Restaurant Fire Intentionally Set

By Miles Shuper

Visalia - Investigators say the fire which ravaged a southwest Visalia restaurant and pub more than three weeks ago was set, possibly to cover a theft.

Visalia police say there have been no arrests and the investigation is continuing. But sources say police are looking at potential suspects or a suspect in connection with the Aug. 2 fire at Doogle McGuire's at 5422 Cypress Ave., just west of Akers Road.

Owners reported that about $600 was missing from a secured register and there were no indications of forced entry.

Visalia Fire Marshal Charlie Norman told the Voice Monday that the blaze, which started in the office, was intentionally set but did not say exactly how it was started.

Previously, Norman said there was no evidence that an accelerant was used and that evidence gathered at the scene had been sent to a laboratory for study. Monday, he said he had not yet received a report on that potential evidence.

Three separate sources have indicated that security video tapes recorded someone entering the building and the office within an hour of when the blaze was discovered by a passerby around 7 a.m. The interior was almost totally engulfed when the first fire units arrived.

Sgt. Steven Philips, the police information officer, said he was unsure if anyone had been questioned in connection with the theft or the fire.

Meanwhile, Ken Fitzgerald, one of three owners of the business which opened more than three years ago, said demolition of the interior of the structure was scheduled to begin at the end of this week. He and partners, Kevin Duyst and Dr. Tu-Hi Hong, plan on re-opening the business, a task which is expected to take four to five months. The restaurant employed 32 workers.

Fitzgerald, a Visalia attorney, said despite the economic downturn which has slowed restaurant businesses in general, Doogle McGuire's was doing well and July was the among the best, or possibly the best ever, month since it opened.

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Growth Speed Bump?
City, Developers Work on Transportation Impact Fee Issue

By Steve Pastis

Visalia - Transportation impact fees in Visalia have been a sore point among local developers, especially since the fee structure was revised about five years ago.

Impact fees are collected for developments, such as single family homes, shopping centers, office buildings and industrial projects, in order to pay for infrastructure, such as roads and sewers. The main issue of contention for local developers is the higher amount that a developer must pay in transportation impact fees for a project in Visalia, compared to other Valley cities, even though the city issues reimbursements when other developments are built along the street.

“The transportation impact fees were established in the early 1990s,” said Visalia City Manager Steve Salomon. “Visalia was the first city in the county to establish them.”

Visalia City Council Member Greg Collins explained that development impact fees were established to cover “basic infrastructure,” such as sewers and storm drainage.

“From there, development impact fees have evolved to become more encompassing,” he said, noting the addition of fees such as the Quimby Act fee that is used to develop public parks. “From those fees, each city has branched out to collect additional fees. Some cities collect public facilities fees which go into libraries or city halls. In the 1990s, Visalia implemented a circulation (transportation) impact fee for road widening, signals and to purchase right-of way.”

“When they raised the fee, they also raised the cost of reimbursement development,” Salomon said, noting developments along Caldwell Street. “What the council was trying to do was get the full width of the street built. They were trying to get the whole road built before the development.”

“Caldwell had been owned by many developers,” said Visalia City Council Member Don Landers. “Those who didn't want to develop were a 'roadblock' to those who did. Not having those roads developed would have caused us a great deal of consternation, affecting a significant part of our circulatory infrastructure. Whatever it took to get it done I was going to support – and I'd do it again tomorrow.

“In essence, we tripled the transportation impact fee,” he added. “But if they built roads in conjunction with the project, they were reimbursed.”
The math behind the fees seems simple enough, at least initially.

“A house generates so many trips and a gas station generates so many trips,” Salomon said. “So the fee is the trip rate times the number that comes from these engineering studies.

“For the number of years we have been implementing it, we haven't collected the right amount,” he added.

“We are not the only community that has fees structured this way,” said Andrew Benelli, Visalia public works director, but he added, “We don't easily compare with Tulare, Exeter or any other community in Tulare County.

“We negotiate a reimbursement agreement before they begin construction,” he said. “We consider their costs widening the street, doing the paving, the curbs and gutters, power pole relocating, sometimes traffic signals, striping, storm drain improvements. We also reimburse them for right-of-way based on a citywide rate.”
“On a practical basis, to the extent it's different than what other places do, it causes problems,” Salomon said. “When it's different, the developer community isn't comfortable with it.”

“Things are sort of screwed up right now,” said Robert Keenan, president/CEO of the Home Builders Association of Tulare & Kings Counties, about the fees. “Ours are in excess of normal costs because the city wants to build roads out in advance of developments. That's what makes it different than a lot of other cities, and a lot more expensive.”

“The reason our numbers are higher is that often times, the land value is higher, and one of the factors is the price of land,” Collins explained. “And Visalia swells during the daytime because this is the employment center. There are a lot of folks on our roadways.”

For commercial developments, the fees are based on square footage. They begin at $19,208 for every 1,000 square feet, but Benelli said the fees are negotiable.
Some developers see the city's fees as making it too expensive to compete, according to Keenan. Harvey May of Paloma Development was more critical.

“They took a fairly simple, traditional, fairly understandable formula and created a system that's not working,” May said. “The system is unlike any other in the Valley.
“The system that's in place today was ill-founded from the outset,” he added. “It tried to be a cure-all for all ills. It started from a noble premise. We were to build all roads to their capacity as quickly as possible.”

May said that the city was trying to avoid the “sawtooth effect,” streets that are built as needed, resulting in roads such as Caldwell going from two lanes to four to three and back to two again.

“(The city council) said, 'We don't want to see that anymore,'” May said. “So staff came back with a system so comprehensive that nobody could understand it.
“You can't get ahead of growth with a pay-as-you-go system,” he added. “You need other money or to limit the scope. You can't collect fees for something that growth doesn't generate.”

“The cost of the project's transportation impact fees have made this development economically unfeasible,” said Mike Singelyn, senior director of development for the Highland Development Company, following the company's decision to pull out of a major shopping center project at Court and Caldwell. “They are 50% higher than anywhere else in the Valley. The transportation fees are completely out of line for making a development viable.”

“I would suggest to you that's not the only reason he pulled out,” said Landers. “To say the city fees are the only reason, that's a little self-serving and not based on all the issues.”

Traffic Fee Task Force

Darlene Mata, a private consultant, helped organize a group of local builders to study traffic fees and propose improvements. Soon after, city officials created a task force to work with local developers to revise the city's transportation fee system.
“We've been meeting with them for a year,” Salomon said. “We also hired a consultant to look at where to make some changes.”

Both groups have been studying how traffic fees are calculated.

“There are legal requirements that the city has to meet in charging that fee,” said Mata, who is also on the task force. “Not enough information has been provided in the past to see if they met those legal requirements.”

The issue of transportation impact fees will be a work session item at the Visalia City Council's September meeting, according to Salomon.

“The staff report will contain some of the task force recommendations,” said Benelli, who was asked what kinds of recommendations are being made. “The task force suggested that more of the improvements be done without reimbursements. The trade out is that they'd be paying less in fees.”

“On Sept. 2, the city council will be presenting something,” Mata said, although she wasn't sure exactly what would be presented.

“We haven't made any recommendations yet,” she said, adding that the task force is still gathering information. “We continue to work on getting answers to questions and to getting to a group of numbers where everyone can say those are the right numbers. We haven't gotten there in my opinion.”

Consensus is developing on the task force to reduce the fees for at least entry level, single family homes. These rates were raised with the last changes when the housing market was strong. Now that the market is weak, the city wants to encourage the building of more new entry-level homes. The transportation impact fee is $6,367 per new home.

The city is being advised not to raise traffic impact fees for industrial development, such as new industrial warehouses. The task force has been told that if these rates are raised, the prospects – with the jobs they offer – will go elsewhere.

Any proposed changes made by the task force would first go to the city council.
“If they like the recommendations of the task force, we go fairly quickly into a public hearing,” Benelli said. “I would hope we would have the new program in place by the end of the year.”

The city council is also considering using Measure R sales tax monies to do road work – something also being studied in Tulare. Indications are that Measure R proceeds may be more than originally anticipated.
John Lindt contributed to this article.

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Google Maps Street View Offers
Panorama View of Visalia, Tulare

By Rick Elkins

Visalia - You can now drive down a street in Visalia or Tulare without ever getting into your car.

Google Maps is now offering Street View in the Visalia-Tulare metropolitan area.

Street View is a Google feature launched in May of 2005 in just five cities. It offers a 360-degree view of streets, including residential neighborhoods.

On Aug. 4, 30 new cities, including the Visalia-Tulare area, were added to the Street View option, bringing the total of U.S. cities to about 100. It is also offered in several cities around the world, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and France. In fact, Japan and Australia were added the same time Visalia-Tulare was added.

Street View offers incredible photos of address from the street. Not only does Street View offer a photo of an address, but you can use the arrows to move up and down the street to get a 360-degree street-level imagery of your street, or any street. In essence, you can virtually drive down a street seeing both sides.However, the photos are not real time and will eventually become outdated.

Basically, the 360-degree view is broken down to eight images, each one showing a piece of the panoramic view.

By going to Google Maps, you can search for areas marked in blue. If a street or highway is outlined in blue, that means that Street View is available along that route. One example is Kings Canyon National Park. There, you can virtually drive along the Generals Highway through Wilsonia to the Visitor's Center and along the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway. Or, you can drive along the shores of Hume Lake, or through Three Rivers.

However, it is not totally perfect. Several addresses checked found the house next door instead, but you can scroll to find the right address.

How Did They Do It?

According to Google spokesperson Elaine Filadelfo, the company simply drove down public streets, a point she stressed. As long as they shot from a public street, Google did not need permission. Visalia City Manager Steve Salomon said he was not aware Google had been in town.

A vehicle, identified as a Google Maps vehicle, was equipped with a dome and a rotating camera that takes 360-degree photographs as it passes down the street. Filadelfo said more areas of the county may be added at a later date, but she did not have a timeline for that. So far, Street View is not available in any part of Kings County or any other cities in Tulare County.

“We try to have a wide area. We want to be able to provide a representative view of the area,” the Google spokesperson said. While they have been focusing on metropolitan areas, they have also included popular tourist destinations, such as Kings County National Park and Yosemite National Park.

Despite some controversy, Filadelfo said Street View has been popular.

“Overall, we've had very positive feedback,” she said last week. “People can be removed. There is a link in Street View where you can request to take down an image,” Filadelfo added. “Very few of those requested, but in those cases were happy to responds to that.”

There have some complaints of what images the camera caught, she said, explaining that in most instances faces are blurred so the person is not identifiable.

A quick glance of a few streets in Visalia and Tulare found children on bicycles in some photos, or garage doors open, revealing the contents of a person's garage.
Filadelfo said the images in Visalia and Tulare were shot over the past six to 24 months. Some people have pinned it down to about a year ago. The Tulare images seem to be more recent than Visalia.

In some foreign countries, permission was an issue and in some countries there have been outcries of invasion of privacy.

Google replied to complaints over privacy with the following statement:

“While Street View enables people to easily find, discover and plan activities relevant to a location, we respect the fact that people may not want imagery they feel is objectionable featured on the service. We recently incorporated face-blurring into Street View using state-of-the-art technology. We also provide easily accessible tools for flagging inappropriate or sensitive imagery for blurring or removal. Each Street View imagery bubble contains a link to “Street View Help” where users can report objectionable images. We routinely review these takedown requests and act quickly to remove objectionable imagery,” announced Google.

Many Uses

Andy Benelli, City of Visalia public works director, was not aware that the feature is available in Visalia, but said it will come in handy in planning.

“I'm sure we would use it. It's another tool. There's a lot of time when development is proposed that we drive out to the site. Now we can look at the internet,” he said.
Filadelfo said it is being used by many real estate companies and she used it to locate an apartment in Silicon Valley when she moved there from the East Coast recently.

“It was very helpful,” she said, adding, “I've seen it on various real estate Web sites. It's great to see how useful it can be a daily basis.”

Preston Miller, a broker associate with Re/Max in Visalia, said he has used it a little bit, but he has had calls from clients who have already used it.

“I have maps of new subdivisions and you now have the option of looking at the sites by Street View,” he said, adding he has Google Maps links on his real estate Web site.

A key to Street View is that it doesn't limit the view to just the house, but a buyer can get a look at an entire neighborhood. “The key is being able to see the neighborhood. There's a very strong trend in the real estate industry to get more information on line. This is a big step. This is the only visual information you can have on a neighborhood,” he said.

However, he said you if you're not familiar with an area, “it is not something you want to rely on,” noting that the addresses are not always accurate, especially in rural areas.

Street View is also integrated into Google Maps driving directions, announced Google recently. In the regions across the country where Google Maps Street View imagery is available, users will see camera icons next to each step of their directions, which will open a Street View image of the location, along with an arrow showing the action to be taken. Users can click through their entire route through Street View, and when the journey is complete, a green marker will indicate arrival at their destination.

By viewing Street View images alongside directions, drivers have visual context for intersections and action points along their route, enabling them to be aware of landmarks and other factors such as tolls, speed limits, size of the road and the availability of parking at their destination.

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Tulare County's Big Push to Save Energy

By Miles Shuper

Visalia -Here's a bright idea. Saving energy may be less expensive than making more of it. That seems to be the mantra coming from the California Public Utilities Commission pushing the state's private utilities to adopt plans to increase energy efficiency all over the state.

Key to making this happen is for utilities to be compensated when they push conservation instead of consumption.

The notion has caught on in Tulare County where a new partnership with the utilities is taking shape, whose job will be to convince you and me to participate.

The partnership between SCE, The Gas Co. and Tulare County jurisdictions also now includes PG&E and communities in its territory, like Dinuba, as well as the county itself. The coalition is calling itself Valley Innovative Energy Watch (VIEW), says deputy city manager for Visalia, Leslie Cavilgia. She has put together a proposal to the private utilities that would budget at least $1.7 million to carry out an outreach program all over the county. The three-year effort would be funded through the utilities and blessed by the PUC.

“Since we submitted the plan in March, the county has indicated they want to join up along with PGE and the northern part of the county,” says Cavilgia. That would take in virtually all the cities and the county in a program that would target energy savings between 2010 and 2013.

The strategy to save energy comes on the heels of a long-term effort in California to cut per capita energy use that has succeeded, even though the rest of the country has increased per-capita demand by 50%.

Now the PUC wants to see the state's energy users save even more, setting a target saving of 4,500 megawatts of power between 2012 and 2020 – the equivalent of building nine new power plants or two new nuclear power facilities the size of Diablo Canyon. A rule of thumb is that one megawatt (mw) is enough power for 750 homes yearly. California uses about 45,000 mw on a hot day.

Energy savings will not only come for electricity, but in heating as well – a big reason the Gas Co. is involved too. The PUC is looking to save 620 million therms of heat over the same period through better efficiency standards in space heating, for example.

“Energy efficiency is the state's preferred way to meet our growing energy needs, as outlined in our Energy Action Plan,” says PUC president Michael Peevy.
The VIEW application says the plan will result in a demand reduction of nearly 300,000 kWh, a figure that should rise once the new partners (county /PGE) are added in.

In Tulare County, the preliminary VIEW plan calls for energy audits of all local government facilities to ensure their energy efficiency and utilization of approved funding incentives to retrofit facilities – using the savings from energy efficiency to offset what would have been paid to the utilities. The City of Visalia, for example, plans building several new civic buildings and would get an $80,000 incentive to build a highly energy efficient public building.

Reaching out to local businesses, the plan calls for VIEW to work with 150 small businesses and 30 large local businesses and it will do audits and retrofit their operations with incentives as well.

Also, the plan calls for VIEW to convert more cars to natural gas. The local effort will seek 100 homeowners or small businesses to install fueling equipment that will make it more convenient and result in 100 commercial vehicles being converted to natural gas.

An ambitious effort to work with 1,500 single-family and multi-family households will be undertaken to directly install energy-saving devices like compact florescent lamps and low flow shower heads.

Another goal is to get residents to replace older air conditioners, freezers and refrigerators – all big energy hogs. One third of energy demand in the state is from air conditioners.

About $300,000 would be used for marketing plans that will offer ideas for consumers to save energy and various utility incentive plans they might be able to take advantage of.

Tulare County's co-application in support of the original filing includes working with local dairies to utilize methane to be a natural gas substitute that can be used for both heat and power – something Southern California Gas is interested in and PGE has pioneered.

The VIEW project will be larger now that the county and the PGE area will be added in.

Similar partnerships are in the works all over the state in a coordinated effort to make the state energy action plan work. In Tulare County's case, the project could begin in early 2009, once approved by the PUC.

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Mid State on Tap for Super Sized Solar

By Miles Shuper

California - It was just a year ago that a Bay Area company called Cleantech America announced plans for “the largest solar array in the world” in the Central Valley producing 80 megawatts (mw), about double the size of an existing solar farm in Germany. As of the end of last year, the largest solar plant in the U.S. was 15 mw at an Air Force base in Nevada.

Last week, two other Bay Area companies, Optisolar and Sun Power, announced an agreement with PG&E to sell more power to be generated from sunny central California – a total of 800 mw from solar panels that will cover 12.5 square miles in the Carrizo Plain near the Kern/San Luis Obispo border. A few months ago, another new company – Asura – announced a 177 mw thermal solar plant nearby.
The upshot is that nearly 1,000 megawatts of sun power is on tap for this part of the state, about the output of a small nuclear power plant. Amazingly, the three proposed plants are within five miles of each other.

Energy Crossroads

Energy maps tell part of the story of why these super-sized solar facilities are being proposed right now on the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley. Global warming and the high cost of petroleum have lit a fire under regulators looking to supply future energy domestically, particularly with renewable power. This part of the state is definitely a solar hot spot when it comes to number of days of clear skies and the raw resource solar radiation maps show. But the area has another key ingredient that makes it an ideal spot.

Located in the middle of the state's population centers near the big high voltage lines that run up and down Highway 5 – the proposed facilities are also located along high tension power lines that run west to east from PGE's Morro Bay and Diablo Canyon power plants to connect to the grid at a substation called Midway.

At Midway, near Highway 5, the PGE lines head to the Bay Area but also connect to the SCE line heading for L.A.

All three proposed solar plants are located near Highway 58 close to the PGE Morro Bay line, saving big bucks to hook up. “It's a lot cheaper to connect to the grid when you are near one of these big transmission lines” says California Energy Commission staffer John Kessler. All three sites are located on former farmland not considered prime and suggest they will be a good neighbor for the region's desert wildlife.

The mega-solar plants are just part of a statewide boom in proposed renewable energy projects triggered by the mandate that requires utilities to generate at least 20% of their power from non-petroleum sources by 2010. PGE now says with the addition of these three large plants, they will easily meet its goal – reaching 24% of its portfolio by the time these plants come on line from 2010 through 2013.

Many of the renewable power facilities are planned in the Kern and San Bernardino counties' desert areas, away from large population centers but placed where the sun shines bright and wind blows hard and consistently.

In a great number of cases, the potential power needs to reach the big population centers of California and that requires new transmission lines often on new rights-of-way. That can be controversial as we've learned in Tulare County. This year, the state is about to approve some new energy line pathways.

One of the potential pathways could cross in front of Lake Success and Lake Kaweah, the Valley Voice reported last issue, helping to bring in new Kern County wind and solar power to PGE's northern California area. Besides additional solar projects, Kern County wind power projects are expected to grow from its current 710 mw of wind power currently to 4,500 mw in coming years.

To hook up all these new sources of power, the state ISO agency says it is plowing through 361 interconnection requests totaling 105,000 mw of power. Of that, more than half , 68,000 mw, are from renewable sources.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is encouraging the rapid adoption of renewable technology, suggesting California could soon reach 33% of its energy supply coming from these sources. Clearly, rapid technological improvements in using these formerly “exotic” sources has moved fast enough to compete with traditional power. This week, SCE said it would buy 900 mw of wind power from Oregon.

It's Done with Mirrors

One of the proposed SLO plants being built by Sun Power will employ low profile tracking mirrors that follow the sun generating 250 mw. Construction of the plant could start in 2010.

One much smaller project next to a large industrial plant in Visalia will also use tracking mirrors to generate 1 mw of power at the Visalia industrial park next to the VF Corp facility. Recently, SCE has begun work on a new 250 mw project to generate electricity on top of large industrial buildings in southern California. The project is now underway with SCE installing 33,000 solar panels atop buildings in Fontana.

Another mid-state plant is a proposed 250 mw plant near Mojave – Beacon Solar – in Kern County that will use solar thermal technology to make power.

Congress Must Act on Tax Credits

Not including the two recently announced SLO projects, the California Energy Commission is processing applications for 3,677 mw of sun power. A number of the projects are in San Bernardino County.

Despite the huge potential, solar industry observers say the rush to build a renewable power supply will depend on Congress approving an extension of tax credits for both solar and wind by the end of this year, a prospect considered likely but not certain.

Likewise, projects like these can be stalled based on NIMBY and environmental concerns including the cumulative impact that the plants in close proximity to each other might have.

These San Luis Obispo projects are in mid-state but also in the middle of nowhere. The closest towns are Lost Hills and the proposed new town of Quay Valley in Kings County. Together, these projects will mean hundreds of new jobs. Also, Avenal, which sits west of Highway 5, may have a solar future of its own considering its fog-free days.

California appears to be the U.S. leader in moving to renewable sources. In 2007, just 11.8% of the state's electric power came from renewable sources. Some 45% come from natural gas-fired plants and 15% from nuclear. A Fresno-based group seeks to build a new nuclear plant in the Valley but decided not to go forward on potential ballot initiatives this fall when they suggested the measure faced an uphill battle.

Meanwhile, several other large natural gas-fired projects are in the works, including the San Joaquin Power Authority's gas-fired project in Parlier, a 600 mw privately owned plant near Avenal and an upgrade for a GWF Lemoore power plant.

Just off the coast from Diablo Canyon on the central coast, a company is studying the use of wave power to generate electricity applying earlier this year to FERC using small buoys. PG&E is said to be interested in the technology as well participating in a study off the Mendocino coast. The mayor of San Francisco says they want to invest in the wave power idea.

Between conservation, energy efficiency and renewable power production, it appears California will lead the way to a greener future. (See story on Tulare County energy.)

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What's New

The Kaweah Delta Health Care District will break ground on its Laurel Court facility in west Visalia at 10 a.m. on Friday. “This begins the process of construction on the 36-bed memory care center,” said Lindsay K. Mann, CEO of the district. “We anticipate that it will open in late summer of next year.” The new Laurel Court campus will provide care for those with dementia and Alzheimer's, replacing the current 12-bed center which will be converted to an assisting living facility.

The federal raid at SK Foods in Lemoore earlier this year appears to be related to a former independent broker who worked with the company being accused of bribery. A federal court filing last week says the government seized $600,000 from the broker's – Randall Rahal – bank account that had allegedly been used to pay for bribes. The suit says the bribes were carried out with the knowledge of SK Foods founder Scott Salyer.

Unemployment is up in California and Tulare and Kings counties in July compared to the same month a year ago. Tulare County jobless rate stood at 10.9%, up from 8.9% a year ago. EDD says the county lost 1,300 jobs in the space of a year – mostly farm jobs. But even as there were fewer jobs, the labor force grew by nearly 3,000. That takes unemployment to nearly 22,000 countywide. In Kings County, unemployment was at 9.9% compared to just 8.1% a year ago. The county has lost 400 jobs in that time, 300 of them in non-farm jobs. These came in construction and manufacturing. There are 6,100 listed as unemployed in the county. In California the rate jumped to 7.6% compared to 6% a year ago.

This week, the Kaweah Delta Health Care District will start the final testing on its new turbine system which will supply energy to the current hospital, as well as to its 220,000-square-foot North Expansion. “It's not just about saving energy costs,” said Lindsay K. Mann, CEO of the district. “We're adding a level of security to deliver safe patient care.” If all goes well, the system will be in operation next week.

Six years in the making, the draft EIR of the proposed Super Wal-mart in Lemoore (selling groceries too) is expected to be released next month, says county planner Holly Smyth. The 21-acre project features just the big retailer and a fast food pad as well as an additional 6 acres still owned by the Pederson family next door, likely to be a retail center as well. Final EIR will follow some months later after comments and a hearing. The proposed center is just west of Highway 41 and Bush St.

City of Hanford appears to be the focus of a plan to site a Kings County Re-Entry facility for parolees. The County will offer some alternatives to the board of supervisors in coming weeks before it submit the same to the state in mid-September. County Assistant CAO, Deb West, says state officials visited the area last week and were shown several sites. One likely candidate is a rural site on the edge of town west of Highway 43 and north of 198, she says, just inside the city limits. Another site closer in is considered more controversial. No other town has offered a site agreeable to the state that will fund it.

Tulare County has lost another key planning staffer with the departure last week of Theresa Szymanis who headed up the countywide planning division in charge of long range planning. Szymanis had headed up the big general plan update – still in progress. Szymanis has been replaced by David Claxton who says fellow planner Dave Bryant will complete the work on the county's general plan.

Three Rivers enjoying a banner year for tourists, says Tom Marshall of the Foothill Chamber. “It's because of all the European visitors and the low value of the dollar,” he figures. Rooms are sold out through Labor Day, he says, and “it's been that way all summer.”

Speaking of Three Rivers – Century 21 has just listed the long vacant Shoshone Inn for sale at $4.99 million. The 11.7 acre riverside complex includes a restaurant, convention center space, manicured grounds and plans and infrastructure for 60-plus overnight units. Built in 2002 and open for just a few weeks, the promise of this place as a destination resort has yet to be fulfilled. The grounds feature a nine-hole putting green. Realtor Diana Glass says there are several serious parties interested.

Enrollment in Visalia Unified School District was as of Monday, up XXX students from last year. The elementary schools reported XXx students, while the high schools reported XX students and Middle Schools XXX students.

Target Corporation reported that its net retail sales for the four weeks ending Aug. 2 increased 4.7 percent to $4.5 billion from $4.3 billion for the four weeks ended Aug. 4, 2007. On this same basis, July comparable store sales declined 1.2 percent.

Enrollment at College of the Sequoias increased as the first week of classes approached. As of last Thursday, COS had 11,392 students, up 1,013 or a 10 percent over last fall. The number of units these students are taking is up 12 percent over last fall.

CVS Caremark Corporation announced last week it was purchasing Longs Drug Stores Corporation for $71.50 per share in cash for a total purchase price of $2.9 billion. CVS acquire Longs' 521 retail drugstores in California, Hawaii, Nevada and Arizona as well as its Rx America subsidiary, which offers prescription benefits management ("PBM") services to over 8 million members and prescription drug plan benefits to approximately 450,000 Medicare beneficiaries. CVS said it would change the name of Longs to CVS next year in all stores except in Hawaii. Longs has three stores in Visalia (a fourth is under construction) and one each in Tulare and Porterville.

Visalia area Tulare County Supervisor Phi Cox's campaign committee and campaign treasurer Ralph Anderson were fined $6,000 last week by the California Fair Political Practices Commission for failing to timely file a semi-annual campaign statement and a pre-election campaign statement. The violations occurred in 2004.

The Visalia City Council Monday approved the purchase of a new 105-foot ladder truck. The $763,504 truck will replace a 16-year-old truck and will be stationed at Station 51. It will take 280 days for the truck to be delivered.

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Kaweah Delta Announces North Expansion Schedule

Visalia - With the construction phase of its North Expansion expected to finish in November, the Kaweah Delta Health Care District will start the process of opening up its North Expansion in February. Lindsay K. Mann, CEO of the health care district, provided the following schedule for the $143 million, 220,000-square-foot project in a letter to the California Department of Public Health:

The emergency department is expected to occupy its location in the new building on Feb. 27. The lobby, entrance and first floor corridor should be open on April 13. The maternity services unit will be ready on April 22, the inpatient telemetry unit on May 21, cardiac/ICU on June 3, cardiac surgery ORs 1 and 2 on June 10, cardiac catheterization labs 1 and 2 on June 23, cardiac surgery PR 3 and catheterization lab 3 on July 23, and catheterization lab 4 on Sept. 10.

Time Running Out for state Water Bond

California - Supporters of a $9.3 billion water bond, supported by both Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, are running out of time to place the matter on the November ballot.

“We're stuck behind the stalled budget bill,” says Ron Jacobsma of Friant Water Users. Supporters are miffed by the fact Senate leader Don Perata has not even assigned a bill number to the water measure.

This would be the fourth time a state water bond failed to get legislative support in recent memory. Local Assemblywoman Nicole Parra felt the wrath of fellow Democrats this week as she refused to vote on their budget bill because no water bond bill was attached. Parra was kicked out of her Sacramento office this week.

Supporters hope a package deal linking a budget compromise and water bond might be worked out since the budget compromise calls for changes requiring voter approval be placed on the November ballot as well. Some believe the legislature has until late August to meet the ballot deadline. “It doesn't make sense to get this close on a water bond agreement considering how long it will be until another opportunity comes around,” says Jacobsma.

City Plans Study of Oval Park Area

Visalia - The Visalia City Council Monday approved a contact with TPG Consulting to do a traffic study, urban design plan and a community outreach plan for the Oval park Area.

The City has grants funds for the project designed to further revitalize the Oval Park Area, a goal of the city.
The work will begin in September and will take nine months to complete.

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