Fresno State to Ramp Up COS Center
More Upper Division College Classes in Works

Visalia - Tulare County’s leaders agree on at least one thing. A lack of a four-year college campus here is holding back progress to a better tomorrow for residents and their children. Whether it’s the need to attract better paying companies to the area or seeking a way to keep our most talented students nearby after they graduate high school “there must be a concerted joint effort to create more educational opportunities for our residents,” states Paul Saldana president of the Tulare County Economic Development Corporation. Saldana heads up the new “Institute for Higher Education” organization supported by all eight of the cities, educational institutions and the private sector partners that aim to do just that. The group has a first year budget of $160,000.

Already the organization is playing an important role in encouraging Fresno State University to ramp up its less than dynamic FSU/COS Center on the College of the Sequoias campus that has grown little in course offerings or number of students since it was founded in 1991. But with new commitment to infuse some cash and an offering by COS to lease the current nursing building to FSU, there are renewed hopes the upper division Center can grow.

Will Hire Director

Most promising say former COS president Don Goodyear is a commitment by Fresno State to hire a new director for the FSU/COS Center as soon as this fall to oversee the operation. “Dr. Welty agrees we need to take the next step to assess what other courses could be offered to grow the program,” offering more upper division courses in Visalia.

“We’re working on a Memo of Understanding between COS and Fresno State right now,” says Goodyear.

A permanent home in the 4,000-square-foot educational building on the COS campus should give the program new visibility, agrees Dr. Goodyear. The building should be available late this summer when the nursing program is moved to the new Science building on the Visalia campus now nearly completed.

Saldana says the Institute will pay some of the infrastructure costs to upgrade the Center. Others may help Fresno State pay for the cost of the new director. “All the details haven’t been worked out,” says Saldana, “but we feel we are making a great step forward.” Plans would include making the Visalia courses “smart classrooms.” This means that the instruction comes from Fresno through “distance learning” via the TV screen and allows two-way communication – something not available now.

Don Goodyear expects an incremental effort over the next three years to grow the number of full time equivalent students (FTE) from its current level of about the 240 students to 500 FTEs – enabling it to apply for Independent Center status from the State Chancellors office. That would be the beginnings of a real four-year campus here.

Dr. Goodyear says he believes the job now will be to identify certain cohorts, a grouping of subjects, that could lead to majors in typical subjects, one example being criminology. The task would then be to identify what subject in criminology could be offered in Visalia and what might need to be taken in Fresno. Goodyear says class offerings in Visalia might take shape for more “weekend college,”classes held late in the day or at night – perhaps on weekends to allow students to study while they continue working somewhere else.

Saldana says the current effort to develop more upper division education in Tulare County came about “about a year ago” when Visalia’s city manager Steve Salomon was invited to a City of Porterville meeting to talk about how to get more four-year classes here. “Out of that came an agreement to focus not just on the idea of landing a campus, but to provide educational opportunities in all parts of Tulare County not more than 15 minutes from population centers. That takes away the turf war issue” of where a college campus would be located, says Saldana.

Long Term Goal

“We’re committed for the long term,” he notes to perhaps establishing a few centers where residents can get upper division classes.

Saldana says the need to develop higher skill level in Tulare County’s workforce is “our number one competitive issue” when it comes to bringing in new business or industry to the county. “Many companies find they have to bring in skilled workers because the education level is not here.” That hurts our chance to attract new companies here where the education attainment level is – to put it bluntly – grim.

Kings and Tulare counties have the state’s lowest percentage of residents with BA degrees according to the US census at 8.9 percent and 10 percent respectively compared to the California average of 23 percent and the US average of 24 percent of the population with bachelor’s degrees. While other countries leap ahead of US education attainment, Tulare County is just trying to play catch-up ball, banking on education to end a grueling cycle of poverty in the Central Valley.

Part of the problem is that any other major metro area in California, there is no public four-year college in Kings or Tulare counties. Having to travel more than an hour to go to college makes it hard for many students to reach the goal everyone here agrees. Pushing for money for a public college in Sacramento has borne no fruit although the effort has been made. Steve Salomon points out the area needs a public four-year option because private schools tend to cost lots more.

Helping to push the process along has been Tulare County Superintendent of Schools Jim Vidak, who represents the county. However, the Tulare County board of supervisors has not made a commitment to join the effort although the cities are chipping in. Key in gaining Dr. Welty’s interest is Visalia businessman Stan Simpson, who helped arrange a recent breakthrough meeting with the FSU president.

Saldana points out that the current effort with all involved includes several private colleges that have already made new commitments to be involved and suggested Tulare County will be in the driver’s seat on “who will be our partners” in expanding educational access here.

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By Claudia Elliott

Porterville - The head of the Tule River Tribe's economic development arm will meet this week with the CEO of the French company with which it has worked since 2002 and there will undoubtedly be some celebration.

That's because the diesel aviation engine developed by Société de Motorisations Aéronautiques (SMA) has won certification from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), opening the door for Tribal-owned Tule River Aero-Industries to begin installation of the engine.

ANN, the online Aero-News Network, reported last week that SMA has been issued a supplemental type certificate (STC) to install their SR305-230 compression ignition engine in Cessna C-182 airplanes. The FAA awarded the STC on July 21 just in time for the company's announcement to be made at AirVenture the huge aviation gathering held in Oshkosh, Wisc.

Dave Nenna, chief executive officer of Tule River Economic Development Corporation, headquartered at the Porterville Airport, said the FAA certification means Tule River Aero can begin selling its services, offering a retrofit of the popular Cessna 182 with a state of the art diesel engine.

“It's not experimental anymore,” Nenna said of the 1980 Cessna 182 that Tule River Aero completely refurbished to show its abilityand the ability of the new engine. All of the FAA testing that lead to certification of the SMA diesel engine was done with Tule River Aero's plane.

“We can now begin taking orders,” Nenna said, noting that there has been significant interest in the engine, particularly since the availability of “av gas” is uncertain in some areas. The diesel engine also has lower maintenance costs and is easier to fly, he said.

Nenna said Luc Peron, CEO of SMA, which is owned by the French-based international SAFRAN Group, will be flying in to Porterville this week to meet with Tule River Aero-Industries and discuss plans for the next phase.

Tule River Aero's CEO Rick Rossner and salesman Sheridan Rambo were unavailable for comment but Rambo reportedly told Aero-News Network that the company “six confirmed and 15 informal orders” for the engine.

What that means for Porterville, Nenna said, is new jobs. Tule River Aero currently employs 12 people but has worked with SMA throughout the engine certification process with future jobs in mind. Nenna said the company will begin “ramping up” to meet demand for installation of the newly-certified engine but could not say yet how many new jobs that will mean.

Tim McDonald, a potential SMA customer attending the press conference told Aero-News Network he was very impressed with the claims of ease of use, durability and economy. "This engine is the wave of the future, especially with all the questions surrounding the future availability of avgas," he said.

Two 1980 Cessna 182 airplanes with the SMA diesel engine retrofit are listed for sale at by Tule River Aero for $269,000 and $288,000. The planes have been completely refurbished. A new Cessna 182 with a traditional engine sells for around $325,000.

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Tulare County - The record-breaking heat wave that scorched the Central Valley through much of July came to a merciful end last week, but not before killing as many as 150 people across the state as well as tens of thousands of animals, and pushing the state's electricity supply to the brink.

Residents of the Central Valley, where triple-digit temps ruled for 14 straight days, took the brunt of the punishing heat and uncharacteristic humidity.

“This is like nothing we've ever seen before,” said Visalia Mayor Jesus Gamboa last week. The heat wave was unprecedented in the past 57 years, state officials said.

Making matters worse, unusually high night time lows, which kept the mercury above 80 degrees, provided little relief to the blistering day time heat and wreaked havoc on area farms, orchards and dairy operations.

Cases of heat-related illnesses flooded Valley hospitals. The elderly and those with respiratory conditions suffered the most.

“Bad air conditions together with the excessive heat are causing those with asthma and other serious respiratory or health issues more problems than usual,” said Kaweah Delta Health Care District's Angela Bouma. “Because of the influx of patients in Valley emergency departments, officials are encouraging people with minor injuries to visit their local physician or walk-in clinic rather than coming to the emergency room.”

In Fresno County, the coroner's office reportedly ran out of room and had to stack deceased heat victims like cord wood until they could be identified by next of kin.

You wouldn't think of the entrance to Sequoia Park at Ash Mountain Visitor Center above Three Rivers as the county's hot spot but during the hottest four days in late July, July 23-26, Ash Mountain weather station recorded a record 114 degrees Fahrenheit on the 26th although parks spokesperson Alex Picavet says the thermometer broke at 113 for two days prior. “We had to buy a new one.”

This is the second time in a decade that the temperature reached this record level. Three Rivers recorded 20 days above 100 degrees in July according to The Weather Channel.

The warm weather was punctuated by thunderstorms that flooded the East Fork of the Kaweah River turning the water a muddy brown. “When it rained during the heat it was just awful,” says Picavet.

According to the Pumpkin Hollow weather station in Three Rivers, Kaweah River water temps reached 73 degrees although the depth of where the measurement was taken is not clear. That's warm water for the Kaweah River suggest some.

The unrelenting heat also killed hundreds of cows and tens of thousands of chickens and turkeys and threatened to cripple Valley ag output.

The California Farm Bureau reported that since the beginning of the heat wave, milk production was down significantly.

Dairy industry representatives estimated last week the damage could reach $1 billion for the two week hot spell counting lost milk production. As many as 16,000 cows may have perished by one estimate. UC Tulare veterinarian Jim Cullor says he thinks the number here was more like 1 in 1000 and with about a million animals in Tulare county that means the loss here could have been as many as 1000 cattle. “Depending on management, some operators can keep their losses low like 1 to 2 percent a year, but others suffer losses of 6 percent a year,” he says. “Just like people, cows need lots of water to cool them down.”

Losses in the poultry industry were high at about 700,000 chickens and 160,000 turkeys valley wide, estimates Bill Mattos of the California Poultry Federation.

In addition, the heat shriveled the ripening grape crops report industry sources, wilted processing tomatoes, sunburned the walnut crop and may have impacted stored fruit that wasn't cooled.

Beef producers reduced the caloric load in their feed in the hopes of slowing down their animals' metabolism and weight loss.

One prominent beef producer said the heat was killing animals at “an alarming rate” and would surely lower the company's bottom line. Dairymen predicted the unprecedented heat wave would translate into higher prices for milk in coming months.

County livestock operations were given emergency permission to bury dead animals on site after one area rendering facility unexpectedly closed and other facilities overloaded.

On the eighth day of intense heat wave, electricity usage peaked at 50,270 megawatts an all-time record for California.

"It appears we have ridden out this mammoth peak demand without any problems," said Stephanie McCorkle of the California Independent System Operator (ISO), which manages the state's power grid. "This was the most strained the system has ever been."

Hoping to avoid involuntary rolling blackouts in California, Cal ISO declared a "Stage 2" emergency, which called for businesses to reduce their power usage in exchange for lower rates.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger directed state agencies to reduce electricity use by 25 percent and urged local and municipal governments and universities to do the same.

The reductions appeared to work and Cal ISO officials backed off their threat of having to institute rolling blackouts.

One of the few good things to come out of the heat wave: Ag officials in Fresno County lifted a three-month fruit fly quarantine because the searing heat worked to speed up the pest's life cycle.

Meteorologist John Hibler said late last week: “It was the duration, the day after day after day high heat that was unprecedented.”

The hottest temperature registered around the Valley, according to Hibler, was 116 degrees in Delano on July 25.

“This is rare and not a typical summer weather pattern,” Hibler explained. “The bottom line is that we were directly under the circulation of an unusually strong, upper-level high pressure system. But on average, the second and third weeks of July are typically the hottest two weeks in the Northern Hemisphere.”

Some blamed the blistering heat wave on global warming but scientists said there was still no definitive evidence linking the latest record-setting temps to Al Gore's favorite subject. Rather, climatologist Daniel R. Cayan of Scripps and the U.S. Geological Survey attributed the higher than normal temps to “largely natural variability."

Tulare County Ag Commissioner Gary Kunkel said it would be weeks, perhaps months, before all of the ag-related damage is known.

“It's too early for numbers but we're likely to see damage to the nut crops, particularly the walnut crop,” said Kunkel late last week. “I've heard that production in cows that are still producing milk is down some 30 percent. The other thing we're likely to see is sunburning and defects in things like table grapes and tree fruit, peaches, plums and nectarines. We'll be busy trying to access the damage over the next few weeks.”

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Visalia - Flying directly from Visalia to anywhere in the world could soon get a whole lot easier.

No more 20-minute bus rides from North Las Vegas Airport to McCarran International for those Scenic Airline flyers, especially business travelers, trying to catch a connecting flight out of Vegas.

As early as Nov. 1, Great Lakes Airlines could begin providing twice-daily commercial air service into Las Vegas' McCarran International.

Great Lakes recently won the support of the Visalia City Council in a three-way competition to replace Scenic Air as the sole provider of commercial air service at Visalia Municipal Airport. Presently, flights to Las Vegas on Scenic use North Las Vegas Airport, a 20-minute bus ride from both the Strip and McCarran International.

Great Lakes is proposing to run 12 weekly flights from Visalia in and out of McCarran; two flights each weekday, including one at 7:30 a.m., and one flight Saturday and Sunday.

"I like their departure times,” said Mayor Jesus Gamboa, following the council's vote to back Great Lakes. “And I like that they have a departure and return on Saturday and Sunday. I think that will serve our community well.”

At a special meeting last week, council members looked at proposals from three regional air carriers hoping to replace Scenic Air, which announced earlier this year that it was pulling out of the commercial airline business to concentrate on its charter Grand Canyon flights.

Big Sky Airlines and Mesa Air also made pitches. Mesa currently provides service out of Bakersfield and Fresno. Big Sky operates predominantly in the northwestern U.S. and is trying to break into the California market.

Airport Manager Mario Cifuentez said Great Lakes officials are also hoping to establish a beachhead in California and are excited about “getting their foot in the door" with Visalia.

If awarded the contract, Great Lakes will use 19-seat aircraft similar to the planes currently employed by Scenic.

In the next few weeks, the Department of Transportation (DOT) is expected to make the final decision on which carrier replaces Scenic. Cifuentez said the agency gives “significant weight” to the city's recommendation.

The DOT, Cifuentez said, could name the new carrier, which is also expected to serve the Merced and Ely, Nev. markets, as early as Aug. 21.

The airline that wins the two-year contract will continue to draw nearly a million dollars in government subsidies under the DOT's Essential Air Service program but could eventually operate out of Visalia subsidy free.

Scenic officials unexpectedly announced their decision to quit Visalia less than a year into a three-year contract with the city, even though rider ship in and out of Visalia increased significantly under the airline's tenure.

“We were averaging 188 passengers a month prior to Scenic with Sky West (airlines),” said Cifuentez. “Scenic is averaging 757 passengers a month. Visalia, as a market, is a huge 'catchment' area, bigger than the entire state of Wyoming.”

Catchment is an aviation term, Cifuentez explained, and basically refers to the overall area from which Visalia can draw flying customers.

“All of the carriers understand what a huge and underserved market California is as a whole,” added Cifuentez. The Essential Air Service program provides a carrier like Great Lakes with “risk mitigation to get into the California market.”

Scenic, which continues to fly in and out of North Las Vegas Airport, is required by the DOT to continue to provide air service in Visalia until a new carrier replaces it.

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By George Lurie

Tulare County - When the Japanese government announced last week that it would allow the resumption of U.S. beef imports from cattle 20 months of age and younger, no one clapped louder than the folks at Harris Ranch.

Before the Japanese ban was imposed in December 2003, the Selma-based beef processor had been doing a booming business with the Japanese, who gobble up beef in their ubiquitous “rice bowl” fast-food restaurants.

The day after the announcement from Tokyo, Bruce Berven, vice president of marketing at Harris Ranch Beef, said the company was already beginning to prepare beef for export.

“We were one of the 35 plants that was audited (by a Japanese inspection team),” Berven said. “Thirty-four of the 35 plants that were inspected won approval (last week) to ship to Japan product harvested on or after July 27.”

Berven said that only one plant in Brawley, Calif., did not pass the Japanese audit. Japanese inspectors visited Harris' Selma plant on June 26.

“The inspectors were here from 7 a.m. to 4:20 p.m.,” said Berven, who, prior to the visit, was deluged with requests from the Japanese media to film the inspections.

“I had a ton of Japanese television stations calling us but we turned down all of their requests” because of company policies about sanitation and visitors in the packing plant, Berven said.

According to Berven, one Japanese television crew camped out across from the company's plant on private property and a crew member stood on the top of a van in 104 degree heat, pointing a camera at the plant throughout the day. And, at shift change, the Japanese journalists even tried to interview some of the employees exiting the plant, “even though most of them only speak Spanish,” said Berven.

Berven said that other than the commotion with the Japanese media, the inspection went well.

Now Harris will start ramping up for export to Japan. “Beef is a perishable commodity if you are going to ship it in fresh form,” said Berven, adding that the Japanese are especially fond of cow tongue and intestines.

Berven said that Harris no longer exports its beef to Hong Kong and even with the lifting of the Japanese ban; he does not think the former Chinese colony will resume its beef imports from the company.

“Our company was delisted from exporting to Hong Kong because they found a sliver of what they said was bone but was actually cartilage,” said Berven. “It was about the size of a dime. So at this point, we are not exporting to Hong Kong. The system there is designed to make anybody who exports to Hong Kong fail given enough time.”

At the peak of its business with Japan, the country accounted for as much as 4 percent of Harris' overall sales. Another 3 percent to 4 percent of revenues were to tied to the company's exports to South Korea, a market that remains closed to U.S. beef exporters.

“There have been rumors that South Korea may follow the Japanese lead but nothing certain,” said Berven, adding that the loss of business from Hong Kong was incidental to the company's bottom line. “Hong Kong probably didn't even represent one tenth of one percent of our export business,” he said.

According to Berven, Harris Ranch Beef company does between $250 -$300 million in total annual sales.

Japan first banned U.S. beef imports in December 2003 after a cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, was discovered in Washington state.

Japanese officials lifted the ban under intense pressure last December but slapped the embargo back on just a month later when a U.S. shipment of veal from a small New York state company violated safety guidelines that required the removal of high-risk material such as the animals' spines.

Berven said that company officials have “worked hard” to accommodate the Japanese and dispel their concerns about food safety. Helping to smooth out the nearly two-and-a-half year impasse could be one of the last major accomplishments for Berven at Harris. Earlier this year, he announced his plans to retire and move back to Des Moines, Iowa, to “be nearer family.”

Brad Caudill, currently the executive director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau and a former Harris Ranch employee, will soon be leaving his post at the farm bureau to take Berven's place as vice president of marketing.

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Visalia - Visalia developer Andy Mangano has sold his interest in the Visalia Auto Plaza project off West 198 ending a chapter that brought mostly heartburn to the otherwise successful Visalia builder. The 72-acre project had already sold off several parcels to dealer Frank Surroz totaling about 16 acres, one 12-acre parcel to Tulare dealer Lonnie Tiesiera and is under contract to sell several parcels to a Bakersfield company.

The buyer of the remaining acreage is Matt Bruno of Modesto who also owns several parcels just to the east of the Auto Plaza property and west of Road 80. Those two parcels, 11 and 20 acres, are part of a specific plan – north of the Plaza interchange – being proposed by the Mangano brothers. These properties are zoned Business Research Park.

Mr. Surroz recently opened his Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealership and is in the planning stages for his new BMW dealership. Mr. Tiesiera says he isn’t sure how he will use his land. The Bakersfield group is working to bring in a new line and may have an interest in relocating VW depending on the German company’s decision.

Mangano went through several years of political wrangling to get the controversial project finalized within the City of Visalia after trying to get it approved outside the city limits. One aspect of the controversy was that the city committed to build an auto mall on the east side of town. Today that auto district is basically built out (see other story).

The West 198 Auto Plaza was opposed by a community group led by former mayor Greg Collins who later took the city and Mr. Mangano to court. At issue was approval by the city of a car sales project in what had been agricultural property. Once the Collins group lost the court case, Collins made a run for a city council seat. Mangano helped fund an anti-Collins campaign that wasn’t successful; Collins won a seat on the council, forcing a new majority on land use issues.

Now Mangano, finally out of the car sales business, can concentrate on more familiar territory that includes land development, home building and commercial projects including downtown Visalia projects (see What’s New). Ironically, Mangano and Collins – still opponents on some basic land issues – find themselves increasingly on the same page on a number of Visalia projects including local control of Williamson Act cancellations, mixed use housing projects using “smart growth” techniques and development issues in downtown and East Visalia.

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Visalia - Visalia car dealer Don Groppetti will relocate his Toyota dealership south of Highway 198 following the relocation of his new Nissan and Honda showrooms from Ben Maddox south of the Mary’s Vineyard shopping center. Nissan is already built and the new Honda dealership is under construction. This week a city site plan review session will take up the proposed Toyota location that is just to the north of where the Honda showroom will be built.

“All the car makers require new facilities,” says Groppetti suggesting “they are in the drivers seat on that.” The new showroom “meets company standards and tends to draw more car shoppers,” he says.

The decision to move Groppetti’s hottest brands all in a row south of the freeway clears the way to relocate the Buick/GM dealership from Burke and Mineral King to the remaining buildings, including the current Toyota dealership on Ben Maddox and Main Street once the relocations are complete. Recently, Groppetti added Hyundai and relocated Ford from downtown Visalia to where it’s now operating at the corner of Ben Maddox and Mineral King.

“Looks like we will keep the motorcycle dealership where it is now,” says Groppetti and “use the remaining space to sell used cars for awhile.” Groppetti says he is watching the city’s East Visalia plan that could change the way the Burke and Mineral King property is positioned in the commercial marketplace in the future. It could, for example, be a good future office park site, Groppetti is being told.

Groppetti says a timeline to relocate Honda will likely be early 2007 when the new building is completed. The Toyota dealership could be built and open in the fall of 2007.

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Escrow has closed on a landmark Three Rivers restaurant and plans call for what now will be known as the Hummingbird Café to be open by the last week in August. The site, last operated as the Main Fork Bistro after many years as the Noisy Water Café, will feature “comfort foods” on its breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, according to the owners, Anthony and Diana Chapa of Realto in Riverside County and Jerrie Doyel and Joe Vasquez of Woodlake. Mike Huff, who operates Main Street Café in Visalia will be the chef. The breakfast menu will include biscuits and gravy on and the dinner menu will include traditional dishes such as chicken fried steaks, as well as hot and cold sandwiches. Tentative scheduling has the eatery open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. The restaurant overlooks the Kaweah River in downtown Three Rivers and has long been noted for its attraction to hummingbirds which feed along the riverbank and from feeders near the windows. David Learned of Century 21 Realty in Three Rivers represented the buyer and the seller.

Gill family plans Frazier Valley development. The family has hired a biologist to do the preliminary EIR work on two parcels in the valley north of Porterville that amounts to about 125 acres. Expected to be a rural residential project, the plan is far smaller than the big Boswell plan in nearby Yokohl Valley.

New owner of the Razzari building on Garden Street in downtown Visalia, Andy Mangano, is proposing that Garden Street become a sort of extension of the Rita B. Plaza across Main Street. He will be submitting the plan to the city staff for review. Basically it would change Garden Street from Main to Center streets into a one-way street going north with about half the street set aside as a landscaped pedestrian area. Angled parking and a one-lane street of traffic would be part of the plan. Mangano would like to do a bigger project in the area that would resurface Mill Creek.

Two dairies that are the subject of an environmental impact report near Allensworth seek to locate about 12,000 animals under a special use permit under the names Sam Etchegaray Dairy and Earlimart Ranch Dairy. The matter is being heard by the county planning commission. The issues will be heard Aug. 9. The dairies have caused concerns at Allensworth State Park where its superintendent Joe Ramos is worried about odors and flies affecting visitors who come to the historic park. He says the park may expand to as little as a mile away. He says they plan to offer food to visitors and now they are going to “release a bunch of flies and the odor of manure right across the street.” Staff responded to the testimony by saying the park generates about 15,000 persons a year, perhaps 15 cars a day and that no expansion of the park is budgeted. The upshot – county staff doesn’t feel the impact would be significant. The Center For Race, Poverty and the Environment submitted a lengthy list of shortfalls it saw in the EIR – setting the stage for a possible legal challenge.

Car dealer Frank Serpa and a partner are in escrow to buy the Mooney Boulevard car dealership property owned by Frank Surroz. Serpa says he would located a car line to the property once Surroz vacates his BMW dealership to the new Surroz location on Plaza Drive next year.

Visalia businessman and electrical contractor Don Celillo has purchased the old Shell station lot on Noble across the freeway from Kaweah Delta Hospital. According to his agent, Bill Whitlatch, Celillo plans to build a five-story office building in the next few years. Whitlatch says his real estate company and another firm, Piper Express, a fruit brokerage, will take one floor. “We will probably condoize the floors,” says Whitlatch. He says there is no problem with any gas tank contamination on the site since Shell is taking care of that. Motorists pay into a state fund to help clean up contaminated sites as well with every gallon they buy.

Turning Point Youth Services has expanded space in the old Rainbo building on the Oval in Visalia. The building is owned by Mike Knopf. The counseling agency plans to add more space in the building and some of the existing tenants are relocating, including the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board regional office. The office is to relocate to Central and Walnut in a new building being constructed in the office complex on the north side of Walnut Avenue.

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