Citrus Growers Pay For Robot Research
California - There may not be a strong future in the citrus industry for orange pickers if ongoing research to develop several prototype robots to do the harvesting job proves out.
The California Citrus Research Board is in its second year of funding to a San Diego firm - Vision Robotics who are developing the robot harvesters that may be able to wheel down the grove with half a dozen web cams serving as eyes and eight gangling arms rapidly hand picking the oranges from both sides of the row simultaneously.
It may look like a scene right out of Star Wars, but it could be coming to an orange grove near you in a matter of a few years.
The research has been funded by fresh orange industry who depends 100% on hand labor to bring in the crop. The central valley citrus industry probably utilizes 10,000 workers in a season and labor remains growers largest cost - about a third of the total.
With citrus farmers wondering whether workers will be available to them in the future with all the hoopla over the future of immigration and talk of increasing foreign competition from low cost farmers around the world - it’s no wonder the Citrus Research Board is gathering together industry heavyweights to fund an in-the-field robot prototype in as little as 18 months, suggests CRB president Ted Batkin.
Robots picking oranges? “This wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago,” says Vision Robotics engineer Tony Koselka.
“Now that both web cams creating digital images and computers are so cheap and powerful, you can develop a robot to carry out an exercise relatively inexpensively. These days you can make a robot so cheap it can pick oranges” and be competitive to the cost of hand labor, he says.
“You can thank Moore’s law,” says Koselka, that says computer power per dollar doubles every 18 months. He says earlier tinkering with mechanical orange harvesters didn’t have the computer brain power available today in miniature sizes.
Koselka says all of the work on the prototype robots has been done in simulation in the lab so far. The company is strategizing to build two robots to carry out the orange harvesting.
Sort of like a Star Wars adventure, the less expensive “scout” robot would be sent through the orange groves a few days before picking time to survey. This is the foot soldier of the robot army whose purpose is to gauge the crop accurately, look for the right size fruit to meet the current demand, detect disease and insect damage before it can be seen with the naked eye and determine the tree’s nutrient status.
The scout has multiple stereo cameras mounted on its frame with several arms. The scout will map the grove and reach into the tree. It “sees” the approximate locations of fruit even inside the canopy. The scout will essentially pre plan the picking for the larger more expensive harvester robot. While the scout may be able to be developed for about $100,000, the robot harvester will cost about $250,000 designed to pick an orange every four seconds.
Unlike mechanical harvesters that shake trees in Florida, fresh eating oranges can’t be successfully picked with shaking machines since it damages the fruit.
Citrus harvesters that pull the fruit aren’t suitable because unless the orange stem is cut in just the right place the fruit may face rotting problems or a stem left long when picked can break the skin on the next fruit packed in the box causing a potential decay problem as well.
Indeed this generation of robot orange picker will have a relatively soft touch perhaps with technology people may be familiar with in the prosthetics industry enabling very precise movement of a mechanical hand.
Once perfected, the robots are likely to be employed by packing houses - who may be best set up to utilize them like they use crews now to move from grove to grove.
How fast can Vision Robotics develop this unit? “That depends on funding,” he says.
Citrus Research Board president Ted Batkin says “the industry is lined up ready to take the project to the next level.” He says private investment in the project will propel the project forward and perhaps contract with a company like Korvan who builds other mechanical harvesters to build it.
Batkin says while mechanical harvesting in wine grapes works to pick a crop - table grapes - picked by hand is a different challenge.
Sunkist is part of the Citrus Research Board. The company recently notified growers of competitive interest in growing more oranges in China perhaps underselling our product because of the low cost of their labor in the future.
Meanwhile, the California orange industry may be ready to take the plunge since the robots won’t get tired, ask for breaks, quit by 5 or even stop work after dark. The robot doesn’t worry about getting sick from breathing toxic fumes either.
Meanwhile, the future of farmworkers in the valley continues to be uncertain as for example, in raisins where a new dried on the vine variety will require fewer farmworkers to tend that crop as well.
Open Air Market Projects Paired With Residential Second Story
Lindsay - The success of Lindsay’s Friday Night Street Fair in its downtown has spurred development plans for two new open air markets that are being paired up with multi story residential units. The classy looking units are being planned around the city’s innovative Sweetbrier Plaza project completed in 2002.
The Friday night markets are attracting about 5000 people to the town’s downtown every week, says city manager Scot Townsend “and we’re only a town of 10,000 people.”
The street fairs include small vendors, foods, music and lots of people gathering around several blocks in the downtown that include the city’s open air plaza and interactive fountain that are the centerpiece of the development.
Bother permanent market facilities will be sited nearby, says Townsend, including a 20 unit residential over the top of a 20,000 sf open air market featuring perhaps 100 small shops on the ground floor, he says. “It’s like you would find in Europe or Mexico,” says Townsend. A second smaller project mixes “Mercado” with a restaurant on the ground floor (pictured above).
“Our strategy has been people attract more people,” says Townsend who has set out on this urban development strategy several years ago to bring back life into this small foothills community’s downtown.
It used to be cities would look for a large anchor or franchise name to draw visitors and build upon that. But Lindsay is showing how to bring people in with clustering small vendors coupled with entertainment, music and food in a plaza atmosphere to bring in the crowds.
In addition, the city seeks to add more multi-story housing to its downtown and with some of the cost for this type of development funded through the city’s federal CDBG grant funds it gets annually and other government funds as well as its redevelopment funds that are by law earmarked for housing. These funds are aimed at spurring economic development in communities.
Townsend says the “high quality of the projects” and design features and the city’s commitment to keep the area safe and clean, as well as lit up at night has pushed this development forward.
Lindsay has a large Hispanic majority - many who are farmworkers who enjoy the fiesta atmosphere of this type of commerce. It’s helping to draw more visitors to this community as well.
Visalia - The Visalia city council voted 3 to 2 this week to allow a development plan offered by Sierra Village Inc. to expand the retirement community and add professional office space on a 34 acre piece west of Visalia’s Adventure Park. The project is located south of 198 and west of Akers near Roeben. Most of the site is in the county and needs to be annexed.
City staff had recommended not proceeding with the request to allow the project to move forward to wait for a comprehensive corridor plan for west 198 - a view supported by council members Gamboa and Kirkpatrick.
But the majority sided with mayor Bob Link suggesting they allow the plan to start the zoning process with additional green setback on 198 of at least 100 ft and a plan to move the existing ponding basin to along the highway - configuring it to be landscaped open space along the freeway and set the development back further than shown in the rendering that accompanies this article.
In order to allow the annexation, the city agreed to allow Dr. Jim Billys land - the kiwis - to come into the project area as well with plans for a professional office. The Central Valley Christian School would also get more land with the relocation of the existing ponding basin.
Council had earlier agreed not to allow more individual development proposals on west 198 until a comprehensive plan was done although two general plan amendments for housing are already being considered. But council member Greg Kirkpatrick said waiting a little longer for the plan would not hurt noting that a planned community survey over Visalians’ views about the corridor would be wound up in June helping to guide long range plans on west 198 between Roeben and Plaza Dr. The council has already indicated support for a large expanse of open space to be part of the city along both sides of 198. Link says discussion on the issue lasted about an hour and “was pretty tough. They beat me up pretty good” over allowing the Sierra Village project to move forward.
Sierra Village wants to expand to allow development of a skilled nursing facility and additional space for residential retirement. The land for the project will be donated to Sierra Village but only if it is allowed to be developed.
Allowing the development would mean the extension of Cypress west of its current dead end at the fun park connecting at least to Roeben and likely on to Shirk in the future.
Farmersville - Here’s a piece of good news from the tiny berg of Farmersville. Of the 113 students graduating from the town’s high school. 41 of them have been accepted by a 4-year college and another 50 plan to attend junior college.
That’s a far cry from the educational profile that Farmersville has had or the reputation it carries as one of the poorest communities in the state. It may be a welcome break from all the political controversy the community has suffered through in recent years that have made plenty of front page headlines.
“These college bound numbers show significant improvement over past years,” says Farmersville HS principal Carlos Vega who has been on the job only since October. “We can see it in our high school exit exam numbers where 72% of the students passed.” That compares to 66% countywide and 58% for districts like Farmersville with a large low income population.
Farmersville city council member Paul Boyer is reminded when his 15 year old daughter graduates high school she will join about 85% of the student body who after 8th grade go on to finish high school. “When she was born that number was only about 40%,” says Boyer. The rest “dropped out” and Farmersville poverty has remained at legendary proportions.
Principal Vega credits the hard work of the kids, parents and school faculty and administrators and curriculum changes in recent years. Special help for kids at risk of dropping out has helped as well.
Tough numbers
About 37% of the population in Farmersville 18 or younger are below poverty guidelines according to the US Census for 2000. Farmersville regularly shows up in sociological studies that single out towns with large immigrant populations that appear to show “Poverty Amidst Prosperity” - as one study reported in the LA Times referring to it contrasting Tulare County’s ag wealth coupled with grinding poverty.
Per capita income in Farmersville according to the 2000 census was $8,700 compared to a state average of $22,600.
Even today the city government itself is struggling to make ends meet deciding not to hire a city manager recently so the few police officers working on the force won’t have to be laid off.
Only 19.7% of the town’s population are high school grads. Only 2% of the towns population have bachelor degrees compared to a statewide average of 17%.
Tulare County as a whole rated dead last in a May 2004 Census survey and ranking of 231 communities by percentage of college graduates with just 10.5%. By contrast, San Francisco has nearly 50%.
Farmersville has a big population of young people for a community of 8000 with 32% of them under 15 compared to California’s average 23%.
Farmersville has an 83% Hispanic majority and its foreign born population has been growing in recent decades.
When recent news reports surfaced about sending donations to the poor living in the county of Tulare, Rotary clubs from outside the US pitched in - it was Farmersville that was the poster town.
But education is the way out as more Farmersville students appear to be proving. By contrast, in 1996 the Tulare County CBEDS report shows about 23% of them qualified to go on to a 4 year school. This year 39% got in and over 90% are pursuing higher education.
That’s why Farmersville is celebrating this June when their kids walk across the stage. For Farmersville’s community profile to really change - some of those kids have to come back home to live and work and raise a family afterwards.
Plans Filed For Northside Food 4 Less Center
Visalia - Long awaited plans for a new northside shopping center anchored by a 50,000 sf Food 4 Less grocery store are moving forward this month.
Property owner Joe Gong has filed construction plans for the new store on Dinuba Blvd. at Ferguson just north of his existing Fairway store.
The Fairway will be converted to another use once the new Food 4 Less opens later this year, says Gong.
“It’s been a long time coming,” says Gong who appreciated “the strong support of the city” in getting more Northside commercial activity going.
The city has worked to improve the development potential on what is the poorer side of town over the years by increasing water pressure, adding street signals and cutting new streets improving the access to the northside of town. Dinuba Blvd. Is getting a facelift in design landscaping and new sidewalks and demolition of older structures has helped increase the appeal for investment.
Gong’s Food 4 Less would be the sixth developed by the family that already include Porterville, Selma, Merced, Madera and Atwater. In some of those towns the grocery warehouse format stores will be challenged by Walmart superstores in the future. In Visalia there is no sign of a coming Walmart superstore right now as the city council has not shown much support for the idea.
Still the new northside store faces competition from other warehouse stores in town including a Save Mart owned Food Maxx on north Ben Maddox.
The fast growing northwest side of Visalia does not yet have a new grocery store that has announced plans, although sources say Save Mart might be interested in sites available. Also a planned shopping center at Riggin and Dinuba Blvd. May yet attract a grocery store.
Gong says his new 200,000 sf center is likely to add a national drug store, coffee shop, video store and other smaller tenants.
Interest in the northside has surged in recent months with plans for a new Visalia Community Bank location across the street from Gong’s new center and plans filed for a new 20,000 sf Mexican market and tortilleria at 1610 Dinuba Blvd. is being reviewed by the city.
Gong says once the city approves the building plans construction could start this summer with the store ready to open this fall.
To the west of the new shopping center Gong is selling 8 acres to a developer for new 152 unit apartment complex looking for approvals by the city as well.
Woodlake To Land Deal For Airport
By Miles Shuper
Woodlake - The City of Woodlake is in the process of buying the privately owned airport on the southern edge of the city, greatly enhancing the chances of airport improvement.
The site, currently owned by Budget Homes (Thelma Venturella), is approximately 87 acres. Escrow is scheduled to close before September, city officials said this week. The negotiated price is approximately $600,000. The purchase is being made through the city’s Redevelopment Agency tax allocation bond funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture for rural development. Repayment will be made through funds collected by the Redevelopment agency, not general tax revenues, according to City Manager Bill Lewis who has been working on the project for several years.
A public hearing, required through the funding process, is scheduled Monday, May, 23 at city hall.
Having a municipally owned airport greatly enhances the chances of getting Federal Aviation Administration funds for improvements. The process of obtaining federal monies to repair and improve the airport was started several years ago when the city showed interest in buying it. In 1999 the Woodlake City Council approved a plan to prepare an updated airport master indicating purchase plan. A consultant was hired and documents filed to put the city into position for funds once it purchased the property.
Former Mayor and current Councilman Jack Ritchie said city ownership “is the only way to get funds to improve it.” He said the FAA, or practically any governmental agency, “is not in the business of augmenting private enterprise.”
While he wouldn’t call the current condition of the Woodlake Airport unsafe, Ritchie said it is desperately in the need for repair. “The pavement on the run way is deteriorating as is the tarmac. Fuel tanks need repair and trees on adjacent property near the west end of the runway need to be trimmed, he said.
Ritchie said during his talks with the consultant and FAA officials it was made clear that once the city owns the facility, funds could become available. Plans at that time pegged the improvements at just over $5 million.
Municipal ownership, as one city official said, “opens the door” for funding.
The airport includes a restaurant, the Woodlake Outpost, fueling facility, hangers and tie down. The runway is 3,000 feet long.
Since Woodlake lies just above the normal season Tule fog line, it often is open when other Valley airports are socked it. For several months, cargo carriers including FedEx and DHL and others land in Woodlake to unload and load cargo. Currently they do not pay landing fees, generally required at municipal airports.
When the city buys the airport it will lease the restaurant to a vendor. Ritchie says having an airport restaurant is a plus for any small airport. It’s just another attraction to the city. Lewis and Ritchie agree that having an airport is an important factor in attracting business and industry to a community. Businesses like to have an airport nearby and we have good land available for development, It will bf an enhancement,” Ritchie said, adding “we are looking at more than just purchasing an airport.”
Several hangers are privately owned and the sites leased. Other hangers are rented on a yearly or monthly basis.
What's New
Watch for an announcement by Governor Schwarzenegger himself regarding a national clothing company that has selected Visalia as its West Coast hub. The company plans to build an 850,000 sf distribution center - the town's largest and employ 300 to 400 workers. It would be in operation in July of 2006.
Airport update: Visalia was notified that Scenic Airlines will begin service to Visalia in August flying two flights daily to Las Vegas North airport. Also the council approved a bid to construct a West Side taxiway for $2.8 million that will allow more development on the Highway 99 side of the airport.
The City of Visalia is nearing a deal with owners of the railroad right-of-way along Santa Fe to buy 33 acres between Ave. 272 clear north to the St. John's River. Negotiations on the land have been going on for some 8 years. City engineer David Jacobs says the city is in line for funds to develop a bikeway from Tulare north to 272 making it one of several long legs for biking in the city. The strip of land would also help the city widen the road in a number of locations. Discussions have begun with TCAG, City of Visalia, and the City of Tulare to hook up the Santa Fe bike and walking trail with the Tulare County Santa Fe trail that ends near Hillman north of Tulare. The county will seek federal funding to join the two trails - about a five mile stretch.
Tulare city staff is struggling to find a way to make up a $1.3 million budget shortfall now that the city council on a 3 to 2 vote decided to hire 12 new cops instead of six as recommended by the city staff. 'Now we have to go to the citizens and tell them why we need a sales tax hike like Visalia, but Visalia hired the officers after the community passed the tax hike," says one staffer. The city is also counting on more sales tax - the new Home Depot will break ground soon - but $1.3 million is a lot to make up.
Visalia building permits continue strong in April with 136 new single family permits issued - one short of a record and $10 million worth of commercial permits including two major car dealerships - Surroz Dodge and Groppetti's Nissan.
Visalia's population is 107,550 according to the latest state estimate - up 3.9%. The state grew by just 1.5% showing slower growth. Tulare County as a whole grew 2.4% - among the fastest growing counties in the state. Estimates are from January 2005.
City council voted 4 to 1 this week to study (Gamboa voted no) organizing a municipal water district for the expanding part of Visalia. Cal Water - the town's private provider - apparently met the concerns of the local BIA who had petitioned the city to look at the idea last year. But the council majority voted to go forward with a feasibility study in part to look at Visalia's water resources for the future. BIA will kick in $25,000 and the city will pay $70,000 for the study. The city wants more water recharge to bring groundwater levels back up.
A local developer is lobbying the county to allow home development at Sierra View Golf course just outside the Visalia city limits. AWe don't want 150 septic tanks@ out there says supervisor Phil Cox suggesting developers talk to the city about hooking up to the city sewer that is not too far away. Another much smaller development is planned north of the St. John's River opposed by Visalia concerned that the county is offering to allow development outside the urban boundaries.
The Visalia city council approved the latest proposed location for the 72 ft long WWII mural - on Mooney Blvd. next to The Works. The property is donated by Johnny George. The mural drive is spearheaded by retired Marine Dan Kelley and will be painted by Visalia artist Glen Hill.
The good news: Visalia will build a new 109 car parking lot at Conyer and Mineral King to help alleviate the parking crunch during Kaweah Delta's Northern expansion. The bad news is that the "temporary" lot will mean the demise of the two huge pine trees on the grassy lot west of the police station unless the city changes their mind. The lot is set to be completed in June. The city is seeking medical tenants to build in this location.
US Corps of Engineers and Congressman Devin Nunes toured Success Dam this week where a $200 million reconstruction plan is underway. The new dam, to be built for seismic purposes, won't be completed until 2010. It could pump plenty of public works money into the Porterville economy plus potentially save the town from a deluge from a major earthquake that could make the existing dam crumble.
Visalia - Deputy city manager Leslie Caviglia says the Visalia city council will hear a recommendation form the tourism task force May 16 to move the Visalia Visitors and Convention Bureau away from the Convention Center and launch it as an independent arm of the Visalia Chamber of Commerce. The Bureau used to be part of the Chamber a number of years ago.
"The Chamber will have the contract for at least a few years before it goes completely independent," says Caviglia.
The new Bureau will work closely with the city, Scenic Airlines, the National Park Service, tour operators and Visalia's hospitality industry to "bring more people to Visalia," says Caviglia.
The city has been negotiating with the NPS to connect a proposed city shuttle to be launched in the summer of 2006 with a Park Service shuttle that would bring visitors to locations within Sequoia and Kings Canyon.
In addition, Caviglia says the tourism task force suggests that more "mini tours" of interesting locations in the area be added for tourists visiting the area.
The city enjoys $1.4 million in bed tax generated by visitors who visit Visalia hotels each year. Tourism in the US has grown in the past few years as the fall of the US dollar has made it more attractive for overseas visitors to spend money here.
The Bureau will be housed in the new Chamber building set to break ground in the next few weeks at Oak and Santa Fe close to where the city wants to base a shuttle for Sequoia out of the new transit center.
Tulare County - The State of California Department of Mental Health has criticized Tulare County Health and Human Services department over the planning for use of Prop. 63 money expected to be distributed to all counties statewide in coming months. The department has budgeted approximately $700 million statewide of which $6 to 15 million could come to Tulare County depending on both need and plans to utilize the funds.
But in a March 15 letter from the director of Mental Health Services to the county HHS director Ron Probasco, the state said a review team had found "serious concerns" over how the county was planning to use the funds particularly over how Tulare County "will ensure diversity of input" from persons around the county suggesting it better involve all stakeholders.
The county has held several public meetings to gather input on the need and potential uses for funds to boost mental health around the county. In May more meetings are scheduled.
But HHS assistant director Dr. Cheryl Duerksen says a similar letter was sent to other counties and plans are now in place to increase outreach to sample opinion on what mental health services are needed in the Latino and Asian community in a series of community meetings in May. "The original proposal was broad in scope," says Dr. Duerksen and as the proposals get more detailed there will be opportunities for more input, she says. Dr. Duerksen says the state wants the county to make sure they get input from all gender and age groups.
Chair of the county mental health advisory board John Aguirre says he has criticized the county for not getting input from all stakeholders on the best way to use this funding. "I've told the county HHS we need to open this thing up." The county board that advises HHS over this issue is made up predominantly of county HHS employees.
Aguirre says the needs in Tulare County for more mental health services are great. "I was at CASA for many years where I worked there - saw a great demand for services." He cites the county's high poverty rate, drug abuse and alcoholism, crime and spousal abuse as evidence of the problems here. Many agencies and non profits offer services to the county's large at-risk population but may not have been involved in planning to use what could be a significant amount of money to tackle mental health services here.
"Where we really need this is in early diagnosis and prevention," says Aguirre.
He says non profit groups in the county say they have not been invited to participate in a planning process. The state has published guidelines requiring "active participation by stakeholders" including providers of service, law enforcement agencies and education.
"If we don't comply we won't get the money," Aguirre says.
Last November voters approved Prop. 63 imposing a tax on the state's millionaires funding the Mental Health Services Act. The law says the funds must be used to expand mental health services but can't be used to fund existing state or county funds used for that purpose.
by Tom Wells
Visalia - Life has a way of throwing curves at all of us and Kamiran Badrkhan is no different. Until last week, he was the superintendent/ president of College of the Sequoias-a position he'd held for nearly a decade. As recently as a few weeks ago, Dr. Badrkhan was sending out resumes for the next step in his career as an educator. But that has all changed and it did so almost overnight..
What precipitated the abrupt about face in Dr. Badrkhan's plans? It was as simple as a phone call and as complex as a crisis with his special-needs son. Aaron Badrkhan was born with cerebral palsy twenty-two years ago and has been institutionalized since the age of nine. That's when his mother and father determined they could no longer care for him properly at home and choose to place him in a facility that could. Kam Badrkhan says it's the hardest decision he and his wife, Alice, have ever made.
The one necessitated by the recent phone call must be a close second: the facility where Aaron had been living in Ventura called to say they could no longer provide him with the level of care he'd come to need because his condition had worsened considerably. Already wheelchair bound and unable to speak, feed himself or control his bodily functions, the seizures the unfortunate young man had been prone to had suddenly become much more violent and potentially damaging. So the Badrkhan's were given roughly twenty-four hours to relocate their son.
Luckily, they were able to find an acute-care facility near Glendale that would accept Aaron within the extraordinarily brief time span given them. But that doesn't changed the fact of the boy's apparently worsening condition. With the gentle, sad sound of a father's grief and resignation in his voice, Kam Badrkhan tells me he and Alice realize this new development may betoken an earlier end to their son's life than they had hoped for. And they want to spend more time with him while they can.
And then there's the issue of Badrkhan's aging parents. One is eighty-six, the other is eighty-four: both of an age where living on one's own can become problematic. According to Badrkhan, it has. However, he also says the idea of moving to an assisted-living facility is anathema to them. By way of explanation, their good-natured son explains that 'they're from the Old Country," laughing the laugh of a first-generation American. In this case, the "Old Country" is Egypt.
So, when it came to a choice between career and family, family won out. Yet a career of more than three decades in education is something one doesn't soon forget. Asked to look bad at his tenure at College of the Sequoias and pick out the thing he's most proud of, Kamiran Badrkhan points to the institution's meeting its major goal of serving an growing population of students to the best of its ability. And that's despite a good bit of collegiate adversity during his nine years as superintendent /president.
Although the nature of that adversity various in the specifics, Badrkhan points to one single thing as the low-point of his time at COS. And I quote: "It's always been the budget, Tom-the budget, the budget, the budget." That is followed by an explanation of the complexity of community college funding, its cyclical nature and the problems created by the campus's financial dependence on the state budget.
As for the biggest accomplishment while at the helm of COS, Kam points to the new music building and the even newer learning resources center. These structures were made possible by a different funding mechanism than those used for running the institution, money which becomes available periodically as capitol projects are partially underwritten by the state. And our retiring educator notes that the college must often turn to the community it serves for help with the operational expenses.
That, apparently, is one of the former superintendent/president's regrets about his time in Visalia. When asked what he would change if he could do it over again, Dr. Badrkhan says without hesitation he would have preferred to see a bond measure passed on his watch. Unfortunately, that was not to be. Instead, he takes with him into retirement the memory of not one defeat at the polls but three.
As Kam Badrkhan leaves behind both COS and his career in education to deal with pressing family matters one can't help but wonder how he will support that family. Since he's only fifty-five (a few years younger than I, I might add), can retirement benefits possibly provide enough income? He says the answer's, "Yes," though it's only about half of what he's making now.
Kam says he and his family will be able to get by on that amount, even with the higher cost of living in the Los Angeles area. And there are a couple of things to fall back on: 1) the author of eight text books on computers and technology can always turn to writing because it's something that can be done at home; 2) and he has degrees, training and experience to call on at every level of education, should time permit and the need arise.
Although Badrkhan has had his share of critics, especially in these times of decreasing college financing and the public's slipping image of COS, as well as an ongoing struggle over salaries (and other things) with the teachers' union, he seems to be an essentially good man. His civility, cordiality and gentleness have also made him many friends. And with a ready laugh and a sense of humor that's never far below the surface, it's not hard to see how the good doctor of education will somehow make it through the current crisis.
Visalia - Off-priced clothing store Marshalls is coming to Hanford this year near the new Target shopping center. Developer Dave Paynter told the Voice that 'we made a deal with Marshalls' for a new 30,000 sf store that should be open by November.
This is part of Paynter's phase two of the new Target anchored shopping center that also saw a new Michaels and now a Kragen auto parts store going up this month. The phase two project is on some 8 acres to the north of the Target center and also includes a new PetsMart to open next year.
Marshalls is a division of TJX Corporation who also operate TJ Maxx stores. There are 697 Marshalls nationwide including a store on Mooney Blvd. in Visalia.
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
May 4, 2005
