Elephant Bar Hunts for Visalia Location

by Steve Pastis

Visalia - The S.B. Restaurant Co., the company that operates 42 Elephant Bar Restaurants in

California and seven other states is considering opening a new jungle-themed restaurant in Visalia.

“We visited with the city and the chamber and are seeking to locate in the community,” said Mark Seferian, vice president of development and real estate for the La Mirada-based company. “We are looking at various options.”

Among the locations being considered is the northwest corner of Beech and Mooney, where a former Sanwa Bank building is currently being leased to sell Halloween costumes. The Visalia Mall owns the property and Merrie Ann Millar, mall general manager, confirmed that some negotiations were underway but would not reveal what company was involved. She did say, however, that if negotiations were successful, the current building would be “demoed” to accommodate the new business. Millar added that an announcement is expected by the end of the month.

If things such as parking and the financing of the transaction can be worked out, Seferian hopes to be able to make an announcement within two weeks. If the Visalia Mall becomes the site of the new Elephant Bar, the restaurant would benefit from the 1,000 parking stalls and the three-story parking garage.

The first Elephant Bar Restaurant was opened in the 1980s by David Nancarrow, the founder of the Carrow’s family restaurant chain. Elephant Bar Restaurants, which feature Asian and Polynesian dishes, as well as pizza, burgers, pasta and sandwiches, are known for their trademark safari décor and tend to attract a young upscale crowd.

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by Miles Shuper

Tulare County - Ambulance service providers in Tulare County are making progress on a plan to help insure that the closest available ambulance will be dispatched to those needing help.

Tulare County Supervisors Chairman Allen Ishida said the plan being formulated involves equipping all ambulances with GPS systems enabling dispatchers to determine where each available ambulance is located and the most direct route to the source of the call.

More than a month ago, Supervisors studied a plan to provide for a single company to provide ambulance service to most of the county but backed off on implementing it, allowing the county’s current nine providers to work on alternative proposals.

David Cooper, president and owner of American Ambulance in Visalia, who has been leading the way to unite the county’s ambulance service providers, characterized the plans being forged as in the “spirit of cooperation” as details continue to be worked out among the consortium members. He said plans call for the use of state of the art monitoring systems including automated vehicle location software allowing the tracking of all in-service ambulances.

Also included in the plans are expanded service zones for various providers and a system allowing backup coverage when one provider is in service for another ambulance to be in position to provide service, Cooper explained.

A meeting is scheduled next week, he said, with providers and the Central California Emergency Medical Service Agency (CCEMSA), which oversees and administers ambulance services in several counties.

Daniel Lynch, administrator for the CCEMSA, outlined to Supervisors a plan for a single-provider system which would be funded with service fees without financial burden to the county. Such a system would include response time requirements resulting in charges to the provider for failing to meet them. Lynch said many counties and cities use this type of system with penalty assessed fees going to offset the costs incurred by first responders, such as fire departments and their EMTs or paramedics.

Cooper said such a system would be part of any unified service plan for Tulare County.

Supervisor Ishida previously pushed for current providers having the opportunity to come up with a plan enabling ambulance services to stay in business while providing more efficient and effective coverage, especially in smaller communities and the unincorporated areas.

At a recent meeting, Ishida said he would like to see current providers continue to serve the county but “if they can’t., then we’ll look at a single provider.”

Woodlake, Lindsay and Three Rivers are among the areas where response time has been an issue in recent years.

This week, Ishida sounded a positive note, saying he expects the board to be able to soon be able to adopt a plan which will close the gaps in response time.

In other action, Supervisors:

· Approved amendments to the zoning ordinance pertaining to radio, microware and television towers requiring special use permits. Amateur radio service antenna towers 75 feet tall or less are now excluded from the permit requirements. Also exempt are temporary and permanent security towers if they meet design and site standards in scenic corridor zones and/or urban development boundary zones.

· Approved amendments to an agreement with the State of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for an additional 50 beds a day, bringing the daily total to a maximum of 100 beds per day to house state inmates at the Adult Pre-Trial facility.

· Appointed William DeLain as chair of the Tulare County Workforce Investment Board for a term ending Nov. 14, 2008.

· Accepted a $400 grant from the Office of Violence Against Women from the U.S. Department of Justice.

· Accepted the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance grant of $163,037 to pay for the services of a countywide gang prevention specials and a deputy based at Charter Alternative Academy/Packwood as a school resource officer.

· Supervisor Phil Cox reported he was going to contact the Sheriff’s Department regarding comments made during a public comment session at the Visalia City Council meeting Monday night about the closure of a medical marijuana dispensary in Visalia due to zoning restrictions. Cox said Tulare County has issued slightly more than 300 medical pot user permits but the dispensary operator said that more than 1,400 patients have used the outlet as a dispensary and information center since the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996. Cox said he was interested in what he sees as discrepancies between the numbers of patients and the number of documented permits.

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Outdoor Retailer Sportsman's Warehouse Wants Visalia Store

Tulare County - Tulare County fits the demographic target for the big outdoor retailers like BassPro, Cabela and Utah-based Sportsman’s Warehouse. Look around here at all the pick-ups, shotguns and fishing poles in this part of the Central Valley that many believe resembles the Midwest or areas of the rural South than it does the “left coast” or so they say.

All three of these retailers are looking at this area for new stores spurred on by the news that a new NASCAR race track may be heading for our area. These stores draw big crowds in other parts of the country.

One hunting and fishing retailer isn’t waiting around. CEO of Sportsman’s Warehouse, Stu Utgaard tells the Voice the company has tentatively selected a site in north Visalia  the new Donahue Schriber shopping center anchored by Home Depot and Target for its second California store. Their other store is near Sacramento. “It’s not a done deal,” he cautions, saying he is working with the city on how the store would be positioned in the new northside center along Dinuba Highway and Riggin.

Sportsman’s Warehouse has some 60 stores in 20 states aimed at the hunters, fishermen and outdoor enthusiasts. With sales of about $75 million, the company hopes to open the store in spring of next year, says Utgaard, with about a 50,000-square-foot store employing 75 people.

The stores offer a range of footwear for hiking, water trails and leading brands of outdoor and cold weather wear like Pendleton.

If hunting and fishing have a hard core constituency, another growing group is “wildlife watchers” who are buying outdoor gear for their pastime too. In California, the number of in-state wildlife watchers is more than double the number of anglers, according to a 2001 census report, with 5,720,000 watchers in California as of 2001 and 2,444,000 anglers.

Serious hunters on the other hand are a smaller population in California with just 317,000 state hunting licenses issued by the state in 2007  a number that has stayed about the same for the past decade.

If you don’t think Tulare County is pick-up crazy, think again. Per capita, in Los Angeles for example, cars outnumber trucks by better than 6-to-1 and in Sacramento it’s 4-to-1. But Central Valley counties like Tulare show just a 2-to-1 popularity for cars vs trucks similar to Kern and Kings County. As the joke goes, you must be a redneck if your county has a higher percentage of truck registration  the same strategy that investors expect will fill the seats on a regular basis if NASCAR opens a track in Tulare in the next few years.

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By Steve Pastis

Visalia - The music festival that brought thousands of visitors to Downtown Visalia over the July 19-22 weekend resulted in a sizable expense for Downtown Visalians, the organization that presented the event. Even so, the effort is being made to find ways to host the festival next year while minimizing future costs.

“We haven’t committed, but we are moving forward with the idea of doing the event again, or a similar event,” said Vernon Barr, president of Downtown Visalians, about the status of a 2008 Visalia’s All Music (VAM) Festival. “We’ve formed a committee that will look into how we can coordinate the event next year that limits our exposure as far as the financial aspect of it is concerned.”

“We like the event,” said Fred Biane, member-at-large of Downtown Visalians. “It’s great for all the merchants. We’d just like to break even.”

While the board of directors would like to break even on the VAM Festival  if they decide to hold the event next year  they would be willing to accept modest losses, especially considering how many people the event brought to the downtown area this summer. They accepted the idea of going into the red this year, but unfortunately, the amount exceeded their expectations.

“At best, we thought we’d break even,” said Barr about this summer’s event. “Realistically, we were looking at between a $5,000 and $10,000 loss.”

The actual bottom line of the event showed that $51,423.50 more was spent than collected at the 2007 VAM Festival. This amount bothers those concerned about a $51,423.50  loss. There are others, however, who see that a $51,423.50 investment  has been made to establish an event to bring thousands of people into the downtown area on an annual basis.

Still, “miscalculations” were made, according to Barr. He pointed out the two most significant areas where there was a discrepancy between what was projected and the actual numbers; and both reflected revenue goals not reached.

The purple wristbands—which cost $30 and allowed the wearer to enter all club venues and have reserved seating  resulted in only $1,940 in sales, and only $9,000 was collected from event sponsors.

“We miscalculated on wristbands,” said Barr. “There were a lot of great bands outside that people could just walk up to and listen to.”

Also, spending $30 for good seats at all the club events through the weekend was not a good deal to people who were only able to attend VAM for one afternoon or evening.

The low revenue total from event sponsors was a problem also cited by former Downtown Visalians executive director Jan Minami, whose tenure with the group abruptly ended last month. She told the Voice that she received continued assurances from a company hired to get VAM sponsorships that the totals would improve sufficiently by the time of the event.

Elaine Martell, who is serving as interim executive director, said that there will soon be a committee meeting to develop a budget and framework for the next event. With a plan, the Downtown Visalians can more effectively approach prospective partners and sponsors.

For information about sponsorships or to offer ideas about next year’s event, write to info@downtownvisalia.com, Write VAM in the subject line.

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By Steve Pastis

Tulare County - Becky Maze is a candidate for the Republican nomination for the 34^th Assembly seat held by her husband, Assemblyman Bill Maze, who is currently serving his third and final term under state law. She declared her candidacy on a radio show on KTIP in Porterville last month.

Did she know Tulare County Supervisor Connie Conway was declaring her candidacy two days later?

“No I didn’t, until I read it in the paper,” Maze said. “There’s always somebody who will second-guess me, but I’m in Sacramento with Bill most of the time so we don’t always catch the latest happenings in Visalia.”

The decision to run for the assembly has been a difficult one for Maze.

“I have struggled with this for over two years,” she said. “It’s nothing I talk about a lot. I mentioned it to Bill probably a little under two years ago. I had it on my mind for quite some time. I don’t know if you’ve ever wrestled with a decision, and you wrestle back and forth trying to figure out if that’s what you’re supposed to do. I just feel like, through a series of events and conversations and this and that, I feel confident that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Maze was asked if she was running because she wants to run or because her husband doesn’t want to let go of his position.

“I feel like Bill is the one who needs to be in the job because he knows the issues and he really is an excellent representative for this area,” she replied. “However—and most people find this very hard to believe—but Bill was surprised when I told him what I was thinking, because I’ve never said, ‘I want to do this too.’ We never had that conversation until one day driving home from Sacramento. I said, ‘You know what I’ve been thinking about lately, honey?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. What?’ So I told him and like, “WHAT?!?” He was very surprised.

“Since that time and even in the last few months, it hasn’t been ‘I want you to do this.’ It hasn’t been that at all. It’s been, ‘What do you think you need to do? You need to decide what you want to do.’”

Maze realizes that convincing some people that her candidacy was really her decision may be an obstacle in her campaign.

“People that know me know that I speak the truth,” she said. “I don’t lie.”

Maze talked about other women who have succeeded their husbands in the state assembly, including Sharon Runner from the High Desert, who followed her husband, George, and Audra Strickland who followed her husband, Tony.

“There’s precedent for it,” she said, adding that there were other women who ran and didn’t win.

Maze was asked about her qualifications for the position.

“The biggest qualification—and I know some people will discount it because you’re ‘just the wife’—in our relationship, Bill and I have always been a team ever since he started in 1992,” she replied. “I was out doing everything he was doing. Obviously, he was the candidate so the focus was on him and he had to take the brunt of what was going on, but I was right beside him, walking precincts, making phone calls, sending out flyers. I did all the fundraising for him, I always have done that. So all of those parts and pieces, I have been a part of.

“Of course, he comes home from work and he shares with me all the things that have been going on, whether it was the county or it was the state,” she continued. “He tells me the legislation and the situation and the people and ‘the this and the that.’ So probably for the most part, while I would nowhere pretend that I know the issues like he does, I feel like I have him right there beside me if I am elected to be able to help me with issues.

“I have the ear of my husband to be able to get the counsel from him anytime day or night and I think that’s an invaluable asset. If people like what he has done in the last five years, if they like the way he has served this district, the way he has been committed and responsive to issues and situations all over this district—in Tulare County, out in Inyo County, out in the desert, everywhere—if they like that, then that’s a positive. If they want to get rid of him, then they surely wouldn’t want to vote for me.”

There is an initiative on the February ballot, the Term Limits and Legislative Reform Act, which if passed, would allow her husband to run for another term. If the ballot measure fails, Bill Maze would focus on a run for the state senate in 2010, for which he has already started raising money.

“If the ballot measure passes, that will change the term limit designations,” Becky Maze said, adding that there is a lot of misconception that the initiative would eliminate term limits altogether. “It really is restricting the number of years somebody can serve in the legislature because right now three two-year terms in the assembly and two four-year terms in the senate is the max that somebody can do, which is a total of 14,” she said. “They want to change it so you serve just a max of 12 years, but you can do that all in one house, or the other or a combination.”

If the measure passes, she will withdraw as a candidate and support her husband’s re-election.

“I love helping my husband,” she said. “I love being a support to him. I know that he is the one that knows the issues. He’s very committed to serving this district. So it’s like, why would you want to go with a new person when you could have somebody who is very mature and knows what he’s doing?”

Born and raised in Visalia, Maze graduated from Mt. Whitney High School and College of the Sequoias, earning a BS degree in home economics from Cal Poly. She and Bill have been married for 41 years and have raised five children.

After all those years of marriage, what would Maze do differently than her husband if she were elected to succeed him in office?

“I can’t see anything that is that much different, per se,” she said. “One of the things that caught my attention the most in the last couple of years, he has been the vice chairman of the select committee on foster care. Anything that has to do with kids and family is always close to my heart. The issues and the legislation that he’s been able to put out, working in a bipartisan effort has just been remarkable. Most of the time, Republicans don’t take up that issue, especially men. I would like to follow in his footsteps, so to speak, and be able to do more along those lines.

“As far as different, I don’t know that there’s a lot that an awful lot I would do different, other than where committee leadership would put you as far as committee assignments. I don’t have a clue as to how all that works as far as which ones I would be a part of.”

She was asked about the shortage of healthcare professionals in the South Central Valley, especially following the changes in the state prison system that inflated its healthcare salaries and further depleted the number of local healthcare professionals serving the general public.

“I’m not that familiar with that issue,” she said. “Bill hasn’t talked about it. I haven’t heard any conversations about that actually, as far as the doctors are concerned. I know the prisons issue.”

Maze believes that the campaign for the Republican assembly nomination will be “an interesting one.” She talked about some issues between her husband and assembly candidate Bob Smith, expressing disappointment that “he chose to do things his own way.”

“Unfortunately, he has been out representing himself as having worked for Bill, and that he was endorsed by my husband—which he was not,” she said.

She was told that Smith made it very clear during a visit to the Valley Voice office that he was not endorsed by Assemblyman Maze.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “Bob is a very nice gentleman. When we first started campaigning in the Barstow area, he was very gracious to us. We were in his home. He was very gracious in introducing us to people. That’s why Bill hired him—on a very minimal, part time basis—because he knows lots of people. So we were very disappointed in how he was doing things.”

Maze was asked what she feels is the most important issue facing the state.

“I am not an expert in the field, but the healthcare issue, which they’re really promoting tremendously, needs to be addressed so that it’s fair to everybody, not just to those that want to receive the services but to those that they want to pay the bills—business owners, etc.

“The water issue is critical,” she said. “Bill told me that before they left session on Tuesday night, they declared an extra special session so that the speaker may call them back in session this fall to deal with the water as well as the healthcare issue. It’s really critical that something is done. We have a lot more people and we need a lot more (water) storage.”

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Tulare County - Sunkist Growers are weighing several offers to sell their sprawling Sherman Oaks office complex and a deal could be discussed by the co-op’s Board of Directors later this month, says President Tim Lindgren.

“The orange groves have long left the L.A. area,” says Lindgren, and when it comes down to it, “there is no real reason we have to be there,” he says suggesting that a consultant-led study could result in a relocation of their corporate office elsewhere to “the growing areas” such as Ventura, Kern or Tulare counties where most Sunkist oranges and their growers hail from. Thirteen of the 27 members of the Board of Directors are from the Central Valley  mostly from Tulare County.

But that decision is likely to be made down the line, says Lindgren, noting that if the sale were to be made, Sunkist would likely stay in its office as renters for some time.

Sunkist has been taking a close look at its assets in the past year for ways to streamline their operation from top to bottom including sales, distribution and production. The strategy comes as Sunkist is getting smaller in terms of its grower base and market dominance and desire by the board to right-size its expenditures.

Lindgren declined to name the potential buyers for their 170,000-square-foot office in Sherman Oaks except to say they are offering “big money” for the complex. The 1968-built office sits on seven acres.

In recent weeks, Sunkist announced the closure and sale of its Ontario lemon processing plant and its relocation this coming March to its Tipton orange juice plant where Sunkist owns 160 acres. Lindgren says proceeds from the sale of the Ontario juice plant will more than pay for the move and modifications in Tipton.

That would be the idea in a relocation of the corporate office as well, due to the fact that building a new corporate office in the Central Valley would cost a fraction of what they could get for their Sherman Oaks property located near the confluence of Highways 101 and 405 in a tony part of L.A.

Asked if Tipton could be a potential site for new corporate office, Lindgren said an urban area like Visalia or Bakersfield was more likely and noted the fact that air service in the Central Valley is more limited than in the L.A. area was not one of the top considerations as they weigh the idea. “Our buyers tend to drive up to visit the packing houses here anyway,” says Lindgren.

About half the Sunkist oranges come from Tulare County.

Lindgren says the co-op research office  about 35 employees  were recently relocated from Ontario to Fontana in a leased facility and the company sold off some property. That division could relocate some time in the future as well.

The Sunkist office in Sherman Oaks employs 150 to 200, says Lindgren.

Visalia already houses a West Coast sales office for Sunkist and city sources say they would love to have a chance to bid on bringing the co-op corporate office to Visalia as well.

Like the milk business that relocated out of the greater Los Angeles area in the past few decades, the citrus business is largely history today as well, although Sunkist groves are in the desert, Arizona and in Ventura County as well as in Tulare and Kern counties.

California Dairies Inc., producing some 40 percent of the milk in the state, moved their corporate office from Artesia to Visalia in 2007 believing that its supply region was the right place for its decision-making center.

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Porterville’s Beckman Coulter, Inc., has been on the grow recently, having hired an additional 60 employees in the past half year with the closure and relocation of business from a plant back east, says Mike Ennis who represents Porterville on the Tulare County Board of Supervisors. “These are good paying jobs for our city,” says Ennis, jobs that will take staff levels at the Porterville plant to over 300. The company markets and makes circuit boards for diagnostic equipment in Porterville. The publicly-traded firm had 2006 revenues of $2.53 billion.

As Costco prepares to move over to their new store (Nov. 1) in Visalia, their top competitor Sam’s Club (owned by Wal-Mart) continues to look for a location in Visalia, city officials say. The company needs about 20 acres but is having difficulty finding a spot, they say. Costco will not move over any merchandise to the new store but some liquidator will come in to sell it off. The existing Costco building is in escrow to sell to an unknown company. Meanwhile, the Wal-Mart on Noble is looking to expand into a Supercenter but will have to show CalTrans how it can handle the 20% more traffic the larger store will generate. The decision on a Super Wal-Mart at the city will likely go to the city council some months from now after the EIR on the project is ready.

The market may be turning positive for the first time in a while because Visalians have lowered their asking prices on existing homes. Broker Brad Maaske says a customer of his can afford only a $170,000 home and last year he could find only a few in the Visalia area. But looking at the MLS listings this week for single family homes from $140,000 to $170,000 found 61 choices in this range in all parts of town. “We’re back to 2004 pricing,” he says, suggesting that the phones are ringing for the first time in a while. Still the coming months are the slowest time of the year. Fewer foreclosure homes in this area compared to higher priced areas like Stockton where adjustable rate mortgages were more popular, says Maaske. Fifty percent of foreclosure homes involved non-owner occupied homes—i.e. speculators. Mortgage broker Ron McGowan says lower interest rates today should make this the right time to borrow. Rates have fallen 40 basis points in the past month.

September’s home building permit showed more apartments permitted (128) than new homes (72), the first time that has ever happened. For all of last year, just 293 multi-family units were permitted. The move comes as more builders of homes seek to accommodate the entry level and low income customer that makes up a large portion of the county’s population. “We’ll see about 950 single family homes this year,” predicts chief building official Dennis Lehman. “That’s the third highest ever. Not bad for what they call a recession year.”

Stockmen’s Banks, including five in Tulare and Kings Counties, have been purchased by County Bank, a Merced-based bank which now will have 40 banks in Northern and Central California. The 11 Stockmen’s Banks, including ones in Visalia, Farmersville, Tulare, Hanford and Lemoore, were sold by National Bank of Arizona, the parent company. The Arizona bank had purchased the 11 Stockmen’s Banks in September 2006. County Bank has branches as far north as San Francisco and as far south as Tulare. Carol Botkin, of the Visalia Stockmen’s Bank at 800 W. Main St., said new signs will go up Saturday, Nov. 3. The bank will close early on Friday, Nov. 2.

No ethanol glut says Pacific Ethanol’s Tom Koehler. “If we blended all the gasoline in the U.S. at 10% with ethanol we would need 13 billion gallons. But we are only producing six to seven billion gallons,” says Koehler who is an officer with a California-based fuel producer. A perceived glut has lowered the price of ethanol per gallon to the $1.60 area  40 cents lower than a few months ago, offering blenders a chance to buy at “bottom basement prices but they don’t want to,” he says. “The market is not working.” A lower price for ethanol could lower motorist’s prices at the pump if the savings are passed on. “This is clearly monopolistic forces (oil companies) at work,” he says. Pacific Ethanol has been hurt in the stock market as well, falling to the $9 level from the mid-teens earlier this year. “I think somebody is trying to put the squeeze on us.”

Visalian Thelma Lile Essex decided to honor her warrior loved ones with the purchase of seven bricks that will soon adorn the WW2 Memorial on Mooney Blvd., where that big war mural is located. The bricks, honoring five of her brothers who served in WW2 and a sixth who served around the time of the Korean conflict, as well as a seventh in honor of her father who served in WW1. The bricks, inscribed with the name of each person will be placed in the memorial in coming weeks.

Longtime Visalia/Three Rivers residents Dan and Sharon Bullene are planning on reopening The Cabin, a coffee house in Three Rivers, in the next 2-3 weeks. They will also offer home-baked goodies along with coffee. In the spring, they will open Buckaroo in the same location featuring BBQ for lunch and dinner. They previously owned and operated the restaurant Bullene’s in Visalia and had the winery in Three Rivers which they sold in 2003. Then they started a bed and breakfast, Sequoia River Dance, in an old convent in Three Rivers on Cherokee Oaks Dr., which they still operate. Sounds like they will come full circle and start cooking again next year. Yeah!

A three-story extended stay hotel on the southeast corner of Lovers Lane and Noble has submitted a site plan to the city recently. No word yet if the preliminary plans will go forward. Two other hotels on 198 are under consideration or in the works. One is Hampton Inn and the other is located out by Comfort Suites on airport property.

City council recognized the volunteers who built a new Visalia playground in a week. Council heard that over 1,000 volunteers worked day and night to complete 1,000 Hands Playground in Visalia at the new sports park off Dinuba Blvd. with the generous donations of material and money by a score of businesses led by the Carpenter Family Foundation and Visalia Lumber. City park staffer Don Stone spearheaded the funding drive for the playground while Visalia Parks and Recreation Foundation coordinated the community effort. “This is one of the neatest things I have seen in the city since I’ve been on the council,” says longtime member Don Landers.

Visalia may be the largest city in Tulare County, but it has no seat on the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) likely for the next four years with the city of Exeter replacing Visalia on the five-member commission. The agency approves all annexation into cities. At a May meeting, Visalia failed to send a representative to the meeting, leaving the city out in the cold.

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