Yoplait Leaving Tulare - 70 Jobs Lost
Tulare - Yoplait yogurt will leave Tulare in late February relocating their production of the popular milk product to their own Carson California plant.
Yoplait has leased plant number 2 at Dairymans Land O’Lakes for over 7 years. The 100,000 sq. ft. plant in LOL’s main campus area was leased by Yoplait employing Land O’Lakes workers. Land O’Lakes spokesperson Lydia Botham confirmed that the 70 employees were told the news in recent days, although they were aware the plant would be phased out by Yoplait for sometime.
Botham says Land O’Lakes is “studying our options” on how best to use the big vacant plant that was built in the early 1970s.
Yoplait plant manager Mike Horlak told the Voice that the relocation was simply a matter of trying to keep up with demand after years of 10 to 15% growth in sales of the product.
Yoplait - a General Mills company - is the nation’s number one yogurt brand.
He says it had nothing to do with the “great employees” from Land O’Lakes who made the product for years in Tulare. “We decided to double the size of our Carson plant” near L.A., says Horlak. About 10 Yoplait engineers have already moved to Carson. He says despite the relocation, they still plan to source milk from LOL.
Dairy economist Jim Gruebele, a Roseville dairy consultant, says the news doesn’t mean the central valley’s dairy processing industry is any kind of decline, just the opposite with the increase in cheese production from two area plants requiring 12 million lbs. of milk a day. “They will be looking for milk supply,” to keep the production that big, he says.
The California Milk Advisory Board recently estimated that the milk production in California will grow from about 24.8 billion lbs. today to about 45.8 billion lbs. by 2012, with the largest increase going to cheese. They predict California will be the number one cheese production state by 2005 eclipsing Wisconsin. By 2012 only 14% of the milk would go toward fluid milk compared to about 18% today, the study says.
Gruebele says one issue that bears watching is whether the CDFA ensures that there is an adequate manufacturing “home” for the growth in the milk supply and “we don’t return to the days when we sent our milk out of state,” to be processed.
That would require the change of the formula in the state that would incentivize processors to set up more manufacturing here.
Gruebele predicts higher milk prices today remain in 2004 compared to 2003.
While some cultured milk products have been on the decline in consumption like cottage cheese - the yogurt niche has been growing particularly with new drinkable yogurt products like the new Nouriche drink - a single serve meal on the run, food aimed at the babyboomer now made by Yoplait. Consumers are seeing yogurt as nutritional and promotes a healthy lifestyle.
Sales of Yoplait yogurt are up 18% in dollar sales from a year ago according to the research company Information Resources. Unit sales of all yogurt sold in the US in the past year was up over 9%. But drinkable yogurt was up 36% in the past year according to AC Nielsen.
Still, the US consumer eats less yogurt than the average consumer in many countries who consume as much as 10 times as much.
Visalia - Alcoa/Reynolds is looking for a location for a food packaging plant in the central valley and Visalia appears to have landed the catch. The plant would employ some 50 workers to start say development officials.
Visalia has been courting the company for the past few months. Alcoa already has a major plant in Visalia having purchased the IVEX company back in January 2002. IVEX, now Alcoa, has a plant on Goshen Ave. as well as two distribution facilities in the Midstate Industrial Park on Plaza Dr.
Alcoa had been taking bids from a number of industrial building developers to build a huge 266,000 sq. ft. building on a build-to-suit basis that would be leased long term to the company.
Sources say Fresno developer John Brelsford appears to be the winner of this process filing a site plan review request for a 266,000 sq. ft. tilt up concrete plant at Plaza Dr. south of Goshen Ave. The plan was heard by a city committee this week.
Brelsford has some 60 acres it owns on Plaza having built only one concrete building leased to Real Fresh a few years ago. The new Alcoa building would go on 20 acres nearby.
If the deal is completed, the plant would be the largest industrial park building constructed in Visalia since JoAnn stores built on Plaza three years ago and the first major new job growth at the park in some time.
Alcoa/Reynolds operations manager at the Goshen plant, Paul Donald, says while he could not confirm any news, “we are looking to get bigger” in Visalia. The Goshen pant that makes molded plastic packaging used to package strawberries and other plastic molded food packets and already employs 300.
On fast track to open, the plant Alcoa originally requested the huge new facility be ready to use by June but the date of the opening has slipped somewhat once they found they had to build from scratch to meet their needs, says a reliable source.
City sources say Brelsford is designing the building for Alcoa based on the expectation the company will sign a lease but that no lease has yet been signed. They did agree to pay all of Brelsford’s costs in designing the plant however, and expect to sign in January.
Alcoa is big in food packing - its famous Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil for example, plastic packaging for the food processing industry and food service business.
Alcoa is a big player with 127,000 employees in 38 countries.
They also own the Kawneer plant in town, a different division.
Fun Park Back On Track For Akers/198
Visalia - For the investors of the proposed Visalia fun park at Akers and 198, a letter from the city attorney asking to fork over their $100,000 earnest money for failure to meet a contract appeared to get their attention. They showed up in mass at the next city council session where the city had organized a look at alternate sites for a fun park after the apparent collapse of negotiations between the Hanford investment group and the city.
Led by general partner Mike Robinson, they asked the council to reconsider their position to end talks. Robinson says his group still wants to build the $6 million entertainment park but only if it’s at Akers and 198 - the current 6-plus acre proposed site that the city owns. Robinson told the council they had met every concern that staff has raised. “What changed,” he asked “did somebody move?”
Robinson appears to be referring to the fact that council member Wendy Rudy has left the board. She had helped Robinson move the process through the city but Robinson may not have figured the opposition to their plan over selling liquor might have made.
“It was a potential deal killer,” said city council member Don Landers at the meeting.
The meeting, held a few weeks ago has appeared to clear the air and has allowed negotiations to be rekindled, say city sources.
“We expect there will be a contract on the city’s agenda in the next few weeks,” says a top city official.
The contract will clear the air on the little race cars that will be running on the track as well - being a sound problem the city had told the group. Now they will install electric cars making not just less noise but less pollution.
Over the contested issue of the interest rate the group will pay on the loan from the city, an agreement has been reached. Then there is the timetable for building the project - 13 months from the time they pick up their building permit with some penalty enforced if they don’t meet the timetable.
The issue that had been bothering council was that the group had appeared to be dragging their feet getting the fun park built and the delays at planning commission on the project - four by the city’s count - a figure disputed by Robinson - was the last straw when the city attorney issued his letter.
“I think they got the message,” says a city source.
But the council got the message too in recent days - the public wants this fun park built and there are few locations in town where it would be easy to build that have city council backing and no other developers in the wings ready to build it.
Reached at deadline Robinson and his 42 shareholders are breathing a little easier this week. “We’re looking forward to building the park” in Visalia, says Robinson. The project will be a win win for Visalia with family recreation and 40 to 60 jobs for kids, he says. Right now the timetable looks like November 2004 for the indoor portion of the park - laser tag, restaurant and birthday rooms and March 2005 for the outdoor venues, says Robinson including batting cages, miniature gold and go carts. They’re even looking at a portable climbing wall that can be used at both the Visalia and Hanford park.
Friant May Form New Water Organization
Tulare County - Friant Water Users may form a new organization based one member district’s opposition to proposed rule changes that would alter how decisions are made.
“When you have 200 miles and 22 water districts it’s not surprising that we have our differences sometimes,” says interim FWU director Ron Jacobsma.
In fact, sometimes it’s like herding cats, he admits.
The 22 member unit is a federal contractor for water delivered to over one million acres from Chowchilla in the north to Arvin in the south valley.
Tulare County farmers are a major recipient of the water.
In this case the water district making the fuss is Madera Irrigation District who voted against plans to form a new joint power authority - the governing basis for the FWU that would change the voting majority rules.
On some votes as it is now the vote “has to be unanimous,” says Jacobsma. The proposed rule change would make all votes subject to a 75% majority in order to be agreed to.
One Friant board member who declined to be quoted says Madera’s insistence on the current vote structure allows the continuation of a “virtual veto power” of one member over the remainder.
The FWU board met to vote December 12 on the issue voting 21 to 1 to accept the 75% rule, but it didn’t pass because the current governing laws require a unanimous vote to change these rules.
This board member says already the 21 other districts are discussing the formation of a new organization that would use the new 75% majority rule and perhaps “be more actively involved” in politics related to water issues. “We have had the current structure for 20 years - it’s time for change,” says a spokesman for this particular member district.
In fact the new organization could be “up and running” in as little as 60 days, says the member noting that the current organization would continue due in part to contracts with the Bureau of Reclamation and others to operate and maintain facilities and water levels per agreements.
Jacobsma says any plans to form a new organization “may be going on” but notes that “I wouldn’t have anything to do with them” as a staffer with FWU.
Jacobsma says initiatives undertaken by FWU will continue including talks with Metropolitan Water District on water exchanges within the Friant systems, work on plans related to the San Joaquin River and its legal battle with the NRDC over the restoration of the river. Surprisingly, despite the lawsuit Friant and NRDC are at the same table on a plan to publish a report on restoration strategies on the river that would offer some estimate of how much water is needed to return the salmon population to the river and at what costs.
Work (investment) on the river itself could reduce the amount of water needed to restore a fishery, he says. NRDC decided to go back to court last April when they ended their stay of litigation the river. Now a judge will hear briefs for FWU and NRDC to see where the suit goes from here.
Regarding news about the organization president Kole Upton of the Chowchilla district says some news could come out in 30 to 45 days. Upton notes he believes the organization should be more “proactive” on issues that effect the water users of the central valley. In effect a rule that requires 100% approval of a plan of action makes it hard for Friant to be nimble in the moving target called water issues.
District members who spoke to the Voice don’t expect a problem having two parallel organizations. Still, “it could get ugly” if there is a blowup, some fear.
In other Friant news, a final agreement between westside rival Westlands and Friant is expected in the next few months to settle all the issues on their claims for water from the San Joaquin.
Citizen Committee
Dinuba’s New Walmart Could Bring Business Downtown
Dinuba - The proposed new Walmart store on Dinuba’s westside is likely to break ground soon, says city manager Ed Todd, with the company seeking a building permit for a standard size - 140,000 sq. ft. store - in the next few weeks.
Walmart is purchasing 50 acres of land from the city along El Monte Way (Ave. 416) - a plan that has garnered some opposition in town and even a legal challenge. Todd says Walmart’s decision not to build a larger “super store” offering sales of groceries, could ease fear in some circles that the nation’s number one retailer will be bad for business in this small farming town.
Concern has grown about the town’s bubbling downtown core area and fear from some business in town prompted the formation of a citizen committee some months ago looking into the impacts of a Walmart on Dinuba and just what could be done about it.
Committee member Pablo Contreras says the group that includes a cross section of business and profession people in town, came up with recommendations.
“The main thing is we wanted to look at the coming of Walmart as a potential positive for the community,” because Dinuba could become “more of a regional center for shopping.” He says when people come to Dinuba to shop at Walmart they might come downtown to buy pair of jeans or visit a restaurant. Contreras says Dinuba is closer to some communities like Reedley than their competitors like Selma.
“What we are thinking about is taking a block and raze it to make room for kind of a mall near our plaza and movie theater,” he says. The downtown has a large vacant furniture store that could also serve a new purpose, he figures.
Contreras says the committee is made up of an accountant, himself, a food store operator, an auto repair store owner, and pharmacist among others.
The committee report is expected to be shared with city council in January.
Todd says he feels the city, that boasts a residential population of some 100,000 in its market area, could attract some national retailers, a Mervyn’s or Best Buy for example, to the downtown super block to help bring shoppers visiting the new Walmart into downtown. Todd has a pretty good relationship with the electronics retail giant Best Buy and high up officials who, after all, have their west coast distribution facility in town.
Todd says focusing on retail growth in the city would help stem the “leakage” of retail dollars estimated to be $70 million annually to other cities. Todd believes the coming of Walmart will help sales tax revenues in town even as they wonder where they will get the money lost from vehicle fees that the state took away to pay for police and fire.
The idea has enough momentum to behind it to push Todd and the council to hire a consultant and get a state grant to look more closely at the feasibility of a plan. “We know people will still go to Visalia or Fresno for some things, “ says Todd, but they will try to keep them shopping at home for others.
Already downtown has a new entertainment plaza that just opened anchored by a new movie theater and the city’s new Votech vocational school set to open downtown January 15 with a grand opening celebration.
The town is also expected to get a new Ford dealer with Brett’s Automotive planning to relocate his Reedley Ford dealership to El Monte Way next to the Chevy dealership which has been sold.
Walmart has had a chilly reception in a number of towns recently with active opposition building in Hanford for the proposed new superstore there and in Visalia where city officials have made it clear they don’t welcome a plan for a new Walmart at Caldwell and Demaree. Plans are in the works in Porterville, Delano and Lemoore as well. The company’s reputation as a low wage employer and a death sentence for small businesses who sell the same products in town, feed fears that a dominant player like Walmart can actually worsen a town’s economy rather than make it better.
Sweet Clementines
by Lisa Lieberman
San Joaquin Valley - With more farmers pulling out valencia trees in the Valley, due to the poor prices they’ve been getting for the fruit, more of them are looking for more viable citrus alternatives to plant.
For some, the easy peel clementine citrus varieties, which have become more popular in supermarkets, might be a possibility. This year, at its annual citrus tasting meeting it offers to the public, the University of California Lindcove Research and Extension Center introduced three new clementine varieties. The Yosemite Gold, Tahoe Gold, and Sierra Gold are all flavorful, relatively good sized, easy to peel, seedless clementines.
“They are very colorful with a deep red/orange rind,” said Walter Stutsman the principle superintendent of agriculture at the Lindcove field station.
Including different varieties of clementines, the field station has over 150 varieties of citrus.
“Most people when they think of citrus, think of oranges, lemons or grapefruit. But they don’t realize just how many different strains of oranges there are,” Stutsman said.
With the clementines, a common problem is that most varieties get seedy if they’re grown with other varieties around them, Stutsman said.
“Most clementine varieties (in the Central Valley) are grown in isolated citrus groves in Kern County,” Stutsman said.
The big advantage of the new Yosemite, Tahoe and Sierra Gold varieties is that they are one of the few clementines that can be grown in the citrus growing region of Tulare County without producing seeds.
Although the seedlessness of the new varieties should be an attraction, Stustman said he’s not sure how many local growers will try clementines. Most packinghouses only pack navels and valencias. Mostly everything else gets classified as specialty citrus.
“If you’re a grower and you plant these (clementines), you better hope that by the time your trees start producing in five years that you have someone to pack them for you,” Stutsman said.
For many farmers, it’s a dilemma knowing what to plant, Stutsman said.
“It’s a tough decision when you’re pulling valencias out. You don’t know whether to plant more navels when you know that overproduction is going to cause the market price to drop or if to take a chance on the unknown and plant some new varieties and think “who’s going to sell them for me?”
Despite the risks, Stutsman said he thinks there would be a market for California clementines. Right now, East Coast buyers are very interested in imported Spanish clementines.
“We’re hoping to penetrate that market with some California fruit. We can ship our fruit cross country in two days whereas it takes Spain 10 days to two weeks to get theirs to the East Coast,” Stutsman said.
In addition to clementines, Stutsman said that late navels might be another option for valencia growers wanting to try something new.
Specialty citrus such as blood oranges, Meyer lemons, and pink fleshed Cara Caras have been making more of a splash in the market place these past few years. The problem with these varieties is that consumers don’t always want to pay premium prices for them, Stutsman said.
When introducing new fruit into the market place, growers need to make sure that it’s top quality if they want to get top prices, Stutsman said. As an example of this, in the 1980s, growers began shipping the much-touted oroblanco, a cross between a pummelo and a grapefruit, to Japan. Although the fruit sold well at first, when the Israelis began shipping oroblancos to Japan as well, California growers tried to outcompete the Israelis in the early market by shipping immature fruit to Japan. The Japanese reacted by refusing to buy California oroblancos. As a result, most California growers ended up pulling out their oroblancos.
In an effort to maintain the standard of high quality that California citrus is known for, this is the first year that the industry is implementing a new rule that requires growers to pick early season fruit with higher levels of color than in years past.
What's New
Sonic hamburgers is proposing its first Visalia location at a city site plan hearing this week. Franchisee Scott McMillan is looking to invest at Goshen and Ben Maddox to put the Sonic Drive In and some offices on surplus city-owned land there. He is reportedly looking for a second site for Sonic in town as well. Tulare has a Sonic.
Kaweah Delta got some good news as well from the passage of the new Medicare bill in Congress. Finance director Gary Herbst says effective last October, the new rates both hospitals and physicians get from procedures will increase 1 and ½ percent overturning an earlier plan to reduce compensation. About 50% of the hospital's business is Medicare related. The bottom line is that the hospital will receive about $3 million more this fiscal year over last. Herbst says the downside is that the Medicare bill encourages Medicare HMOs to sign up the elderly - something that happened in Tulare County some years ago only to fail. "Medicare HMOs have treated both hospitals and patients ‘shabbily' in the past." The bill does have an RX benefit that kicks in that could have some budget impacts for the private sector, he fears, if Medicare goes broke and they have to raise taxes to pay for it.
Jostens wants to sell nearly 14 acres it owns west of their big printing plant on West 198 at Plaza Dr. Jostens is seeking a lot split from the City of Visalia in order to sell the land to a Fresno developer who reportedly seeks to build medical office space there. That use would require approval from the city although the land is zoned for large office use.
Tule tribal representatives and county officials are meeting privately to try to hammer out an agreement that would have the tribe reimburse the county for any offsite impacts the proposed relocation of Eagle Mountain Casino to Highway 190 would bring. Such an agreement was recently announced in Kings County when the Tache tribe there agreed to send $900,000 annually to the county to help pay for road improvements and public safety impacts. If they can come up with this agreement the next step, says tribal attorney Sam Cohen, begins the arm wrestling with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The tribe wants to build a 200 room hotel, 20,000 sq. ft. convention center and full 2000 lot casino - a project likely to be phased, says Cohen. After two recent public hearings with the county, the tribe hopes it can get a letter of support from the county supervisors.
Among the federal line items passed in this year's House version of the omnibus spending bill is $500,000 for Kaweah Delta hospital. The measure is likely to make the Senate version as well when it is taken up next month. The earmark is thanks to Congressman Devin Nunes, says Kaweah Delta CEO Lindsay Mann, to be used to buy medical technology that will go into the new expansion including cardiac care equipment.
Sporting goods retailer Sports Chalet is negotiating for a spot at the new Packwood center, say reliable sources. The publically held company has most of its stores in southern California, but have been making a push to open stores in the northern part of the state. The stores are 40,000 sq. ft. and offer departments that sell apparel, sports equipment, ski, golf, snowboarding, scuba, mountaineering and other sports specialty items. They have 28 stores in the state. The store would likely be located on the shopping center's west side - the same side Target is on.
The City of Visalia is close to purchasing right-of-way from an abandoned rail line north of the city. Tulare Valley Railroad owned the line from Houston to Riggin that the city wants to buy to extend Santa Fe as a street and bike path. The city council gave approval to staff to complete negotiations on the purchase of the right-of-way this week. Buying the land will allow Santa Fe to be built as a major north/south arterial through the entire town. With plans to build a new Santa Fe auto bridge over 198 the street is expected to help north/south circulation big time. The development should help open up the northside to new investments as well. The city is preparing to widen Houston Ave. near Santa Fe as well and have recently made headway on a plan to extend St. Johns Parkway from Dinuba Highway east to Santa Fe completing the connection.
In Porterville the city is also in final negotiations with the railroad to buy land for a trail project in town although the city appears ready to condemn the property for purchase because no deal can be struck.
Opposition surfaces against two March ballot measures to be decided by local voters. Unlike the recently passed Measure M by Kaweah Delta - this election's voter pamphlet sent out to everyone will contain "arguments against" the reported quarter cent sales tax increase proposed by the city (Measure T) as well as the bond measure proposed by COS (Measure N). Proposing the city sales tax measure is retired fire fighter Joe Randall who has been on a campaign to install fire extinguishing devices on all buildings instead of spending money on fire stations. In the case of COS five local residents - one of which was selected by the county to appear in the voter pamphlet. It argues that COS would "waste your tax dollars on pet projects that are unnecessary."
Visalia - Both Tulare District and Kaweah Delta in Visalia have succeeded in recruiting key surgeons to their hospitals next year that will broaden the scope of health care here.
In Tulare, hospital CEO Bob Montion says they have signed Dr. Thomas Unruh, a general and vascular surgeon, who will start January 5th. They have also signed Dr. Ted Bosch, a general surgeon from Kern County who will start work here in August. The hospital is seeking more surgeons in part to bolster its expanding cardiac care program based on their new cardiac cath lab service set to open in January. The two new surgeons add to the two existing surgeons already practicing at the hospital, says Montion. The hospital is also opening its New Born Nursery unit next month, Montion says. "The excellence of our surgical team will put us on the map."
At Kaweah Delta the big news is that they have signed a second neurosurgeon who will move to the community by May or sooner, says Kaweah Delta's physician recruitment liaison Dan Cloutier. Already coming to the community is Dr. Lenard Rutkowski fro Illinois, practicing at Visalia Medical Clinic. The second neurosurgeon is Dr. Parley Madsen III from Johnstown Pennsylvania. Dr. Madsen will set up a private practice here, says Cloutier.
A second neurosurgeon is key, says Cloutier, because severe brain trauma cases can be so time consuming that a team approach - a back up physician is necessary. The hospital has been without an active neurosurgeon to take call on severe brain trauma for the past two years.
Kaweah Delta says it has been forced to send off an average of one case a month to other hospitals because no Tulare County physician can handle these tough cases. Because it is necessary for neurosurgery treatment to take place quickly in many cases in order for the procedure to be successful - an ambulance drive to Fresno is often too late.
That's why recruitment of the neurosurgeons has been one of the hospital's "top priorities," says CEO Lindsay Mann. The hospital is now looking for one vascular surgeon as its next recruitment effort.
Visalia - Maybe it's the state incentives, or maybe it's "just the right thing to do," says City of Visalia chief building official Dennis Lehman remarking on how the city has seen more solar generation units mounted on roofs for commercial buildings in town in recent months.
Two of the largest unit capacity installed in Visalia have been on medical buildings including just this month the retrofit on Drs. Dan Watrous and Charles Boniske's building on Akers at Hillsdale. The physicians' clinic has 230 rooftop solar panels installed on the building's south and west sides generating what Dr. Boniske says "could be 100% of our electricity needs" for the 5500 sq. ft. office. Boniske says not to worry on cloudy days or night time since the system "works like a piggy bank with Edison" sending power to the grid when the sun shines and the receiving of power off the grid anytime they need it. Boniske says they thought about the potential benefits of the project for 3 months after hearing about Dr. Barry Smith's 22 kw solar project installed this summer on the new Eye Surgical Center building on Noble east of Akers where the panels are already unseen from the curb. In this case while the solar units are about the same - solar will generate about 40% of this 14,000 sq. ft. building's needs, says Smith.
"There's just tremendous incentive right now to do this," says Boniske since Edison has a program that will pay upwards of 50% of the cost to add solar to commercial buildings. Boniske says adding the cost to your mortgage in a new building makes even more sense since the cost can be spread out over the years with our payment.
Even in retrofit like Boniske's "we figure it will pay for itself in 5 to 7 years." The life of the panels is said to exceed 25 years. That could mean 20 years of virtually free power.
Dr. Smith says he loves the savings from solar but doesn't care for the look of the panels, so he designed the new building completed in July to hide the panels. Only from the freeway looking down on the new building can you spy the units.
Solar contractor NBS of Farmersville has also installed a new unit on the new child care center at the County government buildings as well as on the dentists office on Akers, Dr. Hzieh. NBS has been doing solar installation on homes and commercial buildings of the past tow and ½ years, says president Dennis Smith.
In addition, the City of Visalia's new Transit Center, near completion on Oak St., has solar panels.
The California Energy Commission has a different program for solar units on homes.
In general the Commission urges more solar power generation and reported last month that California could produce as much as 10 times as much renewable energy as it does today. The report says that California had just 10 megawatts of solar power installed in 2000 but that has jumped to 50 mw today. The report notes that going solar will reduce greenhouse gases thought to contribute to global warming and reduce dependency on fossil fuels.
Southern California Edison has a unit headed by Howard Green that funds solar using the self generation incentive. "We figure if users run their solar panels during the summer months when peak demand is the greatest the whole stat will benefit," says Green. Besides the fact that solar generates no pollution the fact that the electricity is generated right where it is needed reduces the need for more big centralized power plants.
The incentive pays $4.50 per watt or 50% of the cost of the system. The program started in 2000 and is expected to fund 100 projects statewide this year.
Green says Edison plans a solar energy dairy project at Tulare AgTac in the near future that will allow people interested in solar to see for themselves how the project might work for them.
To reach Edison call - 626-302-8436.
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
December 17, 2003
