Appeal Could be First for New City Council

Visalia - Visalia Council Member Greg Collins has personally appealed a planning commission decision that approved a 52,000-square-foot complex on Plaza Dr. for Fresno Pacific University. Collins opposed the project when it was presented in conceptual form to the council many months ago, but the project moved forward at that time on a 2-to-1 vote. Collins says a preferable location would be in Downtown or East Visalia and notes the development is actually the first step on a 328,000-square-foot business park.

At that time, Bob Link rescused himself because his wife works with the university. Mr. Gamboa was not at the meeting at the time.

Now the project is coming to the city council on a formal appeal, perhaps toward the end of this month and Collins' appeal as a citizen will mean he can't vote when the matter is heard. Assuming Mr. Link wins another seat, he too will have to refrain from voting because of the conflict of interest.

That puts it up to the three remaining council members.

Depending on who wins this week's council race, the outcome of the vote is very much in doubt.

If Mr. Gamboa opposes the project and Mr. Landers supports it, the deciding vote will come from the new council member, likely either Mike Lane or Amy Shuklian. Ms. Shuklian's views aren't known yet, but Mr. Lane says he would support the project since the land is property zoned for such a venture as Business Research Park and notes the college has approved the location. Lane says he doesn't believe he faces a conflict issue just because his father is the civil engineer on the project, but says he will ask for an opinion by the city attorney.

City Attorney Alex Peltzer, says in general if a relative from the same household is involved with a project, such as a spouse in Mr. Link's case, it holds more weight than a father/son relationship where there is no direct financial stake.

If Lane were conflicted, there would be only two council members voting, lacking a quorum to make a decision. In such a case, the city could waive the conflict issue pointing to the “rule of necessity” that allows a jurisdiction to allow voting anyway because a decision needs to be made. Peltzer says he hasn't had any chance to study the case law.

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San Joaquin River Settlement Legislation
Introduced in Congress

Tulare County - After months of being on hold over congressional budget rules, legislation that supports the settlement of the contentious San Joaquin river issues will be introduced in Congress this week in a mark-up session at a House committee.

The issue has been stuck over congressional “pay go” issues that demand that about half the cost of the federal project estimates that are at least $500 million be offset by new savings or additional revenue. The federal funding will help complete the settlement process over a lawsuit that dates from 1988 that was ended by the parties, NRDC, Friant and the U.S. government, in 2006.

“We have a conceptual plan we are looking at that may satisfy pay-go rules,” says the general manager for Friant Water Users. However, our members want some time to look over the financial implications,” says Friant General Manager Jacobsma. The plan is go to “mark-up” on Wednesday (November 7) at the House Resources Committee. But the agreement would allow 30 to 60 days for the Friant analysis of the plan before the legislation goes any further, he says. “Hopefully sooner.”

Jacobsma says since Friant contractors owe capital cost for the CVP project that must be repaid by 2030, the new plan would speed up those repayments that could eliminate bonds employed now and partially satisfy the pay-go saving rules.

One Friant member called the plan “fiscal gymnastics.” Chair of the Friant group, Kole Upton, says “Friant is split over this,” concerned he will have the pledge monies on his private land to back a public project.

Jacobsma says the Friant members are assured that there is no additional cost to contractors and the issue is one of cash flow.

Jacobsma and other Friant contractors say they have no choice but to go down this road to enforce the settlement or go back to court to continue the fight with the NRDC.

Jacobsma said he and others met with Congressman Devin Nunes last week but failed to earn his support for the legislation. Nunes has said the settlement doesn't provide enough assurance that Friant districts will be made whole on their water supply.

Both the congressional members Costa and Radanovich are backing the legislation and are members of the House committee. Jacobsma says current bill (HR-24) may be altered in the process to accomplish the goal.

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Exeter Company to Add 50 Jobs

Exeter - Hobbs Container of Exeter, a labeler of clamshell produce containers, will add an additional 50 jobs starting at the beginning of next year as it increases production five-fold. So says owner Bradley Hobbs, noting the company purchased the labeling equipment that had been owned by Alcoa Reynolds Packaging of Visalia earlier this year.

“We will be able to go from our current 126 million units labeled to 540 million units by the end of next year,” says Hobbs.

The company has some 200,000 square feet under roof along 2nd Street in Exeter with rail access.

The company has customers all over North America who need their own branded color labels attached to popular clear clamshell containers seen in supermarkets.

Hobbs says his business now has 15 full time employees and that the new equipment will allow his firm to become the largest labeler of clamshell containers in the U.S.

Clamshell containers are those rigid clear plastic containers popular for supermarket sales of strawberries, grapes, berries, tomatoes, mandarins and other produce.

“Retailers like the container because they travel well, are sanitary and don't allow the handling by customers that exposed produce does.” Clamshell containers can stack three high and allow product to be in better shape to eastern markets, for example, he says.

Hobbs says the demand for this product goes year-round since he ships product to Chile, Mexico and Canada, as well as the San Joaquin Valley.

Hobbs gets some of their clamshell produce for Peninsula Packaging of Exeter who specializes in using recycled PET plastic used in those popular plastic drinking water bottles. Finally, a way to get rid of those containers. Hobbs also buys from about 15 other manufacturers.

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County Opposes Plan to Abandon Rail Line

By Miles Shuper

Tulare County - Opposition to a plan to abandon or rip out a 30-mile segment of rail between Strathmore and Jovista near the Kern County line is picking up steam.

Tulare County Supervisors Tuesday passed a resolution strongly opposing the abandonment of the only available rail line in southeastern Tulare County.

The San Joaquin Valley Railroad Co. which owns the line is filing a petition with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to abandon the line. There reportedly are plans by another company, Tulare Valley Railroad, to buy rights of way, rails and ties and other salvageable materials.

Supervisors were adamant in stressing that not only is it important to keep the line but to use its existence as an economic development tool. Acknowledging the financial burden of maintaining a rail line which doesn’t reap financial substantial financial return, board members cited a need to be more proactive in using rail transportation as a tool in attracting and expanding economic development.

Supervisor Steve Worthley said having rail service often is the deciding factor when industry and commercial users make choice of where to locate. Supervisor Chairman Allen Ishida cited the two Exeter area companies, Peninsula Packaging and Weyerhauser Tri-Wall, which launched major expansions with rail service being a major factor in those plans.

Ed Byrne, general manager of Peninsula, whose company makes customized plastic packages for bakeries, fruits and vegetables and other perishable items, told the Voice that the rail line plays a major role in the daily operation, especially in the shipment to the plant of raw materials used in its manufacturing. Peninsula is an industry leader in alternative energy usage. In addition to using recycled drink bottle material to form its products, the company is also is in the process of adding fuel cells to its energy infrastructure, along with solar energy. The reduced trucking to and from the plant plays a big part in the company’s clear air campaign, Byrne said.

The county’s resolution states the rail section “is the only available rail line in Southeastern Tulare County, leaving many businesses without the ability to move goods on the rail line. The communities of Ducor, Richgrove, Strathmore and Terra Bella and the City of Porterville will lose rail service.” It further states that the absence of the line will adversely affect business in this region by disrupting their operations and likely force them to move their goods by truck thus affecting the county’s air quality because goods previously shipped by rail will have to be trucked to their destinations. That, the resolution states, will further strain local roads, streets and highways.

In other actions, Supervisors:

·  Authorized the acceptance of $450,000 from the Office of Community Oriented Policy Services (COPS) for expanding the Tulare County District Attorney’s office prosecution of methamphetamine cases. The board also authorized the addition of two deputy district attorneys levels I-V.

·   Okayed a proclamation honoring Gabe Cano for organizing the Latino Peace Officers Association statewide convention this year.

·   Settled a property abatement case for a property in the Pixley area for a total of $3,885. Property owners Albert A., Fredrica M., Audie E. and Morty Remmer had been fined $9,000 for failing to clean up the three-acre property. A lien was placed on the property. The owners had requested a waiver of the fine and the $300 appeal fee.

The property was cleaned up in a cooperative effort by county agencies and Community Services and Employment Training (CSET) which used the cleanup as a training project.

Supervisors agreed to reduce the fine to a level to cover the county “hard cost” of about $3,500 but denied the waiver of the $300 appeal. The lean is now $3,885 but supervisors approved the waiver of interest and allowed the owners, to make partial payments on the total.

·   Approved on a 4-0 vote the enlargement of an existing Farmland Security Zone for 19.82 acres southwest of Visalia. The applicants were Derrick and Judith Gray. Supervisor Cox did not vote because of a potential conflict of interest.

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Remembering ‘Hoot’ Macklin

by Dave Adalian

Visalia - Visalia resident Hugh Robertson “Hoot” Macklin, who died Oct. 18 following an accident in his home, was in the words of his wife, Bobbie, the “perfect husband, the perfect father and the perfect grandfather.” But, he was also a respected executive in national farm credit circles, a revered friend, cattle rancher, U.S. marine captain and cowboy poet who brought U.S. agriculture back from the brink of ruin in the mid-1980s.

“He came from rags to riches, at least to our eyes,” said Macklin’s son Ken who now owns and operates H.R. Macklin & Sons, the company his father founded in 1980. “He did it on his own, and he practiced the philosophy you didn’t have to climb over other guys to do it. He took great solace in working hard.”

Hoot Macklin was the son of Gwyndolyn and Albert Macklin, a machinist who came to Bakersfield from Canada and took up farming until the pressure of the Great Depression cost the family their small farm on Kern County’s west side.

“My dad remembered the day the sheriff came and took them to the tent camp in Shafter,” Ken Macklin recalled.

The family soon relocated to Wasco, where Hoot Macklin grew up, attending local schools until he graduated from Wasco High in 1940. A year later, he interrupted his studies at the University of California, Davis, to join millions of other young Americans who enlisted to fight World War II.

Macklin joined the Marine Corps, serving as a lieutenant during that conflict and eventually becoming a captain in charge of training other recruits during the Korean Conflict.

In the decade between the end of WWII and his return to duty for service in Korea, Macklin attended classes at the University of Southern California before completing his degree, a bachelor’s of science in animal husbandry, at UC Davis in 1947. It was also in that year he married Dorothy “Bobbie” Barrows, his high school sweetheart. The couple moved to Visalia where Macklin began his career in the farm credit industry as an appraiser and loan officer for the Federal Land Bank, a career path that would eventually lead to him overseeing the bailout of the agricultural credit system, the largest undertaking of its kind in history at the time.

Macklin’s work with the Federal Land Bank led to a job as an agricultural appraiser and loan officer for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance’s Visalia office. Two years later in 1966, Macklin became Northwestern’s regional manager for ag lending in the San Francisco office, and two more years after that Macklin and his family, which now included son Ken and daughter Carrie, moved to Milwaukee, where he became Northwestern’s vice president in charge of farm and commercial credit, making him one of seven executive officers in what was one of the 10 largest companies in the world.

When the chance for further advancement in Northwestern’s ranks came in 1972, Hoot Macklin declined the offer, instead opting to return to his agricultural roots as the CEO of the Ceres Land and Cattle Company. He later headed the Arizona Land and Cattle Company and finally the Western Farm Management Company, overseeing that firm’s growth from four to 40 offices.

Finally, in 1980, Macklin returned to Visalia founded H.R. Macklin & Sons. Six years later, while still at the reins of his own company, Macklin was tapped by the Reagan Administration to head the Capital Corporation, a private company chartered by Congress to oversee disbursement of $7 to 8 billion to shore up the sagging Farm Credit System.

“It was the biggest bailout in history,” Ken Macklin said. “Basically, the government bailed (agricultural lenders and farmers) out—they were going broke.”

“He was keeping it going. That’s what he did,” said Gordon Bergthold, Macklin’s nephew. “Out of that organization came Farmer Mac, a lending organization that operated through local banks. It’s still going today.”

After his stint with the Capital Corporation, Macklin returned to his work at H.R. Macklin & Sons, selling the business to Ken Macklin in the mid-1990s but continuing work at Chimney Springs, his cattle ranch outside of Elderwood.

“He never wanted to say he was retired,” Ken Macklin said. “He ran his cattle company and was very active in Rotary (Club) and the community.”

His work in the community included helping found the Visalia Rotary Community Foundation with fellow Rotarians Byron Riegal and Phil Hornburg, and acting as chairman for Tulare County Sheriff Bill Wittman’s election campaigns.

“He was one of the first persons I talked to when I decided to run,” Wittman said, adding that Macklin helped him reach more deeply into the community than he might otherwise by bringing in local activist Manuel Hernandez to aid in running the elections. “Hoot was right there with encouragement and brought a lot of people into the campaign.”

Despite failing in his first attempt to win office, Wittman said Macklin stuck with him, as he had done for many people over the years.

“Hugh Macklin was a legend when I was growing up,” Wittman said. “When people like Hugh tell you they’ll support you, they give you their name and confidence in you and they believe you’ll do a good job. Throughout the years, he was a great mentor to me.”

At least part of Macklin’s success was in the way he treated people, his son said.

“Everyone was special to him,” said Ken Macklin. “He saw everyone as equals, from a janitor up to the top guy. He treated them all the same.”

To his nephew, Macklin was a man who commanded attention, but also returned it.

“He’d look you right straight in the eye and let you know you were important,” Bergthold said.

Despite suffering from cancer during the last years of his life, Macklin continued to remain active. A boxer during his days at UC Davis, Macklin was also a runner and enjoyed hunting and fishing.

“He was as active as he could be until his final days,” said Bergthold. “He was tough. When he had colon cancer, he’d get his chemo then come to the office and say, ‘Let’s go to lunch!’”

He also refused to let his battle with cancer consume all his attention.

“He was always a forward thinker. He was always thinking of the future,” remembers his daughter Carrie Macklin-Ritz. “When he had cancer and the doctor told him the average was two years, he was thinking I have five years, what can I do?”

She remembers her father as a sedate man who was involved in his children’s lives during the family’s time on their small farm on Tulare Avenue near what is now Pinkham Avenue.

“He was a great dad. He was very calm,” Macklin-Ritz said. “We did stuff every weekend. We also did our share of chopping cotton and planting trees.”

Macklin also had an artistic side.

“He wrote some cowboy poetry and loved to recite others’ poems,” his daughter said.

Now that he’s gone, Wittman hopes his mentor’s memory will be kept alive by those whose lives he touched.

“Many people didn’t know Hugh was out there doing things for the community, but there he was,” Wittman said. “I can’t say enough about him.”

Ken Macklin hopes the world will remember his father for the work he did to preserve agriculture, and as a man with simple tastes who enjoyed life.

“He was a square guy,” Macklin said.

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Decision on Success Dam Delayed until Spring

Porterville - US Corps of Engineers has delayed a decision on the extent of the rebuilding of Success Dam above Porterville until spring, says Dave Killam, public affairs officer in Sacramento. After gathering a select group of experts to look at the situation, “we're hoping to make a decision in October, but now we want to get external peers to review all of our alternatives.”

The Corps had recently looked at a plan that could drastically cut the cost of the proposed fix for the dam, given concern over its seismic safety.

Killam says public meetings with home owners below the dam will be held November 15 to discuss the Corps' plans. The most recent reports have suggested the seismic remediation project could begin in 2010.