Social Security Sticks with Lovers Lane Site for New Office

Visalia - The Social Security Administration wants to build its new office near Tulare Ave. and Lovers Lane in Visalia despite misgivings by neighbors and efforts over the past six months by the city to find an alternative location in downtown.

Architect Lyle Munch of Canby Associates says the city site plan review process has approved the developer’s plan to build a single-story, 12,384-square-foot building at 1337 S. Lovers Lane for a single tenant—Social Security. The agency would relocate from its smaller Court Street office to the new location.

Munch says a formal filing with the city this week will set in motion a Planning Commission meeting on the project in some 45 days, putting a public hearing in late October or early November, he believes.

“We are also trying to set up a community meeting to address concerns by neighbors,” says Munch.

For months, the city worked with Congressman Devin Nunes and federal authorities to find another location they hoped would work out and keep the federal agency in the Downtown. One site had been recently worked on was on a city-owned parcel on Ben Maddox at Goshen Ave.

But City Manager Steve Salomon said while they were working hard to offer a new site “everything would have had to work just right” to fit the agency timeline. Apparently, the city ran out of time, although one city official said the process was still gong on.

Munch says the building will fit into the office park already there as a single-story Mediterranean design building with adjacent parking accessed from Lovers Lane. The project is being proposed by the Imperial Group of Los Angeles, the developer.

Munch says the developer wants to meet with neighbors and adjacent property owners to dispel any rumors of how the building will look or how it will function.

Since the project will go through the conditional use process, the project will go the Planning Commission to determine its suitability. The project won’t go to the city council unless someone appeals it.

---

Officials Seek Ways to Improve Ambulance
Service Countywide

By Miles Shuper

Tulare County - Officials are giving serious consideration to having a single ambulance service provider for most of Tulare County but are keeping options open for alternative solutions to the countywide emergency response problem.

With several dozen persons in attendance to listen to and speak to the issue, County Supervisors last week directed county staff along with the Central California Emergency Medical Service Agency to come up with the best way to revamp the ambulance services.

Talks already are underway among several ambulance companies to discuss options for a joint-powers authority among companies to provide a countywide service plan.

David Cooper owners of American Ambulance Company of Visalia said he is meeting with officials from Imperial Ambulance in Porterville and Lifestar Ambulance in Tulare. Others have expressed interest.

There are 12 ambulance services in Tulare County, three of them, Three Rivers, California Hot Springs and Camp Nelson, are manned by volunteers. Another, Dinuba Fire and Ambulance, services a portion of northwest Tulare County including Yettem, Cutler and Orosi, in addition to the City of Dinuba.

Supervisors Chairman Allen Ishida stressed that while a sole provider system used by nearly all counties, is getting strong consideration, all current providers should be given a “template” of goals to be met. The most services problem, according to issues raised during the board session, is that the nearest ambulance isn’t always the one sent to patients or those calling for help.

Daniel Lynch, who coordinates the county’s Emergency Medical System, said “the closest ambulance is not getting there,” his major concern with the current system. Lynch said current contracts do not contain time requirements and/or fees for failing to meet response goals, a common practice in most areas.

Lynch said an eight-minute response 90 percent of the time during a month period is a common goal used in many areas. Time response goals generally are adjusted to the size of the areas being covered. General practice is a city’s limits plus one mile. In rural areas he said, this could be 20 minutes 90 percent of the time and in remote wilderness, an hour limited could be established.

Contracted ambulance firms failing to meet those times can be fined with funds going to offset the cost of the first responders, such as fire departments of other emergency entities, he explained.

Ray Bullick, of the County’s Health and Human Services Agency, said talks among city managers, city council members and ambulance owners have already been held and more sessions are planned.

Lynch said having one provider or a consolidated system involving various companies would provide more accountability and improve response times.

Supervisor Mike Ennis said it was important that all current providers be approached to see if they want to participate in a joint powers arrangement. Supervisors stressed they are not trying to put anyone out of business and that there certainly would be enough jobs to be picked up if a consolidation plan is finalized.

Lynch said a consolidation plan would involve a uniform fee schedule. “We want a one-cost-fits-all (system) for Tulare County.” The single-service would be funded through service fees, meaning the county would not face any cost burden.

He also said a sole provider system would allow the county to require the placement of ambulances such as in Lindsay, Woodlake and Farmersville, which currently are without services and currently served by Exeter.

Under the current system, the county is divided into districts and as a result, the nearest ambulance isn’t always the one sent to the call. That problem also exists where ambulance companies are dispatched on a rotation system.

The City of Porterville last week passed a resolution to not support a single-provider system, at least for the time being. Mayor Cameron Hamilton, who spoke to Supervisors, said the city and its providers deserve to know what the county wants and how it can be provided.

Another speaker, Ralph Herrera, a paramedic from Visalia, said changes are needed and that ambulance companies have had time to make changes but have not.

Diana Pearcy who lives between Ivanhoe and Woodlake cited a tragic example of a case in March 2006 when it took an hour for an ambulance to arrive at the home where her daughter was found in a coma-like state. Firefighters arrived within about 10 minutes, and made three calls to 911 trying to find out where an ambulance had been dispatched. Firefighters were told that Dinuba and Visalia were trying to determine whose area the family was in. Exeter also was also brought into the discussion, they said.

Diane and her husband, Bob, drove 15 to 20 minutes from their home to the supervisors meeting, a third of the time it took for the ambulance to finally arrive during the emergency. She asked the board, “Are we to assume the ambulance taking one hour to arrive to our home must be expected practice? NO IT IS NOT!”

She closed her remarks saying, “You will not be reinventing the wheel, you can learn from the experience of many other counties that already have a single ambulance provider. My husband and I wish Tulare County had a single provider structure 18 months ago.”

---

UFW Targets Valley Table Grape Growers

Tulare County - If it’s September, it’s table grape time in the Central Valley. Like they did last year, the UFW is targeting this labor-intensive industry encouraging workers to sign authorization cards that could bring elections in the grape fields of Tulare and Kern counties.

Organizing is active, says ALRB (Agriculture Labor Relations Board) officials, with 10 Notices to Organize pending in the Visalia office as of September 3 that could lead to elections in coming days. The union has to show interest from at least 50 percent of the work force to call an election.

The fields are the same vineyard where Caesar Chavez in the 1960s carried a nationwide struggle with area grape growers resulting in an eventual contract with area growers that lasted just a few years. Since then, the union has been a long slide, say critics.

But now a tightened labor market, loss of the Ag Job bill in Washington and a potential pending law change could mean the UFW’s chances are better this year, say some industry watchers. But the union has been on the losing end of contracts in recent months with the decertification at Gallo Sonoma this summer terminating a seven-year contract there. In Kings County this spring, workers at Wammerdam threw out the UFW as their bargaining agent as well. The union lost a monumental battle they thought they could win in 2006 when the workers at the nation’s largest table grape grower, Guimarra, voted down the UFW in favor of no union even though that union thought they had the election won. The union lost by 425 to 793 last September in a stunning defeat for the UFW which had a high profile campaign against the company for how they treat their workers.

One thing that’s different this year is that if the union could show it had the support of a majority of the workers at table grape ranches with collection of authorization cards for workers, they could be certified as the bargaining agent for those workers at ranches without a secret ballot election, depending on whether Governor Schwarzenegger signs SB 180 passed by both houses and sent to the governor in recent days. He has the next week or so to veto or approve it.

SB 180, like its federal counterpart, had the strong support of Democrats. The bill calls for a “card check” system that would allow the unions to claim they represent workers without the current requirement of a secret ballot election. Ag leaders have denounced the idea and hope Schwarzenegger will veto the measure in a strong statement to quash the idea.

The union is said to have strong card support from Delano area grape ranches including Sun World VZB and Guimarra and if the bill is signed by the governor, the cards then returned to the ALRB are valid for the next year, meaning upon certification, the grape grower would be mandated to negotiate a contract next year. If they fail to come to terms, the law mandates mediation to come to terms, putting the union in the cat bird seat.

The UFW claims that workers in a secret ballot election are intimidated by the owners or foremen not to support the union while the ag industry claims it’s union organizers that do the strong arming. Ag leaders say the measure is unfair to workers who until the passage of this bill had the right to vote by secret ballot. If SB 180 becomes law, the union could collect cards, turn them in to the ALRB and within 24 hours of being checked by the ALRB, the grower would have to begin negotiating a contract  a short time period they say.

The grape harvest each year coincides with summer when the union often recruits young college age volunteers to help with organizing efforts.  But this year, the union has retained long time organizer Ben Maddock, a veteran of the 1960/70 campaigns. Still, the Clovis-based Agricultural Action Center, which publishes Ag Accent and tracks union activity, points out that union rallies this summer have fizzled and that workers aren’t paying much attention to the pleas from union organizers.

They point out the UFW is feeling a loss of membership with a sale of Shafter rose farmer Jackson-Perkins to a company which plans to relocate some of the nursery acreage in the almonds that require less labor. About 1,000 workers are employed at the nursery  the largest UFW contract in the valley. The UFW has under 5,000 members as of the end of 2006.

One analyst cited in the Ag Accent newsletter recently speculated that if SB 180 becomes law, UFW membership could jump from its current 4,000 to 5,000 members to 250,000. That’s why ag leaders are urging their members to pressure Schwarzenegger to veto the measure in the next few days.

---

EAST VISALIA PLAN GAINS TRACTION
Tulare County May Sell Government Plaza on Mooney

“It only makes sense to have non-subvented employees  paid for by Tulare County taxpayers  in our own facility,” says Cox noting that currently the county leases about 15 separate properties just around Visalia alone.

The Vanir report, released to the Board of Supervisors last month, said the county pays about $5.3 million in lease payments annually mostly for subvented employees.

The report concluded that the county owns nearly 1.8 million square feet of space, much of which is inefficient or out of date. The report said that “combining residential service into a single, efficient, high performance facility would be a great benefit to the county.”

In addition it says that in the past 20 years, the county constructed 14 new facilities but more than half were for detention services.

The Vanir report projects the county needs to plan for growth, concluding they would have a staff level of 7,349 by the year 2026.

Board Chair Alan Ishida agrees with Cox, saying the consultant report should put to rest concern the county would expand Government Plaza on south Mooney in the future. He also agrees with Cox that long term, the county was likely to sell the building. Some City of Visalia officials worried out loud some months ago about the county’s plan after they bought 15 acres south of Government Plaza. But Cox says the purchase “was just a good place to park some money,” noting they bought “Mooney property for about $80,000 an acre.” That too would be sold at the right time.

Both Cox and Ishida agree that sale of Government Plaza, a 150,000-square-foot building purchased from Wasau Insurance in the 1990s could “put the building back on the tax rolls and perhaps attract a major new office employer to Visalia.”

“It should be a win-win for everybody,” says Cox.

Before the property could be sold, the county would have to come up with a plan to relocate both subvented and non-subvented employees housed at the Mooney site  about 500 in each category. The largest subvented category are those in Health and Human Services.

That’s the workforce that could make up employees at a potential new East Visalia office that the county and city are discussing through the same consultant firm, Vanir.

“We expect that a recommendation on East Visalia in about 30 to 45 days,” says Cox.

Cox says with subvented employees, the law pushes the county to seek leased facilities where other agencies pay about 98 percent of the cost vs. a county-owned facility like Government Plaza where the federal and state monies pay for a tiny fraction of the cost.

That makes it likely an East Visalia campus if built would be built by the private sector. “We’ve got several requests from developers who would likely offer us a proposal that will include perhaps a 200,000 to 250,000-square-foot office and parking garage,” says Cox, adding that the facility would house 1,000-plus employees.

Cox says the passing of any plan would depend on the length of existing leases around town but the right deal could make the county move forward sooner than later, he notes.

Sources at the City of Visalia say the talks on a proposed county office complex have gone well after the city ponied up $25,000 for a consultant study on the idea. The city is planning to build its new civic center in coming years near Burke and Oak streets and hopes the county and VUSD will be part of it. A joint meeting with VUSD is scheduled later this month with the city council, although whether this subject is touched upon remains to be seen.

Also in recent weeks, the county is seeking an additional 20,000 square feet for a relocation of the welfare department workers in the single story building at Center at Court. Workers who were housed in the four-story welfare building have already been relocated from the historic structure to the former Canned Goods building on Mooney.

The relocation of the workers from the single-story building would vacate the entire block of county workers, leaving it available to be sold off as part of what appears to be a coordinated musical chairs in coming years.

Cox says one place he would like to see workers relocate from is the County DA program at the industrial park that he would like to see relocated to East Visalia. “It would be more consumer friendly to have them downtown,” says Cox, where transit connections are easier and part of one complex rather than scattered around town.

---

Roland Lee Soltesz Runs for Visalia City Council

Visalia - Roland Lee Soltesz, an attorney for the Tulare County Public Defender’s office, has announced his candidacy for the Visalia City Council. He submitted his paperwork just before the deadline, which had been extended because Council Member Greg Kirkpatrick decided not to see re-election.

“Over the last several years, I have thought about running for an elected office,” he said. “Then I saw that Mr. Kirkpatrick wasn’t going to run again. It really spurred me to enter the race, not that I wouldn’t have entered if he was running, it just gave me that extra time. It was at that moment that I said this is what I really want to do. I spoke to my family over that extra week. It just gave me a few extra days to solidify my choice.”

Soltesz has lived in Visalia for 10 years. He grew up in Pasadena and graduated from college in the early 1980s, with a major in government from Pomona College in Claremont. He and his wife have raised her two children who are both currently attending Fresno State.

“I’ve been interested in the electoral process and politics all my life,” Soltesz said. “I’ve probably been a student of government from the time I was in high school. Since I’ve moved to Visalia, I’ve followed local politics. I’ve followed the development of the community. I have established myself to the point where I can donate my time.

“My perspective is a little different,” he said, comparing himself to the other candidates. “I have the background in government and I did take significant courses in economics. I worked for 15 years basically as a financial planner/stockbroker. I moved to Visalia and decided to change careers. I went to law school in Clovis, San Joaquin College, and got my law degree. So I have a significant background in finance, economics, government and now that I have the law background, it gives me a well-rounded look.

“In addition, I’m a new face,” he said. “I’m different. It’s not the same people who have been around for a number of years.”

Soltesz noted how the community has changed significantly in the 10 years he has lived in Visalia.

“Most of the people I’ve talked to aren’t necessarily happy with the change, other than the fact that they have more places to eat at,” he said. “Other than that, there really hasn’t been what I consider significant life improvement.”

Soltesz expressed concerns about how long it took to create the new sports park, which opened on August 25^th, and the fact that there is still so much work to be done there, including completing the softball fields.

“It’s been years that they’ve been planning this,” he said. “Since ours was originally authorized, planned and budgeted for, several of our local communities have planned sports parks, built them and had them in operation for years. They’re still saying it’s going to be a couple years until the park is done. There’s no excuse for that.”

He then discussed some of the other issues that motivated him to run for city council.

“Last week, I was reading the paper and I noticed that the city just paid $1 million, approximately, for some land in the scenic corridor,” he said. “I live just a few blocks from this land. I thought about it and I said, ‘Why are we spending $1 million on this land right now when we have all these other needs that, I feel, haven’t been met?’

“So many in the city council and community are so concerned with the scenic corridor, with the auto mall and what we’re putting in the next mall here in town, they forgot about the whole of the city and the quality of life of the citizens,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s necessarily a coherent plan of what we’re going to do with the land once we’ve bought it. I want to know exactly before we spend all this money, how we’re going to use it, how we’re going to zone it, what we’re going to do. I know they’ve been talking for years about the scenic corridor and there still isn’t an agreement about what’s going on there.”

Soltesz, who coaches youth soccer, wants to represent “the soccer moms, the people who mow their lawns and the people who shop at Wal-Mart.”

“I feel like I am more of a man of the community that has a community responsibility for looking at planning and looking at growth—what is going to improve our quality of life?” he said.

Soltesz was asked to discuss the city’s growth, and what changes he would like to see. He noted the “explosion of residential growth on the north side of town.”

“We’ve just expanded out to the boundaries out there,” he said. “The problem with that is we expanded before we added the infrastructure. We haven’t adequately addressed our flood control needs. We haven’t adequately addressed our water needs or even our school needs. What is happening is we’re growing and then we’re catching up with the services. We need to make sure we have the proper services in place before we grow.”

He was asked what he would have done to deal with the costs of renovating Recreation Park, which more than doubled earlier this year. He started his response by saying how involved he and his family are in local sports.

“I would not have voted for the stadium,” he said. “I believe that it was a failure of leadership to properly address what we needed to do and how much it was going to cost. There was a vote initially that said $5 million, then before we knew it, it was $10 million, $12 million. The last I heard, it was $14 million.

“There’s nothing wrong with building a ballpark and having the city funds help the ballpark,” he continued, “but there was a lack of planning of what was needed for the ballpark. When you spend that amount of money, you really need to know ahead of time exactly what you’re going to do, have a plan, a proper plan with proper engineering. If all that proper planning had been done in advance, including how much the revenue is going to be, then an appropriate decision could have been made.

“Having a viable, active economically feasible franchise in Visalia does improve the quality of life,” he continued. “My yardstick is ‘How does this improve the quality of life for the citizens of Visalia?’ Is this a proper use of city funds? If it would have met those standards, then I would have voted for it.”

Soltesz was asked how he would approach the gang problem if he were elected to the city council.

“The problem is that we have been reactive,” he said. “We said, ‘There’s a whole bunch of gang crime here,’ and we get a task force of multi-agencies in there and they go and arrest a bunch of people. Those people go to jail. Well, there are 20 more people who take their place when they arrested them. It’s just a band-aid solution.

“We had a notorious crime a few years ago where there was an innocent bystander who was the victim of a gang shooting, and after that, we passed bonds,” he said. “We built the juvenile justice center. We built the pre-trial facility. We had the courts expanded. We had more police officers on the street. But yet, the gang problem is not less today than before we did all this. So what we’re doing is we’re putting a band-aid on the problem after it’s occurring.

“It has to go back to the fundamental of improving the quality of life for all the citizens of Visalia,” he continued. “Go into these neighborhoods and see what the unemployment rate is in these neighborhoods. What are the opportunities for these kids there? The kids that get into these gangs—it’s almost cultural at this point. There are second, third, fourth-generation gang members. They’re fighting over nothing. They’re fighting because they’re fighting.

“The gangs in Tulare County don’t control vast criminal enterprises like some other parts of the country,” he said. “They’re not into the importation and distribution of narcotics on a wide scale level. Granted, there are little crimes going on with these people, but most of the violence that occurs between these gangs is just turf violence. ‘This is my neighborhood. This is your neighborhood.’ It’s because of boredom. It’s because of lack of education. It’s because of lack of economic opportunity.

“So what I say is we need to go in and support the families, support the quality of life and be proactive. Spend money today in making these families educated. If you have a mother and father who can’t speak English, they need to speak English. They need to be able get a good paying job, not a $5, $6 or $7-an-hour job. Then they can teach their children and get their children involved with school.

“Get them when they’re 5, when they’re 6, when they’re 8,” he said. “Don’t let them join a gang. Make sure they have the opportunities to be in Little League and in softball and in soccer. Support them. Create jobs and education. If we are able to do that in advance, we can minimize the amount of people that see that there’s no opportunity, that they have no life.

“Most of these people in the gangs have more allegiance to their friends in the gang than they do to their parents, their neighbors, their friends,” Soltesz said. “The gang is their life; it’s their world. They revolve around that. We need to break that cycle by strengthening the family, by giving economic opportunity. We need to really work on education.”

---

What's New

Tulare will lose a bad dream when a new development wipes out the former Patos bar helping to clean up that part of town. The bar was the site of a bloody murder rampage. The Bender brothers will build a new office complex and apartments on the acreage (see story in this issue of the Tulare Voice).

Tulare may get an In-N-Out Burger up on the freeway at Cartmill according to a site plan filed by the developers of the new Cartmill Crossings shopping center. Environmental review of the big project said to include a new Penney’s and Kohl’s as well, is underway.

Want to head for the coast? How about half way? Reef City is for sale for a couple of million dollars. The rest stop shut down a few months ago at Highway 41 and 33.

City of Lemoore will agree to subsidize Leprino to the tune of $6 million as part of a redevelopment agency project. Leprino will put in excess of $180 million into the cheese plant expansion in that town and the redevelopment agency’s contribution will be paid back through the rising property values the project brings, says a city report. The project needs to upgrade the pre-treatment plant for wastewater that will cost $7.5 million, says the city report. City council is expected to approve the deal this week.

State budget approved an allocation of $20.7 million to keep the California High Speed Rail Authority alive for another year. The agency hopes voters will get a chance in 2008 to vote on a $9.95 billion bond next year to build the project that will connect with the San Joaquin Valley offering trains traveling 225 mph.

Hanford has signed a new dairy manufacturing industry, Norbco, which is applying to build a 30,000-square-foot industrial building near GWF at 11^th and Idaho on 10 acres it has purchased there. The company will start out with 10 to 25 employees, says Jay Salyer of the Kings EDC. The firm will grow to 50 employees in five years. The Midwest based firm makes milking parlor equipment.

“Cal Water’s construction project on Mooney Blvd. is progressing well,” reported Yvonne Kingman, Corporate Communications Specialist for the California Water Service Company. “To date, crews have installed approximately 5,000 feet of 12-inch ductile iron water main under Mooney Blvd. That includes the main that has been installed and fire services have been installed in their new locations. Last week, crews began installing new water services for the businesses and for irrigation. This portion of the project should take about two weeks to complete.”

City of Visalia council will likely back a staff recommendation this week to back the application by Wyoming-based Great Lakes Airlines to take over passenger air service from Visalia over two other applicants. The city is backing the company with two nonstop trips to Las Vegas’ main airport every day and a commitment to pair Merced and Visalia with a third trip. The company wants a subsidy of $1.8 million annually from the federal government. FAA has the last word. The city likes the fact that the airline has code sharing agreements with United and Frontier airlines. The company flies 19-passenger Beechcraft planes.

Value of all permits through August is down 31% from last year at the City of Visalia with single family valuation falling even further  down 38% for the pace through August 2006. New commercial projects dropped in August 2007 with just three projects, although the number of new commercial projects in 2007 is actually up in Visalia by 29%. Valuation is down 5%, however, as 2007 has seen smaller projects.

---

Tulare County - Tulare County Board of Supervisors Alan Ishida says federal judge Wanger’s decision announced late last week to hold back up to a third of the water exported south of the Delta to save an endangered fish from the giant pumps that ship water south could endanger Tulare County farms and cities.

That’s because of some Delta farmers  the so-called Exchange Contractors. If they can’t get an adequate supply of water from the Delta, they have first right on San Joaquin River water, about half of which goes to green up Tulare County farms and communities.

“In another dry year, that could just devastate us,” worries Ishida.

Agreeing with the analysis is Friant Chairman Kole Upton who is traveling this week to Washington to get the ear of Senator Feinstein on what the Friant contractors are worried about. “If the Exchange Contractors can’t get what they need form the Delta, they will take out of Friant’s share, up 800,000 acre feet,” he says.

Just as bad, says Upton, is testimony offered at the same trial in Fresno offered by an expert witness from NRDC that cutting off delta water would not harm Westlands water district or other south-of-Delta CVP users because they could use Friant water. “That’s a violation of our agreement with (the NRDC)” over the settlement agreement that the restoration of the river and water management to protect our economy were equal concern, he says.

The judge’s ruling could mean that beginning in 2008, new restrictions on the big pumps that send the water of the Sacramento Delta south would be in place to keep the tiny Delta smelt from being sucked into the pumps. The judge agreed with Fish and Wildlife analysts that pumps were contributing to the demise of the two-inch fish which experts say is close to extinction.

Agreeing that the decision has major implications for all of California including Friant is Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) President Tim Quinn who says the ruling “amounts to the biggest decision on endangered species in history making the spotted owl shakeout look like tinker toys.”

However, Quinn doesn’t agree the decision will reduce water availability to the point that it will affect the Exchange Contractors thereby hurting Friant. But it will be felt statewide even in the Bay Area where there is talk of mandatory rationing in the future.

“It will mean loss of a couple of million acre feet of water annually,” says Quinn and that is “certainly a big deal” impacting water users across the state. Quinn believes this is the biggest cut on water supplies for California ever.

The Delta is the drinking water supply for an estimated 25 million Californians.

Quinn says there is more bad news for “water management practices south of the Delta that include underground water basins that store water in wet years for use in the dry ones.

Now Wanger says you can’t move water from the northern part of the Delta to the south because it brings the fish into harms way to the pumps and that affects the movement of water in both wet and dry years. “There goes our water management strategy statewide,” says Quinn.

Quinn says the only good news coming out of this should be that “government is finally going to have to do something for the first time in 30 to 45 years” about fixing the Delta, likely with a new conveyance canal around the Delta that won’t impact the fish.

Friant General Manager Ron Jacobsma says the decision by Judge Wanger “will have statewide impact” on Bay Area communities which now feel the pinch, Westside farms and other California cities and farms which depend on state water. Westland water district could be particularly hard hit.

Cities in Southern California, which can no longer draw on as much Colorado River water as they used to, will be impacted by this decision as well. In that sense, the pain will be spread around the state, offering an opportunity to get support for a solution that will benefit everyone statewide.

“There’s two things with water that get people’s attention and that’s floods and drought.” With the state undergoing a statewide drought this year and the possibility of a second dry year at hand (that’s the early prediction), Jacobsma says Schwarzenegger’s chances to get a statewide water plan approved in coming months are better than they were before. Now this artificial drought will turn up the heat, Jacobsma says. While the effect on Friant because of the Exchange Contractors “is a possibility,” there will be a more definite impact on the so-called Cross Valley Contractors who get an average of 60,000 to 80,000 acre feet of water out of the Delta to sink in underground storage to use in dry years.

In addition, plans to recirculate water south as a result of the San Joaquin River settlement process are now threatened. The idea was to release water down the San Joaquin River for fishery purposes and pump it back to the south valley for farms from the Delta. That idea to recoup the water in this way may not now work out.

One idea that may get a boost to add water storage away from the Delta is Temperance Flat on the upper San Joaquin—part of the water plan supported by Schwarzenegger.

The judge’s decision will impact how agencies move water over the next year until the government can come up with new guidelines on how to protect the viability of fish populations with a biological opinion required by the Endangered Species Act. The Delta Smelt is unique to the Delta where its population has been dwindling in recent years. Environmentalists blame water users including farmers for using too much of the water while others point to the fact that cities use the Delta as a dumping ground.

Testifying at the hearing were UC professor Peter Moyle who said the smelt appeared confused by the pumps that reverse the direction of the current in the south Delta.

Tim Quinn says there are interim measures that can be taken to reduce the impact on the fish before a long term fix is in place, perhaps a decade from now if we are lucky.

To help manage the smelt earlier this summer, federal and state authorities closed down the pumps for about two weeks sending shivers through the state’s ag economy. Although Wanger’s decision this past week doesn’t mean the pumps will shut down this year, it makes a drought permanent south of the Delta until there is a comprehensive solution.

Metropolitan Comments

Metropolitan Water District said that, “The reliability of water supplies from

“Based on initial estimates supplied by the state, the Metropolitan Water District  the primary water importer for urban Southern California  stands to lose as much as 30 percent of its supplies from Northern California next year and possibly longer, under Judge Oliver W. Wanger’s preliminary ruling in Fresno.”

“California simply cannot lose important water supplies without real consequences throughout the state,” said Metropolitan General Manager Jeff Kightlinger.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s “Delta Vision” task force is expected to make recommendations this November.

---

Allensworth - The March 20^th decision by the Tulare County Board of Supervisors to allow a dairy near Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park is being challenged by state legislators and by California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.

On August 30^th, Assembly Member Wilmer Amina Carter (D-Rialto) announced that legislation to protect Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park from “a dairy operation proposed 1,000 feet from the park” passed the California State Senate on a 23-14 vote. The state legislation, which establishes a 2.5-mile buffer between the dairy and the park, would negate the decision made by the Board of Supervisors after their study of the situation.

The Tulare County issue has become a state issue.

“Col. Allensworth is an icon in African-American history and American history so it’s a national issue,” Assembly Member Carter told the Voice.

“I am pleased that the Senate has voted to pass AB 576, and that we are moving forward in our efforts to save Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park,” she said. “We have to preserve and protect our history.”

The park, a nationally registered historic site, preserves a town founded by Allen Allensworth, which was an agricultural haven for former slaves and sharecroppers in the Central Valley. Allensworth, a slave born in 1842, served in the U.S. military during the Civil War and was the first African-American to receive the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

Carter has been involved with Allensworth State Park since the 1970s. As a member of the National Council of Negro Women, an organization based in Washington, D.C., she has helped coordinate the group’s Allensworth efforts.

“Our national president was able to get a grant to identify graves and the last surviving residents,” she said.

Because of Carter’s “long history with the park,” the Legislative Black Caucus called on her to author the legislation. “It’s a Legislative Black Caucus effort,” she was quick to note.

AB 576 now moves back to the State Assembly for approval of Senate amendments. Upon Assembly approval, AB 576 will be sent to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for his signature. Carter was not sure when asked whether the governor will sign the legislation, but she is optimistic.

“He has not indicated any opposition so far,” she said. “We’re hopeful he’ll sign it. We’re hopeful the governor will feel as we do that we do not want a mega-dairy adjacent to a state historical park that the state has invested about $13 million in.”

“When the Board of Supervisors granted a permit to the dairy owner, they said, ‘The wind only blows in one direction,’” said Robbin Coaxum, Carter’s chief of staff. “I grew up on a farm so I can’t imagine that the wind only blows in one direction there.”

Meanwhile Attorney General Brown is suing the Tulare County Board of Supervisors to overturn the board’s approval of two mega-dairies housing more than 12,000 cattle near Allensworth State Park.

The California Department of Justice lawsuit alleges the Tulare County Board of Supervisors on March 20 violated the California Environmental Quality Act when it approved the cow pens located about a mile away from the historic site. The suit says the dairy will produce 20 tons of manure and other contaminants each day.

“Allensworth State Park will be compromised by the odors, flies and air and water pollution generated by these large dairies in such close proximity,” the Tulare County Superior Court lawsuit said. “By bringing a large industrial dairy operation into the immediate surroundings of the park, the dairy project threatens the park’s historic integrity and its function to convey a historically accurate picture of the way of life of the Allensworth pioneers.”

The lawsuit claims the Tulare County Board of Supervisors violated California environmental regulations for, among other things, approving the project “without meaningfully evaluating and identifying the impact on the unique historical resources and setting of Allensworth State Park.”

The suit also alleges that the Tulare County Board of Supervisors did not adequately address the project’s environmental impacts on the adjacent Pixley National Wildlife Refuge and the Allensworth Ecological Reserve.

---

By Miles Shuper

Woodlake - An October 5^th hearing in Tulare County Superior Court has been set in what possibly could be the closing chapter in a more than 20-year legal battle over the planned expansion of a sand and gravel quarry along the Kaweah River near Woodlake.

During a conference two weeks ago, Judge Melinda Reed set the date and also ordered the parties, Kaweah River Rock and Valley Citizens for Water, to work with mediators for a settlement prior to the October hearing. Previously, the courts ruled that Valley Citizens for Water could recover court costs, one of the issues she ordered both sides to negotiate prior to the hearing.

At stake are plans for a 280-acre mining operation by the company which has produced at least a third of the sand and gravel for construction and road building in Tulare County since it began operations in the 1960s.

Earlier this year, Tulare County Supervisors reaffirmed their approval for the permit. The board’s decision sent the issue back to court. An earlier approval by Supervisors led to the current lawsuit by the environmentalists group claiming the environmental impact report did not address some issues. Judge Paul Vortman ruled that the report did not adequately cover the issues of air quality, ground water and flooding and allowed Kaweah River Rock rework the study. County staff reviewed and approved the adjusted report and the issue came back to the Supervisors who voted 4-0 for approval. Supervisor Mike Ennis who was not in office when the original permit approval came to the board did not vote on the issue.

If the court approves the environmental report, work on the expanded quarry could start within 18 months, according to company officials.

About 240 acres of the 280-acre project site will be excavated 45-55 feet. The site could be mined for 20 to 30 years, according to Dave Harrald, general manager, who estimates 15 to 20 million tons of material will be mined. That is in addition to an estimated five million tons of overburden, some of which would be retained on the site for regarding and reclamation use.

Plans call for a rock processing plant, stockpile areas, shops, offices and access roads. Excavations will be in two phases, officials say, each taking between 10 and 15 years. When the mining is completed, the site will be restored according to the already approved reclamation plan. Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District will operate the property as a water management facility mainly to recharge the ground water.

---

---