Economy Hurts Recycling
Falling Prices Even Hits the Thieves

By Rick Elkins

Tulare County - The prices paid for recyclable materials, including metal and paper products, has fallen so low that the crooks have stopped stealing it.

As the worldwide economy slumped, so did prices paid for recyclables such as aluminum, copper, brass and cardboard. While that drop has hit the thieves - good news for farmers - it has also hit recyclers.

“It's going down in the toilet,” said Victor Guzman, operations manager at Sunset Waste Paper on East Goshen Avenue in Visalia of the price and demand for cardboard.

“Weyerhaeuser used to take two loads a day of cardboard. Now, they don't even want a load. They said 'don't ship anything for 60 days,'” said Guzman. “That's never happened.”

Tulare County Sheriff's Office Capt. Dahl Cleek said they have “had quite a rollercoaster ride this year.” Crime was so bad in early summer that Sheriff Bill Wittman called a Metal Theft Summit to address the epidemic of farm thefts, mostly metals from rural wind machines, pumps or anything metal thieves could get their hands on.

Today, Cleek said they have seen a “significant” drop in those thefts. Unfortunately, he pointed out that the thieves have simply gone from one thing to another, resorting more to the typical home burglary to pay for their drug habit.

“Our burglaries and other general thefts have gone up. Thieves go with what brings the dollars,” said Cleek. He added it is important that people be aware of their surroundings and warned farmers still need to be vigilant in protecting their property.
Beverly Martinez at Tulare Iron and Metal said they have seen an all-time high in prices (last summer) and now an all-time low. She said prices paid for cooper have dropped from $3.50 a pound to 42 cents a pound today. Brass has fallen from $1.98 to 37 cents a pound and stainless steel from $1.15 to 15 cents a pound.

“People were literally quitting their jobs and scrapping,” said Martinez of the good times. But today, she has noticed fewer people coming by with loads of metal products, especially those with “suspicious” loads. “They're not getting the money they were getting,” she said, explaining the drop off.

At Sunset, Guzman said the price paid for cardboard, which they mostly deal with, has slumped from $170 a ton to $20 a ton today. “That doesn't even cover the freight.”

“I've never seen the price this low. The lowest I ever saw was $40 a ton,” he said. Guzman has been with Sunset for 11 years.

He said they have seen the scrap metal price fall from $200 a ton to $25 a ton, and that was a couple of weeks ago. He said it could be lower today.
Last week, the price paid for aluminum and cooper hit three-year lows.

Demand Drops Off

Last summer, China and Korea were importing millions of tons of scrap metal and paper products. Guzman said 90 percent of the cardboard they shipped went overseas. Martinez said the demand for recycled non-ferrous metals has dropped to almost nothing today.

Arthur Boone, education chairman with the Northern California Recycling Association, said the global economic slowdown is the main culprit, but that November and December are normally slow months as well.

He also suspects some buyers are taking advantage by not buying in an attempt to bring down prices. He said 50 percent of all paper made in the U.S. is made from recycled material.

“Scrap is cheaper than virgin material and it requires less energy to produce,” he said of the advantage of using recyclable materials

However, it is the Asian markets that have had the greatest impact. Boone said those overseas markets have dried up. “Target and Toys-R-Us don't feel they'll sell as many toys,” he added.

Boone says one concern of recyclers is what to do with all the material they continue to collect. Guzman agreed, saying they are storing as much as they can on their property, but he doesn't know how long he will be able to do that.

Something else being affected is the cardboard and paper waste Sunset collects from businesses and industries around the area. Guzman said they are no longer paying for what they pick up and while for now they are not charging to pick up the material, that could change too if the drop off in demand goes on for much longer.
“We've never had it quite like this. Everybody's a little scared, a little nervous,” said Boone of the recyclers.

CRV Not Impacted

The price paid for aluminum cans and glass bottles that fall under the California Redemption Value law has not fallen as much because the state sets that price, which is based on the amount charged people when they purchase those products.

However, at some locations the price paid for cans and bottles is not as good as it was when the material had value overseas. Some areas paid as much as $1.90 a pound, even though the state-set redemption is $1.57 a pound. That is what you find recyclers paying today. The same is true for glass and plastic bottles.

In spite of the lower price paid, Guzman said he has seen an increase in the number of people bring in the CRV materials. He said they use to have 60-80 customers a day and now it is 150 a day. That increase has been going on for a couple of months, about the time the economy took a nose dive.

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Mary Chun Returns to Tulare
County to Lead Symphony

By Steve Pastis

Visalia - When Mary Chun conducts the Tulare County Symphony Saturday night at the Visalia Fox Theatre, history could be made.

Symphony officials believe Chun, who graduated from Orosi High School and College of the Sequoias, is the first person from the county to conduct the symphony in its 50 years.

Chun is the third of the six guest conductors auditioning this season to become the symphony's permanent conductor.

“I'm delighted to be one of the finalists and delighted to work with the orchestra,” she said. “I'm so impressed with the legacy of the orchestra.”

Chun's experience includes working with composers such as John Adams, Olivier Messiaen, Libby Larsen and Tan Dunto. She conducted the European and Canadian premiere performances of Adams' hybrid opera “Ceiling/Sky” in Paris, Hamburg and Montreal, and she has had many other conducting engagements throughout the United States and Europe.

Born in Pasadena, Chun is the only child of her parents who was born in the U.S. Her father moved the family to Orosi for a business opportunity – to own and operate the small R-N Market, which she described as “1-1/2 aisles and a meat counter.” Her older brother later expanded the family business into a successful market chain. “I'm very close to my brother,” she said, adding that she visits her family in the area five or six times a year.

Chun said that she didn't have a babysitter when she was growing up. The family market was her “babysitter.” The whole family worked in the market. “I was doing tasks and chores at the age of 5,” she recalled, adding that when she was in the fifth grade, she was operating the cash register.

“Since I was playing the piano then, I became known as the fast cashier,” she said.
When Chun's family was still in China, her father had enough money to send her older sister and brother to missionary school. He didn't have enough money, however, to pay for piano lessons for Chun's sister. He told her that if she worked real hard at school, she would get piano lessons. She did, but her father still could not afford the lessons.

When Chun was old enough to learn to play the piano, however, her father was able to afford lessons for her and wanted to make up for what he couldn't give to her older sister. When she started to play the piano, it felt like “a missing part of me that came back.

“From as far back as I can remember, I had a special connection to music,” she said, recalling the classical music that was featured in the Looney Tunes cartoons. “I was of course, amused by the cartoons, but I could actually hear the instruments, before I had piano lessons.”

Band instruction in the fifth grade led to her playing the clarinet in the Orosi High School marching band. She learned other instruments when she was in high school. “When my classmates were taking physics, I was taking flute,” she said.
“Something clicked in me when I was close to my senior year in high school,” said Chun. “It was actually a piece by Brahms that did it for me. After the first three minutes, the whole world opened up.”

“She was an excellent pianist playing in the high school band and playing the clarinet,” remembers former Cutler-Orosi Unified School District Superintendent Jack Mann, who was the high school principal at the time. “You have kids who come along who are artists or musicians or athletes who are just a notch above all the other kids, with a talent the other kids don't have.”

Mann said that he approached long-time symphony supporter Randy Zeeb with the idea of inviting Chun to guest conduct the symphony. He said he was surprised that Chun was not only interested in guest conducting but was interested in the permanent conductor position.

When Chun started taking music classes at college, she focused on classical music, which encompassed all the basic courses offered. She became a student conductor in college and later an assistant conductor at Berkeley Symphony.

Chun explained that her training as a pianist made it “a natural extension” to become a conductor. “You're having to deal with all the elements of a composition when playing the piano, such as the harmonic, rhythmic and melodic movements,” she said, adding that the piano also provides the sad, happy, transitional and atmospheric elements.

“All music has great fascination for me – television jingles, sitcoms, music on the radio,” said Chun, who said that there is one kind of music she has trouble listening to – Chinese opera, which her parents would listen to on reel-to-reel tapes.
“It's all tragedy and revenge-driven,” she said, although she admitted that she doesn't understand the words. “There's always somebody dying and somebody crying. I can hear anguish and I will just start crying.”

Chun listened to pop and rock music during her high school years, listing the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Chicago among her favorites.

“My least favorite music when I was growing up was country-western, but since then, I've actually gone to Nashville and the Country Music Hall of Fame and I have a great respect for the music,” she said.

Chun currently conducts the award-winning San Francisco ensemble Earplay.
“Earplay is a chamber group that specializes in entirely new contemporary classical music,” she said. “It's all by classically trained composers, but it's all being written now or in the past 10 years.”

The core of the non-commercial, non-profit group consists of six members. The group has performed at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco in its last three concert seasons, and has worked with the Sonoma City Opera. The members also participate in a composition program at San Francisco State University. Earplay has also been on small tours in the Valley, performing in Fresno, Merced and Visalia.
Chun acknowledged that she is “not the stereotypical European white conductor” and she has had to deal with people's image of who a conductor should be. Her master's program required her to enter the conducting class of a well-known professor, who was also a member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. She was one of five students seeking the four positions available that year – and the only female student. The professor informed her that she had to take his course in orchestration first. She told him she did and received an A. He then told her about several other prerequisites, such as form and design, and she had the same response.

The professor decided to accept all five applicants that year. She noticed that none of the other applicants received the same questioning. “It was definitely a gender thing,” she said.

Chun said that she encountered the old school European belief that “girls do not conduct” when she was in Germany on “a bus and truck tour” with the East Slovakia State Opera. When she met the local crew and was introduced as the conductor, “to a person, they would sort of snicker,” she said. “Not only was I a woman, but I was an Asian woman.”

After the pre-show soundcheck was over and the crew had a chance to see that she was indeed the conductor, however, “they were falling all over themselves to be helpful,” she said.

As a conductor, she said that she enjoys working with 80 to 90 individuals to get to the same objective and goal, “to bring everybody to the same place and bring everybody to the same level – to play beyond what they think they're capable of playing.”

Chun is also one of only two professional players in the U.S. of the ondes martenot musicales, a rare electric keyboard invented by Maurice Martenot in France in 1928.

For tickets or more information, call the symphony office at 732-8600.

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Cooperative Effort to Help
Small Town Water Systems

By John Lindt

Tulare & Kings County - With few exceptions, Tulare and Kings communities continue to suffer water problems – both in quality and quantity. Speaking of the Tulare Lake Basin's westside water supply, there is “very little of it and that little was certain to be, if any, short of poison,” quipped historian Frank Latta.

Farming has always been the way we use water in these parts and the reason there isn't enough.

While alkali, arsenic and hydrogen sulfide make for a witch's brew on the western area of the big bathtub we call Tulare Lake, the small towns of the eastside often suffer from high nitrate levels.

The region has scores of small farm worker villages – colonias – that are poor, isolated and often have outdated water and sewer systems. They are also in the middle of production farms including fields, orchards and dairies.

“About 20 percent of the community water systems in Tulare County have high nitrate contamination,” says water activist Laurel Firestone of Visalia – the highest percentage of any county in the state. While nitrates occur naturally, Firestone believes that the high numbers seen here are a result of human-caused contamination from fertilizers, manure or septic systems most likely.

The small towns – often no more than a cluster of houses – are familiar names here – places that for city folk are largely out of mind but that have been around from the turn of the century, often on backwater roads.

You can name them from north to south: Traver, London, Doyle Colony, Yettem, Cutler, Seville, Orosi, East Orosi, Ivanhoe, Tooleville, Tonyville, Strathmore, Woodville, Poplar, Cotton Center, Richgrove, Teviston, Pixley, Earlimart, Alpaugh, Allensworth, Ducor and Terra Bella. Without exception, they all have problems with their water and most have high nitrates – a real problem for pregnant moms and babies and a potential carcinogen.

Nitrates are both naturally occurring like arsenic in Valley soils and are also a product of agriculture – fertilizer and manure.

While there has been a major focus on the role that dairies play in potential groundwater problems, the “disadvantaged” towns listed above are mostly away from dairies – many of them are in the county's foothill and citrus belt area.

Firestone believes in the strategy of working with local leadership to resolve these problems as part of the equation, but that continued regulatory pressure to monitor dairies and require ag to reign in its irrigation practices are also part of the solution. She faults the current “ag waiver” rule, for example.

Besides these several key contaminants of the basin's drinking water, groundwater degradation from DBCP, a pesticide used to kill nematodes for decades that spread in sandy soils in the region, required a massive cleanup program paid for by the manufacturers of DBCP and affected many Tulare County towns.

Digging Deeper

To reach beyond these toxic contaminants, water suppliers have been digging deeper for safe drinking water, at a time when the water table is dropping from drought.

In the past year, a concerted effort has begun to address Tulare County water issues in the form of an advisory board approved by the county board of supervisors. In July 2007, the group - the Tulare County Water Commission - met for the first time, chaired by Supervisor Allen Ishida. Ishida, who lives in Lindsay and is very familiar with water issues with nitrates and DBCP hitting his home town. “I believe the county is now focusing on small town water systems like never before,” Ishida said.

Also on that water commission are political leaders, civil engineers, irrigation officials, farmers, as well as community activists including Paul Boyer, city of Farmersville council member and Self Help Enterprises staffer. The housing agency works with small towns around the Valley to upgrade their drinking water and waste water systems, often with USDA help.

Also on the commission is Laurel Firestone, an attorney who came to the Valley with the Center for Race Poverty and the Environment (CRPE) out of Delano, who together with co-director Susana DeAnda organized a spinoff organization called Community Water Center in Visalia two years ago. The advocacy group works with low income communities in the county, raising money for projects and advocates for legislation both locally and at the state level. Clearly this group's actions have helped bring new money to Tulare County.

While dairies are not to blame for the poor water quality in East Orosi, Toolevile or Strathmore, perhaps a strategy has been to focus on big dairies as a target to help raise money in Sacramento. That is a lot sexier than pointing to outdated septic systems that often contaminate drinking water in many poor towns.

While the focus of CRPE has already been litigation and much of that against the area's “mega dairy” industry – the Community Water Center's practical focus, at least locally, appears to be more cooperative than confrontational.

“Of course we aren't against agriculture. Most of our clients live and work in agriculture,” notes Firestone, although they continue to lobby for tighter regulatory standards on both irrigated ag and dairies.

Lobbying Successful

Instead, Firestone and DeAnda worked the halls of Sacramento in the past year, joining up with Tulare County's recent interest in addressing the persistent water problems and helping to land several major grants for Tulare County.

Among the bills approved by the legislature was $2 million allocated to the state Water Resource Control Board for pilot programs to clean up nitrate contaminated groundwater in the Tulare Lake Basin and the Salinas Valley.

In addition, another $2 million has been allocated directly to Tulare County to develop an integrated water quality and wastewater treatment plan specifically aimed at those small disadvantaged communities in the lake basin.

Among the potential solutions: community cooperative solutions like pipelines, regional drinking water facilities, regional wastewater programs, conjunctive use and recharge projects.

Key to cooperative efforts are plans to blend ground water with surface water through irrigation districts that have federal irrigation contracts. In this way, the irrigation districts of the county could potentially use high nitrate water for irrigation by trading surface water that is low in nitrates for safe drinking purposes. That would be a win/win situation that could be pursued locally.

The money could be used to carry out some efforts already underway including a potential pipeline from Exeter to the small town of Tooleville whose water distribution system is being rebuilt this winter with the help of both Boyer and Firestone's group.

Until now, cities have been discouraged by state laws from hooking up poor neighbors to their water systems, forcing the larger city to pay prevailing wages on all water projects if they help their neighbor the way Visalia did for Goshen - hooking it up to its sewer system - or for what Tulare would like to do for the low income Matheny tract.

In addition, several pilot programs affiliated with Fresno State California Water Institute are in the works. One potential pilot program with Yettem would blend impacted high nitrate groundwater with a cleaner ag groundwater to deliver safer water to residents for drinking. The other pilot program in Strathmore would blend high nitrate groundwater with cleaner surface water from the Friant-Kern canal to deliver safe drinking water to area residents.

To fund projects long term, Firestone and local leaders are counting on funds approved by voters through Prop. 84 and 1E for water infrastructure. The state Department of Public Health has $50 million in grants available for disadvantaged communities.

“Whatever systems we install, we know they have to be affordable,” explains Firestone, knowing that poor communities can't pay for multimillion dollar infrastructure projects.

An intriguing series of projects being promoted by Valley consultant Miguel Lopez plans to build a series of pilot wastewater treatment plants in Traver, Selma and Orange Cove with the Traver project coordinated with the county redevelopment agency using patented biological technology used in Korea. The new technology was presented this past month to the Tulare County Water Commission.

Korean Technology

The same technology may be able to be used to clean dairy manure before it becomes a groundwater problem and a USDA grant is being applied for with two local dairies to test the process. Both the sewer and dairy projects would be underwritten and financed by the Korean company that Lopez represents. He is the brother of Orange Cove Mayor Victor Lopez - a sparkplug for water projects and other economic development projects himself. The lobbying has also attracted retired Assemblyman Bill Maze as an investor in Miguel Lopez's company, EcoTech USA.

“That Korean technology could have major implications for our dairy industry,” said Ishida at the recent Water Commission meeting – if joint use facilities for cleaning manure waste could be developed rather than allow manure to sit in a lagoon or applied to farmland to disperse it.

“We demand large distances between dairies in Tulare County to apply manure on surrounding farmland and this could change that policy,” speculates Ishida. In turn, that could benefit the economics of dairying here when you have to buy several hundred acres of land to build a new dairy in order to spread the manure.

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Porterville School District Going Green

By Rick Elkins

Porterville - The Central Valley's first “green” school will be built in Porterville if plans by the Burton School District progress forward as expected.

Burton District, which consists of five elementary and middle school campuses and a charter elementary and high school, hopes to construct its sixth non-charter school campus to standards that will certify it as a Green Building, meaning it is environmentally friendly and energy efficient.

“We feel very fortunate to be partnering with Perkins+Will (architects) on this project,” said Jeff Bottoms, Burton District assistant superintendent.

He said when the district began discussing its next elementary campus – to be built at Lombardi Avenue, north of Westfield Street – it looked for a firm that could not only design something that was energy-efficient, but also cost-effective to build.

“They (Perkins+Will) showed us some stuff that was very impressive and showed us we could do it more energy efficiently,” said Bottoms. The company has designed other “green” schools in the state, including one near Sacramento.

Eric Brossy de Dios, project manager with Perkins+Will, said the target is the building will see 60 percent savings in energy usage, or at least 25 percent greater than the energy code requires.

“It will qualify it as a certified green project,” he said, and that will qualify the district for extra funding. The district has already received Hardship District status, meaning it qualifies for full funding of the project so there is no need for local funds or a bond measure.

Key to the construction of the two-story main building will be pre-made tilt-up concrete walls that have insulation in the middle. De Dios said the insulation in the middle helps to absorb heat from the outside and keep in heat or cooling inside. Plus, he said, “It is very cost effective structural material and it is non-flammable.”
Bottoms said other features of the school will be:

· Interior concrete thermal walls.
· High performance Low E glass.
· High efficiency air conditioning and heating units.
· Day lit classrooms to reduce the needs for interior lighting. Light tubes will be constructed to let light into classrooms, even down to the first floor.
· Very low-flow water fixtures and drought-resistant landscaping.
· Storm water captured on site and re-percolated into the aquifer.
· “Cool” highly reflective roof material.

The district is in the design stage now and hopes to have the school open by the fall semester of 2011.

“We'll find out about funding in July. If everything goes well, we could be breaking ground in Nov. '09.

The two-story classroom will be for grades 1-4 and there will be six separate classrooms for kindergarten classes.”

De Dios said that while solar is not being planned as part of the project right now, the design will be done to allow for solar to be added at a later date. Solar panels, if installed, would be on the roof, he said.

De Dios the goal of the construction is not just energy efficiency. He said it is the use of recycled materials in the construction, storm water runoff and landscaping that uses little or no water. “We will try to avoid large areas of turf that needs irrigation,” he said.

“Sustainability is a focus of ours. It's another way of saying 'green building.' For school districts, it is particularly important to address health of students, have a more durable building and save energy and water,” he added.

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City Lines Up Projects for Stimulus Funding

By Rick Elkins

Should Congress enact a Main Street stimulus package, the city of Visalia wants to be in a position to receive some of that money.

The Visalia City Council has approved spending $600,000 from the General Fund and up to $450,000 from the Transit Enterprise Fund to get projects ready, should the stimulus package become reality.

The city, with input from the Visalia Unified School District and Tulare County Housing Authority, came up with a list that was included with the United States Conference of Mayors' list submitted in urging Congress to come up with the Main Street Stimulus package to help local economies.

The Visalia list includes $125 million in projects that could potentially provide an estimated 2,454 jobs locally.

“I think we're a long ways away,” Leslie Caviglia, deputy city manager, said of any prospects of receiving money.

“We are taking a pro-active approach to this possible grant funding,” Chris Tavarez, management analyst with the city, told the council. Projects ready for construction in early 2009 will most likely have a chance of receiving stimulus funding.

The Conference of Mayors is pursuing a $150 billion package, but no legislation has been introduced. Caviglia said the city hopes to have its plans in place by April 1.
“As many citizens and small businesses saw their tax money going to help Wall Street, there was serious concern over the federal government seemingly ignoring the needs of Main Street America,” said the mayors' group in announcing support for the package.

“All initiatives of our Main Street Stimulus meet the jobs and infrastructure criteria of quick short-term investments to stimulate Main Street with jobs for unemployed workers and economic activity for businesses in our metro areas,” the mayors' group added.

With the goal of the economic stimulus package to inject funding into the economy as soon as possible, all listed projects were estimated to be able to begin construction in 2009.

The projects included on the Visalia list cover a myriad of projects, from the new SPCA animal control facility and the Sequoia Shuttle Visitors Center, to modernization of school campuses in Visalia.

The city came up with 2,454 jobs being created, based on information provided by the State of California that one job is created for every $45,000 of project cost.
“We will throw all our projects planned over the next few year against the wall and see what sticks,” says Council Member Greg Collins.

Mayor Jesus Gamboa was also supportive of the plan. “We surely in the past have benefitted from being prepared,” he said.

Caviglia said all of the projects will be needed to be done at some point, so the city is not wasting its time or money planning for them.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd have announced details of a $100 billion economic stimulus bill that they said would create more than 635,000 jobs and give new help to struggling domestic automakers, but the Main Street package is not part of the current plans to bail out the ailing auto industry.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors has estimated that 4,591 infrastructure projects, at a cost of $24.4 billion, are “ready to go” and that they would immediately create jobs and “stimulate main street economies.”

The package appears to have the backing of President-elect Barack Obama.
The two major projects on the city's wish list are the animal control facility estimated at $6 million and the transit operations maintenance facility expansion at $4 million.

Other projects on the list include:

· Multi-Modal Transit Center Expansion, $3 million
· Sequoia Shuttle Visitor Center, $3 million
· Transit Center expansion for Amtrak, $3 million

The city has also identified $43 million in highway projects, including the Plaza Drive interchange and Ben Maddox overcrossing; $33 million in energy projects including solar on city facilities; $9 million in airport improvements including Westside hangar development; $5.9 million in school projects; and $8 million for public safety jobs and technology.

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What's New

The Visalia-Tulare-Porterville metropolitan area ranked 268th out of 338 metropolitan areas with the lowest crime rates in the United States, by CQ Press. The Hanford-Lemoore-Corcoran metropolitan area ranched 114th on the list, the best of all metropolitan areas in the Central Valley. Madera ranked 157th and Fresno 257th.

Tulare County Economic Development Corporation CEO Paul Saldana says most businesses and industries in Tulare County are holding their own in these tough economic times. “What we have the most is everybody's being cautious,” he said. He did say some companies that were eying locating a plant in Tulare County appear to be holding off making a final decision until there is a clearer picture of the economy.

For the first time in history, Tulare County saw more than 100,000 people vote in an election. Final figures from the Tulare County Elections Division showed that 106,551 people cast their ballots in the Nov. 4 general election. That tops the previous high number of voters by more than 8,000. As more ballots were counted, the turnout climbed to 72.77 percent for the election. Of those who voted, 39,218 voted absentee.

COS has extended the search for a director of Agricultural Education because the college had just a couple of applicants. The position will now begin July 1.

Fran Florez finally conceded defeat to Republican Danny Gilmore in the 30th Assembly district race that had been too close to call since Election Day, Nov.4. Gilmore's margin of victory was less than 1,000 votes out of more than 80,000 cast. According to the Secretary of State's web site, Gilmore received 42,788 votes to 41,905 for Democrat Florez.

The city of Porterville will hold a second community meeting Dec. 8 on plans by Wal-Mart to build a supercenter in the Riverwalk Shopping Center at Jaye Street and Highway 190. The meeting is from 6 to 8 p.m. at the City Council Chambers, 291 N. Main St., Porterville.

Only eight permits for new homes were issued by the city of Visalia last month, the lowest total since before 1996. The drop-off in new home permits probably means the city will issue less than 500 permits for new housing this year, the lowest total in more than a decade. So far, the city has issued 478 new home permits. Construction activity has slowed down in almost all areas. There was only just one permit for multi-family (4-unit apartment); two for new commercial ($1.5 million total valuation, one of those Ross Dress for Less in Orchard Walk Shopping Center); and 68 for residential alterations. Total valuation for the month was just $6.4 million, the lowest since January 2000.

General Growth Properties, Inc., owner of the Visalia Mall, has reached an interim agreement with the holder of $58 million in notes to extend the maturity date of the notes to Dec. 11. The company, which has an ownership interest in or management responsibility for a portfolio of more than 200 regional shopping malls in 44 states, announced last month that it could file for bankruptcy because it is having trouble refinancing its debt. The company's stock went from around $40 a share this summer to 85 cents a share a few days ago.

The city of Porterville cancelled its contract with the Lindsay Police Department for animal control services. The city is going to provide its own animal control service.

Wholesale lumber prices are down to $190 per 1,000 board feet this week, reflecting framing prices that haven't been seen since 2001 and falling from about $460 in late 2004. The price to build a house appears to reflect what houses are selling for right now – around $140,000 average in Visalia – the prices we saw here in 2001. Meanwhile, companies selling that lumber have seen all their costs drop as quickly as the price they get for their wood. Witness the closure this past month of Keith Brown building materials in Downtown Visalia, a small chain of 10 lumber stores on the West Coast that caters to area builders.

Interest rates are down this week with FHA loans going for 5.5% and Visalia homes selling with a median price of $140,000 in November, according to the local MLS. FHA loans are popular this winter with one in three loans either VA or FHA, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Long term rates on mortgages have not been falling as fast as short term rates but that could be changing. Ten-year notes tied to mortgage rates are the lowest ever as of Dec. 1 (2.69%). Sales are up with MLS statistics showing the days on the Visalia/Tulare market have dropped from 105 this time last year to 74. The MLS statistics show 227 residential units sold in November 2008, compared to 192 during the month of November 2007. Activity is picking up with pending sales for November 2008 at 333, compared to 192 during the month of November 2007.

County Planning Commissioner Shirley Kirkpatrick will be stepping down this year from her position after 20 years of service. The commission will hold a retirement party for Shirley at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 17 in the RMA Planning Commission Room in Visalia. Kirkpatrick is an Exeter farmer and journalist and long time advocate of saving farmland.

Groppetti Automotive has relocated its Toyota dealership from East Main Street to south of 198 on Ben Maddox in Visalia, with its new showroom where all its big selling import lines are now displayed.

The Visalia Rawhide is seeing an increase in pre-season ticket sales as work nears completion on Recreation Ballpark. The ballclub announced its pre-season ticket sales are up 30 percent over last year.

Gov. Schwarzenegger declared another state fiscal emergency Monday and ordered the state Legislature back into session to come up with a plan to address the $11.2 billion current year revenue shortfall. In doing so, the governor called a Proposition 58 legislative special session that gives the Legislature 45 days to pass and send a bill or bills to the Governor's desk addressing the state's budget crisis. If the 45 days pass and the legislature has not passed bills to address the problem, they cannot adjourn or act on other bills until the state's fiscal emergency is addressed.

Gas prices continue to slide downward and where they will stop nobody knows. As of Tuesday, the average price of a gallon of unleaded regular was $1.940 in the Visalia area, down more than 75 cents a gallon from a month ago and off $1.50 cents a gallon from a year ago. Diesel prices also continue to drop, now down to $2.738 per gallon, a dollar less than a year ago. While $1.940 is the average, drivers can find gas for as cheap as $1.70 a gallon at some stations.

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Valley Rail
Activity Heats Up

Lots of interest and activity in rail now with the passage of the High Speed Rail Bond last month. Efforts continue to lobby for a potential station between Hanford and Visalia with an alternate study of five other locations.

The new 200 mph trains could start up as soon as 2014 by one estimate, while others suggest 2018 but only if federal funds are coming.

Some other developments:

• The Caltrans-sponsored San Joaquin Valley Rail Committee will take up a resolution in January to ask Caltrans to fund a needs study to connect passengers along the Union Pacific line along Highway 99 by feeder trains.

• AMTRAK is funding a double tracking improvement to the existing passenger rail line near Hanford.

• Valley Council of Governments is pushing to keep the eastside rail line from Bakersfield to Fresno intact, encouraging Tulare County to buy up abandoned lines that are for sale to maintain the corridor. Also, a new player – Patriot Rail – says it may run and expand the short line on the eastside of the Valley through Tulare County – something it does in other parts of the country.

City Picks Site for
Sequoia Visitors Center

The city of Visalia has decided that the convention center would be the best location for the proposed Sequoia Shuttle Visitors Center.

A committee was formed to study possible locations for the visitors center and was to make a decision early next year. However, the decision was moved up with the possibility the city could receive federal stimulus funding for the project.
The recommendation is to utilize the separate building at the southeast corner of the convention center.

“The committee recommended the convention center site for a number of reasons, including accessibility from the freeway, proximity to the downtown, cutout parking on Acequia for RVs, trailers, etc, available vehicular parking at the center and the parking structure across the street, adjacency to two hotels and the convention center, and land availability,” the staff report stated.

On Monday, the council approved spending up to $450,000 for the design of the center so the project would be ready to go should Congress pass a Main Street Stimulus package. (See related story on page 1.)

Citizen Honored for
Assisting Police

Dr. Lyle Stillwater was honored by the Visalia City Council Monday night for his assistance in capturing a bank robbery suspect in November.

On Nov. 7, Dr. Stillwater noticed a man fleeing the bank. He followed the man, called police and directed them to the man.

“What he did afterwards was instrumental in capturing the suspect,” said Sgt. Brian Winter. He added the robber was found with the money and the note he handed the teller.

Dr. Stillwater, who is a graduate of the Police Citizens Academy, took the recognition in stride. “Hopefully most citizens in the city would do the same thing,” he said.

Allen Group Sells Two Industrial Buildings

The Allen Group has sold two industrial buildings in Visalia, according to Jon Cross, the company's marketing director.
The buyer is Alexander & Baldwin, Inc. of Hawaii, which owns the Matson shipping line that ships regularly to China and back to Los Angeles ports. The company had 2007 revenue of $1.68 billion.

The two buildings are Mid State Number 2 and Mid State Number 4, both on Ferguson in the Visalia Industrial Park. The two buildings are leased. One is the 250,000-square-foot building leased to International Paper.

The California-based Allen Group has a total of six industrial buildings used as distribution centers in the industrial park. Goods stored in Visalia include many made in the Far East.

Other sales of Visalia properties by the Allen Group are expected to close in January.

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