No Brainer?
New Ban On Downer Cows In Food Supply

California - The USDA, beef and dairy industries reversed course on the use of hundreds of thousands of downer cows in the US meat supply just days after the find of a single cow who tested positive for BSE - mad cow disease. That downer cow was slaughtered December 9. Downer cows are livestock too sick or injured to stand.

The dramatic change in policy was announced by Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman December 28 - prompted by the first case of BSE in the US - from a down Holstein cow slaughtered in the state of Washington but born in Canada.

USDA routinely tests some 10% of down cows for the presence of BSE but until now didn’t wait for the test results before allowing the meat to go into the food supply. Two weeks elapsed as the meat from the BSE infected cow spread throughout the Pacific Northwest and into California where it has been recalled at some supermarkets.

In an about face, the USDA announced that with any cow tested for BSE, the meat will be held until negative test results are confirmed.

It appears to be a common sense policy - a “no brainer”. But it was one the USDA did not follow until now - after the cows had left the barn so to speak - and stuff got into the US meat supply.

The find of a BSE infected cow in the US meat supply abruptly shut down all exports of meat from the US to foreign countries - a $6 billion hit for US producers. One of our biggest markets - Japan - is a major destination for California beef. Japan is now insisting that the US test far more of its beef for BSE - bovine spongiform encephalopathy - if it wants to regain this $3.2 billion market. US and Canadian testing for BSE amount to a few thousand tests a year while France tests 25% of all beef carcasses and Japan tests all of them. Japan has had some 9 cases of mad cow disease - two in young animals.

As many as 30 countries have now closed their markets to US beef. This week Congressman Miller from the Bay Area introduced legislation to test all beef at an expected cost of $1 billion.

$27 Billion Industry

The USDA estimates that 200,000 US cattle are classified as “downers” every year out of some 36 million animals slaughtered. Unfortunately, that small volume of bad beef has tainted a $27 billion industry.

Beef prices plunged on the futures market after a year of record highs had been seen although prices have stabilized as we go to press.

The regulatory action follows years of foot dragging by both the dairy and meat packing industry and the USDA over the continued use of downer cows in the meat supply. As recently as last July a bill to keep down cows out of food supply was narrowly defeated in congress. Locally, Congressman Cal Dooley voted in favor of the ban and Congressman Devin Nunes - himself a dairyman - voted to continue to allow the use of down cows.

A national poll of over 1000 citizens found that 77% of the people polled opposed the use of down animals in the food supply.

In this case, the ban on use of down cows would have kept the BSE tainted meat out of the US food supply. Cattle get sick from eating feed that contains tissue from the brain or spinal cord of an infected animal. A ban on the practice of feeding cow parts to other cows was put in place after many years of debate in 1997 and one million cows in Britain came down with mad cow disease.

Cattle brains, spinal cords and the lower intestines from the animals may contain the bad mutant protein that can cause BSE. Humans who consume these products can develop Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease characterized by sponge-like brain disease.

While most people don’t knowingly eat brain, spinal cord or intestines, they are popular in some circles including “tacos de cabeza” and chorizo at many eateries in the central valley. Brain sandwiches are popular in the Midwest.

The USDA says it will now ban these materials from the food supply from cattle that are older than 30 months.

But critics say that the feed ban has been repeatedly ignored. It can take years before the signs of BSE disease take hold so it is possible this one case comes from an animal born before the ban was put in place. The cow was 6 ½ years old.

Meat industry officials downplayed the significance of the BSE find pointing out that there is no scientific proof that the common cuts of meat consumed carry any infected material. The US beef supply is safe, officials continue to assure the public.

“One mad cow can cause billions in damage,” says Kings County farmer Tony Oliveira. “It shows how vulnerable agriculture is.”

Livestock yard owner Rod Balco says “all that negative press is scaring people” when they don’t have anything to worry about. “We have the strictest, most regulated and cleanest meat industry in the world.” Balco says banning downer cows isn’t the solution since a sick cow can still walk in the slaughterhouse. “That’s why we have meat inspectors.”

The USDA also announced they would seek an animal identification program enabling them to track cattle faster.

BSE in cattle and a similar disease in sheep and of other animals have jumped across the species barrier having infected some 153 people worldwide - many in England - where BSE tainted beef was found in the 1990s. A similar pattern found in cows stricken with BSE has been found in humans causing a kind of severe dementia.

Critics of the USDA’s go-slow approach like Dr. Stanley Prusiner of the University of California San Francisco who actually discovered the proteins that cause the disease, had recently warned Veneman that it was just a matter of time before the disease popped up in the US.

Inhumane Treatment

Dr. Jim Reynolds of the US Veterinary Center in Tulare has been a strong advocate against the use of downer cows not just because they are possible BSE candidates, but because downer cows have little dollar value and the practice of hauling them to the slaughterhouse is often inhumane.

Even though there is a law in California against dragging downer cows - with tractors or forklifts - “it happens every day on about 60 to 70% of the dairy farms,” says Reynolds.

The practice will now end because the downers are banned from the food supply.

The industry had argued that the down cows should be presented to the slaughterhouses where the dairyman or ranchers could recoup some of the investment. In addition, during the Congressional debate over the issue, supporters of the current system argued that if the animals got to the slaughterhouse they are at least inspected by the USDA. The system was better than spending all the money it would take to have veterinarians go to the farms to inspect cattle, they argued.

One Mad Cow

The counter argument, made on the House floor during the debate referring to a recent find of BSE in Canada earlier this year was “one mad cow has closed them down in Canada. Do we want that to happen in the United States?”

That’s exactly what has happened. Now, testing on the farm is likely, expects Dr. Jim Reynolds. In California the testing can be done at rendering plants where cattle are killed that can’t be used in the food supply, he says. USDA testing of the heads/brains of animals can be done there at a central point. One report in recent days suggests the USDA might pay farmers to test for the disease.

Critics of the ban on downer animals had argued that farmers would have no incentive to have their animals tested for BSE if they weren’t presented to the slaughterhouse.

But they certainly have an incentive now if they want to market the beef to increasingly wary customers including the 30 some countries who have closed their borders to the meat. “They have to meet consumer concerns” of the safety of products says Reynolds - the driving force behind improved food safety practices in the food industry in the US.

Speaking of no brainers - USDA itself - before their recent announcements - banned downer meat from its own USDA purchases rather than take a chance. Last year McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s ended their purchase of meat from downed animals. The thing about cattle parts is that virtually nothing is wasted in the process that may be thrifty but also provides some uncertainty over the safety of all the edible wastes in the food system that FDA itself says they are still studying.

If USDA was slow to accept banning downer cows from the food supply, Reynolds says he has been working on that issue for the past ten years - the USDA didn’t ban the feeding of cow parts to cows - “cow cannibalism” - until 1997 - 7 years after they formed a USDA task force to look into the matter. In the early 1990s England experienced mad cow cases and it’s human variant. FDA has proposed a rule in 1994 but industry opposition squashed any plan until the USDA acted in 1997.

A USDA report suggested the use of meat and bone meal, blood meal and feather meal was 7.9 billion lbs. in 1989. Of that 34% went to pet food, 34% to feed poultry, 20% to feed swine and 19%, some 790 million lbs., went to feed beef and dairy cattle.

The use of feeding animals parts of other animals besides cows, remains on the table even after Veneman’s recent pronouncements. Cats in England have been found to carry a strain of the disease thought to have come from feeding cow or sheep parts - brains and spinal cord material - to cats. The pet food industry in the US could face a backlash from consumers since the cow parts continued to be allowed in pet food.

It’s important to realize that the infected cow can’t pass the disease to other cows like an influenza, but only through the consumption of the infected material can the disease spread.

The infected cow in Washington state came from Canada and may have eaten feed mixed with cow parts from a plant up there. USDA wants to trace other cows that may have eaten from the same batches, and has quarantined at least three Washington herds in the past week. Hundreds of calves are being killed.

Beef industry folks are quick to point out that while this is the second mad cow from Canada - the fact the animal came from across the border is good news on a couple of fronts - the US can say its home grown meat is BSE safe and we caught the problem through current testing. Beef is raised on an estimated one million ranches in the US. The fact that the beef came from a foreign animal has some increasing calls for country-of-origin labels on all food products.

Another measure announced by Veneman is stricter control on an automated carcass stripping system that may scrape some of the spinal cord tissue in the process.

Did any of the cows end up in California? That’s unknown right now. Reynolds says California imported about 135,000 dairy heifer in 2001 out of a population of 1.5 million dairy cattle. The state supplies most of its own needed replacements with herds turning over every 3 to 4 years. The rapid turnover of the herds makes it less likely for cows exhibiting the brain wasting disease - stumbling and falling down for example - because the onset of symptoms often takes 6 years.

Even if the downer cows will cost the dairymen they are worth about $30 instead of $1500 a head as milking cows, farmers have to pay to have the down cow transported to the slaughter plant where about 60% are rejected as unfit anyway for consumption. “It was a minor economic issue for the cattle industry compared to the loss of trade status,” notes Reynolds.

Reynolds says that the Tulare Veterinary Center is preparing a CD/film to be given to farmers to learn how to identify the signs of sickness in cattle and to humanely euthanize the animals.

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Visalia - Last year proved Mooney Blvd. was the place to be in regional retail whether your store was coming in or going out.

Target closed a big Mooney Blvd. store and opened a bigger one a quarter of a mile to the south on Mooney. This week Wherehouse records succumbing to the pressure of Napster and their new and bigger Mooney rival, Best Buy, said they would shut down their Mooney store January 25.

While the strip has many new stores, dark, empty store-fronts like Youngs Market on North Mooney and the old House-2-Home space next to Costco remain shuttered.

Other stores planning to move to the new Packwood center or the new Kohls shopping center across from the Visalia Mall will mean a half dozen empty buildings to refill on Mooney in the next year.

The good news is that deals are working on many of the properties in part because of the strength of the retail economy in Visalia.

At the old Target building site, a Texas developer is weighing whether to flatten the 90,000 sq. ft. building to build new storefronts and restaurants or leave the building and divide it up. He is likely to be working with Circuit City to fill part of the space.

At the old House-2-Home building next to Costco, that has been vacant almost a year, Passco Real Estate the REIT that owns the shopping center says they have come to terms with the lender on the property and expect to announce two tenants for this empty big box in the next few months.

At the Packwood center developer Don Orosco continues to work to fill a few spots on the shopping center’s east side and the large vacant area north of Target on the west side. He is said to be working with Sports Mart for one of the spots. Brokers say that as the Visalia area grows - they had 1000 new homes last year - the demand for regional retail not yet in the market continues to grow.

Each category has a rival or two in the national marketplace. In linens it’s Bed, Bath and Beyond (already here) and Linens and Things - not yet here. The sporting stores here will soon get a new rival in their category and so on.

The town already has a bunch of 99 cent stores that fill a need but lack some of the upscale stores many Visalians have been hungry for for years. That could change in coming years for the new owners of the Sequoia Mall decide to do a major make over of that mall now that they are losing Ross and Mens Wearhouse. The possibility exists that the mall now owned mostly by Australian money could add a major new anchor giving Visalia Mall a new run in the fashion category. Visalia Mall is out of room for expansion and can’t bring in many new stores of any size.

Still there is dislocation for others that because of some competitive disadvantage are forced to close down. The question remains for city planners and developers alike - if it will take another 5 years or longer to widen Mooney to 6 lanes - can the strip handle the congestion with the state’s tough financial straits the widening project keeps getting pushed off.

TCAG reps say there is a chance the state could decide whether to move forward on the next step on widening Mooney - approving the right-of-way acquisition - this spring. They postponed that action last summer.

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California - California agriculture is wary of a proposed Latin America Free Trade agreement being pushed by the Bush administration joining commodity groups across the country who remain opposed to dropping all trade barriers both in this hemisphere and world wide.

All of Tulare County’s top crops - dairy, citrus and beef could be affected in the coming year by the administration’s effort to promote a foreign policy that could be at the expense of farm income.

The mood of valley ag is not good in 2004 when all the world producers have lower labor costs than in the US or California where costs to employ and cover a worker with health benefits are higher every year.

Sunkist VP Mike Wooten tells the Voice the big grower group says while Latin America has plenty to whet their appetite - access to the world’s largest consumer market - citrus growers here have little to gain. Chile for example already ships in about a million boxes of lemons and is expected to ship that amount of oranges into the US in coming years.

“Within the next six months Chile will be shipping in oranges and tangerines to compete with California fruit,” says Wooten reaching 290 million people in the US. What we get in return is a market the size of the city of Los Angeles,” (Chile).

Wooten says Sunkist fears Latin farmers with a low cost basis and few regulatory requirements on them along with far fewer safety regulations competing here with US grown produce.

Already Brazil dominates the orange juice concentrate business in the world that has hurt the juice business here and in Florida, says Wooten. “If you drop all barriers, Brazil can easily flood the market with juice.” Already this year juice prices have plummeted based on increased world supply and reduced consumption of juice in the US. (See chart). Orange juices are the lowest in fifteen years. USDA is expecting a 23% increase in the Brazilian orange crop this year.

Lemons face a bleak future with the prospect of falling trade barriers fears Wooten, with Argentina - the number one lemon grower in the world potentially hurting the California grown lemon industry. That country faces a hold on shipping right now due to a canker problem there. “With enough money and time and scientific know-how, they will be back,” says Wooten.

This winter lemon prices are reported to be below the cost of production in California.

Other commodity groups are concerned about the trade issue including the sugar industry and beef industry who each face a growing volume of imports from Latin America.

Australia is increasingly seen as a strong competitor for California ag products including citrus with the importation of 1.3 million cartons coming in this winter into the US market to compete with Sunkist Valencia oranges.

European citrus producers - mostly from Spain - continue to flood the US market with 38 million cartons of Clementines a year, says Wooten as the world beats a path to our door. Growers say the Spanish are “practically giving the Clementines away.”

Dairy farmers too, fear the continued importation of milk products like milk proteins from Europe and Australia displacing the volume of domestically supplied milk needed to make cheese. Nisei Farmer League president Manuel Cunha echos Wooten’s comments noting that overseas farmers don’t have the same requirements to pay minimum wages, workers comp, paid leave no follow the food safety laws and procedures that US farmers must follow.

Both Cunha and Wooten strongly support the country-of-origin labeling that USDA decided to put off for the next year and one half.

“Consumers deserve to know where their food comes from,” says Wooten. Sunkist supports the labels being implemented perhaps by September 2005 “with less cost and regulatory requirements” associated with them, he says. Sunkist is putting Made-In-The-USA on all their fruit labels.

Cunha says he is concerned about Mexican trucks coming in here in the next three months without the pollution requirements on their trucks as California trucks and potentially carrying dangerous Mexican pests into the valley piggy backing on a truck.

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Visalia - Visalia had a record year for building permits totaling $251.6 million and the permitting of just under 1000 homes. Construction activity of $251 million is a huge jump from any other year in the city’s history and $51 million more than last year.

In 2001 the city recorded $141 million in total permit valuation and back in 1996 we recorded just $75 million - less than a third of the current activity.

Subdivision activity in 2003 included the building of 994 homes for a total valuation of $179 million. The average dwelling cost in 2003 was $170,000, the same number as 2002 but up from $127,000 in 2001.

Activity is brisk in all quadrants of the city including new subdivision plans on both sides of West 198 heading out to Shirk. New developer to the community Cambridge Homes - a Fresno builder - is constructing a new project at Hurley and Shirk north of 198. Home builders Ennis Homes, McMillan Homes and Centex each have several subdivisions in the works or underway this year. “Everything they tell me points to continued strong home building in town,” says the city’s chief building official Dennis Lehman.

“The only strong industry in town these days is home building,” says farmer/banker Tokkie Elliot and that remains “interest rate sensitive,” he notes. Low financing in 2003 made it cheaper to own a home than to rent one, he notes.

At 994 the new permits are a new record for the city as well with total valuation doubling from 2000. Last year the city recorded 860 new homes and 818 in 2001. We were building only 300 to 450 in the mid 90s, however.

It was a good year also for commercial projects totaling $45.9 million in 2003 and financing a number of large retail projects on Mooney. More are in the works that is expected to keep the category booming as well.

Not booming this year was industrial buildings that also fit into the category. The last time the city saw the numbers was with the construction of the JoAnn industrial building in 2000 which the city recorded $48.5 million in valuation. Total number of commercial permits were 71 in 2003 compared to 76 in 2002 and just 41 in 2001.

Multi family permits reached 86 in 2003 up from 69 in 2002 and just 18 in 2001.

December remains a good month for building here with permitting of 81 new homes compared to 68 in December 2002. December also saw 12 new commercial projects compared to just 3 in December 2002 - signs the building activity is continuing through the winter months.

Observers feel there is little chance of a spike in interest rates through the first half of 2004.

Lehman says 2004 construction activity should continue strong knowing some projects like the expansion of Kaweah Delta, and office building nearby, a 5 story parking garage, several new car dealerships and continued construction of retail buildings on Mooney and along 198.

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Tulare County - There’s new hope this new year that the long vacant pre-trial facility - that empty jail costing tax payers some $2.3 million a year to finance - may fill up later this year with a revenue stream to go with it.

“It’s my number one priority,” says Sheriff Bill Wittman, and “I’m optimistic we can do this year.”

Wittman says what’s new is the work of Congressman Devin Nunes who has been able to get assurances that the county could receive a contract for federal prisoners waiting for space at other facilities. “We are still working on details including how long a commitment would the federal government make” on a contract to house prisoners. Wittman says their earlier initiative to also house some INS detainees is also still in the works.

“I’ve got to hand it to Devin, he’s doing all he can in Washington to try to get us some contracts” - relief for the continuing bleeding of red ink by a county that can little afford it.

“The problem is that it will take about $500,000 to reopen” the mothballed jail that has been closed since 2001. “I don’t have that kind of money in my budget.” Wittman had to make painful cuts this budget year to try to keep officers on the streets of rural Tulare County.

The facility was built with local monies at a cost of $22 million and used as an adult pre-trial facility for less than two years. The problem remained that the county didn’t have the budget to hire the staff to manage it.

The facility can house 400 prisoners.

Next door’s Bob Wiley facility is burdened with double the number of prisoners - nearly 700 - that it was designed for.

Wittman says one strong option they are weighing is if they can firm up the federal contract and future revenue stream, the option is to close down the main civic center jail that is maxed out at 260 prisoners - relocate them to the pre-trial facility and still have 140 beds to rent out to the federal government. “Then we could fix up the old jail and rent that out too,” says Wittman prodding some return on investment to the citizens of Tulare County.

The overcrowded main jail and lack of available jail space in the county has meant early release for lots of offenders who get early release simply because the county has little choice.

The move would mean the hiring on of an extra 30 officers to help manage the facility.

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Tulare County - The volume of immigrants coming to the US, California and Tulare and Kings counties continue to be an issue that won’t go away. The impact immigrants have had on the government services, politics and a pending bill that would bring more guest workers from Mexico into the valley, are stories that will be followed closely in 2004.

Just last month the US census announced that the foreign born population in the US increased by 57% between 1990 and 2000 while the native population increased just 9.3%. The large volume of immigrants who entered the US remain unauthorized, said the census - not following the pattern of previous immigrant waves prior to 1980 when 82% of foreign born who entered the US prior to 1970 were naturalized. From 1990 to 2000 only 13% of those who entered the US were naturalized.

Tulare County has one of the highest percentages of foreign born populations for any non-border county in the US. During the same period the Voice reported that more people left Tulare County in that decade than moved in.

California’s wave of new residents who are not citizens is clear from political issues that will continue in 2004 during the drivers license controversy.

On the national scene, there are competing voices over just what this administration’s immigration policy will be.

But at deadline President Bush seemed to open the door for more job-based immigration. “The president has long talked about the importance of having an immigration policy that matches willing workers with willing employers,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. “It’s important for America to be a welcoming society. We are a nation of immigrants, and we’re better for it.”

Associated Press reports that “A plan being proposed by President Bush would give legal status to foreign workers, including millions already toiling in America’s underground economy, removing the fear of deportation but not putting them on a fast track toward permanent U.S. residency. There are an estimated 8 million to 10 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, about half from Mexico.

Ag leaders are supporting a new “guest worker” bill that could bring thousands of new workers into the Central Valley as soon as this summer under an “Ag/Jobs” bill supported by Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

Nisei Farm League president Manuel Cunha - a strong advocate of the bill - says the bill “won’t be a blanket for amnesty” for workers nor will it mean an influx of permanent residents into the valley. The farmer will first have to try to hire locally, but if there isn’t enough workers he can import temporary guest workers from Mexico with the idea that they will be sent home when the work is done.

The bill also has the support of labor interests like the UFW who seek “earned amnesty” for many area undocumented workers to seek amnesty if they work in agriculture.

Farmers hope to gain a workforce guarantee at least for a few years to stick to farmwork.

Yet with existing workers barely scraping by, some can’t see a new workforce coming into the valley dominated by year after year 15% unemployment, poverty and high crime.

Tulare County is already the car crash capital of the state with 3 times the state average for folks killed in auto wrecks. Most infamous are the vans filled with commuting farm workers who end up in horrific crashes that frequently make the 6 p.m. news.

This is part of the equation when an influx of illegal immigrants clog the roads, hospitals and schools. Just one fact - that the Mexican mafia had made Tulare County the number one county for pot production, has raised some questions. The bottom line on a large influx of poorly educated immigrants is that there are costs social, educational and economic costs to pay. Politically a large group of residents who are not citizens means fewer voters - a poor recipe for a democracy critics say.

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Visalia - Will Visalia build a new 70 acre auto mall on West 198? That’s been the question for much of 2003 with debates leading to a 3 to 2 city council vote in favor. That prompted a citizens group to sponsor an initiative calling for a referendum that was denied by the city council. That led to a court challenge by the citizens group that has kept the project from moving forward. Now a court hearing on one of the lawsuits is tentatively set for January 23 in front of judge Pat O’Hara.

One case involves a challenge by the Save Our Corridor group to city approval of the general plan amendment on the property that asserts the city never modified the West Visalia Specific Plan in the approval process as they said they would.

The city attorney Ellen Garber argues that the West Visalia Specific Plan adopted years ago shows the land as ag but that this “lower land use enactments are required to be consistent with the general plan at the time of enactment, but not vice versa.” She suggests the city acted properly in approving the more important general plan amendment and that the city did not have to amend the West Visalia plan. Therefore, there was no “consistency” issue as claimed by the corridor group’s attorney Richard Harriman.

The corridor group has a second suit on the denial of the petition that would allow a citizen vote on the issue. The city argued that the petition was not filed in a timely way and therefore would not go forward.

Former mayor Greg Collins, who leads the corridor group, says it is his understanding that Harriman will ask the judge for a continuance of the January 23 hearing. He says the bottom line of the corridor group is that the citizens should be allowed to vote on the question if the westside auto mall should move forward. The group submitted more than 4100 signatures seeking a vote on the controversial issue.

In the meantime, a second auto mall of sorts is underway on Ben Maddox with plans for a 30 acre auto district on south Ben Maddox across from Giant Automotive. At least two dealers, Frank Serpa and Don Groppetti, have said they want to build new dealerships at the site. Serpa is nearing completion of a new Kia dealership on Ben Maddox and is expected to break ground on a Saturn dealership shortly, next door.

Even if the West Visalia plan is approved, the question will remain -who will build out there in 2004?

Mooney dealer Frank Surroz says he is committed to the site for his new Dodge, Jeep and BMW showrooms.

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Visalia - Booming growth here is forcing area governmental boards to seek new funds to accommodate it.

Visalia area residents are being asked to dig a little deeper into their pockets in 2004 to pay for services from local public agencies. No less than four local jurisdictions - Kaweah Delta District Hospital, Visalia Unified School District, College of the Sequoias and the City of Visalia are asking for extra to pay for that growth. The request to stabilize these local jurisdictions comes as Governor Schwarzenegger seeks votes to approve a $15 billion bond to bail out the state on the same March 2 ballot.

In the case of Kaweah Delta Hospital, voters already approved a bond that will allow the expansion of the hospital complex downtown, pay to expand the ER and add a new wing to the hospital for both maternity and cardiac care. More than two thirds of the voters approved Measure M adding some $30 per 100,000 in assessed value to their property taxes on an annual basis. The hospital cited overflowing ER and medical beds at the nearly 50 year old hospital built when the population was less than a quarter of the size it is today.

The hospital has been faced with growing demand for service by folks coming to Visalia for care after a number of Tulare County area hospitals and ERs shut down in recent years. The large number of poor and uninsured patients has hurt the hospital financially.

At Visalia Unified the voters will be asked to fund a $25.6 million general obligation bond to help fund growth in the district. The district needs a local match to state monies already set aside to build new schools. “We have $15 million in funds waiting for us in Sacramento,” says board member Rob Stephenson, that can be accessed only if locals pass this measure.

The board has cited the continuing growth in new homes and commercial activity as well as a school population that jumped 415 last year. The measure needs a 55% majority to pass.

At COS there is a $95 million bond on the ballot that also requires a 55% majority spread over a larger district since COS serves both Tulare, Kings and small part of Fresno counties.

The funds will be used to build the new Tulare campus that could hold as many as 10,000 students by 2040 by one estimate. Visalia will get the majority of the funds and Hanford will also expand. The bond also has $7.5 million for a 4 year college. The bond is expected to cost about $21 for every $100,000 in assessed valuation on property within the district. The college doesn’t get money for buildings from the state, COS officials explain, even though growth requires students be housed.

A surge in calls for service at the Visalia Police Department and the loss of state monies to fund pubic safety programs is seen as reason enough to ask voters here to approve a one quarter cent sales tax increase on the March 2 ballot.

Mayor Bob Link says the funds will be used to hire more police officers and firefighters. The quarter cent tax will bring in an extra $4 to 6 million a year into the city coffers and cost the average household in Visalia about $46 per year according to a city estimate. They point out that Sacramento has taken away funds used for police and fire and created uncertainty over future city budgets.

Leaders point out that increased sales tax means out of towners who shop here to help pay for the services that growth makes it necessary. Patrolling Mooney - Visalia’s big retail hub - is just one example.

Leaders say that without the funds citizens will have to wait even longer when they have an emergency and fire protection in parts of the city will suffer. Growth in the city’s northwest quadrant is especially vulnerable since there is no fire station near. The plan would be to build a new station in that area. The measure will require a 2/3 vote to approve.

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Porterville - The Tachi Yokut tribe is moving forward on the expansion of the Palace Indian Gaming facility near Lemoore this new year. Casino general manager Adam Gonzales says the county and tribal members sat down before the holiday and determined they would not seek tax exempt financing through the county as they were exploring.

“The county thought it wouldn’t be the right time,” says Gonzales considering all the budget uncertainties with Sacramento. Instead, the tribe will fund the $95 million expansion through a variety of other means, including $25 million of their own funds, says Gonzales. “We will have the initial $35 million in financing in place by the end of the month,” says Gonzales and “the whole package in 90 days,” he predicts.

The tribe had approached the county to help them with the financing in November. But Gonzales had told the Voice back then the project would “move forward with or without the county’s help.” The county would not have any obligation under the bond agreements, but the county’s dire fiscal situation made the appearance of a bond commitment to the tribe problematic, say sources. “It would have cost them $200,000 in a feasibility study to find out if the financing package would affect the county. Of course we support the economic development at the Palace,” says Tony Oliveira, a member of the Board of Supervisors.

Look for contractor activity later this month, says Gonzales, as the project that includes a new 250 room hotel and 3 story casino adjacent the existing complex. Gonzales says there will be open bidding on the project with preference given to local contractors.

To obtain tax exempt financing the tribe is negotiating with the Association of Bay Area Governments who does such financing on other projects.

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Visalia - Both the Visalia Medical Clinic and Kaweah Delta Hospital are far along on converting reams of records and stacks of paper files to electronic files able to be shared digitally, simultaneously and stored easily on a common CD.

Each uses different software to communicate everything from prescriptions to ordering procedures or tests on a patient but physicians who work at both places are able to interface the systems. “We’re not fully integrated (with Kaweah Delta) but we’re working on it,” says Visalia Medical Clinic’s CEO Bill Brouwer.

The conversion means a physician who works at Visalia Medical can send a request for a test to the hospital from his laptop computer as well as monitor a patient’s most recent lab results while seeing his other patients at the clinic. The physician can email prescriptions to the pharmacy using the same system saving time and any errors one might have squinting at the scribbles on the RX forms.

Since medical care in critical conditions is often a matter of quick decisions, there is the need to have the best available information on a patient the digital system offers instant accessibility.

At the Visalia Medical Clinic, with its 90 physicians the clinic runs far more efficiently, says Brouwer, often saving a duplicate testing that someone may not have known about because they didn’t have a complete medical history on a patient.

“We have had our busiest year ever, but we’ve seen lab tests fall.”

The electronic medical records also saves space at the clinic where they are about out of room anyway since rooms full of storage files won’t be needed. Probably more importantly it saves all the labor it takes to find, open, sort and read the records and run them to the file. “This will end up saving the clinic and the patient money,” says Brouwer.

At Kaweah Delta, electronic records are now the legal record the hospital must keep rather than the paper one. “We’ve been working on this for several years,” says Lindsay Mann and the hospital will be fully integrated with all other provider systems in the area, he says.

Mann says the electronic system has distinct advantages, not just in timeliness - the record is sent and received in an instant - no waiting for the mail, accessibility - multiple providers can access the information at the same time and in multiple locations - and accuracy - since there is no need to interpret a doc’s hand writing for example.

About a year ago the hospital got in some hot water with the regulators over the slowness of how physicians update their medical instructions for patients including prescriptions. Docs already drowning in paper and short on time often had to scribble notes (they are infamous for their handwriting) to patient care long after they should have. Electronic entry of information helps solve that problem, says Mann.

One interesting angle on electronic records is the idea you can carry your medical records with you on a CD for example, you are a heart patient that loves to travel in his RV but wants to ensure if you need to go another ER in some distant state - they can view your electronic record by popping in the CD on their computer.