate action a pending suit by 12 property owners along the canal will likely request a stay of any construction activity until their court case is heard.
Opponents of the canal lining say the canal is a natural stream originally and lining the canal will hurt natural vegetation including the large oaks that grow on the levee along portions of the right of way. Some fear impact on the entire area that includes the well known Kaweah Oaks Preserve just 800 ft. from the canal and the Charter Oak only feet from its banks. They also say lining the canal will hurt groundwater recharge in the area.
Fearing the loss of groundwater, the City of Visalia officially challenged the TID Environmental Impact Report and later settled the challenge after TID revised their report. Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District is concerned that the TID plan will mean loss of water to the region particularly if TID makes good on a promise to bring in less federal water to the area because of its high cost. Historically TID brings in over 80,000 acre feet of water each year to the Kaweah Delta area helping to recharge the City of Visalia’s water supply along the canal east of town. “That water helps make Visalia green,” says Dr. Tom Mitts who has urged the City of Visalia to get involved in the issue.
Blain says the city, the POWER group and KDWCD “have made just an overwhelming effort” to settle the issue. The POWER group had presented the city council with more than 6000 signatures opposing lining of the canal earlier this summer.
TID blames the rising cost of federal irrigation water - up tenfold in the past few years - and annual payments TID and other irrigation contractors must pay for “environmental restoration” due to the impact Central Valley project water has had on fish, wildlife and natural streams in California. TID alone pays $1 million into this fund.
The background for the lining is possible plans by TID to sell some of the federal canal water to urban interests where it could fetch a far higher price. Tulare County has vowed to pass an ordinance that would disallow pumping groundwater out of the county, said chairman of the board, Bill Sanders. KDWCD has tried to get TID to sign a memo of understanding not to sell Kaweah River water outside the conservation district but TID has refused to sign citing its “private property rights” said Gerald Hill the district’s general manager.
With talks called off all TID has to do is start their bulldozers. Opponents are vowing to meet the challenge both in court and even on the street where efforts may be made to protect 200 year old oaks from the chopper.
Visalia - The city of Visalia has concluded negotiations with Wells Fargo Bank and has the half block downtown parcel in escrow, says assistant city manager Dianne Guzman. The lot plus building on the northern half of the downtown property would be used for parking for the private funded Property Based Improvement District (PBID) who is actually purchasing the property. The vacant building on the lot would likely be removed to make room for more parking on the Downtown's western edge. Today the city has funded projects on the downtown's eastside where both Kaweah Delta and the city's Convention Center needed the help.
Now the city want to focus on the west end after the improvement district membership has made it clear this would be a major priority.
The PBID is in its final year and in a matter of months needs to be renewed to carry on with at least a 51% vote of confidence from property owners in the district.
A public hearing on funding PBID 2 - a second round for three years - will be heard this fall. PBID executive director Kelly Houert says a polling downtown to date shows an overwhelming support for renewing the PBID. Some 50% of the 200 property owners in Downtown Visalia were surveyed recently and none said they would vote against a renewal. There were maybe's, however.
Besides negotiating for the Wells Fargo property - it doesn't include the bank itself - the city/PBID is talking to the Hadley Family trust about buying the entire downtown block where the funeral chapel sits as a future investment. The company that now owns the Hadley Chapel would continue to lease the space there despite the fact the parent company has filed for bankruptcy.
Back on the Wells Fargo land, the city is awaiting a Phase 2 report on underground gas tanks expected to be found under the lot. The deal won't close until the land is clear of toxins.
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
