Paynter Pulls Grocery Plan

Visalia - Developer Dave Paynter has shelved plans to put a grocery store at Walnut and Mooney - the second time in the past two years he has stopped a rezone process that would include a grocery store. Paynter owns 17 acres on the southeast corner of Mooney and Walnut now zoned regional retail commercial.

The problem has been that the city doesn’t allow a grocery store be built in the regional commercial zone. Paynter, the Tustin developer who also built the Costco center in Visalia, has labored for about 6 years to fill the prime Walnut/Mooney location with new tenants - many who are also looking at the proposed Orosco shopping center south of Packwood Creek recently approved by the city council.

City staff have been sympathetic to Paynter’s new request processed since the Orosco center approval expanded the amount of regional retail space in town by 68 acres. But last week the Paynter application was turned down 4 to 0 by the planning commission.

The matter was set to go to the city council June 24 until Paynter yanked the request this week apparently for good. Last time he merely postponed the plan.

“We think we have some new options for the property,” says Paynter who declined to lay out specifics.

The proposed grocery store was a big problem to the new owners of Best Buy Market about a block to the east of the project site. They cited a city rule that suggested new grocery stores could not be built closer than one mile intervals. But staff said that did not apply to the proposed zone Community Shopping Center (CSO). Paynter has said if he developed a portion of the shopping center for a grocery store, the remainder would be regional commercial. But now, facing potential turn down and with an apparent new plan at hand - we’ll have to wait to see what the new plan is.

Paynter had to demolish the infamous old Sin City apartment complex at a cost of about $500,000 due to the asbestos problem ridding the town of a massive eyesore and policing nightmare. Over the years some have bet the developer would likely throw in the towel on the project due its high cost and the difficulty in securing the Mooney frontage to make the center a reality. He has acquired some of the properties however. For six months he also worked with the owner of Visalia Mall to see if the centers could combine using a cross-Mooney bridge. Now the owners of the Visalia Mall have sold it.

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County Settles Cutler DBCP Suit

Cutler - A14 year old plan to promote economic development in the Cutler-Orosi area had all the right intentions by the County of Tulare, but all those years and $1.6 million later the story is one of intentions bungled.

Hoping to attract industry to one of the poorest towns in the region, the county promoted the idea to Cutler farmer Tokkie Elliott who bought 37 acres to lay out a new industrial park on the promise that the county - with the help of a state Department of Commerce loan - would help provide infrastructure including sewer, water and road service to the new site.

The site never did get good drinking water - key to any plan to attract food processing companies who would be the most likely tenants. That’s because the well the county dug came up bad - full of the chemical DBCP - 14 times the state safe level.

For over a decade now the county has struggled with what to do about the problem - never providing potable water to the site and spending millions studying, litigating and waiting for a solution that apparently never seemed to come. That is until this past week when the county settled a suit with Cutler Properties and settled on a logical plan apparently suggested by an engineer ten years ago - dig a new well that isn’t contaminated with DBCP.

Engineer Dennis Keller who dug the well at the county’s request had spent about $40,000 for a budgeted $285,000 amount to dig the well at the time in 1992 that the initial test showed the DBCP contamination even though other wells nearby were not. But the county ordered Keller to press on to complete the well that Cutler Properties ended being “stuck”with says a court document.

Then Keller suggested a plan to the county - sue the DBCP manufacturers for the cost of modifying the water system at the site in order to supply DBCP free water. The manufacturers - particularly Shell Oil - had been successfully sued in other Valley towns because of the widespread problems with the chemical migrating into ground water.

As a result of the county suit against the manufacturers the county got $1.14 million in a settlement agreement. That dwindled to $856,444 after attorney fees were taken out. The county has parked that money in an interest bearing fund that now totals $1.19 million - about what they had been awarded based on the 1994 suit.

Then Cutler Properties and the Cutler Public Utilities District who was to take over supplying water to the industrial park simply waited year after year for the county to use this award to fix the problem even though the county literally had the money in the bank. But after a series of expensive studies of the problem by the county - nothing happened.

As part of the original 1988 agreement Cutler Properties was to pay the county back for their share of cost to extend the infrastructure to the site even though they didn’t have potable water. The well was only useable to fight fires although the pressure, they say, was inadequate. Although there was a proposed study to complete the remediation of the problem, it didn’t happen and by November 2000 Cutler Properties filed a tort claim signaling to the county they were about to get sued. That happened in March 2001 - this after Cutler Properties stopped making payment on the original infrastructure loan.

In their defense, the county made a unique if amazing argument in court documents. They didn’t have to supply potable water - a water of drinking water quality - to the project. This despite the fact they had argued that Shell Oil owed them to fix the problem and had received more than $1 million to do so. Further the county tried to argue that Cutler Properties needed to accelerate their payment schedule and owed $653,456 to the county - the amount owing from the state infrastructure loan.

This becomes the basis for a county counter suit and a second suit by the county against the Cutler Utility District and their engineers including Mr. Keller - the original guy that had advised the county about the problem.

Then after a mediation hearing without going to court the county heard that news from visiting judge Raul Ramirez - that a settlement was in order and the county was the loser.

Attorney for the Elliots, Mr. Tom Campagne, estimates the county over the years paid $150,000 to $200,000 in legal and expert witness fees, perhaps $200,000 to “study the problem” using on the idea of attaching expensive charcoal filters on the well. They compiled books upon books of studies. Then there is decades of staff time and report shuffling and the loss of the effect of the original vision that is gone as well.

And now this settlement that is costing the county $1,116,000 to Cutler Properties. That includes payoff of Cutler Properties agreed upon portion to the state loan - $668,000 with the remaining amount paid to Cutler Properties. That helps pay Mr. Elliot’s attorney fees as well.

In addition the county must pay Cutler Public Utilities District $150,000 that they will use to make water system improvements in the district.

And the status of the well? It will be used as an ag well now that Mr. Elliot has given up - at least for now - on developing the industrial park and has in fact planted the acreage to orange trees. The DBCP in the well will be pumped out to water the trees where the chemical deteriorates in sunlight - keeping the plume of contamination away from the rest of the Cutler Public Utilities wells.

Mr. Campagne says the obvious solution in the beginning was to drill a new well but the county over the years appeared to never think of that. Now Cutler Utilities will drill a new well with money they get from the county increasing the amount of water and pressure in town, says Dennis Keller who advises the district. “We don’t need the old water tower pressure anymore,” says Keller since it offers uneven pressure levels around town. The town will have just three good wells - the remainder are contaminated with nitrates, perhaps from fertilizers.

A few days ago the agreed upon sums were transferred into the Cutler accounts by the county ending this chapter.

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Cal Poly Classes Likely Here This Fall

Visalia - Efforts to attract Cal Poly to Tulare County to offer classes in the area may be paying off with plans by the college extension office to look at classes as soon as this fall. “We’re hiring a new staff member in July to help coordinate that,” says a Cal Poly staffer. Extension Director Skip Parks was out of the country this week but Mr. Park’s has confirmed in the past the college was ready to offer classes when local jurisdictions - Visalia and Tulare came out with a site or sites that classes could be offered.

Visalia assistant city manager Carol Cairns confirms the plans saying she and Tulare Agri Center manager Gary Shultz will meet with Cal Poly in early July to go over the college’s needs assessment to see just what class offerings might be available. “We’ll have a better idea of the space needs then,” says Cairns.

“It’s likely that there would be classes in both Tulare and Visalia.” Cairns and Shultz co-chair a committee looking to bring Cal Poly to Tulare County. The rub in the past - would it be in Tulare or Visalia.

One new possibility that literally splits the difference - the now vacant TCOVE classroom space - about 10,000 sq. ft. on Mooney between the two towns. TCOVE director Ron Johnson confirmed he has received some interest from the City of Visalia but that the contact is very preliminary. “Of course our board would consider it,” says Johnson, now that most vocational classes are held at school sites. Last December the last group from the Workforce Investment board’s training facility at the school site left when the program was no longer funded.

That left space at the center that is now being filled by a joint COS-John Deere training facility and soon a new COS police classroom that the college recently got funded for. But, that still leaves a number of classrooms available for other use, says Johnson.

Visalia city manager Steve Salomon says the need to offer classes through Cal Poly soon means they would be looking for spaces that are already to go, space that might be shared with other schools, for example. He says there has been discussion about use of the fully equipped Bustamante Learning Center jointly owned by VUSD and the city. Already a number of private colleges use the classroom space and its extensive computer lab.

Superintendent Stan Carrizosa says he expects to meet soon with representatives of Cal Poly after an initial inquiry by the city. “We would be delighted to meet with them,” says Carrizosa who says the district has the space and interest in bringing in Cal Poly classes to the 9000 sq. ft. Bustamante center. “This is a viable option for them,” that the college could occupy as soon as this fall,” he says.

Tulare, too, may be ready to offer space with the idea that some classes could be offered in classroom space in both towns.

Shultz is likely to offer classroom space in the big Heritage Center and Cairns says some schools in Tulare are ready to offer space. Shultz was out of tow this week.

Salomon says schools want to cooperate with Cal Poly not just because they want to promote learning, which they do, but with a certain self interest as well - they want teachers with more certification and training.

The move to attract more 4 year classes here is also moving forward with Fresno State and with a local committee forming to take up FSU’s recent offer to add more classes in Visalia.

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Hitchhiking Sharpshooters Keep Tulare
Ag Officials Busy

Tulare County - More glassy winged sharpshooter finds in northern Kern County were announced at a meeting in Delano last week attended by area grape growers and local ag officials. The tiny pest that sucks moisture out of plants and is a carrier for Pierce’s Disease had been confined to eastern Kern County and to an area around Porterville in Tulare County until new finds up Highway 65 and the Fomosa-Porterville highway near Richgrove that now have Tulare County ag officials concerned.

The finds are just miles south of the Tulare County line raising the specter of marching hoards heading north.

But ag biologist Dennis Haines says the new find may have more to do with the proximity of grapes and oranges, both hosts for the pest, and the highways that bring in citrus to Tulare County for packing.

“Citrus coming into Tulare County,” including lemons from heavily infested Ventura County, may pose continuing problems, says Haines. In Ventura, sharpshooters are believed to be causing damage not just to grapes, but to young citrus trees prompting the Citrus Research Board to step up funding for new research projects to monitor the potential damage to citrus.

Already well documented is the fact that Pierce’s Disease - made worse by sharpshooters - devastates grapes. Vineyards in Kern County have been pulled because the vines are not producing properly.

Richard Matoian, official with the California Grape and Tree Fruit League warned growers this past week that Tulare and Kern’s grapes sent in bulk to the Napa area could be in trouble if the grapes were carrying sharpshooters. Pierce’s Disease in other grape regions have wiped out millions of dollars in vineyards in California. It wasn’t until 1999 that this leaf hopper was identified as the culprit - too late to knock it down it before it devastated the Temecula region.

More than $50 million has been spent to date in federal land state funds to fight the spread of the pest and to research Pierce’s Disease coordinated by CDFA. A state CDFA board will meet June 21 to discuss the battle.

Haines says citrus growers also are worried since a large population of sharpshooters can suck water out of young citrus trees requiring “a 6-fold increase in irrigation just to keep up with bugs.” Pierce’s Disease, however, isn’t the problem with citrus as it is with grapes. In both cases the effect - dead plants - may be the result.

Haines says a USDA organized effort to knock down sharpshooters that is already successful in Kern County could begin soon in Ventura County if they can figure out biological material to fight the pest, since they don’t want to use pesticides in that county. They are experienced with a wasp.

“We’re just trying to keep down the numbers” of sharpshooters, says Dennis Haines, the county’s chief biologist, that keeps the Pierce’s Disease already well established in Tulare County - but at low levels - from spiraling out of control with an increased sharpshooter population.

Haines says growers are being urged to monitor sticky yellow traps provided by county officials.

Haines says here in Tulare County the spraying of carbyrl and Merit - a systemic material alternating with one another is helping to keep the infestation around Porterville to low levels.

But monitoring this half inch “ride along” pest as they come up the orange belt highway, appears to be the way these critters are moving north. The effect comes in part because the majority of packing houses for citrus are in Tulare County even though the fruit may be grown elsewhere.

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