Stark Wins $13.5 Mil Judgment Against Sunkist

Tulare County -A Tulare County jury sided with former packing house owner Brad Stark in December against Sunkist Growers, Inc. saying Sherman Oaks-based Sunkist should pay $13.5 million in damages related to unfair business practices that contributed to the closing of five Stark Packing operations—a longtime Tulare County citrus packer affiliated with the Sunkist brand.

Stark sued originally in 2001 after he pulled out of Sunkist and the jury trial finally came to a head five years later. Stark's operation closed its doors in 2003 and the loss of money resulted in Stark himself declaring bankruptcy.

The Stark family were founding members of Sunkist back in 1924.

“I want to thank my family for helping us pull together over these past five years. It's been very stressful and now we are happy it's over,” Stark told the Voice. “It has been a humbling experience.” Stark credits the work of his lawyer, Joe Uremovic.

In the brief, Stark asserts that Sunkist failed to “play by the rules” of treating all growers fairly and equally citing numerous examples of favoritism to certain “favored growers.” At issue is the fact that Sunkist intentionally limited the volume of fruit that goes to market on any given week to not flood the market and depress prices. So Sunkist is supposed to estimate the size of the crop each grower has ready to market and offer to sell some percentage—say 50%—of what the grower has available that week.

But this leads to a problem. Growers can overstate the size of their crop and when Sunkist staff allows them to sell 50% of the inflated number —their returns are better than other Sunkist members. Stark asserts that Sunkist management was “looking the other way” in the case of certain favored packers that gave them a competitive advantage. Unlike Stark and others the lawsuit claims that “favored packers were getting better sales price for the same size and grade of fruit sold by Sunkist for them, not throwing away any unmarketable fruit and packing more than their fair share of their “weekly objectives.”

The suit says Strathmore Packing sold $1.7 million more than their share in one season and Porterville Citrus sold $800,000 more product than its share one year and more in two subsequent years while plaintiffs Stark Packing and Millwood were kept to their “objectives.”

Stark claims in the lawsuit that two major growers who packed with Stark made it clear they would leave Stark Packing if he did not withdraw from the Sunkist cooperative because of the consistent lower volume they were allowed to sell.

The suit says another Stark grower, Robert Bennett, decided to leave Stark. The suit claims that Bennett left Stark after being solicited by a Sunkist sales exec and the Chairman of Sunkist at the time to move his account to a rival Sunkist house.

Sunkist was supposed to sell all growers' oranges at the same volume but in some cases Sunkist management claimed customers asked for a particular label as the reason one grower might get more orders than another, according to plaintiffs.

Stark claims that a Sunkist Canadian sales manager bribed buyers in order to have them request specific labels—not Stark's—that caused Stark to lose business from Canada.

After Stark—who sat for years on the Sunkist board—complained about the unfair treatment, the lawsuit claims that management got personnel to push product from favored packers to customers that specifically asked for Stark and Millwood labels.

“Sunkist has abandoned the tradition of fairness and equality to members that goes back more than a hundred years,” claims the lawsuit. “Senior Sunkist management, like many bureaucracies, has come to precipitate its own power, numbers, high salaries and good fringe benefits at the expense of what is best for its grower-members as a whole. Senior Sunkist management wanted higher volumes of product, because they supported higher executive salaries, larger staffs and greater employee incentives. When senior Sunkist management was forced to choose between what might cost them reduced volume of product and what was best for the grower-members, senior Sunkist management always took care of themselves!”

Sunkist did win a $138,000 “cross-complaint” against Stark since he pulled out of the co-op in violation of the membership agreement and owed equipment lease money.

No Favored Growers Says Sunkist

Sunkist attorneys have said they plan to appeal the judgment and deny any wrongdoing.

“Sunkist plans to challenge the verdict at both the trial level and on appeal” and denies Sunkist favored one grower over another, says Sunkist's attorney Michael Bierman. “There were no favored growers.” Rather Sunkist set up a sort of “free market” inside the Sunkist organization that competed with each other, claims Bierman and caused some customers to ask for particular labels when they ordered oranges. “The grower who did a better job got more because customers liked it.” He says Stark himself for several years shipped more fruit than his “share” despite complaints about not getting enough volume.

Bierman says Sunkist lost on a split vote, 9-3, on some charges because Sunkist was considered “the big guy vs. Stark—the little guy” in a David and Goliath scenario that they have played well with the jury. Bierman says an appeal at the trial level with Judge Melinda Reed should come in the next few weeks that will seek to throw out the verdict. The trial lasted six weeks.

$60 Million Sought

For his part, winning attorney Joe Uremovic plans to appeal to seek an additional $14 million for growers who were owed money over the years due to what he calls Sunkist's unfair business practices. From the money gained in this judgment, Stark's attorney says, “We've already taken a lien on $1.5 million we've agreed to pay growers on money Stark owes from 2001/02.” Uremovic says he will appeal for interest prior to the judgment in the case that amounts to another $14 million. Altogether the plaintiffs asked for $60 million in damages.

Uremovic says management at Sunkist now keeps to “weekly objectives” and “the problem we had Sunkist has now been fixed.” The problem was that management was favoring maximizing the volume of fruit because they earned more money on the volume rather than on the returns the grower got that sometimes requires the limiting of volume to achieve the best price for the fruit. The attorney says former chair of Sunkist David Krause testified at the trial that former Sunkist president Joe Gargiulo was paid $1 million to do his job. Both Krause—president of now rival Paramount Citrus and Gargiulo have left Sunkist.

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El Nino is Back
Moderate El Nino Strengthens Prospects For Wet Winter

San Joaquin Valley - The U.S. Climate Prediction Center released a report December 21 suggesting prospects for a moderate El Nino weather pattern increased as sea surface temps along the equator have risen to above 1 degree C above the long term average. That increases the chance for above normal precipitation across much of the southern third of the U.S. including southern and central California during the early months of 2007.

Hanford National Weather Service forecaster Gary Sanger says central California has a 40% chance for above normal precipitation although El Nino patterns can bring lower than normal rain as well depending on jet stream patterns.

The Climate Prediction Center map shows a 50% chance for higher than normal rain extending from southern California into our area during the first three months of 2007.

“The new thing is that before we thought it would be a weak El Nino and now they are forecasting a moderate El Nino,” said Sanger. He said the sea temps near the equator could continue to warm further making a strong El Nino pattern a possibility. “That's what we had in the big wet years of 81/82 and 97/98,” says Sanger, very wet and stormy years for much of California.

So far this year there have been only a few brief storms bringing rain to central California although more snow than rain has fallen in the Sierra. “It looked like we were blowing a duster until recently,” says water engineer Dennis Keller, “but this prediction of a moderate El Nino is the bigger news.” In recent weeks several storms have raised the snowpack at Kaweah Gap to above 2 feet—the top of the Kaweah watershed.

Kaweah River watermaster Bruce George cautions that an El Nino weather pattern can bring an extreme wet period or extreme dry months. “So far this year we are at below 25% of normal on the Kaweah,” says George. Typically, the rule of thumb is that 50% of the rainfall in a water year is received by mid to later January and “we have a long way to go” to reach it, he says.

Our area has seen two wet years in a row in the 2005 water year and the 2006 water year that ends in September. Although the last two years have been productive, says George, most of the years this decade have been below normal with 2004 seeing just 55% of normal on the Kaweah (see chart).

Recharge Effort

KDWCD in an effort to shore up what would otherwise be a sinking water table, has partnered with the City of Visalia and others to step up what is already an ambitious recharge effort when excess water is available. That was the case this past year when inflow into Lake Kaweah exceeded 708,000 acre feet—165% of normal. The District participated in importing 57,000 acre feet of water into the Kaweah River Basin at a cost of $2.5 million last year. This water, from the CVP and Kings River, was combined with about 20,000 AF of Kaweah River water and run for recharge and delivered to water users. This extended the surface water irrigation run, reduced summer pumping and provided some relief for the declining water table. Such surface water in part may be threatened, some fear, once the San Joaquin River settlement process goes into effect in 2009. About half the water from the big Friant Kern Canal from the river waters Tulare County farms and communities (see other story).

Also the city and KDWCD have entered into an agreement to help the city avoid last year's overflow of channel capacity due to high rainfall events that damaged homes in town. KDWCD will operate off stream basins that will double as storm retension basins that could help avoid more flood damage in the city.

Citrus farmers are always watching the weather this time of year because right after Christmas has been the time when killer frosts descend on the area. But weather forecaster Sanger says that at least for the first week of January there are no indications of a very cold storm heading our way from the Gulf of Alaska. Storms that cloud up the sky tend to make for warmer temps it's the day after the storms when skies are clear that citrus farmers spend the night in their pick-ups. As weeks pass, orange trees are better able to handle slightly lower temps.

Water agencies like Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District are watching the settlement process over the San Joaquin River closely, says George, since contractor water districts border all sides of KDWCD. The settlement is calling for a cut back in water from the river being delivered to central valley water agencies in coming years beginning in 2009 and some fear the cuts in dry years will put farmers out of production. “What's good for water contractors of Friant is good for Kaweah Delta,” says George noting the goal of the agency remains to deliver or sink as much water as can be gleaned from both Kaweah and to other sources including the Friant Kern Canal as possible “we remain overdrafted basin.”

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Tulare County Film Commission Brings Area
to the Big (and Little) Screen

By Steve Pastis

Tulare County - The Tulare County Film Commission, a division of the county's RMA Community Development and Redevelopment Branch, was established in the late 1980s to encourage filming in Tulare County, and provide support and assistance to the film industry. As Tulare County Film Commissioner, Loretta Feldstein responds to locations requests and assists production staff with everything from finding locations and securing permits to providing a list of resources they might need while working here.

“We help them facilitate their usage of the area,” Feldstein said. “Our familiarity and knowledge of the area is why they contact us.”

Her duties include providing film crews with names of places to stay occasionally at discounted rates, giving them lists of area services and merchants such as hardware stores where they can get equipment, and of course, helping them find and secure locations to film.

“Sometimes they want to use a cornfield and they have to pay for the cornfield if they want to drive a truck around in it,” she said. “We contact the owners and set up a meeting.”

“Sometimes we can make it easier for them to get a permit to close a road because we know the people to contact and what kind of forms they're going to need,” said Diana Poole, community development specialist and a former Tulare County film commissioner.

“They call us up and we look for locations for them,” she said. “When they come up, we show them around. We're very user-friendly. We have just about everything they could want, except for oceans. There are lots of film companies that come into our area and want to use our roads. They love our roads for car commercials.

“They have film scouts that come up and talk to us,” she added. “Sometimes we can give them a map and send them in the right direction so they can look around. Sometimes we drive them out so they can look at different locations.”

The commission offers a filming guide and a library of photographs of the mountains, rivers, bridges, towns and other features of the county. “If we don't have anything in the film library that they like, I'll go out and take photos,” Feldstein said.

And for all of this hard work, film companies pay nothing to the Tulare Film Commission, as they do to similar agencies in other counties. “We don't charge a fee for filming here yet,” Poole said. “We're still in discussions for that. We have to go through the county council and we have to make up an ordinance. We have one in the rough, but haven't fine-tuned it. This takes some time.”

The Tulare County Film Commission is funded in part by the Tulare County Association of Governments, and is a member of Filming Liaisons In California (FLICS), the California Film Commission and the Association of Film Commissioners International.

Filming activities create widespread economic benefits to Tulare County. The temporary influx of a film crew helps the local economy by increasing revenues for local hotels, motels, restaurants and retail businesses. The basic formula for how much money film productions bring into the county is $25,000 per day for the average commercial and $50,000 per day for a movie crew. Commercials take an average of three days to a week to film and films can take two weeks, depending on how many local scenes they need.

Occasionally, production companies even hire local residents, providing temporary employment. The commission maintains a list of people who can create sets or have a technical knowledge of film or sound. They also provide a list of names of people who want to be movie extras.

“'Zombie Farm' called for extras and people from around here showed up,” Feldstein said. “We had fun being zombies.”

Movies and Television Filming in Tulare County

A scene for “Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny” was filmed on the Kern River near Johnsondale in the southeast part of Tulare County, near Kern County. The big bend in the river was selected because it was good for Jack Black's character to fall into. Black, however, remained dry through the filming because a stunt double took the plunge.

“Son-In-Law” was filmed in the Ivanhoe/Woodlake area, with a farm there being prominent in the movie. “Clarence Ritchie's barn is featured in the barn dance scene,” said Feldstein. “He is actually in that scene with his band.” A home by the pitch-and-putt miniature golf course was used as the father-in-law's house.

“Star Trek VI” used the mountains in Homestate Park to film a scene where Captain James T. Kirk falls off a mountain and is saved by Spock who catches him in midair.

The Academy Award-winning movie “Forrest Gump” used the mountains of Sequoia National Park to film part of the scenes where Tom Hanks runs back and forth across the country.

Woody Harrelson was featured as a convict running for his life in a scene from “Wag the Dog.” That scene was filmed near Allensworth.

The stars of “Hulk” were filmed in a cabin scene at Mountain Home State Park near Springville.

The film “Under Crystal Lake” did a great deal of filming in the county, including a scene at a furniture store in Visalia and scenes at Kaweah Lake. So much of the movie was filmed here that the movie premiere was held in Visalia.

Other Tulare County film productions include “The Moment After,” “Mercy Streets,” “The Visitation,” “SIX,” “Bound For Glory,” “Lycanthrope (Nightwatch),” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Riders On The Storm,” “Death In California” and “Starman.”

A whitewater rafting scene for the television show “Home Improvement” was filmed on the river near Johnsonville. MacGyver has also been filmed in the county

“One crazy stunt was filmed at the Goshen Greyhound Bus Station for an extreme video program on MTV,” Feldstein said. “A guy on a motorcycle jumped over three busses. It was a big to do.”

Much of the filming in Tulare County is for television commercials. Companies whose commercials feature county scenes include Nissan, Toyota, Ford and Quaker State. “A commercial for Florida orange juice was actually filmed here out in orange fields close to Woodlake,” added Poole.

Many music videos have also been made in Tulare County. The area is especially popular with producers of Christian music videos who appreciate the natural beauty of the area.

To promote the area, the Tulare Film Commission plans to film the county, section-by-section, according to Poole. Next year, she expects to have a bigger budget to attract film crews and others into the area.

“We will show them how much money we need in order to promote filming and tourism in the county,” said Feldstein. “Supervisor Allen Ishida would really like filming to become a major division in the county.”

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Tulare County - By subdividing the land that used to be their father's logging camp, the children of Claude Rouch established the mountain community of Sequoia Crest, near Springville, in eastern Tulare County. The three brothers and one sister have always run their business as a family operation, but brother Sonny has clearly been the key decision-maker.

Now 87 and proud of it, Sonny enjoys talking about his many years in the mountains of Tulare County. Apparently, many others enjoy hearing him talk about his life and experiences. More than 120 people attended a recent talk he gave at a meeting of the Tulare County Historical Society.

The Rouch family first arrived in California in the 1870s from Iowa, although his paternal grandmother's family was here before that. Since Sonny has been around for most of that time, he will be the one to tell the story of the Rouch Family and the establishment of Sequoia Crest.

“My grandfather died when he was very young. I never met him. He was killed in an accident before I came along.

“He and his cousin rode horseback. They would stop and work in order to make a living. By the time they got to Kingsburg, they had earned enough money to buy 160 acres. That's the ranch where I was raised. It was out in the country near Kingsburg.

“He farmed, but he was quite an entrepreneur. He got involved in a sawmill up in the mountains near Shaver Lake, hauling lumber down the old Toll House grade. It was a very very steep grade. He had two wagons and about 16 or 18 head of horses and mules. They would have steel shoes under the back wheels and tie the chains there to stop the sliding.

“My dad built a sawmill near Balch Creek. I went to junior college for two years, and then I went up to help him with the operation of the sawmill. This was before the war (World War II). Then I went off to the service. I was four years in the Army Air Corps. I was stationed in South America and at Ascension Island. Ascension Island is 1,600 miles from South America and 1,200 from Africa. It's quite a place now. It's a good place to pull up on the Internet. The military forces built an airstrip there in early 1942 and 25,000 airplanes went through there to the war.

“In 1945, when the war ended, I came back home. Within a week, I went to work building a road to Sequoia Crest where we were logging. My dad had built a sawmill at Springville where the rodeo ground is now. At that time, we had 100 people working for us in the mill and in the woods. I ran the woods.

“It's the largest grove of redwoods in private hands at Sequoia Crest. The tallest tree there we named the 'Stagg Tree.' It's the fifth largest of all the sequoia gigantias. It used to be number 6, but the one that was number 2 lost a big part of its body to a fire or something so Stagg Tree made it up to number 5.

“We cut pine and fur. We didn't cut redwoods. I don't know why we chose not to.

“Shortly after we completed our logging there (in the early 1950s), we were logging in the Tule Indian Reservation. My dad and I built 50 miles of mountain road in the Indian reservation.

“When we were up in the reservation, in a place called Redwood Corral now, we saw these tremendous birds flying around. We realized they were the condors and we'd seen one of them had a nest in the redwood trees. There was a pine tree about 70 feet high so I climbed it. I used to do the climbing for the family operation. I climbed and cut the limbs and I could look in that hole in the redwood and here was a young bird, a young condor.

“There was sure a lot of interest in it at that time. Here comes a fellow from The Los Angeles Times. He wanted to get a picture of that condor in that nest. That guy was really too heavy, too fat, but we got him up into that tree and he got his picture. Then in about a week or two, here comes a news story where he rescued me! Which is an absolute lie!

“As a result of that, I've gotten to believe that the news media is often not truthful.

“We had skiing at Sequoia Crest and we were hauling people from Wishon. We had a dirt road of six miles to Sequoia Crest. We took two army trucks and hauled the people to our resort. It was a very rough place but we had four rope tows. There was some very good skiing there. The snow, it seemed to me, at that time was better than it is now. It was very consistent.

“At that time, we had a group from the county road department. We wanted the county to take the road over. It never came about because the road was really not suitable for the county to take over. But the forest service became aware that we wanted this ski resort and they also wanted a good road in there to do logging. At that time, the forest service was happy to sell timber. So an engineer came up from their head office and in two days, he more or less flagged down a road. Then the forest service built a narrow road, which is a good road now. Later on, when we started subdividing, we supplied a certain amount of money to the county.

“The county then (in 1958) hired me to rebuild the road and widen it out to two lanes. After that, I had a lot of experience in road building and the use of dynamite. I did other jobs for them.

“Ten or 15 years after the logging, the family started subdividing Sequoia Crest. We built roads and put in a water system and we sold at least 200 lots. Now there's 100 houses there and some unusual property.

“We never cut any sequoia trees down for houses. Why would we? That was one of the things that people wanted.

“The family still owns over 500 acres. The reason I quit (subdividing) is that things changed with the road department and they wanted roads so wide it would have destroyed the country. We had a new subdivision ready to go if we built the roads, but I wouldn't do it. I just quit.”

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What's New

Jury in Visalia Theater eminent domain case decided this week the value of the Main St. theater property was $600,000 a compromise between what the city has most recently offered $500,000 and what the owner of the theater Martin and Harrah had been asking $750,000. The judge had not made the judgment final until issue of attorney costs are settled in coming days. Not present for the hearing were interests representing Restoration Church who had offered to buy the property from the owner for $600,000. The church had at one time sued the city over the issue but later settled with Visalia agreeing to jointly own the facility. With agreement at hand Restoration Church will have to decide whether to pay its 50% share of the final judgment or bow out of the deal. Currently the city leases space to the children's theater group, Enchanted Playhouse.

King of Miniature, Ralph Moore's 100th Birthday Party will be Sunday January 14 with a reception at the Visalia Convention Center from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. In lieu of gifts, Ralph has requested donations in his honor to the 210 Center, First Presbyterian Church, 215 N. Locust St., Visalia 93277 or to the Ralph Moore Endowed Chair, UC Davis, Attention: Christine Schmidt, One Shields Ave., Davis CA 95616.

City council members Don Landers and Greg Kirkpatrick head a committee working with the local SPCA to find a site for a new animal shelter for the Visalia area. “We don't want to put money into the older facility” by the airport, says Landers who favors spending resources to locate a new facility on a city owned piece of land. In November the city voted to increase the SPCA budget for animal control services contracted to the city but decided against a long term plan to commit more money pending a look at other options than the continued use of the old airport site. SPAC has been running at a loss this year.

The Rite Aid Corporation has submitted a proposal to the Visalia Community Development Department to build a pharmacy at the southwest corner of Houston and Demaree in northwest Visalia, its first location north of Highway 198. Before the company's plan can be approved, however, the property needs to be rezoned from its current R-1 (residential) status. The main challenge to any rezoning is that, according to studies of traffic flow in and around the intersection, a commercial business at that corner would overburden the streets, which are considered main arterials of the city.

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Visalia - The City of Visalia has weighed in with its opinion on the San Joaquin Valley Cross Valley Loop Transmission Project. After hearing presentations at its November 20 and December 12 city council meetings, the city has announced its support for “Alternative Route 2,” which would run near the Avenue 368 alignment north of Visalia.

“During our December 12 meeting, it was discussed that Alternative Route 2 may cost substantially more to develop the transmission line facility than the proposed route,” wrote City Manager Steve Salomon in a December 19 letter to SCE Region Manager William Delain. “However, given the environmental issues and substantial number of property owners that must be considered if the 'Proposed Route' is pursued, the effort to acquire easements and construct the transmission line project along Alternative Route 2 may be less problematic and time-consuming, thereby reducing overall project costs.”

The city council's concerns included the impact of the Proposed Route on the area along State Highway 198, and the fact that the city “already contends with a major power line running north/south through the community,” Salomon explained. “There are both real and perceived issues that are related to these lines. It does not seem fair to have a second set of lines running east/west through the city.”

Other concerns with the original plan included its impact on environmentally sensitive areas and planned open space facilities, that it “will degrade the visual quality of East Highway 198” and that it would potentially disrupt the unique agricultural character of the walnut and citrus farms on the route.

Stung by opposition last month to their preferred alternative route to run 18 miles of new high voltage power lines along east 198, Southern California Edison is reportedly looking at “Alternative Plan 2,” a northern alternative to run the new line. That plan calls for bringing power from the Big Creek line northeast of Lemon Cove into the Visalia area—about a 20-mile route. The Rd. 148 route (McAuliff alignment) already connects to Big Creek and the new northern alternative would connect to this line south of Yettem. At this point, it heads south to Visalia on the existing high voltage line route, theoretically meaning SCE doesn't have to buy as much right-of-way.

SCE wants to file an application in early 2007 and begin operating the line by spring 2009.

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