Corridor
Plans Draw Interest From
Fresno State Among Others
Visalia - A proposal to designate rural areas north and south of Visalia’s scenic corridor - West 198 - as an ag enterprise zone has garnered preliminary interest from ag groups and producers along with Fresno State University.
The proposal has been drawn up by a citizen’s study group led by local farmers in an effort to both protect the corridor’s scenic qualities and broaden the uses of the land from pure ag to attract complementary development opportunities. According to the preliminary plan filed with the Visalia city council January 24th - “The study attempts to meet the needs of existing property owners who do not wish to sell or develop their property, as well as those wishing to sell or develop their property into a use that will generate more income than farming.”
One opportunity the corridor committee saw was the possibility of attracting a college farm or even college campus to the 3000 acre area using the plan to accomplish long time Visalia goals that would provide an economic stimulus on a large scale. That contrasts to earlier ideas of simply providing a green landscape on both sides of the freeway.
Brian Blain, one member of the study group, suggests that “fruit trees and crops growing are just as scenic as expensive landscaping but that while landscaping or park land can cost the city $3000 an acre a year to maintain, this plan would actually generate income.”
If the corridor might attract a user like Fresno State, it could pay even more dividends.
The plan was to be heard at this week’s council study session but has been postponed when mayor Jesus Gamboa came up with the flu and a second council member Don Landers, was out of town.
A city staff report on the project suggests city manager Steve Salomon is ready to look at the next step in the plan that includes applying for a state Department of Conservation Study Grant to help move the plan forward.
“California has a number of grant opportunities including planning grants we think we can qualify for,” says Greg Kirkpatrick, a farmland preservation consultant who helped the group write the plan. “Besides that we think there may be lots of other funding sources from various state proposition funds including Prop. 13, 40 and 50.”
About 20 members of this study group have been meeting since November to come up with an alternate plan from one proposed by city consultants that would have had the city possibly buy up West 198 frontage in the future to protect it for set back for park land particularly along creeks on both sides of the highway.
Much of that land west of Akers heading to Plaza Dr. remains in the county with the city wanting to define how the land might be used in the future rather than have developers or owners in the area constantly knock on the door with sometimes grandiose development plans.
One of the largest plans floated was a proposal for an 800,000 sq. ft. shopping center and auto mall at the northwest corner of Shirk and 198 proposed by the Ennis development. Last year a second auto mall proposal proposed by Andy and Craig Mangano on the southeast corner of Shirk and 198 was relocated last year to a less controversial area within the city limits at Plaza and 198 allowing a fresh look at the area between Plaza Park and Akers by this new study group.
The group met with Craig Mangano - who maintains property options in the area - in recent weeks to lay out plans that would limit development within the area to portions away from the highway to protect a 600 ft. equivalent frontage along both sides of the freeway with only limited development. The proposal suggests this area be a mix of open space and demonstration farms with more intense farm related development behind the 600 ft. strip. Just how broad those uses might be and the size of the area will be part of a study that would go forward if council approves of the concept plan.
The plans envision an ag enterprise zone that could be as little as 360 acres or much larger depending on its perceived feasibility.
Part of the attraction for this rural undeveloped part of Visalia is that its wide open spaces could also attract educational institutions, ag corporate offices and even ag receiving stations like Sequoia Walnut who has a nut plant on Ben Maddox.
The walnut cooperative has written a letter to the city suggesting it is supportive of the plan that could be an attractive location to relocate from an area the city is working to develop over by the stockyards. Likewise, a letter of support comes from the Tulare County Farm Bureau who has an office next door to the walnut facility.
Farm Bureau leaders Craig Knudson who is incoming president of the local farm bureau for next year, Farm Bureau treasurer Geneva Shannon and Byron Fox traveled to Fresno last week meeting with Dr. John Welty and 8 other top university officials to lay out the corridor plan they thought might interest the college in setting up a college farm facility down here. “They said that a college farm down here was a possibility, but what they really wanted was a full campus,” says Fox. “We were really surprised” about how advanced their plans were.
Knudson says the Visalia group was surprised at how far along plans for a possible Visalia campus were with Welty suggesting they would need about 350 acres for a student population of some 5000 in the future. He said the college liked the area north of 198 to be away from the airport but have access off of Shirk - the major thoroughfare into the area.
Perfect Location
College provost Dr. Mike Ortiz told the Voice that Fresno State was considering whether to concentrate its efforts to expand 4 year college classes at COS or look at a new location. He said the college found the area outlined in the study group’s corridor plan “very attractive, it would be easy to reach by students coming from Hanford and Tulare and the rest of the area.” Ortiz calls the area north of 198 “a perfect location” since it has both wide open space but is near city services.
Ortiz says the college is holding off building a new FSU office on the COS campus in part because of the dilemma over whether to concentrate at the FSU-COS site or begin the planning for a full campus “where the expansion potential is much greater.”
Ortiz says FSU officials will be meeting with the City of Visalia and COS president Kim Badrkhan at a meeting February 20 at city council chambers in Visalia from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Visalia city manager Steve Salomon has been meeting with Fresno State officials on a number of occasions for the past year and says he isn’t surprised about Fresno State’s interest. “I think they will come and it’s just a matter of time.” The college has given the city council letters of interest to develop a campus here. For now Salomon says the plan is to build the COS-FSU upper division programs to the point it can qualify for a Center status recognized as the next step before a full campus is approved.
Fresno State’s interest suggests it may be time for a community movement to raise money to help buy the land to attract the college here - something that the community could now get behind, “a land donation wold be the next logical step,” says a source familiar with the discussions. Just this month the issue of the lack of a four year campus in the south valley was broached again with Assemblyman Bill Maze authoring a bill to designate another UC campus for the south valley.
While a full college campus doesn’t fit as an ag enterprise, the study group has been looking for complementary uses, within the large study area for a campus that could “anchor” other farm related uses outlined in the plan. Those uses include: corporate offices for large ag co-ops, or international commodity groups; processing plants and packing facilities; commodity sales and brokerage offices; crop receiving facilities, cold storage facilities; and light manufacturing and packaging of agricultural goods.
Property Owners
Property owners contacted by this group during the 6 week process have been generally cool to the plan with a number suggesting they want to be the ones to decide what to do with their land. The largest farmer in the corridor is Tokkie Elliot who told the group he had no plan to do anything but farm his 400 acres spread across the southwest corner of Shirk and 198 for the foreseeable future. But he suggested eventually wanting to develop upscale homes near the city golf course portion of his family’s land. The study plan leaves the property zoned agriculture as it is today.
Realtor Marty Zeeb represents two of the Perry brothers who own land on the southeast corner of Shirk and 198 who also heard the plan described to them recently. Two of the brothers want to sell their land currently zoned agriculture. But they want to sell the land at values far higher than the zoning would allow - now hoping for resident land values if they were in city limits of Visalia, say $40,000 an acre. In this case the city had laid out a preliminary plan to buy up the frontage of both brothers to protect the corridor area where Pershing Ditch goes through. The study group’s plan would indicate that the brothers if they didn’t want to hold onto the land would have options to sell it to a economic development holding company or the city that would resell it for uses allowed in the ag enterprise zone. Among sources of money the holding company might use are, according to the plan:
• Local Sources
• Infrastructure impact fees and dedications
• Proceeds form sale of city property
• Bonded indebtedness for Ag Enterprise Zone
• Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District assessment
• Mello-Roos Assessments in AEZ
• Bed tax allocation
• State of California
• California Farmland Conservancy Program
• Caltrans Environmental Enhancement Mitigation Program
• Park and Open Space Bonds (Prop 12 and Prop 40)
• Proposition 13
• CDFA “Buy California” Program
• Federal
• USDA Farmland Protection Program
• USDA Rural Development
• Central Valley Improvement Act
Besides large ag users, smaller enterprises are interested in the corridor plan including Bravo Farms who potentially could set up a cheese making and tasting facility and Ivanhoe based McKeller Ag Group who wants to set up a produce store on the corridor and have each filed letters of interest with the city. Farmer Craig Knudson - spokesman for the study group - calls the possibility of a college campus “a natural” for farmers who “can key off all their expertise.” FSU has plenty of ag technology and ag processing and even “a farm store,” notes Knudson.
Group Buys Ambulatory Center
Visalia - Visalia Surgical Hospital is expected to break ground early this fall as the players in the new venture are buying a local surgical practice this month. Orthopaedic Associates, who has a number of physicians helping launch the Visalia Surgical Hospital, has purchased CAMS - Center for Ambulatory Medicine on Noble - says general partner Dr. James Billys. “We bought the former partners interest and will be about 85% owned by Orthopaedic Associates” says Billys. The deal should close by the end of February.
Fresno Surgery Center - the partner in the new 21 bed Visalia Surgical Hospital - will manage the CAMS practice located on Noble across the freeway from Kaweah Delta. The practice dates from 1983. Retiring partners in CAMS includes Drs. Jim Shea and Hal McConnaughey among others.
“We’ll use this time to allow our staff to become used to the management style and culture of Fresno Surgery Center and transition them right into the new hospital when it opens about a year and a half from now,” says Dr. Billys. “They will bring their model to the business.” The CAMS practice does about 3600 outpatient procedures a year.
Regarding the new hospital Dr. Billys says the project now involves some 14 Visalia area physicians with the likelihood of a few more invited to come on board. “Our financing looks very good right now,” says Billys.
Originally Kaweah Delta Hospital opposed the project and although approved by city council in October 2001 mimicked some of the more upscale features in a new wing of its own hospital, Broderick Pavilion, now open.
Regarding a third project - the possible relocation of Dr. Billys group - Orthopaedic Associates - he says the plan to develop medical offices on land Dr. Billys purchased some years ago on the south side of 198 near Roeben on land now planted to kiwis. “That would be the new location plus additional medical offices,” says Dr. Billys noting that the land would first have to be annexed into the city and zoned for that use. Kaweah Delta hospital has indicated it would need the current orthopedic property on Mineral King as part of their major Downtown Visalia expansion.
Air Board Seeks Good Numbers On Dairy Emmisions
San Joaquin Valley - Farmers are getting hammered these days over air pollution. Blamed for the apparent worsening smog problems in the Valley - the finger pointing by environmental groups, citizens, news media and the government now permeates everyone’s thinking - even farmers. Check out the first seminar at this year’s World Ag Expo - air emissions - now taking top billing from international trade talks and cooking demonstrations.
While everyone wants the regulators to “do something about it” the state’s top air regulators are waiting for some good science to give them some answers - particularly with dairy emissions - a favorite whipping boy in the Central Valley. Obviously a big target because of the massive amount of manure it produces - it is at the same time Tulare County’s biggest “cash cow” - our largest industry.
The environmental group The Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment (CRPE) spent the past few years halting the expansion of the industry largely over this issue of dairy emissions and the amount of gases and PM-10 (dust) they pour into our air. While the group cited figures in their arguments and legal challenges based on some kind of science, the conclusion both dairy industry groups and regulators are now agreeing on is that in many cases it was “not good science.”
“We’ve been studying cars and industry smoke stacks measuring air pollution for 20 to 30 years,” says California Air Resource Board staffer Patrick Gaffney. “But in the case of dairies and other ag uses its just been in the past few years” that the issue has been on the radar screen.
Gaffney is a top official in the emission inventory branch of the ARB whose task it is to catalogue and offer a best estimate of air emissions in our atmosphere and where they come from “to try to improve our air quality.”
Yet with dairy emissions - measuring them is literally a moving target. “You can’t just wave a paper bag around and get good numbers,” says Fresno State Professor Dr. Charles Krauter who was hired last year by the ARB to give them good science on reactive organic gases (ROGs) - a major contributor to smog. Believe it or not, this valley study that only took its first measurements last October is the first major scientific analysis of these ROGs for dairy cows since 1938.
Still the 1938 study is cited as the source for all current Air Resource Board emission estimates and press assertions that “cows rival cars as smog producers” remains a theme in the current report by the Fresno Bee on valley air quality. The 1938 study itself cites 1890 statutes on methane and estimates that 8% of the methane the cow emits is gas - ROGs. The problem is - that science may be just plain wrong.
So says researcher Dr. Charles Krauter whose initial ROG numbers have just been forwarded to the ARB’s Patrick Gaffney for analysis. Regarding the older science based on the 1938 work Krauter says he “doesn’t have much confidence in them.”
“We have far better equipment now.” Krauter says he will need about a year to offer a number to ARB on what an average dairy on a per head basis produces. “At least we believe we’ve proven that we can do that.”
The 1938 survey assumed that 8% of methane a cow gives off was reactive gas - a figure that could be far too high or far too low - but in the newest study ROGs will be measured directly.
But Gaffney says what they believe now is that the 8% figure is far too high and that ROGs make up only 1 or 2% of methane emissions.
A dairy cow’s contribution could be one quarter of what earlier estimates have claimed.
Suddenly the dairy cow looks less like soot belching diesel semi-truck as a factor in the valley smog problem.
The ARB’s Patrick Gaffney says earlier PM-10 numbers assumed for dairy cows in California was reduced this past year as a result of Texas A&M and UC Davis work by a factor of about 4 down from 29 lbs PM-10/1000 head to 6.7 lbs. The best science on ammonia is now part of the state emission inventory based on a 2001 study out of UC Davis at 74 lbs. NH3/head/year - also about 40% lower than previously estimated, says Gaffney.
Gaffney predicts they will get a full picture of the dairy industry’s contribution with the completion of the reactive gases study over the next year thanks to contributions from a number of sources including the ARB, San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution District, Western United Dairymen and Fresno State.
Dr. Krauter says he has spent the past 30 years studying ammonia and that’s how the ARB came to him to do these current studies. He says “plants pull ammonia out of the air” as they apparently do with other gases suggesting that a dairy surrounded by crop land may be the best mechanisms to help scrub the air.
The emission numbers will be folded in the California state implementation plan for ozone that California must supply to the EPA to stay in compliance with the Clean Air Act.
Last year the Voice quoted a National Academy of Sciences report on estimating air emissions that suggested the need for new studies.
There is no doubt that ag pollutes and that the 1.1 million dairy cows and the emissions of tons of manure they produce is a problem along with being a great fertilizer. Efforts to manipulate and moderate those emissions are underway in Merced County - SWQ Control Board study on how varying factors like the feed rations and capturing of gases can potentially lower the stink that reduces air quality. Then - maybe the stink over dairies will ease.
“All we’re looking for is sound science so my dairymen don’t get pushed around” and “forced to clean up pollution” that may not be real, says Western United Dairymen’s environmental director Paul Martin. “That’s why we are collaborating in this study.”
What the dairymen may not want to hear is that they will have to spend money to clean up this problem and that hammer over their heads will likely remain. Also that the pollution cows do produce - even in small quantities - may be more harmful than we thought. In the meantime, experimentation in reductions of air emissions at dairies shouldn’t be put on the back burner.
Wetter Pattern Returning After Dry January?
One of the driest Januarys on record has reduced the snow pack in the greater Kaweah drainage to some 58% of normal after a promising start in November and December had the snow pack up to some 117% of normal a month earlier. So says Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District operations manager Tom Weddle. That’s worse off than a statewide snow survey of the state released February 1 that showed northern parts of the state still 120% ahead of normal while south valley measuring stations at some 83% of normal.
At Giant Forest precipitation measured 13 inches in November and 9 inches in December but in January the survey weather station received less than 1 inch during the entire month. So far this water year Giant Forest has received 24 inches of precipitation. Much of the snow pack has shrank due to persistent 50 and 60 degree temps at the 6600 ft. elevation.
Storms heading to the West coast were consistently pushed north as the only water content people saw for the past month was unending fog clogging the windshields.
But Porterville meteorologist John Hibler says the dry pattern in the central and south part of the state this past month may run its course by mid February when the jet steam may again swing south bringing in milder Pacific storms - wet but warm. “We’re looking at higher snow levels but at least we are looking at moisture,” says Hibler - a pattern more like the El Nino year we have been expecting.
“I’m looking at February 12-15" for the pattern to change. Hibler says it in a more typical El Nino year the Pacific Northwest is relatively dry but that this year Seattle is some 150% of normal. It’s also unusual for the Midwest and South to have experienced the bitter cold they have recently in an El Nino year he says “other parts of the globe are getting a more normal El Nino pattern.”
Snow pack is down on the Kings River and on the San Joaquin River - both bit sources for spring irrigation water. At Huntington Lake on the San Joaquin the rain gauge shows a little over half an inch of precipitation fell in January compared to an average of about 7.5 inches.
Sierra temps have fallen dramatically in the past few days at least helping maintain the snow pack up there that we already have.
“If a storm comes warm or cold, we’ll take it,” says Kaweah River watermaster Bruce George.
The US Climate Prediction Center still suggests wetter than normal conditions for the period January through March in the southern tier of the US including the southern Sierra. Still, the center cites severe drought conditions in the Southwest and “abnormally dry conditions in the south Sierra. But the forecast suggest this impacted area should improve.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac also predicts a wet weather pattern in February for the Golden State including thunderstorms for February 12-14. Some weather experts suggest that just because this is an El Nino year it doesn’t necessarily translate into wet weather for much of California. “Some are wet and some are dry,” says Maurice Roos of the state Department of Water Resources.
Choose California’s State Coin for 2005
By Elizabeth F. van Mantgem
It’s too late to design the coin yourself, but log onto the governor’s web site ( or ) and choose your favorite of the 20 semi-final California State quarter design concepts. Hurry and do it before the final five go to the U.S. Mint without your input.
In September (Sept.9-Nov.9), we were each invited to get creative and submit original coin concepts. In January (Dec.31- Present), we were asked to choose our favorite of the 20 semi-final designs gleaned from over 8,000 entries. The deadline for making your opinion known has been extended into early February, giving more people a chance to vote. Once the poll has ended, the final decision goes to Governor Gray Davis and the U.S. Mint. While many of the 20 selected semi-final designs are astonishingly dull, there is hope for a memorable coin.
Of the 8,000 submissions, some were downright wild. One presented Queen Califia, the Amazon ruler of a science fiction book published in 1510. “Queen Califia would be a good symbol for California since the state was named after her. Personally, I’d like to see a woman on the quarter!” said Sarah Dalton, a public information officer for the State Library. “Queen Califia also has lots of gold bracelets, which taps into the Golden State image without tapping into the problematic concept of the gold rush. As you know, the gold rush caused a lot suffering.”
Through the past months, Ms. Dalton has been fielding many heartfelt calls about the coin design, “People have very personal and almost emotional reactions to what should be on the quarter. [That’s why] natural images [like the giant sequoia design] are good; they’re not going to leave any group of people out the way the gold rush concept might.”
Another wild but totally California submission depicted a bikinied surfer chick, a popular California stereotype. Several portrayed Mickey Mouse, each at a different stage of his creative evolution, but according to Dalton, these were eliminated due to copyright concerns, “Mickey Mouse just wasn’t legal.” The most popular design concepts submitted included images of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hollywood sign.
Even if you don’t vote for your favorite, check out the 20 semi-finalists. Along with the Golden Gate Bridge and Hollywood images, they include illustrations of natural resources like Yosemite Valley and California’s giant sequoia trees. Others show grizzly bears, California poppies, gold miners, and Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. It’s important to remember that the original request for designs was really a request for concepts. “Everyone who sent in a concept signed a release,” making it okay for the U.S. Mint to create a different version of a popular idea. Reasons for using concepts rather than sticking to exact designs include technical criteria, like “stacking” criteria which ensure the coin is useful in coin machines, parking meters, and other standardized gadgets. Aesthetics is important as well. Dalton reminds us that, “a quarter is very small and we don’t want it to be too busy.”
Although Governor Davis gets the final say on our state quarter design, he isn’t making this decision alone. He’s appointed an expert and celebrity committee of 20 advisors to help him decide. These advisors include Penny Marshall (from the television show, Lavern & Shirley), a lifetime coin collector as well as an actress and director; Jerry Buss, another amateur coin collector and the owner of the L.A. Lakers; Jim Hunt, the president of the San Diego County Interclub Numismatic Council (numismatics is the study or collection of money, coins, and medals); Dwight Manley, Barry Stuppler, and Donald H. Kagin, all professional numismatists; and Robert Freeman, a world-renowned artist from San Marcos.
Taking the popular vote results into consideration, Governor Davis and his advisory committee will submit their final selection of five design concepts by March 1st, 2003. The finished design will ultimately be the creation of the U.S. Mint itself, unveiled in 2005. Perhaps the Mint will blend the five finalist concepts. The result in that case could possibly be a confusing collage like many of the 21 state quarter designs already in circulation. Echoing Ms. Dalton’s sentiment against a busy collage, let’s hope the Mint will choose style and good composition over clutter for California.
According to Public Law 105-124 (enacted Dec. 1, 1977), The 50 States Commemorative Coin Program Act, “[provides] for a 10-year circulating commemorative coin program to commemorate each of the 50 states, and for other purposes,” starting in 1999 and ending in 2008. The “other purposes” include promoting, “the diffusion of knowledge among the youth of the United States about individual States, their history and geography, and the rich diversity of the national heritage.” It’s also a chance to modernize the circulating coinage, which hasn’t been done in 25 years, and to raise a little money. The sale of commemorative coins is a profitable business, potentially, “producing indirect earnings of an estimated $2,600,000,000 to $5,100,000,000 to the United States Treasury, money that will replace borrowing to fund the national debt.”
Each year for the ten year program, five new coin designs will be launched, meaning that 10 new coins are minted for dispersal: the five designs in the Denver (D) mint and the same five designs in the Philadelphia (P) mint. So far, 42 state coins have been minted, with Illinois the first pair (minted at both D & P mints) available for 2003. Upcoming 2003 coins will be Alabama, Maine, Missouri, and Arkansas. The sequence that each state’s coins are minted corresponds with the order of the state’s ratification by the Constitution of the United States or admittance into the Union. That means that California is slated to be the 31st design minted in 2005. Delaware was the first. Hawaii will be the last state coin in 2008, bringing the total to 100 shiny-new state coins to collect for the numismatist in all of us.
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
February 5, 2003
