Agri-Center Fears Over Airport Expansion Eased

Tulare - A series of informal meetings between Tulare’s Agri-Center interests, airport users and Bill Wagenhalls, city staffer who oversees airport operations, appears to have cleared the way for approval of an airport master plan that would allow nearby siting of compatible land uses planned in the future by the Agri-Center. “The latest talks gave us some comfort,” says Lynn Dredge consultant to the Agri-Center and property owner Manuel Faria.

Those concerns postponed a city council approval of the plan over a month ago, at least until the issues could be addressed. In question is where the Agri-Center can build in the future and at what height. The airport has a series of pie shaped zones and expansion of the airport in the future will expand the zones where building restrictions are mandated.

The Agri-Center and Faria hope to site a major hotel and other highway commercial development just north of the planned Agri-Center interchange south of Paige and supporters feared the airport expansion could derail the commercial development.

“We now have a better handle on where we can build in the future and where we can’t,” says Dredge. The agreement on land use should mean a speedy approval process for the overall master plan when it returns to city council, likely by the end of this year.

Airport manager Bill Wagenhalls says the new consensus “is a good thing” that airport and Agri-Center interests can now move forward together. The land use compatibility plan will be presented October 24 at the Tulare Aviation Commission meeting held at 6:30 p.m., says Wagenhalls. Once it passes muster there, the plan will be sent off for comment by other local agencies before returning to the city planning commission and going on to the council.

Wagenhalls credits the Agri-Center’s “concerted effort to lay out their long range plans” that was shared with the members of both the aviation commission and airport users and several consultants.

The issue has been a contentious one for several years with city manager Kevin Northcraft going as far as suggesting eventual closure of the airport in September 2004 - an idea rejected by the city council. The city manager’s comments upset airport supporters and pilots who say the airport has brought plenty of business to Tulare. Supporters feel expansion of the airport’s runway will make the airport more viable. Resolving the issue about the airport hurting the city’s economic development plan lifts a cloud of uncertainty from its future.

Clouding the discussion is the lawsuit filed last year against the city by a pilot association over the siting of the new Knight Trucking terminal across the freeway from the airport. Critics have suggested the pilots agenda is to dismantle the terminal— “remove the hazard” as it says in their lawsuit - despite the fact the terminal is now one of the major employers in the city.

The latest on the issue is that the city now expects to have to go through the conditional use process again in the permitting of the terminal because a judge found a technicality - that the city had not properly informed the county airport commission about the plan. City attorney Steve Kabot says this issue will be returning to the city council (it’s on the closed door agenda for October 18) and end up on the city agenda for approval of the project conditional use permit. The toughest part of the issue is where to site fueling stations at the truck terminal. No fuel tanks were ever installed because of the controversy over whether they should be above or underground.

One project still up in the air is preliminary discussion with the Agri-Center and race track promoter Bud Long and others over siting a large race track on Agri-Center property. Wagenhalls says the location of that proposed race track would be well outside the airport’s zones since the proposed location is to the east of the farmshow. “There is no compatibility issue,” says Wagenhalls. The Agri-Center and city officials have had several meetings with the group proposing the project.

Lynn Dredge says moving past this hurdle will allow Mr. Faria and the Agri-Center to proceed with several initiatives well underway including a potential shopping center on Paige at Laspina, a plan to develop both sides of the new Agri-Center interchange as well as the westside of 99 and the potential to build near the county ag commissioner’s office. Dredge says Quad Knopf has been hired to do some infrastructure studies before more development plans move forward. Regarding the interchange plan, Dredge says he remains hopeful CalTrans will support temporary on and off ramps in to the Agri-Center property without waiting the many years it will take to build a full interchange.

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PVC Shortage Impacts Area Construction Projects

By Miles Shuper

Tulare County - The building boom in Tulare County and elsewhere remains strong but activity on some construction sites and other projects is being slowed, thanks to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which devastated the nation's southeast.

That's where most of the resins used in making Poly Vinyl Chloride, or PVC, used in the vast majority of plumbing systems, electrical conduit, and the coating for copper wire. The shortage is causing problems locally, say building supply firms and wholesalers of PVC pipe used in construction. irrigation systems and electrical projects. And prices have jumped by as much as 500 percent.

Dail Addington of Visalia Pipe and Supply said most of the plants which make the resin beads used in manufacturing PVC are located in Louisiana or Texas. "The suppliers aren't even answering the phone any more, he said, adding that the message they had been giving is "We'll give you what we can when we can get it."

Addington and Wallace Nelson of Turnupseed Electric Service in Tulare say they expect the shortage to last at least through December when some plants are back into production. But the “catch-up” phase will have lingering impact, possibly up to a year, construction leaders say. Nelson said an explosion in the eastern U.S. which killed several workers also played a major part in the PVC shortage: “That company provided up to 25 percent of all the raw materials for PVC produced in the country.” Nelson said .when his company first realized the PVC supply was halted, it went to Home Depot and Lowe’s outlets throughout the county and to Bakersfield and Fresno to buy as much as possible. His company now is buying PVC made in Mexico, a source they had not used before, opting to “buy American.” When wholesalers and others tap into that source, that supply will be quickly drained, he said.

Citing the zooming price for PVC, Nelson said 4-inch conduit which had been priced at about $1.50 per foot now is going for up to $5, per foot.

Like others in the industry, Nelson suspects some price gouging beyond the normal demand swings. He also questions whether the shortage is as tight as manufactures suggest comparing the PVC “shortage” to the gasoline and fuel shortages which have sent prices soaring to all-time highs, prices which many people believe are unjustified.

With production starting to pick back up and winter approaching, Nelson said supplies should loosen up in the next several months. With winter coming, Nelson said, the drop off of East Coast construction and materials demands should free up materials for the rest of the country. Prices could drop when that happens but not to the levels they were before the hurricanes and explosion. He expects prices to be double or triple from what they were prior to the shortages.

Jim Todd of Visalia’s Todd Plumbing said “You can’t bid a job if you can’t get the material,” adding “you just have to buy as much as you can” at the best available price. He also said that bidding has changed considerably for residential as well as commercial projects.

George Elam, executive director of the Tulare-Kings Counties Builders Exchange, said contractors must stipulate the estimated materials costs are good for a specific amount of time.

Nelson, of Turnupseed, said those seeking bids are given deadlines as short as 24 hours or that the price of materials will be based on the price on the day of shipment.

Nelson also noted that the PVC prize surge also is hiking the costs of other materials, such as steel products used in place of PVC. He said electrical supplies, especially coated copper wire, have climbed. The coatings contain PVC, he explained.

The impact is major where large projects are involved.

Kaweah Delta District Hospital officials have expressed concern over the increased cost of their North expansion. Just how much the cost increases will total is difficult to determine due to the volatility of material costs.

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Porterville Vitamin Maker Moving 130 Jobs To Arizona
Questioning The “Job Growth” Figures In Tulare County

By John Lindt

Porterville - National Vitamin will close their 100,000 sf manufacturing plant in Porterville in coming months when they relocate the business to Mesa Verde, Arizona where they are remodeling a 315,000 sf building for their new headquarters. Founded in 1975 National Vitamin moved to Porterville from the Bay Area where it has built up a nationwide business doing about $35 million a year making some 600 vitamin and supplements.

Co-owner of National Vitamin, Roger Mann, says workmen’s compensation insurance for his workers in California cost the company $282,000 a year and if he was operating out of Arizona the cost would be just $17,314. Electricity costs in Arizona are also 41% lower than in California, he says. “It’s not like we don’t like California - me and my partners grew up and went to school here. It’s just the high cost of doing business in California.”

Mann says at least 30 employees will be transferring over to Arizona although all have been invited. He expects to make the move in late February or March.

Mann says the company’s existing 100,000 sf building has been sold to a local citrus firm to convert to cold storage and a packinghouse. The new plant should employ some of the workers that don’t want to make the move to Arizona, hopes Mr. Mann.

The company has cited the high cost of doing business in California, says Porterville banker Jim Holly who knows the principals of the company. “They have no strong reason they had to remain in Porterville,” says Holly. He worries that “those companies that don’t have strong reasons to stay in California, won’t.”

National Vitamin has been planning a move for more than a year according to an Arizona press account. The company purchased the new building in July and expect to relocate as soon as remodeling is done, likely around the first of the year.

Particularly important to National Vitamin is the high cost of workman’s comp insurance in California - a rate that has fallen in the past year.

No Growth In Manufacturing Jobs

The loss of 130 manufacturing jobs in Tulare County is particularly painful to the local economy that has just 11,500 jobs in this key category countywide. Unlike service or government jobs, manufacturing jobs generate their wealth from orders that come from outside the local trade area bringing new dollars to circulate in the local economy.

If the county population has doubled since 1980, the number of manufacturing jobs has not. In 1980 - 25 years ago - the county boasted 11,400 manufacturing jobs according to the EDD and US Census. What has happened is that some manufacturing jobs have grown here - particularly food manufacturing - while scores of very large manufacturing concerns have shut their doors in the past 25 years including just in Visalia alone: Sprague, Early California Foods, Prestolite, Westinghouse, Bostitch and Bayly Manufacturing. This list totals about 1400 jobs.

Not that there hasn’t been good news. Porterville lost a diaper manufacturer but gained a chicken processor (in the same building) that probably has a better reason to stick around the Porterville area because its raw material is nearby. Tulare lost 1400 jobs at Louis Rich but gained back 1000 when Kraft converted it to cheese. Lindsay lost 1000 jobs when Lindsay Olive closed but Lindsay Foods has reopened the plant with several hundred jobs. It seems clear that food processing jobs now employ a fraction of what they used to thanks to technology.

Still it’s hard to brag about the “job growth” in Tulare County when a closer look at the numbers shows EDD changed their formula for figuring out unemployment rates at the very time rates appear to be going down dramatically this year, an event hailed widely by press accounts and politicians. Secondly, a close look at the 1600 new jobs we’ve created in Tulare County in the past year shows half of them were generated by the government. Meanwhile, although the latest EDD figures might be expected to show a boom on construction related jobs, Tulare County actually lost 100 jobs in this category over the past year. Go figure.

In August 2005 the county recorded an 8.5% unemployment rate down from 10.1 in August 2004 and 10.6% in August 2003 and 10.1% in August 2002. Key to gaining a lower unemployment rate is the size of the labor force. Think how much we have grown in the last 3 years in terms of population. The state estimates we’ve grown about 9000 people a year - faster in the past year. But EDD estimates of our labor force shown in August 2002 put us at 183,400. For August 2005 EDD says the labor force has shrunk to 181,900 after 3 years. Come on guys - go figure.

Job Losses Here

During the same time period EDD figures show the civilian employment in Tulare County has climbed from 164,900 in August 2002 to 166,400 in August 2005. As the population grew by nearly 30,000, the county has generated 1500 new “jobs” in the category that includes self-employed people and people who travel out of county for their employment. In the category of jobs that pay a wage in the county, the total for August 2002 was 139,700 according to EDD. In August 2005 the total number of jobs has shrunk to 136,100 - a loss of 3600 paying jobs over that period. So much for job growth.

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Don’t Cancel Thanksgiving
Bird Flu Has Folks Worried

Now that the deadly H5N1 bird flu has reached the edge of the European continent - their poultry industry is worried - not just about the spread of the flu to their flocks, but the spread of unfounded fear among their consumers.

Suddenly European consumers don’t want to eat birds of any kind fearing they too could catch the flu.

The flu hasn’t reached the US but already officials at the Center for Disease Control have been handling a flood of phone calls from worried consumers. The CDC reported 447,000 hits in one day recently on its avian flu web page.

Don’t cancel Thanksgiving just yet.

Acting quickly the US has banned imports of poultry from the affected countries. European poultry companies are telling their consumers that cooking the chicken or turkey kills all viruses including H5N1 virus and that it is safe to eat poultry.

Bill Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation says the virulent H5N1 strain of flu as it exists in some parts of Asia is not here. “Birds get colds all the time,” says Mattos and consumers “don’t need to panic” if they hear about any of those far less serious avian flus that could happen here. Some Asian countries have a mix of chicken, wild birds and people, together in small villages that live in close proximity unlike US poultry raising conditions. What experts fear is mutation of the deadly strain that could be passed people to people. But the poultry industry’s strong biosecurity regulations that don’t allow people in the poultry houses, the raising of the bird indoors and constant monitoring and testing for the presence of viruses in the industry all point to more protection for the US.

Still it is particularly scary to learn that this avian flu is being spread by migratory birds, ducks and geese for example, that can carry the virus from their side of the world. California of course, is on the Pacific Flyway, one of the busiest bird superhighways on the globe.

There is some comfort in the fact that these migratory birds - that may carry the virus but show no symptoms - just don’t mix with poultry raised on California farms. Biosecurity on these big poultry farms has been a stepped up in the past because a few years ago deadly Exotic Newcastle Disease was a growing problem and biosecurity protocol was set up to keep the disease from spreading between flocks. Poultry is largely confined to inside buildings with no water nearby to attract migratory birds.

Dr. Richard Chin, who heads up the Fresno branch of the California Animal Health and Food Safety Lab System, says the central valley poultry industry feels confident it has biosecurity measures in place. The Fresno lab will test for the presence of the virus if it is suspected.

While the major poultry farms are no problem backyard chicken flocks who are out in the open could be more vulnerable. Also the disease could be introduced by smuggling of some exotic birds in the country. Clearly the coming of this flu virus will keep trade down in poultry in coming months.

People watching the news are seeing the attention world government are paying to a possible global outbreak of the disease because the bird virus may mutate into a virus that is both deadly to humans and easily spread among humans. Spread to humans now is slow with 117 people in Asia infected of which 60 have died.

The big news this past week is that migratory birds appear to have spread the flu to poultry flocks in Turkey and Romania.

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The Great Water Exchange! Maybe?

by Tom Wells

Kings County - It appears to have been storming in the brains of the Kings County Water District management. Why, you may ask, do I say that? Watermaster Don Mills recently presented a very interesting proposal to his board of directors, a plan involving water that would affect several cities in Kings County and the district and still apparently be a win-win situation for everyone.

When the term “win-win” comes up in the discussion of water anywhere in California, it gets people’s attention. Unfortunately, water–where it comes from, who gets how much, what’s in it–tends to be a contentious issue with a well-defined set of “winners” and “losers.”

In short, according to the Kings County Water District General Manager Don Mills, the district would like to exchange some of its arsenic-free water for the arsenic-laden water used by cities like Hanford, Lemoore and Armona. The benefit of this would be more water for the KCWD members (farmers, ranchers, etc.) and virtually no arsenic for the cities involved in the exchange.

Why is that important? The time when cities must meet the water purity standard of no more than 10ppb (parts per billion) of arsenic in their drinking water is drawing near. And cities such as Hanford, which must pump from contaminated wells in an already overdrawn water basin, are nowhere near being able to comply with the standard. Since the basin is already overdrawn, the standard answer would to be install filtration equipment at all of the city’s 19 wells. And that carries with it a very heavy financial burden. Not is the reverse osmosis process very expensive, the arsenic retrieved must be stored in a suitable facility for the life of the chemical.

Mills says the beauty of the plan being floated up by the KCWD is that the $500/acre-foot it would charge for the clean water it could supply is a fraction of what the aforesaid mediation measures would cost Hanford (or other cities). Yet there’s the fact that the district would be receiving contaminated water to distribute to its members. According to Mills, the crops farmers grow don’t care if the water has arsenic in it. So Hanford’s bad water poses no problem for non-drinking uses such as agricultural irrigation.

How is all of this possible? The general manager of KCWD says the idea is based on the concept of groundwater banking. The district has access to entities (his word) which in dry years need water and in wet years have quite a surplus. In exchange for a guaranteed amount of water in dry years, KCWD is allowed to divert and store large amounts of water in wet years. In fact, the district has one such facility in place already. Mills says the Apex Ranch underground water storage holds twelve-thousand acre-feet of water.

For the plan to work, the water district will have to build another water banking facility to capture Kings River flood flows and other surface water. And that won’t be cheap. According to Mills, The district will have to buy land, drill wells and get the water to the Hanford system. Estimated cost for what is being referred to as the New Groundwater Storage Project? Somewhere between $8 and $9 million dollars. The pristine water retrieved will be used to recharge groundwater in an area north of Hanford, where it can be pumped into the system that supplies the city’s residents.

Mills says the new water will replace water from Hanford city wells that has an arsenic content exceeding the 10ppb state and federal guidelines which have been in place for some time. And he adds that the project is timely because the federal government is slated to start enforcing the arsenic limit next year. What’s more, there’s some fear the feds could lower the standard to 4ppb, making it harder for even more cities to comply.

Under the KCWD plan, which is not quite ready to come off the drawing board, the district would bank about six-thousand acre-feet of water in wet years. That would guarantee the sale of two-thousand acre-feet of water to Hanford each year, leaving KCWD with four-thousand acre-feet of clean water still banked. In dry years, the city would still be able to purchase clean water but would have to provide the district with an equivalent amount of arsenic-laden water for its members to use on crops. This may sound complicated but Mills say the project engineer has assured him and the directors the plan will hold water. (Mea culpa, the pun is mine, not theirs.)

What’s next? Don Mills says no presentations have been scheduled with city councils of any of the three Kings County cities facing growth requiring clean water and more of it. But he has held discussions with water officials in both Armona and Hanford. A good bet is that such official presentations are not very far off. Especially since the concept of groundwater banking is new to the area and couldn’t be introduced at a better time.

One last thing: Mills predicts we’ll see more projects like this as time goes by because the problem of contaminated water is not something that will go away if we just ignore it. For his money, the science behind the arsenic-contamination standard is suspect but he admits it’s the law and we all have to live by it. And for the head of the Kings County Water District, the wet-year/dry-year exchange made possible by groundwater banking seems to be the best way to comply with that standard.

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What's New

Phoenix Biosystems principal Rick Eastman confirms Pacific Ethanol did not exercise an option to buy their Goshen plant by the agreed date of October 15 but "there continues to be dialogue." Eastman says the good news this week is that the plant is operational. "We're sending ethanol to Fresno" this week. Sources say the deal didn't go through because it took longer for the operation to get started than they had counted on. The Tulare Fire Department finally approved an occupancy permit in recent days.

Will Morro Bay power plant go away now that Duke Energy has decided to pull out of California? Spokesman for the company says Duke is attempting to sell its assets in the state that include the landmark power plant in Morro Bay and says the company is close to signing an agreement with the city to allow discharge. PG&E contracts for the power. Duke sold its proposed Avenal power project to Federal Power who is trying to get a contract with PG&E in order to build this new plant and supply power to the California utility. The City of Avenal would like to get the project going. It's in the city limits and would boost the tax base. The town is excited this month about getting its first traffic light.

Mixed picture for visitation to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks this year. Perhaps high gas prices have hurt Sequoia visitation that was down 13% in July compared to July 2004 and down 5% year to date through July. But in Kings Canyon visits in July were up 2.6% but down 2% for the year, at least through July. Sequoia accessed typically through Visalia is the more popular destination by about 1.8 to 1.

Fresno, with 470,000 residents, has the most concentrated poverty among the nation's largest 50 cities, a study found. Concentrated poverty was defined as census tracts in which at least 40 percent of residents had incomes below the federal poverty line in 2000. In Fresno, 44 percent of poor people live in "extreme poverty neighborhoods," twice the 22 percent rate of Los Angeles.

Caffeine Overload? Another Starbucks in the works. This one in front of the new In Shape City gym just south of the corner of Tulare and Mooney in Visalia. Proposed building showed up on the city's site plan review process meaning the project is preliminary. This would be the town's sixth Starbucks. The coffee place will be next to the new Auto Zone that will located in the old T-shirt store next door.

If coffee hangouts continue to multiply, corporate donut joints aren't with the news that Packwood Creek's first tenant Krispy Kreme is expected to close after just two years in business. When the place opened it was the talk of the town even as the super sweet donut concept was the darling of Wall Street. Since then the stock has plunged from near $50 per share a few years ago to below $5 today. Lawsuits by some franchisees are claiming the company is trying to force bankruptcy, which would void all their leases. Krispy Kreme appeared to have a strategy of - on the one hand - trying to get you to que up at their South Mooney store while offering the same donuts at multiple quick-stop and grocery store locations in town. The idea may have literally been a flash in the pan anyway.

Innovative plastic-to-energy project to be sited near Hanford is dead says Kings County Waste Management director Mike Adams - killed by unfounded fears, he says, that the process would be polluting the airshed. The project would have taken all that plastic we use everyday, including grocery bags and convert them into super clean diesel fuel which there is a severe shortage of today. Much of the plastic is dumped at the Kings Waste Management yard where the plant would have been located. The clean burning diesel would have fueled the garbage trucks. Adams says the technology to convert the material is changing rapidly right now.

As a new member of the Government California Partnership of the San Joaquin Valley. Farmersville city council member Paul Boyer says he has high hopes the group that is chaired by County Supervisor Connie Conway may actually accomplish something in the next few years. "We have year to complete our recommendations to Governor," says Boyer and then it will be time for action. One sign of clout - the group includes 8 secretaries on Schwarzenegger's cabinet who will be charged with carrying out the recommendations. "We've got short line of communications being in the same room as all the cabinet secretaries." High on the list is the need for a four year school, highway improvements particularly Highway 99 and economic development.

While Boyer hopes for big things valley wide, he is hoping for the basics in Farmersville where a 4% utility tax is on the ballot - Measure G. "We can't even afford a dog catcher," says Boyer, a city council member and "it's causing lots of problems in town." The utility tax will go toward basic service most cities take for granted, he says. That includes police, fire, animal control and recreation.

The valley's largest community bank Porterville -based Bank of the Sierra is opening a new branch next month in Reedley, just opened its third branch in Bakersfield and plans to open a branch in Delano in April, says president Jim Holly. The bank reached a huge milestone during the first quarter of this year exceeded more than $1 billion in assets. "We expect to double in size and still have all our branches located in the central valley," says Holly.

An unknown hotel developer is negotiating for a site at the Visalia airport according to a city council closed door agenda.

Upbeat report about Scenic Airlines debut in Visalia where 2500 tickets have been sold so far and some 620 passengers have caught a plane to Las Vegas in one month. That' s one third of all the tickets United Express sold all year.

Not such an upbeat outlook on the Shirk/198 interchange where the offramps are already rated "F" for carrying capacity by CalTrans because the interchange was built too small. That according to Andrew Benelli of the city Engineering Department who envisions several millions of dollars are needed to fix the problem even before any development is sitedin the area. One new subdivision is planned north of the interchange is having to change its street access because the offramp will be redone despite the fact a new bridge was put in just a few years ago.

Governor Schwarzenegger has signed a bill banning "junk faxes" sent without permission. The new law allows receivers to sue senders for $500 per fax.

Schwarzenegger vetoed increasing the minimum wage to $7.20 effective July 2006 but labor is expected to qualify the measure for a ballot initiative next year.

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In an effort to comply with the World Trade Organization and to cut costs in the wake of recent hurricanes and the mounting cost of the war in Iraq, the U.S. government is proposing to cut cotton subsidies, which some say could put the whole U.S. cotton industry at risk.

"I think for the most part, a lot of the California cotton industry will be put out of business, including the cotton gins and everything else that deals with the cotton industry," said Earl Williams, president and CEO of the California Cotton Ginners' Association and the California Cotton Growers' Association.

The international spotlight fell on the U.S. cotton industry when Brazil filed a dispute with the WTO saying that the industry's program was illegal. The WTO ended up ruling in Brazil's favor and now the U.S. government is in the process of trying to eliminate farm subsidies.

If the subsidy program gets dismantled, U.S. cotton growers will be trying to compete in the international market on an uneven playing field, since other cotton producing countries such as Brazil and China have built-in supports in their cotton growing programs, Williams said.

"We've had the farm program in place since the1930s, and we're very transparent. We put what we have on the table and make it well known what we're doing. Many other countries who we're in competition with don't have a structured program, but they subsidize the growers in many other ways, whether it's inputs or government controls," Williams said.

In California, the farm gate value of cotton and cotton lint was $1 billion last year.

"If you take that and multiply it by two or three times, you can see how much the cotton industry contributes to the California economy," Williams said.

In the overall U.S. market, when the textile industry was still in place in the U.S. a few years ago before getting largely displaced by less expensive foreign imports, the U.S. cotton industry was contributing $40 to $50 billion a year to the economy. In comparison to the income cotton brings into the country, the industry only gets $1.8 billion in subsidies from the U.S. government, Williams said.

"Even if you don't buy the fact that the cotton industry brings in $40 to $50 billion, even if you cut it in half, I'd say if you've got $1.8 billion invested in the industry, and you're getting that much back, it's a pretty good investment," Williams said.

Even with the subsidies, cotton farmers have been having a hard time. Over the past five years, the industry's acreage has dropped from one million to 670,000 acres.

"I predict it's going to continue dropping. Over the next few years, we'll probably be down to 500,000 acres," Williams said.

About 40 percent of the cotton acreage grown in California is Pima. If the subsidy cuts go through, more acala growers are likely to switch to Pima, which doesn't receive any monetary subsidies. Right now, about 90 percent of the total U.S. production of Pima comes from California.

"Without the subsidies, the tendency is for Pima acreage to continue to increase. But not every area in California can grow Pima," Williams said.

Although the government is trying to eliminate the subsidies, the current farm bill guarantees farmers these supports until 2006 when a new farm bill gets put in place.

"The question now is if they're going to keep the current farm bill in place until the next one can be written. Growers have made decisions based on the five-year farm bill plan. If you come along and make a decision to change the farm bill in midstream, what kind of message is this sending to the farmers and to the lending community?" Williams said.

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Visalia - Representatives of Kaweah Delta Hospital and Tulare County will meet late this month to address long time concerns and new initiatives being proposed by the health care district. CEO of Kaweah Delta, Lindsay Mann, says himself, Carl Anderson and Margaret Foley will meet with the county official Brian Haddix, Allen Ishida and Steve Worthley.

According to Mann the agenda includes two important initiatives underway. First, the hospital would like to convince the county who serves patients through its network clinic system with primary care to help fund a "hospitalist". Hospitalist physicians work for the hospital unlike most of the private physicians who simply have privileges at the hospital. Funding of a program that would help take care of those mostly low income patients when they are hospitalized. Recently another county wide clinic system, Family HealthCare Network, agreed to work with hospital to fund a general surgeon that will help take care of FHN patients when they need hospital care.

"Patients from the county are coming to us but they often wait until they are sicker and then coming to our ER," says Mann - not the appropriate place to properly take care of patients care needs. The area has growing a shortfall of specialty physicians to take care of the large low income population that typically doesn't have insurance or means to pay for hospital care. In addition many patients use the ER as their clinic - an expense that falls completely on Kaweah Delta and more expensive venue to deliver care.

Children's Psychiatric Unit

A second item on the agenda is a plan by Kaweah Delta to move forward on a child/adolescent mental health hospital in Visalia - a project that has been stalled for lack of substantial interest from this county, says Mann, as well as other counties in the central valley. "We have told the central valley mental health community that we can't shoulder the expenses of operating a mental health hospital for all those patients without substantial support," says Mann.

Local counties already pay to hospitalize children out of the area for lack of a local facility.

Only in recent weeks after Mann sent out a letter suggesting the joint use idea was dead due to lack of enthusiasm that he got renewed interest from Fresno and Kings counties for the idea to help fund an inpatient facility. Now he will test the waters in Tulare County. "We have hired two child/adolescent psychiatrists to do the care," says Mann and space is available in a wing of the mental health hospital on Akers to do the project. "We've told the others we're not going to push this ball up hill." The meeting with the 6 counties is set for October 25.

Getting the county to talk about these issues hasn't been easy. In an op-ed published in both the Voice and Times Delta, hospital chief of staff David Hewitt, M.D. chided the county to "answer the phone" on repeated requests to discuss the issue of care to the large indigent population in the face of mounting specialist shortage here.

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