Is Tulare County Haunted?

by Steve Pastis

Tulare County - If you do an online search for “haunted” and “Tulare County,” you will find a collection of web sites that will not only tell you our county is haunted, but will provide you with a detailed list of where ghosts and other unexplained phenomena have been reported. Some of the businesses at these locations welcome the intrigue while others do not.

Perhaps the most celebrated haunted location in Tulare County is the Springville Inn, which promotes its reputation as a residence for ghosts.

“Our ghosts predominately inhabit the original 1911 main building formerly known as the Wilkinson Hotel,” states its web site. “They have never been seen or their presence felt in the hotel which was added on in 1972. Local historian, Jeff Edwards, has told us that there was no coroner or morgue in Springville, so upon ones untimely demise, their bodies were placed in the upstairs rooms of the hotel on ice to await transport by stagecoach or train to Porterville.”

“I’ve been here seven years but have not seen any,” said Hobie Froelich, the hotel’s administrative assistant and housekeeping manager, although she did say that a group had a strange experience with chalk lights on the bar going on when nobody was at the switch.

“The staff says they’ve seen them in the kitchen, with things flying across the room” she said. “Spatulas flew out across the room. A couple of years ago, someone on our staff was upstairs and heard a man’s deep voice say ‘Leave!’ and the poor girl wouldn’t go upstairs by herself.”

Do reports of hotel hauntings increase the number of guests at the hotel?

“Not normally, but recently, we’ve had a couple of ‘ghostbusting’ sessions,” Froelich said, adding that one was conducted by The Porterville Recorder.

“And I got a call from people who travel all over the U.S.—30 of them— to get accommodations,” she added, noting that so far, there have been no reports of ghost sightings from hotel guests.

The four ghosts are listed as the “Young Man” who looks to be a handsome logger in his twenties; the “Little Girl” who looks to be near eight years of age; the beautiful and elegant “Woman” with flowing blonde hair in a long dress; and the “Old Man” who seems to keep to himself in the kitchen.

John Turner of MWI Veterinary Supply in Visalia is one of those who would prefer not being on these lists, and his company really shouldn’t be, at least not since it moved to its current ghost-free facility almost four years ago.

“It was the old building where a couple of my employees saw or think they saw this phenomenon,” he said. “There is nothing to report with our new facility.”

The people at the Sequoia Mall in Visalia, who are the leasing agents of the reportedly haunted Cinema 1-2-3 that is behind it, had nothing to say about the old theater making the list. Fortunately, Don LeBaron, the owner of the building with Hazel’s Kitchen in Tulare, had a lot to say, starting with the Tulare ghost legend immortalized in a song recorded by Dane Sturgeon in the 1960s.

The song begins:

“They found him in his auto, way out east of town.

Death had claimed this teenage kid, by the time that he was found.

There was no trace and not a mark upon his body showed.

They say he was scared to death by the Ghost of Bardsley Road.”

“Kids would go out on this one section of Bardsley Road at night and neck and this ghost would come and scare them,” LeBaron said, adding that the “Ghost of Bardsley Road” was the creation of some mischievous local high school students.

“The only other haunt is Hazel’s on L Street (in Tulare),” LeBaron said. “I bought the house and opened up Hazel’s and one of the waitresses said the place is haunted. An empty coffee pot floated across the room and hit the floor but didn’t break. We all concluded that if it was haunted, it was just a prankster poltergeist.”

The two-story structure was built as a home in downtown Tulare in 1908 and when LeBaron considered buying it, there were reports that it was haunted. He decided to ask the owners if that was true.

“The woman said, ‘You know, it was haunted, but since my son moved out and took his Ozzy Osbourne records with him, we never had another problem,” he said.

He said that the ghost stories increased his interest in the building.

“It adds one more dimension to an old house,” he said. “If there’s something here, it’s a good ghost looking after the house.

“There was a group from Crystal Barn in Visalia that came over,” he said. “Psychics walked around the house and said, ‘I feel a force in this corner.’”

LeBaron has researched the area and is unable to find any reason that the home would be haunted.

“No matter how hard we try to stretch it, there’s no Indian burial grounds underneath and there was no shootout there.”

The Hillman Health Clinic in Tulare also made the list of haunted places in Tulare County.

“There’s a lot out there,” said an employee of the clinic. “A lot of employees have had weird experiences—like hair being pulled, hearing voices, things being moved. One time, there were three of us who went down to the basement to get some supplies. We stopped at the door of the morgue. We felt something drop at our feet, but there was nothing there.

“I was told that in the mid-40s or thereabouts, there was a tuberculosis epidemic. They didn’t have enough space to put dead people so they placed them in the basement in just a dirt space. They dumped bodies there until they could bury them.”

Another reported Tulare County gathering place for ghosts is Dinuba High School.

“The night custodian said that the copy machine turned on and made copies when nobody was around,” said Amanda Lowrey, the school’s head librarian. She read from a book by Justin Wade Hesse who wrote a section on “myths and mysteries” in Dinuba High School, 1963-2004. In the book, Hesse evaluated the rumors about the strange tunnels and passageways of the old buildings—as well as the campus ghost stories.

“One of Dinuba High’s principals, Paul Rogers, has said that he was working in the office one time when all of the sudden the money counter came on,” Hesse writes “The stranger part of the incident is that there was no one else around to turn it on.”

Hesse says that account is false, but he also writes about the “body under the bleachers,” a story that he says is true.

“In the 70s, a student who was in the middle of ditching teacher Dave Gaston’s PE class went out and hid under the visitor side bleachers,” he writes. “Much to his surprise, he found the girl’s body which sent him running out of hiding in horror and back to inform Dave Gaston. It was later determined that the girl had been killed and brought to the campus where it was dumped.”

“We’ve heard of the ghost of the auditorium,” said student Ken Biswell. “Every now and again, we’ll see things in the auditorium at night. There are different sounds that we’ll hear. They’re kinda freaky, sometimes sounds like doors slamming or like people banging on walls. There will be several people on stage rehearsing or closing up at the end of rehearsal.”

Biswell has never felt a force pushing him down the stairs as reported in the online listings, “but I’ve heard it from several people.”

Teresa Hylton is the school drama director and she backed up Biswell’s accounts.

“There was one time I was getting ready to leave after a late rehearsal,” she said. “Everyone was gone except for the custodian in the main building. I had to talk to him about opening up the next day. I had taken all my stuff to the car and closed the door. When I came back to the auditorium, the door was open. If there was something in this building, I didn’t want to know about it. I just left and slammed the door shut.”

She also talked about the strange noises of the auditorium, as well as pipes shaking and hearing voices downstairs where her office is.

“We have our own little show here,” she said. “It’s spooky even for me, and I’ve been here for 14 years.”

LeBaron recalled hearing an explanation on radio of why people claim to see ghosts.

“When people live in a house for many years, especially in a certain room, our bodies emit DNA cells that actually stick to everything in the room,” he said about what he remembered from that old show. “So when they die, the matter actually plays back like a videotape in someone’s mind in persons who are sensitive to it.”

The speaker on that old radio program was Merv Fulton, a man with a fascinating resume, including his years performing as Fulton the Magician. He and a friend, a math professor at UCLA, were interested in why people think they see ghosts. He said that caffeine in coffee or tea can cause hallucinations and that a person’s expectations add to the likeliness of “seeing’ a ghost.

“If someone goes out into a graveyard at midnight preparing to see spooks, a lot of people will see spooks,” he said.

Fulton also understands hypnosis, as well as the power of suggestion, having been taught by the famous Mandrake the Magician (later of comics page fame). Mandrake explained to Fulton that emotions such as fear can make a person more receptive to both hypnosis and suggestion.

(Despite his awareness of how people can see things that aren’t there—and his dismissal of various legends and ghost stories—Fulton took the time to write a true ghost story for this issue.)

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Cutler - November and it’s time for tangerines in the produce aisles. While tangerines come from all over the world to valley grocery stores—it’s only been in recent times that the valley tangerine industry (it was too small to call it an industry before) has taken off. This season could be a sweet one for local growers who finally have enough fruit coming off young trees to make a difference.

Tangerine varieties, including mandarins, are increasingly popular with consumers and this year for the first time the size of the crop is way up as young plantings in the works for several years get into full production.

USDA is predicting the tangerine crop in California will be up 62% this year over last.

Citrus Research Board president Ted Batkin says a handful of new easy peel and relatively seedless varieties have been planted including the new Tango variety last year and the amount of fruit available in coming years should be impressive. The Tangos won’t be coming into production for some three to four years.

Acreage in tangerines in California has gone from around 7,000 bearing acres in 1990 to 14,000 bearing acres in 2006. But non-bearing acreage— new trees not yet in production but planted—add up to another 7,000 acres with another 3,000 acres going in the ground this coming year, states Batkin.

“The industry is just taking off and will be at 30,000 acres in two the three years and 60,000 to 70,000 in the next decade. The only thing that is holding it back is that nurseries can’t keep up with demand for new trees.”

A pioneer with plantings and promotion of tangerine varieties here is Tom Mulholland of Orange Cove. Mulholland’s involvement dates from the early 1990s and the release of a very sweet Moroccan mandarin called Delite. He organized more than a dozen other growers to propagate the variety and has marketed them in the smaller 5-pound cardboard boxes to compete with Spanish Clementine varieties sold in those cute small wooden boxes.

Now with Central Valley tangerine varieties more plentiful, Mulholland is partnering up with Wawona Packing of Cutler to utilize their new 170,000-square-foot warehouse that packs stone fruit through the summer for packing mandarins from November through May. “I think one of the great insights we’ve found,” says Ted Batkin, “is that mandarins are best handled by machinery used to pack stone fruit.” That is gently. Mandarins can’t be bounced around like oranges, he says.

Brent Smittcamp president of Wawona Packing says, “There are plenty of synergies between the partners. We’ve estimated that 75% of the same equipment can be used for both types of fruit.”

The utilization of the Tulare County facility year round has some major benefits for Wawona as well. “We’ll be able to hire a better quality employee now that there is year-round work, and my key quality control people and forklift drivers will now have work all 12 months.”

Smittcamp says several other valley packinghouses work year round, rotating with citrus and stone fruit. The co-packing option appears to solve a key economic issue in the valley, the seasonality of agriculture.

Wawona is a vertically integrated company that grows, packs and markets stone fruit from around 5,000 of its own acres. The deal with Mulholland is only to pack the citrus as Mulholland does his own marketing.

Utilizing the same facilities to do year round packing makes each of the businesses more competitive sharing the overhead and providing more job security to workers as well.

Mulholland says the line will be using high tech packing equipment, mostly from Spain. The idea is to package the fruit in catchy, high graphic consumer-size packages including netted bags.

Varieties of tangerines ripen through the winter. Mulholland says consumers can look for the Satsuma variety available before Thanksgiving. Then Clementine varieties like “Sweetie” sold by Mulholland come in for the Christmas season. Then by February, watch for the mandarin introduced in the U.S. by Mulholland, “Delite” coming off the trees, and shipping through May.

Mulholland says a consumer gets more extremely sweet, easy peeling tangerine varieties that some demand for citrus will be coming off of oranges. “We know we’ll rob some of their business,” he says.

Even when it reaches 60,000 acres of tangerines, California navel business is much larger at 190,000 acres in the state. Tulare County remains the top citrus producing county.

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Tehachapi - Valley council of governments including Tulare (TCAG) are united in support of a plan to double track the Tehachapi rail corridor to move more goods through the valley from Oakland to the L.A. basin.

The $82 million project would be paid by a combination of Proposition 1B transportation bond funds and half by BNSF railway. BNSF says improvements should increase rail traffic by 40% when completed helping to move more goods with less pollution and congestion compared to big diesel trucks.

The Tehachapi line is important because it connects the valley to the L.A. area and its big ports as well as the rest of the country over Union Pacific-owned track that connects with both UP and BNSF in Bakersfield. But rival BNSF runs 70% of the freight on the Tehachapi tracks and has agreed to pony up the 50% share to make the improvements. UP on the other hand has refused to consider co-funding of rail improvements on other valley tracks like their main line down Highway 99, at least in the past.

The project is the culmination of the San Joaquin Regional Goods movement plan that would tap into the funds as part of the Trade Corridor Improvement Funds now budgeted by the state as result of the passage of the 1B bond last November. TCAG is expected to support the idea to be submitted by the valley group to the state next month.

County chair of the Board of Supervisors, Allen Ishida, says he rode on a special passenger train BNSF ran over the Tehachapi loop a few weeks ago as the rail company was lobbying for the idea.

One potential outcome of the state and rail lines co-funding is that for the first time passenger rail traffic could run on the Tehachapi line as well as the Union Pacific line on Highway 99. At a recent meeting of the San Joaquin Valley Rail Committee (October 11) a Union Pacific rep was asked if passenger rail traffic on their 99 route was possible and he replied that go through AMTRAK and “the process begins.” That’s the first time a UP rep ever said that. Currently AMTRAK travels only on BNSF lines in the valley.

While the Tehachapi project would be the COGs highest priority, Tulare County’s hopes funds will be made available for the top local priority—the Betty Drive route realignment and grade separation at the Union Pacific line in Goshen that will help more trucks move in and out of Goshen to the Visalia Industrial Park more quickly.

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Exeter - Tulare County Association of Governments (TCAG) is opposing sale of nearly 40 miles of rail track from Exeter to the Kern County line to a company that sells off right-of-way and iron for a living. The local opposition builds on disapproval of a petition to buy the line by Tulare Valley Railroad from the federal Surface Transportation Board in June.

The potential acquisition is opposed by San Joaquin Valley Railroad which operates the line and Union Pacific who claims it would be owed compensation of $8.3 million if the line was sold off.

But Tulare Valley Railroad in their application, claims that service isn't adequate on the line and that the operator, SJVR, imposes a $950 per car surcharge on traffic moving down the line.

Tulare Valley Railroad is owned (90%) by Kern Shumacher who in the application guaranteed to pay the purchase price and to provide service on the line for at least three years. The federal board says the application by TVR says the line has no value as a growing concern and that the line is worth just under $1 million based on the liquidation value. But the board ruled that TVR provided no backing for these assertions.

Tulare Valley Railroad has a history of abandoning tracks in the Central Valley including the Cutler to Visalia line, Corcoran to Tulare line and Wyeth to Orange Cove. They do own six miles of track known as the Ultra branch between Ducor and Ultra where it connects to one customer Cannella Chemical.

TCAG's concern is southern Tulare County could be left without freight rail service if TVR acquires the line, says TCAG staffer Marvin Demmers.

Some of the former Tulare Valley Railroad line has been purchased for walking trails or road right-of-way in Tulare and in Visalia. In other places the right-of-way has been sold off and lost.

Chair of the Board of Supervisors, Allen Ishida, who lives in Lindsay, says “several shippers could be left high and dry” if the route were abandoned, noting that more communities looking for industrial sites need rail such as two recent expansions in Exeter.

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by Miles Shuper

Woodlake - It has been a long, hard and very expensive fight, but Kaweah River Rock can finally dig in and get to work on a project company officials started 21 years ago.

A Tulare County Superior Court ruling came down earlier this month clearing the way for the sand and gravel company to proceed with opening up a 280-acre quarry near the company’s current operation near Woodlake.

Company officials say it will be sometime in 2009 until the new quarrel is in operation although work on access roads and other preliminary projects will begin within months.

Kaweah River Rock’s victory came when Judge Melinda Reed s discharged a writ issued by Judge Paul Vortmann that cited areas in the project’s Environmental Impact report that didn’t satisfy state requirements.

Vortmann said the county’s report didn’t fully analyze the potential impacts of a concrete/asphalt mixing and batch plant adjacent to the mine site. He said the study should have included the cumulative impact of both projects. Glenn Wells Construction currently operates a batch plant at the Kaweah River Rock site. There will also be a batch plant at the new location.

Judge Reed ruled that the revised EIR, prepared in response to the previous ruling, is now adequate and meets the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)

David Harrald, general manager of KRR, was elated by the ruling but not really surprised. “This has been a long and very expensive battle, but I believe we won because we followed the rules and the project is good and necessary.” He described Judge Reed’s ruling as a “thoughtful analysis and ruling in what is a highly complex mater.”

Harrald did not give pinpoint the cost of studies, permit applications and legal costs eventually ending in a victory but estimated it reached “into the millions.”

Kaweah River Rock initially applied for a permit for about 800 acres on the 815-acre Hannah ranch about three miles south of Woodlake. A long series of studies and hearings spread over 13 years until the permit application was denied on a 3-2 vote. The company then went to work on a much smaller project and in 2003 filed again for the mining permit. That permit was approved by the Tulare County Planning Commission in January 2003. Valley Citizens for Water, which has been against the projects over the years, appealed the Planning Commission’s approval to County Supervisors who denied the appeal thus approving the permits. VCW took the issue to court resulting in Vortmann’s ruling.

Harrald estimates the current mine site has enough material for about five years. About two years ago, Kaweah stopped accepting new customers due to the large demand and limited supplies. With the recent slowing of the housing industry, Kaweah is feeling less of a pinch although the passage of state highway construction bonds and the passage of Measure R by Tulare County voters last year for highway and road projects are sure to push demand for building materials.

Kaweah River Rock has produced one-third of all and gravel for building in Tulare County since it began in the 1960s. “We will now be able to meet that market demand,” Harrald said, adding, “The company plans to move ahead immediately to complete final plant design and begin construction of a new rock plant. The availability of high-quality sand and gravel in Tulare County means gravel will not have to be hauled from distant sources, at substantial economic and air quality costs.”

Building industry officials rallied around the projects over the years, especially recently when growth in the Valley exploded.

County Supervisors were glad to hear that the project had cleared its final roadblock. Connie Conway and Steve Worthley said they are happy that Tulare County will have enough materials available locally to accomplish the projects, especially Measure R highway and roadway projects, without having to spend more money to import the gravel and sand.

Harrald also cited the savings the construction industry will see in lower hauling costs. Reduced hauling distances also will cut the amount of air pollution and other costs, he said.

He stressed the mine will result in “the cleanest possible source of aggregates because all of the equipment will be new and meet the very stringent ‘tier 3’ emissions requirements set in place by the California Air Resources Board,” Although the design of the new operation is ongoing, the new equipment will be much larger and state-of-the art.

The construction of the new quarry will take about a year but already work has been done to facilitate the expanded operation. Last month, a project creating access to State Highway 245 just south of Woodlake was completed. That work, at Kaweah River Rock’s expense, was done before the court ruling because time was running out on a permit allowing access to a state highway. That project provided a third lane for access and egress of trucks entering the highway. The road project only goes a couple hundred feet to the east where a gate now blocks access to the site. The construction of the rest of the one-mile roadway will resume probably in several months, company officials say.

The new access road will route truck traffic off Riverside Avenue in Woodlake. About one hundred truckloads a day use that street which runs through a residential area and has been the subject of concern over the years.

Looking back over the long haul in getting to the final okay, Harrald summed up the situation this way: “Construction in Tulare County is a $1 billion industry, creating jobs and supporting our quality of life, but this economic engine requires building materials,” Harrald said, “With adequate supplies, we can provide for future generations and leave them with our legacy of well-managed, well-planned and reliable infrastructure systems.”

Harrald has been spearheading the company’s drive for a new mine site for more than a dozen years since joining the company and despite the complex and sometimes drawn-out permitting process, in addition to legal challenges from opponents, he has remained optimistic. He has often expressed the company’s dedication to environmental considerations of mining operations while at the same time has cautiously and privately expressed frustration over the drawn-out legal hurdles raised by opponents.

“The environmental review and legal process is there for a reason, to protect people and the environment, but I’m sure glad this is over.”

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by Steve Pastis

“Any general tax imposed, extended or increased, without voter approval, by any local government on or after January 1, 1995, and prior to the effective date of this article, shall continue to be imposed only if approved by a majority vote of the voters voting in an election on the issue of the imposition…”

--- Proposition 218, Section 2

Visalia - Visalia City Council Candidate Tim Fosberg who has worked in the Visalia Finance Department since 1997, is preparing to sue the city over storm drain fees and “in-lieu” fees. He is sending off the necessary paperwork to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) to have that Sacramento-based organization act as his legal council.

“If you’re going to change this fee, you have to have a vote of the people,” he said. “They never have, and they know better.”

Fosberg sent a letter to Visalia City Manager Steve Salomon on October 10^th, claiming, “Fees collected in violation of Proposition over the last 10 years have easily cost the citizens of Visalia in excess of $10,000,000.”

His letter expressed “a demand to stop charging the Visalia property owners the monthly storm drain fee, by abiding by Proposition 218.” He also stated that the city should “refund all fees which have been illegally collected.” He also demanded a stop to the collecting—and the refund—of “in-lieu” fees.

“We’re going to give him a written response and we’re working on that,” said Visalia City Manager Steve Salomon.

“In the storm drain case, for example, he refers to issues with Prop 218. Prop 218 says you needed to have a vote for an increase in taxes and some fees. It excludes most utilities. Storm water was one thing it did not list. There was an ambiguity whether it required a vote or a different procedure which Prop 218 outlines for utilities, waste water and solid waste.”

Salomon cited a case in Salinas that was decided in 2002 where the argument was made that Prop 218 did require a vote on storm drain fees, and the decision of the court backed that contention. He noted that the most recent action on storm drains by the Visalia City Council, however, was in 2001 when it passed a multi-year increase.

“The city council has not taken any action since 2001 and the city would not raise the storm drain fees unless there was a change in the law,” Salomon said.

Would the city consider refunding any of the storm drain money it collected?

“The city position is that they were not improperly collected,” Salomon said. “We believe we fixed it and we’re operating appropriately today. We recognized that we should do things differently and we fixed it.”

“When the general fund charged out these fees, there was no service provided,” Fosberg said. “It was a pure bogus method. Prop 218 said you can’t do that.”

He admitted that he knew about this revenue source for years and was asked why he decided to take action now with the Visalia City Council elections only weeks away.

“That’s why I’m running for city council,” he said. “I want to change the ethics of this organization and this is one way of showing it needs to be changed. This is what got me to run and these are examples of what I want to change.”

“We’ll look into it and see if there’s a case,” said Timothy Bittle, director of legal affairs for the HJTA, about Fosberg’s paperwork that should reach his desk in the next few days.

He said that his organization has already taken legal action on storm drain fees in three California cities: Salinas, Encinitas and Solana Beach.

“In Encinitas, they hadn’t collected for very long,” he said. “The city council impounded the revenue. When they decided to place the matter on the ballot, the voters rejected it and they refunded the fee. Solana Beach voters approved it.”

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By Steve Pastis

Visalia - The College of the Sequoias is currently planning to place two local bond measures on local ballots in 2008, according to Superintendent/President Bill Scroggins.

“We are going up to San Francisco on Friday (October 19) to meet with our bond consultant, Dale Scott and Company, and talk to them about the various ideas we have,” Scroggins said. “We're going to ask them to do a survey of the public as to what their reactions would be and then we'll make some decisions about what we would like to include on the bond measure.

“We've been very successful in getting state money, but the state money doesn't cover everything,” he continued. “The science building still has $4 million pending. The nursing building that's about to be built, we don't have all the equipment money we'll need from the state. The two projects we did previous to that, we put some local money in that is borrowed and that we'd like to get off the books. We're going to look at those issues where we need some local money to leverage the state money that's coming through for buildings.”

COS has been much more successful in recent years getting its bond measures passed. Through trial-and-error, the college learned to geographically target its bond measures.

“For this measure we're looking at just asking the service area of the Visalia campus to support this bond, not Tulare and not Hanford,” Scroggins said. “This will be money for the Greater Visalia area extending out to Exeter, Farmersville, Woodlake and Cutler-Orosi.

“We're being conservative with what we're asking the voters for,” he continued. “We're looking at the $12 million range to leverage state money, to do energy savings  investments in capital improvements that will produce energy savings  and we're looking at some technology and security advancements that will help the college be a safer, more efficient place. We're not asking for big projects to make new buildings. We've done a good job of that with the state. What we need are the pieces to make it work. We need equipment and we need what the state won't pay for.

“It's all related to the fact that we have been successful in getting state money  we need a modest amount of local money to make state projects work more effectively,” he said.

Among the expenditures that are being considered in the Visalia bond measure are:

·  The expansion of the nursing program and the construction of a new Nursing & Allied Health would be approximately $500,000.

·  The college has planned for a four-year phased in replacement computers that will cost a total of $1,960,964.

·  $300,000 to replace outdated instructional presentation media devices such as overhead projectors, slide projectors and televisions with modern digital media stations that include a computer, a LCD projector, a DVD player, and a documents camera.

·  To implement a computerized Energy Management System (EMS) with environmental controls for the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning of would have an installation cost of approximately $1,200,000.

·  Installing photovoltaic cells on a few roof tops to meet some of our electrical power needs would cost $1,000,000.

·  Over the next five years, it is estimated that $550,000 in local funds will be needed to match $550,000 from the state. These funds would be used for roof replacements at Giant Forest, Blue Oak, Buckeye, Utility Shop and Ponderosa buildings at a cost of $700,000 each. The remaining $400,000 would be spent on smaller carpet replacement, door lock and hardware replacement, boiler replacement and exterior painting projects.

·  Adding alarm security to rooms with the greatest potential loss risk, approximately 75 rooms, including five years of monitoring service, would cost about $200,000.

The Visalia bond measure is expected to be on the June ballot. Another bond measure, this one for either $41 million or $45 million for its Tulare campus should be ready to present to Tulare voters on the November 2008 ballot.

“All of this has to be approved by the Board of Trustees first,” Scroggins said.

The $4 million difference between the two possible amounts of the measure “depend on whether we include Corcoran or not,” Scroggins explained. A decision still needs to be made about providing COS classes through a training center in the Corcoran High School District.

“If we include that project, we'll include Corcoran in that ballot,” Scroggins said.

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Handicappers say the Visalia city council election November 6 for two seats will come down to a battle between three top contenders, incumbent Bob Link, School Board member Mike Lane and Visalia parks commissioner Amy Shuklian. Endorsements appear important with Mayor Jesus Gamboa endorsing Shuklian and both Link and Landers endorsed by the Chamber Political Action Committee. All three have proven to be good vote-getters in past elections. Of course, many voters are already casting their ballot with a high percentage of absentee ballots expected. With growth not the hot button controversy of recent elections due to the housing slump, no blockbuster issue has galvanized the body politics this time around. Still, with Greg Kirkpatrick retiring from council the majority vote on land use issues appear to be at stake with a Lane and Link win potentially reversing the 3 to 2 outlook on some key land-use decisions.

Blue Ribbon Cheese Co. of Riverdale is nearing their permitting process, says Fresno County planner Brian Ross. “Once our initial study of their plan is done, it could go to the county planning commission in 45 to 60 days.” The project is being built on a mitagative negative declaration basis. He says the big project will be built on farmland near the Kings County and Fresno County line. Project proponent David Albers has said they hope to break ground as soon as February 2008. The $225 million project is expected to process 6.8 million pounds of milk a day and employ 250.

Global Green Solutions Inc. (OTCBB:GGRN) plans to build a waste biomass-powered steam generator next to an oil recovery unit near Bakersfield to make steam that enhances the oil recovery. The company says the use of waste biomass will be cleaner than natural gas, cost 30% less and reduce the carbon footprint of the project. The affiliation is with Aera, one of the largest oil and gas producers in the state. The two companies are working on final contracts. In a related story, Global Green is reportedly talking to Shell Oil to do a similar project near Coalinga. Global Green Solutions is also working on a project in El Paso that grows algae in large plastic bags suspended in a greenhouse-like structure from which vegetable oil can be extracted to make biodiesel.

A series of gang prevention meetings in the community is leading up to what is being termed a Gang Summit to be held December 6 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Visalia Convention Center. Registration is $25 for two meals and the all-day event. The event is sponsored by the Tulare County Gang Prevention Task Force. For more information, call 733-6271.

City of Hanford says there is an EIR underway at the southwest corner of 198 and 12^th in Hanford for a big box center. The developer on the project is Kornwasser Shopping Center who developed the WinCo shopping center in Visalia at Caldwell and Demaree. Kornwasser would reportedly bring WinCo grocery store which is an employee-owned grocery warehouse operation  typically 90,000 square feet. The non-union grocer is in the sites of the grocery union who is opposing the grocer in other parts of the state as they do Super Wal-Marts.

The City of Visalia will increase the gateway shuttle fee to $15 before the Sequoia Shuttle resumes service next May. The Visalia City Council has authorized its staff to negotiate with the National Park Service to raise the price increase for the service that runs back and forth between Visalia and Sequoia National Park in summer. The shuttle carried 141,724 passengers at $10 apiece this past summer, its first year of service. The higher price, along with additional marketing, is expected to generate fare revenue of $85,290 next summer  42% of its operating cost.

TCAG, Tulare County Association of Governments voted this week to “protect” the Santa Fe rail corridor between Tulare and Visalia to become a bike and walking path with a 100-foot right-of-way. Ted Smalley, county staffer, says it’s conceivable that a bike path connecting Visalia to the Tulare Santa Fe Trail at Prosperity could be in place within five years. The trail would pass by Mooney Grove as it enters Visalia coming down Santa Fe into Downtown where it would meet up with a local bike path connecting to the north of Visalia.

City of Visalia and the Oaks baseball team came to an agreement this week on a long term lease for the improved ball park. The park expansion and improvement will cost the city an expected $11.6 million. In return, the city will get a surcharge on tickets sold as well as a share of revenue overall above $1 million. The amount will rise to as much as 10% on revenue above $2 million. The nine-year lease has a six-year option. Work to make the improvements at the ball park will begin this fall with the right field renovation. Over a 20-year period the city is expecting to receive $6.1 million, assuming 70% occupancy of the seating capacity of 3,100  more than triple its current seating.

Visalia’s new Resource Conservation Division has an ambitious plan to save energy and promote green living in Visalia, the city council heard this week. Among other things, the city will do a significant demonstration project here in coming months. Also the city is talking to Kings River Conservation District about partnering up with their Community Choice program that could save city residents on their power bills. They are also working on water conservation plans, air quality and green buildings for Visalia.

Governor Schwarzenegger has signed a bill to expand the Valley Air Board by four members to 15. Two new members will be appointed by the governor. At least one of the members will be from the health field. The new board will take their seats in January.

Wilson Cyclery, an institution in Downtown Visalia since 1922, will continue to operate despite the retirement of Dave Freitas who has operated the store since 1974. Dave’s father-in-law started the business in 1937 at its present location at 115 N. West St. He worked for the founder, Mr. Wilson. Dave says a new operator will be coming in December to reopen the store and keep the name the same.

Downtown Visalia eatery New York Deli at 120 W. Main, has called it quits, saying in a phone message that they are moving to Fresno.

Why does the federal government cost so much money? U.S. Census Bureau says Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for about half of federal spending. That totaled $1.1 trillion in 2005. Meanwhile, the Defense Department spending totaled $374 billion in 2005.

A year after winning election to the new office of Tulare County auditor-controller-treasure-tax collector, Rita Woodard has been ruled as qualified for the job. The 5th District Court of Appeals upheld a Tulare County Superior Court ruling that Woodard being qualified as a register vote was all that was needed for election to the position. Judge Lloyd Hicks made the ruling after one of her opponents, Ron Medlock and Visalia accountant Robert Fatica, challenged her qualifications alleging that she did not have a college degree needed for the job. Although no final decision has been made, the plaintiffs say they are deciding if they want to challenge the 5th District court's decision.

Visalia - Everyone knows the Central Valley has an acute specialist physician shortage. But a shortage of primary care docs appears to be a fact of life here as well.

Family HealthCare Network’s executive director says, “we have about half the primary physicians in Tulare County that we need” affecting the large low income population and increasingly the insured population as well.

This past week, looking to do something about it, the Board of Directors of Kaweah Delta hospital volunteered to contribute to private medical groups’ efforts to recruit new primary care physicians to the Visalia area.

“We already paid 100% to recruit specialty physicians to our area,” says hospital CEO Lindsay Mann. “Now we need to pay half the money needed to recruit primary care physicians to local private medical groups,” he says.

Two of the large groups in the area are Visalia Medical Group and Visalia Family Practice.

Visalia Family Practice just lost two primary care physicians and they are in the process of recruiting two new docs to take their place.

“Without new physicians, the patient load already here might not be able to see their physicians,” says Mann.

As of the year 2000, Tulare County had some 56 physicians for every 100,000 people offering primary care  the typical family doc you go to for your regular care. That compares to a valley average of 58, a state ratio of 67 and a Bay Area rate of 83 physicians per 100,000, according to a 2003 Great Valley Center report.

Some think the problem is that new physicians are recruited but arrive here and start work only to decide to leave. A story this summer in the Voice suggested while 45 new physicians started working in the county this year, some 10 have already left.

For the federal qualified clinics, the situation is just as rough.

Family HealthCare Network executive director Harry Foster says the physician shortage is real and acute. “We have about half the primary physicians in Tulare County that we need and in some of the specialty physicians, it’s even worse.” Foster says his own organization has a budget for about 100 physicians and it’s currently at 90 and expects a 20% turnover annually. “We need to be continually recruiting just to stay even.”

Foster says part of the equation is that some young docs come to Tulare County and find out the reimbursement payout isn’t as high as they would like, based on the large low income demographics here.

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Lemoore - With a tentative agreement for leasing a 75,000-square-foot city-owned building to open a Naval Air Museum in Lemoore, project supporters are taking off on a fundraising effort which is now scheduled to be launched in spring 2008.

Last month, the Lemoore City Council agreed to draft a lease agreement for the Cinnamon building, the former Candlewick building owned by the city, contingent upon a successful funding effort by proposed museum supporters with the next year.

The museum could allow for a display of 10 to 12 historic aircraft used at the NAS Lemoore over the years.

The task force heading the project says a kick-off event in the spring will have a goal of Gala Grand Opening of Phase 1 in time for Veterans Day of 2009.

Backers say the museum would not only provide a tourist attraction to downtown Lemoore but would also serve as an educational venue for area youngsters and others. NAS Lemoore played a vital military role in the Vietnam War era and is a vital part of the nation’s West Coast military.

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Tulare County - In what is being considered a serious blow to the United Farmworkers union, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed two bills this week (SB 180/SB 650) that would have allowed the union to collect authorization cards that would lead directly to collective bargaining with growers instead of going through a secret ballot election.

In his veto message, Schwarzenegger commented, “By setting in place a ‘card-check’ organizing process, BS 180 significantly changes the protections afforded to all of California’s agricultural workers under the ALRA. This ‘card-check’ process fundamentally alters an employee’s right to a secret ballot election that currently affords them the opportunity to cast a ballot privately without fear of coercion or manipulation by any interested parties. This bill also limits the opportunity for employees to hear and consider other viewpoints on unionization.

“For these reasons, I am returning SB 180 without my signature. However, I am directing my Labor and Workforce Development Agency to work with the proponents of this bill to ensure that all labor laws and regulations are being vigorously enforced, and to make it absolutely clear to all concerned that my veto is premised on an expectation that agricultural workers receive the full protections of the law.”

The union has been busy all summer collecting authorization cards from scores of large grape ranches in the Central Valley without moving to the next step  calling an election once they reach the 50% threshold.

The strategy appeared to be in anticipation of the passage of one of the two bills that would allow them to use those cards to move forward on new contracts. Instead, the UFW will have to head back to the drawing board.

The UFW has made it clear why they needed SB 180 that would allow either a secret ballot or majority sign up with the cards collected by union organizers.

In a recent news release, they outlined their problem.

“Last September, for example, 655 of the workers of VBZ Grapes signed cards authorizing a vote for a union. A week later, the vote was 65% against a union, 35% for a union. How did union support go from 65% to 35% in a week? The simple answer: intimidation.

“Valentin Gonzalez used to work at VBZ Grapes. And he bitterly remembers how management successfully blocked him and his fellow workers from getting union protection. ‘We were told if the union wins, we’d lose. No more work.’”

The union has now brought charges to the ALRB that were heard in the past few weeks and will be considered by an administrative law judge who could order a new election at VBZ.

Without passage of the card check program  the best the union can ask for is monitoring of future elections for fairness.