By Rick Elkins

Visalia - Later this month, some Visalia school children will ride to and from school in buses with seatbelts and while the safety additions may decrease the chance of minor injuries in an accident, the installation of the safety devices means increased costs for schools.

Visalia Unified School District took delivery earlier this month of four buses equipped with seatbelts and two of the buses are expected to be put into service this month and the two others by the middle of March.

As of July 2006, California required all new school buses must be equipped with three-point seatbelts – that is lap and shoulder harnesses -- but some question the benefits for the costs.

Stan Carrizosa, VUSD superintendent, said school buses have the best safety record of any means of transportation, an assertion that Terry White, VUSD director of administrative services, backed.

“It's pretty hard to improve on the safety record,” said White, noting that school buses are large and solid. “Buses are built safe. It (adding seatbelts) may help in some of those bumps and bruises,” said White.

While the law requires buses to be equipped with seatbelts, it does not require students to wear them or for the driver to be responsible for the children to wear them. White said it would be impossible for a driver to monitor 62 students at all times. However, the district will try to enforce seatbelt compliance by students.

The biggest challenge is the addition of seatbelts means fewer seats, which will mean the need for more buses, more drivers, more routes and more fuel.

The largest of the buses, 40-feet long, will be able to carry only 62 students, compared to the 84 the old buses can carry. White said the buses have 13 rows with five seats across – three on one side and two on the other of the aisle. The 84-passenger buses have 14 rows of six seats each.

While the buses were paid for from a special Caltrans fund and not from district funds, the cost of paying the drivers, fuel and maintenance will fall on the district. White said for every three buses the district replaces, four new ones will have to be purchased. That means the district's fleet of 80 buses will grow to at least 100 buses. That means 20 more drivers and 25 percent more miles at just seven gallons of gas a mile.

“It's really a funding issue,” he said, explaining that every dollar that goes into transportation comes out of the district's general fund.

Right now, the district is only adding the four buses because none of the older buses are ready to be retired. White said the average usage of a bus is 20-30 years. “We need to be buying at least four a year,” said White, noting the district is behind that pace.

VUSD transports 4,500 students each day to and from school and collectively the buses travel about 750,000 miles a year and another 100,000 miles for field and athletic trips. The new buses are all powered by compressed natural gas.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), school buses are one of the safest forms of transportation in the United States. Every year, approximately 450,000 public school buses travel about 4.3 billion miles to transport 23.5 million children to and from school and school-related activities. Yet, on average, every year, six school age children (throughout the U.S.) die in school bus crashes as passengers, reported the NHTSA.

In addition, reported the NHTSA, school buses are approximately seven times safer than passenger cars or light trucks. According to the NHTSA, that is because large school buses are heavier and distribute crash forces differently than do passenger cars and light trucks. The NHTSA decided that the best way to provide crash protection to passengers of large school buses is through a concept called “compartmentalization.” This requires that the interior of large buses provide occupant protection such that children are protected without the need to buckle-up.

In 1989, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) completed a study of ways to improve school bus safety and concluded that the overall potential benefits of requiring seat belts on large school buses were insufficient to justify a Federal mandate for installation.

However, after consider pressure, the California Legislature passed a law in 2005 requiring all new large school buses built after July 1, 2006 to be equipped with seatbelts.

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Mearle's Brings $700,000, but Future Unknown

By Miles Shuper

Visalia - The battle for ownership of Mearle's Drive-In, the faded pink symbol of the Happy Days era of fast food and social gatherings, is over, but just what will become of the Visalia icon is still unclear.

The Kazarian family of Fresno, which already owned one-half of the fabled Mooney Boulevard building and property, made the winning $700,000 bid last Thursday, topping the efforts of a group of Visalians wanting to save and restore the restaurant closed since August 2006.

The auction was the result of a dispute and lawsuits between the two families who shared ownership, the Kazarians and Patricia, Edna and Elizabeth Bruce.

With the Bruce family favoring seeing Mearle's kept as a community treasure and the Kazarians not committing to that, area residents were successful in getting the City of Visalia to add the eatery to the register of local historic buildings. At least for the immediate future that designation blocks demolition of the building.

After the auction, Michael Kazarian said the family has no plans to tear down the building and plans to have some kind of hamburger stand or other restaurant at the site, but he would not be more specific. “The building will remain there,” he said, but wouldn't say it would still be Mearle's or a look-alike restaurant.

Nostalgia was in abundance at the auction which attracted former customers, the curious and others including its namesake, 85-year-old Mearle Heitzman who owned the restaurant from 1961 to 1995.

After the sale, Heitzman and his wife, Marilyn, were surrounded by friends and supporters. He said he had not taken a side during the auction but hoped that someone would spend the time and money to return it to the way it used to be. He said it certainly could be a money-maker.

Upon retirement, Heitzman sold Mearle's to Melissa Ward, a former employee, and her sister, Barbara Murch. In September 2003, a kitchen fire put it out of business for four months. Hard times continued, including a costly legal battle over access for the disabled. Legal costs and subsequent construction costs were too much to overcome and in August 2006, Ward was evicted.

Fear of Mearle's being demolished was the spark which ignited a major effort by a number of Visalians wanting to keep their beloved Mearle's, where for decades burgers, fries, milkshakes, ice cream cones and sodas along other goodies were served by roller skating car hops or apron-clad waitresses. Burgers with twice as many french fries than a “super scoop,” along with a soda or shake were part of the Visalia social scene for many Visalians, many of them baby boomers.

Architect Rick Mangini and his wife, Susan, and five other couples, formed SMB (Save Mearle's Building), pooling funds in an attempt to buy the site. Others in the group included Doug and Annie Silveria, Craig and Jennifer Van Horn, Joe and Renae Mackey and two unnamed couples.

Moments after losing out in the bidding, the group, most of them wearing Mearle's T-shirts, issued a statement thanking the outpouring of community support along with a plea that the winning bidders “will protect and save it.”

The statement, handed to the media as several dozen onlookers, some with traces of tears in their eyes, still milled around the Mooney icon, included both disappointment and hope that at least the building will still stand.

“The group that we formed to try to purchase the building, restore it and bring it back to its original beautiful status as an icon of the 1940s and '50s pop culture and architecture is very disappointed that we won't be able to fulfill that dream for our community.

“There are many who copy the style, but this is the real thing, one of a handful left in this country. It deserves to be saved. We hope and pray that those who have bought it will protect and save it.”

Investor Anne Silveria told The Voice, “all the effort would have been wasted if we can't just save the building that everyone loves. Of course it won't be Mearle's.”
While just what will become of the gutted building is unclear, comments by Michael Kazarian and his father, Ralph “Sonny” Kazarian, that the structure will stand caught most people off guard.

“Frankly, we were blown away by the statement of the Kazarians that they would try to put a restaurant in the building. We understood they wanted to bulldoze the place,” said Mangini.

Rick and Susan Mangini spent most of a year, along with others, working on ideas and plans to upgrade Mearle's to bring it up to code and potentially expand it to make it more profitable. With permission from the Bruce family, they took measurements and drafted plans which would have doubled the seating capacity of the old restaurant, Rick Mangini said.

It was evident that the 50 to 75 people gathered in the parking lot of the art deco symbolic eatery were aware they were witnessing a chapter in the history of not only Visalia, but American pop culture. Would Merle's be saved or gone forever - or something in between?

The actual bidding took only about 10 minutes starting shortly after 11 a.m. Some confusion and concerns over auction rules produced a few angry moments and a threat by Sonny Kazarian to call off the event.

Some potential bidders were told they had to produce cash or a cashier's check for the full amount of their potential highest bid at the site while others believed they had until 5 p.m. that afternoon to have all their funds. Potential bidders were given one hour to produce the funds.

Lance Armo, attorney representing the Kazarian family, maintained that the cash or check had to be shown to Jeff Baird, a Fresno auctioneer and appraiser who conducted the auction. Mangini and his group, and several supporters including a banking official, were initially reluctant to show their check, citing concern that the bid could be run up if it were known how much there were willing to bid. Bidders were not allowed to exceed the amount they had verified to the auctioneer. Baird explained he was hired on a flat rate basis and not on a percentage of sale price basis. Eventually, four bidders were registered but only the Kazarians and the Save Mearle's Building group bid as offers swept past $150,000.

Don Groppetti, who did the bidding for the Visalia group, upped the bid by large amounts several times only to be topped by Michael Kazarian, who repeatedly upped the bid in $5,000 increments.

It was evident the Visalians had reached their limit when Kazarian bid $700,000.

The next several weeks, more probably months, should make it clearer what really lies ahead for the site. While the historic preservation designation stands in the way of immediate demolition, the new owners can make a case that it “is not feasible” to refurbish the building and go to the Visalia City Council for a decision. A top city official said it would be difficult for the council to reject that contention.

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Rec Park Improvements Likely to be Scaled Back

Visalia - Plans to scale back renovations at Recreation Park have the approval of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the parent team of the minor league Visalia Oaks, and minor league baseball, said Tom Seidler, president and general manager of the Visalia Oaks.

The Visalia City Council is expected Feb. 25 to award a contract for Phase I of the improvements to the 60-year-old ballpark, but shelve plans for the second phase.
Phase I includes a new entrance, new seating, a corporate hospitality lounge, new Oaks administrative and ticket offices, a new concession stand and merchandise store, all along the right field line.

Phase II, scheduled for next year, would have included new and expanded seating behind home plate, shade for the grandstand, a new press box, four private indoor suites and remodeled player dugouts.

“We're going to move forward,” said Council Member Don Landers of the first phase after bids came in about $2.5 million higher than was allocated. Landers serves on a city committee that reviewed the bids and is forwarding its recommendation to the full council. The lowest bid is for $7.74 million and Phase II is expected to be at least as expensive. “The budget is $11.6 million -- period. I don't see us going over it,” said Landers.

When Top of the Third, the company which manages the Oaks, approached the city a couple of years ago for improvements to the ballpark, Landers said the city was told it would cost roughly $5 million. That was quickly adjusted to $11.6 million and the council agreed to that amount for the entire project, but Landers said it is unlikely it will exceed that amount.

Seidler said he can accept the city's reluctance to spend more than $11.6 million and is pleased to see some improvements on the horizon.

“For the first time in 30 years, there is a dual commitment between the ballclub and the city,” he said of the plans. “This will provide fans some of the amenities most of the minor league ballparks have.”

Seidler said if the city does award the contract next week, then work can begin this summer and be in place for the start of the 2009 season. The Oaks open their home season this year on April 17.

“We hope to make Recreation Park a primary gathering place, not just for baseball,” said Seidler of the improvements.

He said the Phase II improvements will have to wait. “We plan to revisit the grandstand improvements at a later date. We don't feel the ballpark will be complete until grandstand improvements are done.”

However, he said both the Diamondbacks and minor league baseball have reviewed the city's plans and are OK with them. And, the improvements that will be done will bring the park into conformance with major league baseball standards.

“It does work and it's a great improvement,” said Seidler. “The key is getting the mandated requirements.”

Landers said the improvements are needed because the ballpark is an important part of the community.

“We've had some significant players come through this town. It's just one more component of a complete community,” like soccer fields, like the convention center. “To have a complete community, the city is going to have to contribute funds to make it better.”

Seidler said when completed, the improvements will give the stadium a seating capacity of 2,400, an increase of 200 seats. However, during construction the stadium will lose 800 seats, cutting back capacity to 1,300 seats for this season. The improved scoreboard will be in place, including with a line score feature, and the lights will be reinstalled again along the right field line.

Phase II would have increased seating to 3,200, about half of most Class A ballparks.

Expected to be added to the Phase I work will be the new dugouts, which are required to meet the major league standards. Seidler said it looks like now that work will be done after this season ends in September and the dugouts will be cut out of the existing berm along the first and third base lines.

The city agreed to the improvements as part of a 10-year commitment by the Diamonds. That agreement will now need to be amended to reflect that the city will not be able to do Phase II. Seidler does not expect any problems with the new agreement, which will also be on the Feb. 25 agenda.

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Kohl's on a Roll
Department Store Eyes Locations in Porterville, Tulare and Hanford

Tulare County - Fast growing department store chain Kohl's wants to expand coast to coast with some 1,200 stores by the end of 2010. The Wisconsin-based family oriented retailer currently has 834 stores, far outpacing rival retailers by exploding from just 10 stores in 1979. Likewise, the retailer blew into California opening 28 stores in southern California in 2003 and another 40 in California in 2004, including Visalia.

Now the chain, with a new distribution center in Patterson, California, is preparing a new wave of moderately priced merchandise stores that competes with discounters and small department stores. The chain has announced it will open 90 more stores in 2008, including in the west.

Local brokers say Kohl's wants to build 10 stores in the Central Valley in smaller markets and will serve them in smaller store formats of 68,000 square feet – a little smaller than the 88,000-square-foot Visalia store.

In Tulare and Kings counties, those smaller markets appear to be Porterville, Tulare and Hanford, where pending store deals are all in the works perhaps not coincidently – at the same time.

Porterville Plans

In Porterville, developer Ennis Commercial is working with Michael's and Kohl's as the main “junior anchors” at the planned Riverwalk shopping center at Jaye and 190, confirms Manuel Ramirez, vice president for development with Ennis Commercial Properties. The two retailers would be sandwiched between the new Lowe's and a proposed Wal-Mart. Ramirez says the company's real estate committee will be taking up a potential approval for the Porterville location at the end of February. “We're very excited to bring this retailer to town.”

Ramirez remarks that the appeal attracting the retailer to the center is that “it's a destination.” He says the store compares with a JC Penney – a company that has ignored Porterville even as other retailers look to serve the area. Ramirez says the new Riverwalk shopping center has also signed up eateries to locate in the center, including El Pollo Loco and Panda Express. If Kohl's was to decide to move forward, it could open a store in 2009, he says. Ramirez says construction will begin on four buildings in the center before the end of the first quarter of this year.

Cartmill Crossing

In Tulare, a massive 1.1-million-square-foot shopping center is being planned at Cartmill and Highway 99. The 130-acre center could break ground in the fall of 2009 and open in September 2010. That new center, anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter, could include a new Kohl's, according to reliable sources who say the company's real estate committee is taking the matter up by the end of February – the same time as in Porterville. This center – in the planning stage since 2004 – will be moving forward with a draft EIR to be released in about three months, according to the City of Tulare.

In addition, project developers are said to be talking to other big retailers not in Tulare including Gottschalks.

The shopping center would already be Tulare County's largest, but add the million square feet of outlet mall expected to the south, and Tulare could be a retail behemoth in the future.

Hopes for Hanford

Hanford, too, could be getting a new Kohl's in the next year and the company has been scouting the town's fast-growing retail district for a site for the past half year. Real estate sources say Kohl's is taking a close look at being one of possibly two or three new retailers that would be located at the former Wal-Mart store – now owned by Redwood Real Estate Partners of Orange County. That building, at 126,000 square feet, has enough room for a new Kohl's and a second retailer that could re-occupy the space without much regulatory approval. That could speed up the time line if Kohl's wants to pull the trigger and open in Hanford following on the heels of Target which opened a store there in the past year. In fact, Kohl's expansion plans appear to track Target which recently opened a new store in Tulare and is remodeling its old store in Porterville.

Hanford businessman Dick Jacques, who represents Redwood Realty, confirms “Kohl's has looked at the building but to date there's nothing firm.” He says the advantage to Kohl's coming into the location is the fact that the permits and fees have been paid, compared to a new construction project where new fees would be imposed.

What's the Draw?

Kohl's is increasingly attracting the move-up shoppers looking for brand name merchandise at a cheaper price than they can find at the mall. Often, the shoppers are not disappointed. The store features clothing, shoes, accessories and house wares. They carry Nike, Levi's and Oshkosh B'Gosh brand names, typically not found in discount stores. But they also shy away from designer merchandise like you might see in a department store.

Kohl's are typically not found in the enclosed malls but in stand-alone centers.
While it appears the retail economy has slowed with the real estate slowdown, shoppers who need to cut their spending still want a bargain but don't want to sort through flea market-style aisles to get the price they want with brand name merchandise they crave. The store has successfully drawn both the Hispanic and white shoppers to its trendy array of soft goods, frequent bargain sales and a sophisticated shopping experience.

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Developer to Restore Slough by New Hanford Lowe's
Settlement Brings in Fish and Game to Monitor Site

Hanford - Criticized by some for filing a slew of “frivolous lawsuits,” tilting at windmills over a half dozen environmental issues in Kings County in recent years, Fresno attorney Richard Harriman chalks up a settlement agreement with the City of Hanford finalized just before Christmas as a win. A recent profile of Mr. Harriman, age 63, pointed to the fact that he has never won a court case in Kings County.

This case involves plans by developer Dave Paynter to build a new retail area anchored by Lowes behind Paynter's Target shopping center – a plan filed last spring. Looking to raise awareness of the significance of the Mussel Slough wetland area that was part of the 22 acre site plan filed by Paynter, a local group headed by Andrew and Robin Mattos argued that the project included at least a remnant of the wetland area and that the city needed to protect it based on their land use policy.

In a hearing last October, Mr. Paynter and others argued the wetland area was long gone and no special protection was warranted. The City Council agreed.

The couple who go by the name of HEAT or Hanford Environmental Awareness Team, with the help of Mr. Harriman, filed suit against Paynter and the city and on December 18, after four days of settlement, both sides agreed to a memo of understanding and the group dropped their opposition to the big box project.

Hanford City Manager Gary Misenhimer confirmed the settlement. “Mr. Paynter had to agree to a state Fish and Game permit for a stream alteration” as a result of the settlement. The area in question will be maintained over time and be available as a storm basin for the project.

As a result of the agreement,

1. Paynter agreed to wire $55,000 paid to a biologist consultant and Mr. Harriman.

2. Both parties agreed to ask Fish and Game to change their plan to require Paynter mitigates the loss of wetlands at the site by paying $17,630 to Sequoia Riverland Trust for environmental restoration work in Tulare County to funding work at the site. According to Andrew Mattos, “The victory here involves the fact that Fish and Game stepped in,” proving that Mussel Slough is worth saving. Mattos says Paynter will now follow the plan to be filed by Fish and Game to restore the wetland and plant native plants and trees giving the city a new open space area. “Hopefully it will have public access,” says Mattos.

The Hanford environmentalists argued that the slough was historical while city planners point to the fact that the old slough had been backfilled. A biologist hired by the Mattos group argued at a public hearing that denying the existence of the wetland area was “silly.” The group argued that Lowes, as part of their construction deposited dirt and construction debris and essentially altered a stream bed without proper care.

The agreement also calls for the group to receive notice of proposed development on five acres or larger applications in the general project area west of Centennial Drive – and if the development project reaches a 20-acre threshold the city will prepare a cumulative impact environmental study on the slough. “That was what we were trying to get them to do in the first place that would have avoided all this,” argues Mattos.

Harriman says the slough area amounts to about 30 acres that touches on several land holdings. Wetlands are protected by government in part because of their scarcity in the face of development as water storage basins, water filtering mechanisms and habitat for wildlife.

The historic Mussel Slough, famous for the shootout between settlers and Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1880s, actually took place seven miles or so northwest of this area although the historic slough of today is a remnant of what once was much larger having being filled in over the years by farmers, homesteads and other development.

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More Shots Fired in California Water Wars

Tulare County - California water users are all linked at the wrist and ankles. Demand is up while supply appears to be heading down.

The western part of the U.S. is drying up, scientists say.

To solve our problems will there be cooperation or pitched battles? From the Sacramento delta to Tulare County, from Mt. Shasta to the Colorado River – the answer seems to be “both.”

The California water war is real with battles taking place all over the map – each affecting the outcome of the other. The rising tide of skirmishes in the media, in the courtroom or new revelations from the scientific journals are all a sign we need to figure out how we can survive in California where rain falls more consistently in the northern part of the state while the population densities are highest in the south.

The rain already unpredictable, with warmer temps varies more widely and comes in gushes or not at all. With the planet heating up it appears precipitation will fall more as rain and not as snow in coming years as our snowpack dwindles.

Impacts from global warming, a growing human population, added pollution and spread of invasive species are all playing a part in a potential tragedy that could make the current troubles of the recession in the state look like a picnic.

Environmentalists generally blame “agri business and their never ending thirst” for more water to irrigate “a desert” in the middle of the state suggesting water conservation will get us through all this and demanding we tear down dams, not build more.

A new environmental ethic is in place in 2008 that wasn't there when California's water works were constructed that by popular demand puts wildlife and river health at the same table with water supply. Supporters of a new water infrastructure bond say that environmental ethics is a reason to support efforts to capture and “move more water around the state.”

Meanwhile, population projections and a “broken delta” suggest the need for a public infrastructure investment to be able to move water where it's needed with a proposal for a massive new water bond in the state. Farm interests point to the need to capture water when it is available to store for later – the vision of the hydraulic society that California built in the 1950s and '60s but that hasn't been upgraded since.

A march of the new headlines point to a problem bigger than any of us anticipated.
Consider the problem in our own region and how we are literally dry-docked in the same boat all over California.

Scripps Institute predicts the Colorado River supplying some 20 million people in the Southwest could run out of water in 13 years with an abrupt drop in supply starting 10 years from now. Author Tim Barnett told reporters that “we are stunned at the magnitude of the problem and how fast it is coming at us.” Climate change will mean less precipitation in the river basin. The report highlights one more reason why southern California water agencies are proposing more conservation. The Metropolitan Water District enacted a new drought plan Feb. 12.

The extent of that conservation could limit growth, halt pending commercial and industrial projects as water agencies can not certify they can serve water users long term. That could drive more growth north – here.

Despite a normal snowpack this year, water users below the delta are affected by court action that could cut supply 30% based on a decline of the Delta smelt fish in the Sacramento/Bay Delta. That court decision requires government water agencies to turn off the giant pumps – that send water south for both Southern California drinking water and Valley farms – for periods at a time to protect the fish. Now the state Fish and Game says a cousin – longfin smelt – has also dropped to near extinction levels. That could likely lead to further reductions in exports of water south in the future. Also, the enacting of an emergency regulation that mandates cutbacks in the next 180 days to help the longfin smelt when it comes near the pumps, could result in as much as another 400,000 acre feet of water lost by one estimate.

The delta cutbacks are impacting northern California communities as well where new restrictions have been in place since last year.

Further, the warm weather we are experiencing this month in the state could hasten the activity of the smelt, notes Ron Jacobsma of the Friant Water Users Authority, prompting pump restrictions that could in turn hamper the capturing of snow melt from north of the Delta that would ordinarily be put in San Luis reservoir for later in the year.

Returning fire over the collapse of the delta – water contractors filed suit Jan. 31 against state Fish and Game over its regulations that protect non-native striped bass stocked for sports fishing because the fish is a predator of several listed species, including spring run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and Delta smelt. The lawsuit alleges that Fish and Game is looking to increase striped bass population even though the bass eat up to 6 percent of the endangered species. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is on record as to the threat stating, “It is quite possible that low population levels interactions with striped bass could prevent recovery of the Delta smelt.”

The water contractors agree the big water pumps do damage to the smelt population, but say contaminants, loss of habitat, industrial and ag pollution, power plant diversions and discharges, unscreened in-Delta in-takes and toxic urban runoff – all play a part in the overall decline in the Delta.

This ganging up of negative consequences creates a sort of tipping point effect, suggest some experts.

Still to come, a pending decision over collapsing salmon populations in the Delta, which could further affect water supply. Salmon populations all over the west coast are way down this year. Environmentalists blame ag interests after a report that the adult returning salmon from the Pacific to the Sacramento Delta fell 88 percent from the all time high five years ago to just 90,000 returning adult salmon, compared to over 800,000 five years ago. The decline has been aptly termed an “unprecedented collapse.” Some blame water diversion from the delta but the fact is scientists are seeing rapidly declining salmon populations all over the West Coast including Washington and Oregon this year implying ocean conditions are a more likely cause. Large declines in wild salmon populations near farmed salmon may be another factor, another study suggests.

What's harming the fish? A new study reported Feb. 17 finds evidence that human medicines flowing from southern California sewer treatment plants is altering fish populations and working their way into the marine food chain. The study found that fish are being feminized with a cocktail of hormones found in the sewage. A second report points to huge new “dead zones” in the Pacific Ocean caused by warming temps worldwide.

Meanwhile, earlier this month the California Chamber of Commerce filed a new $11.7 billion water bond that could appear on the November ballot. While the vision of the bond appears to have the support of both Gov. Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Feinstein, the bond will likely not move forward to the ballot for now suggests Tim Quinn, general manager or the Association of California Water Agencies. “I would predict we will try to convince the legislature to agree on the shape and size of the bond rather than face a war with the environmentalists.” He says the pending change in leadership is a result of the failure of Prop. 93 and a new chance to get consensus this time around on the bond. That consensus came pretty close last fall but ultimately failed to get a bond on this February's ballot.

The latest proposal submitted for the ballot early this month would include 30% for dams, 23% for statewide water supply projects, 21% for Delta sustainability, 14% for ground water protection, 11% for statewide water conservation and pollution cleanup and 2% for water recycling.

Quinn says that bond includes $2.4 billion for improvements in the Delta that will allow a new peripheral canal as well as significant storage of water important to contractors.

But former chair of Friant Water Authority, Kole Upton, who as of the first of February is no longer chair of the group, says his reading of the bond proposals does not include Temperance Flat on the San Joaquin River or the peripheral canal – both of which we need. “We are already in so much debt in California we can't pay it back.”

Indeed, the price tag for water bonds have climbed in the past year from a $5 billion version with no storage, to a $10 billion proposal that included Temperance Flat dam to the latest $11.7 billion bond with no firm mention of Temperance Flat, considered the most important piece of infrastructure to support the long-term health of the eastside of the Valley including Tulare and Kings counties.

But Quinn disagrees with Upton and says most observers say Temperance Flat will be needed to manage water in coming decades and says not naming the dam in the bond plan doesn't mean that much. “There is no 100% guarantee,” Quinn says, with the bond. The state could see 50% cutbacks in Delta exports in the future as a result of court decisions. Rather than push forward with an initiative right now, Quinn will join with other state leaders to try to get bipartisan legislative approval before July and then put the matter on the ballot for a November vote of the people.

“Friant is less than optimistic about that approach,” shrugs Ron Jacobsma having gone down that road for months last year. Still, he says, the water contractors will allow more movement of water around the state, storage of more water and protection for the environment. “We believe the issue will just have to be placed in front of the voters,” he says. “The calendar keeps on ticking.” A ballot initiative requiring raising large amounts of private funding – would need to be circulated this spring to make the ballot.

Still another battle raging is over the San Joaquin River settlement process where Friant Water Authority and NRDC have been huddling for the past month to try to come to a consensus on river infrastructure improvements supported by federal legislation to implement the settlement agreement pending in Congress.

Upton and others (Congressman Devin Nunes in the lead), have been critical of NRDC for going back on its agreements in the original settlement that Upton says included agreement that Friant contractors being told that there would be no net loss of water once the river water was released to restore a salmon fishery there.

Indeed, Upton says the settlement agreement should be dropped and urges support of a “warm water fishery” that isn't so expensive and has a better chance of success. The collapse of the salmon population all over the west coast now may lend some new support to this idea. Still, most agree the idea to aim lower in the river restoration process won't fly.

Will Friant continue to support the river settlement including the return of a salmon fishery in the face of continued opposition by some? The election for the new chair voted in Marvin Hughes of Porterville on a 19 to 3 vote against a Madera County candidate.

On a more hopeful side, Jacobsma says he still hopes to have an agreement that will allow the matter to return to Congress next month with an outline for the Friant board meeting later in February.

Jacobsma says while a House committee has agreed to the legislation, the next move will be to introduce the legislation in the Senate perhaps as early as March. He says talks between NRDC and Friant “are getting closer to an agreement” focusing on both cost savings to help pay for the project and water management strategies that will allow water in wet years to replace what is lost in river restoration.

The original settlement called for “re-circulation” of water from the influx of the San Joaquin to the delta to be returned south by some sort of cross-valley canal.

Jacobsma says the crisis in the delta makes that idea unlikely until “fixes” in the delta are in place some years from now. Instead they are talking about other ideas he said he could not elaborate on. We should hear about the ideas in the next few weeks, however.

Also on a hopeful note, the Friant supply this season has been upgraded to 100% of Class 1 with an expectation of some Class 2 water as well because of recent storms. “A couple three more storms this season could take us to 1.4 million acre feet – a normal supply on the Friant system that waters cities and farms on the east side of the Valley from Madera to Kern County.

If all this turmoil over water supply reminds you of the 2005 book, Collapse by Jared Diamond – all I can say is “me too.” Diamond wrote about the collapse of societies in the past related to some degree of habitat destruction, soil problems, water management problems, over-hunting and over-fishing, introduced species and human population growth. Further he adds four factors contribute to a weakening of the society including human-caused climate change, build up of toxic chemicals in the environment, energy shortages and overpopulation.

Despite Diamond's gloomy list, he reminds us that societies can choose to survive by identifying what is happening and doing something about it.

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Visalia City Council Considers Retiree Healthcare Changes

By Steve Pastis

Visalia- The Visalia City Council considered Tuesday a list of proposed changes to the healthcare insurance benefits the city provides to retired city workers. Staff recommendations included increasing what retirees must contribute to their healthcare coverage by $23.03 a month (to cover half of the $46.06 monthly increase in healthcare premium costs), exploring the possibility of replacing the city's health plan with a Medicare supplement for Medicare-eligible retirees, and changes in retiree contributions based on length of service to the city.

City Manager Steve Salomon described the current retiree benefits as “very generous right now,” adding that the City of Visalia is more generous than other cities in the area. “The city contributes $2 million to (the healthcare plan for) retirees every year now,” he said. He explained that the city is trying to control its cost increases and he expected that some things in the staff report would not be implemented.

City Council Member Bob Link made no prediction about what decisions would be made. “We really have not discussed it in an open session with the council,” he said.

“What some retirees believe is what they paid when they left is what they should pay in the future,” said Eric Frost, city administrative services director. He added that the city has been paying $20 per month per year for each retiree's healthcare insurance plan.

Dianne Guzman, one of the leaders of the city retirees, said that she had concerns, and not just about the size of the monthly increase. “It's not a huge amount of money,” she said. “I think that the other issues are of greater consequence to us. They are basically proposing to change substantially the terms and conditions of the retiree health insurance.”

The proposed changes would negatively affect city employees who worked somewhere else after retiring from the city, she explained. “They are also proposing to retroactively charge retirees more depending on how long they work for the city,” she said.

A retiree who worked for the city for 15 to 20 years would have to pay an additional $50 every month for healthcare insurance, an employee who worked for 10 to 15 years would pay $100 more, and an employee who worked for less than 10 years would face a $150 a month increase.

“This was not the situation when they retired,” Guzman said. “They're trying to retroactively apply that.”

Guzman has spent time doing the math to find out what a retiree might pay in increased health insurance costs if he or she were in the categories most affected by the proposals. “In a potential worst case situation, there could be catastrophic results,” she said. “We're obviously concerned about that.

“We believe that the city basically made a commitment to us when we worked about access to a group healthcare plan,” she said. “The city is, in effect, defaulting on a commitment they made to us, that we think is a legally binding commitment.”
“We never had a written agreement with the retirees regarding a medical program,” said Council Member Link.

“If they decide to institute changes, then we have to decide what action we will consider pursuing,” Guzman said.

The city's Administrative Policy 301, which deals primarily with insurance benefits for current employees, states, “Retirees and their dependents are eligible for medical and vision benefits at a cost determined each year by the city.” This section was last updated in 1992.

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What's New

Proposed Social Security office location on Lovers Lane is coming back to the city planning commission next month. City Manager Steve Salomon says the General Services Administration (GSA) will not consider alternative locations for the government office “until they find out what happens to this proposal.” GSA had let it be known it did not want to have a new Social Security office in a flood plain location that includes most of Downtown. The building location proposed last year on Lovers Lane has upset both neighbors who fear the impact of an influx of people to their neighborhood and the city that had hoped to keep the government office in its Downtown area. Architect for the developer, who has a contract with the GSA, Lyle Munch, says they have modified the site plan to ensure all access to the office is off Lovers Lane.

Long-awaited widening of Houston Ave. between Santa Fe and Ben Maddox is expected to move forward at least by summer, once telephone poles owned by Edison are relocated. The four-lane project has been in the works for a decade. The project includes a new roundabout at Santa Fe and Houston.

City will refinance its existing PERS retirement account with a bond that is expected to save the city $500,000 a year. The plan was approved this week by the Visalia City Council.

The motorsports raceway in the works for the past few years in Merced County may be in trouble, according to media reports that the developer of the 120-acre project has run out of cash to complete the project. The $250 million complex near Atwater would be a competitor to the planned motorsports raceway in Tulare that is pending a city decision.

Three options for converting Acequia Avenue to a two-way street from Conyer to Bridge Streets will be presented to Visalia City Council in March. The options, all of which include single traffic lanes each way, are: 5-foot-wide bike lanes on each side of the street with a 12-foot-wide middle turn lane and no street parking; no bike lanes, a contiguous middle turn lane and the parallel-parking spaces would remain; and bike lanes, except for areas such as the Willis Street-Acequia Avenue intersection, where a new traffic light and “left turn pockets” will be needed.

Visalia's Automobile Club of Southern California office will move into its new location in the Packwood Creek Shopping Center on Monday. In addition to the move to the new office that is next to Best Buy, the AAA office will now be open on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Having successfully disposed of nearly all of the 100 acres at the Hanford industrial park, the City of Hanford is looking for ways to expand the acreage in the near future, says City Manager Gary Misenhimer. “It's just been about six years since we bought the land and we don't have too much of it left to sell.”

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets, a chain of small, trendy upscale markets, are expected in locations throughout Tulare and Kings counties, possibly by the end of this year. Official announcements are expected next month. Proposed store locations confirmed through contractors or city officials include Visalia, Hanford and Lemoore. Sources at the company indicated that its target list also includes Tulare and Porterville, but as Brendan Wonnacott, company spokesperson, stressed, “We're really serious when we say we want to serve every area. We want to be in every neighborhood: urban areas, suburban areas, new developments and existing developments. Generally, we expect stores to serve (a radius of) one to two miles.” That suggests that Fresh & Easy could someday be as common as Starbucks.

George Finney, about to retire as Tulare County's chief planner, officially has been named executive officer of the county Local Agency Formation Commission. At its Feb. 13 meeting, the commission created the position which Finney has filled as part of his county job. About 5 percent of Finney's salary was paid by LAFCO, an independent commission which oversees and administers local government boundaries, including annexations. It also conducts special studies of services provided by special districts and agencies and administers Williamson Act preserves. Finney says he expects to spend no more than 100 hours a month in his new part-time job. He said whoever fills his soon-to-be former county position will have more time to devote to major planning and growth issues faced by a growing Tulare County.

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Tulare County - Tulare County Board of Supervisors will meet with the county planning commission Feb. 26 to go over its new General Plan and the eight county cities are jointly submitting their comments for the meeting, according to a memo to the Porterville City Council this week from City Manager John Longley.

The new group – the Council of Cities – is drafting a statement for the county in the next few days that will outline its position on revenue sharing, and the county-proposed development impact fee.

The discussion over money comes as the county prepares to adopt a new general plan that will impact cities as well as the large unincorporated part of the county.

In order to increase county revenues, the county wants a development impact fee to be collected countywide. To do that it needs the assistance of the cities, notes Council of Cities Chair Phil Vandergrift, a city council member from Tulare. “Between Tulare and Visalia, we could collect about $8 million a year by my figures, “that's a strong incentive to talk with us and solve our mutual problems.”

Council of Cities meets this week to finalize its position but Vandergrift says the group really doesn't know what the county wants until it lays it out Feb. 26. Vandergrift says the cities want to work with the county.

A memo released this week by the City of Porterville noted that the county development impact fee will increase permit fees per home by over $3,000 in the cities of Dinuba, Farmersville, Lindsay, Visalia and Woodlake, by $2,700 in Tulare and Porterville, and by $3,500 in Exeter – over and above city fees already imposed in those towns. The cities would collect the extra fees for the county.

Asked if the county could collect the impact fee unilaterally, Visalia City Attorney Alex Peltzer said they could not without the consent of the incorporated city, according to the memo discussed this week in Porterville.

The county faces a perennial shortfall having no way to pay costs other than beg the state year after year. County officials have said they want their own mechanism to collect monies like cities have in sales tax receipts – the backbone of all the cities' general funds. The idea now would be for cities to share some of that sales tax.

But Vandergrift says he doesn't think some cities should share sales tax. “What should Farmersville do when they collect just $200,000 a year in sales tax money, enough to pay for a few policemen?” Rather, he suggests small cities be exempt.

Because the cities will be asked to collect the new county impact fees, they believe they can influence the county plan to expand development on unincorporated lands within city urban area boundaries. The cities have feared the county would approve a big box development in the county to get the sales tax revenues rather than require this type of development in the cities.

The cities would like to keep the current policy of expanding, mostly within the urban areas, and note that as county land is annexed, the county is relieved of the burden to service that land. They give the example of the Dinuba industrial park. When it was county land in 1990, the 330 acres generated $456 in property tax for the county. In 2006, the same acreage generated $124,500 in property taxes paid to the county, even though the land was within a city.

Part of the revenue-sharing idea could mean a change of how the property tax money is split between the cities and the county.

Regarding plans by the county in its new general plan to expand development in rural areas like Earlimart, cities want the county to protect city boundaries and would like the county to adopt a transportation impact fee for county roads.

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Tulare County - Taking a page from organized labor, farm and trucking groups are talking up the idea of a strike to get the state's attention over proposed trucking rules that would require they replace trucks twice to cut emissions over a nine-year period. “That seems the only way to give the state a wake-up call,” says Manuel Cunha, president of the farm group Nisei Farmers League.

The state Air Resources Board has proposed one-ton trucks or larger that are older than 1998 be replaced by 2010 and that a second round of truck replacement would be required nine years later in an effort to cut diesel emissions.

Farm equipment dealer Bryan Burke, along with Cunha, were at this past week's World Ag Expo passing out petitions to submit to ARB and Governor Schwarzenegger. Burke says, “My customers can't afford these new trucks, and that includes both farmers and truckers. Truckers are involved when all our farm goods are sent to market,” says Burke, and “the proposed regulations are just going to cripple the Valley.” He says the only action that officials will understand is to halt shipment of food to Sacramento. Cunha says the ARB is set to finalize the proposed regulation this October and “has until April to modify the plan” or the strike will go forward.

“Nobody is going to buy two new $130,000 trucks when they need it just a few weeks a year to haul their goods,” says Cunha. The trucks they have are meant to last 30 years.” That's why asking the same group to replace the 2007 truck they are forced to buy with new trucks nine years later doesn't make any sense, he says.

Proposed regulations by the state Air Resources Board aimed at reducing emissions from diesel engines, including those used in agriculture, have farmers greatly concerned. The sweeping changes will impact about 400,000 in-state, on-road diesel vehicles and about another 1.2 million from out of state.

The proposed rules call for the highest level of particulate matter control technology available and NOx emissions from every diesel-powered vehicle to be equal to or less than exhaust emissions from a 2007 model-year engine.

Because so many agricultural vehicles are highly customized, are operated seasonally and often remain within a limited geographic range, farm equipment usually is older than that of commercial transport fleets. It is common for agricultural vehicles to be kept in operation for several years – sometimes decades longer than fleet-operated, long-haul trucks.

Typical of a farm hauler is David Flatler of Selma who says they use their couple of trucks to haul raisins during the season, running an estimate of 5,000 miles a year. “We can't afford 2007/08 trucks. We would have to job the hauling out.”

That's the tune lots of small haulers and truckers are singing, meaning it's likely only large operations will survive this rule, say the critics.

Last December, a group of 35 ag producers wrote ARB Mobile Source Chief Robert Cross that “agriculture cannot pass along the cost of this or any other regulation.” For example, a California citrus farmer spends $346 for each acre farmed to cover state-mandated costs compared to $31 in Texas.

The group has proposed to change the ARB rules to include mileage limitation thresholds of 20,000 miles on pre-1996 trucks, 25,000 on trucks between 1996 and 2005, and 30,000 miles on trucks that are 2005 or newer. Another exemption idea is to exempt trucks that go from the field to the first point of processing. Regarding the compliance decline, the farm group suggests pre-1990 trucks be given until 2011, 91 to 94 until 2013, and on up to 2005 being given until 2019. Another idea is the truck trade-down concept – replacing exempt trucks by newer, cleaner trucks that would have otherwise been destroyed. Lastly, the group called for incentive funding for the 1.7 million trucks the ARB estimates will need to comply with the state regulations.

The group notes while the state may be facing budget problems, forcing the businesses to pay for this would only exacerbate the problem.

“We've got to get the word out about the proposed diesel truck rule,” said Cynthia Cory, California Farm Bureau Federation environmental affairs director. “We need to talk to anybody and everybody about the potential impact of these proposed regulations and look for considerations that reflect our seasonal, low-use of vehicles to prevent crippling our farming operations.”

Cory said a recent Farm Bureau survey indicates that on average, diesel-powered vehicles used in agriculture are about 20 years old and are slated under this proposal to be replaced first. Diesel engines on trucks used for long-haul can easily have an engine life of more than 1 million miles.

“These regulations aren't aimed solely at ag,” Cory said. “They will impact all trucks operating in California, including those coming from out of state or across international borders. No economic analysis has been conducted, but rough, preliminary estimates put the cost of this rule at more than $50 billion.”

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Visalia - Things are back to normal at Kaweah Delta Hospital following a surge in patient volume in its emergency room. The surge on Feb. 13 resulted in the erection of a 35x19-foot tent outside of the hospital to provide additional space for non-emergency patients coming through the emergency room.

The tent, which was pictured in newspapers and on television stations throughout the area when it was put up, was finally taken down on Feb. 19.

“As soon as our full maintenance crew got in this morning, they took it down,” said Angela Bouma, marketing and public relations specialist for Kaweah Delta. “It was used for a few hours on Friday.” The tent remained in front of the main entrance all weekend, just in case it was needed.

The tent is a fully operable “room” which includes electricity, HVAC, all the supplies of the emergency room and computer access. The tent was used to provide seven-bed urgent care.

Kaweah Delta's Emergency Department usually sees about 185-190 patients a day, but during the week of Feb. 19 was averaging between 240 and 250 per day. The department experienced overcrowded conditions for the previous two weeks, due partly to increased numbers of people who complained of flu symptoms.

The flu peaked in early January, according to Bouma, but she said that a lot of elderly patients visited the hospital the weekend of Feb. 16-17. “Some let their symptoms get worse before they came in,” she said.

Bouma said that the hospital was “very busy in every department in January and February,” but said that was very normal. She explained that there were a lot of reasons the hospital had a surge in patient volume last week, and that the much-publicized flu was not as much of a factor as many might believe.

“Our hospital was full and no one was being discharged,” she said. “If we can't move patients, we can't clear beds and we couldn't get patients in. We had a bottleneck.”

She said that hospitals experience this situation every so often.

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By Rick Elkins

Tulare County - Bruce Vincent may have been preaching to the choir when he spoke at the World Ag Expo last week, but the crowd on hand to hear him liked what they heard.

The second-generation timber man whose profession has basically been eliminated by environmental activists, warned farmers, especially dairymen, that their livelihoods are also been threatened by activists who are bent on imposing their vision of how those in another area should live.

After telling the audience of farmers and dairymen how his industry (logging) and his way of life (rural) have been greatly changed by people who got caught up in the movement to “protect rural America,” Vincent said agriculture needs to be aware of the threat to its way of life and those in ag need to become activists themselves.

Calling it a collision of visions, he said people love to visit the rural areas, especially mountains, and “then they go back to L.A. and they have a desire to protect rural America.” They then listen to bad science and misinformation and formulate how rural America should be managed, he added.

“Rural America is being protected to death,” he said, telling a story of how the government came up to his town of Libby, MT with a plan to protect the grizzly bear, a plan that had no scientific basis or was based on bad science, he said, but one that was pushed by an environmentalist who used the courts to force the protection. He said the environmentalist threatened to sue to protect species after species if the government did not act.

“There is no longer a sawmill in Libby,” he said of the result.

He sees a parallel to the fight the timber industry has lost and the one ag is just beginning to fight.

“Where we've been is where I see a lot of the ag community is going, particularly the dairy community,” warned Vincent.

He said America now imports 65 percent of its lumber and “people are paying a price.” He said not only have jobs been lost, but so has a way of life.

He jokingly spoke of the so-called exports, “Dr. Meryl Streep, Dr. Woody Harrelson and Dr. Ted Turner,” and how science has been tossed aside. “When they sprew their half-truths, we base policy on it…They've convinced people to abandon science.

“How'd we get so crazy,” he rhetorically asked. The answer, he said, dates back to the '60s and the increasing exposure of the world via the “boob tube.” “What happened in the 60s is we had one planet and we were doing stuff to hurt it and we had to stop,” he said.

That led to a slew of laws, from endangered species to clean water and air pollution. “Those laws are now 40 years old and they're showing their age,” he cautioned. But, the movement continues.

“What they are selling is fear. Send me 20 bucks or the planet is going to die. And, they've made billions.”

Vincent explained that the first major target was the timber industry. Today, few logs are being harvested in the mountains. “'Save the Forest' made them hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said.

However, Vincent sees the trend reversing. Recent catastrophic fires have many people questioning what activists have told them and they see that maybe logging can be a tool to reduce the threat of catastrophic fire. Because of that, he said, activists are looking for a new cause.

“I'm afraid their issues will be water, animal husbandry and food safety. They're going to try beating on you guys and make billions of dollars,” he warned. “Don't repeat our mistakes. Point out they are not out to save the environment, they're out to make money. Fight ignorance. Tell the truth, warts, pimples and all.”

Vincent said he believes the first target will be over the use of BST, or bovine somatotropin, which is a natural protein hormone made by cows that is now mass produced and used to increase milk output by cows. “If you give that up, what's next? We thought giving up clear-cutting was enough.”

Vincent called on the audience to “answer the call.”

He offered a ray of hope, explaining that democracy does work, but “it's not a spectator sport.” He also said ag leaders need to step out and speak with their elected representatives and lastly, “the world is run by those who show up. If you don't show up, somebody else is going to be running your world. You've got to take time to show up for the fights. You have to become an activist.

“Activists survive. Those that don't are parking their equipment in 20 years.”

He senses the time is right for common sense to rise to the top. “America is ready to hear from us. America is sick and tired of hearing what is wrong. We need a new environmental vision. People want a message of hope.”

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By Claudia Elliott

Porterville - The Tule River Economic Development Corporation (TREDC) has expanded its interests at the Porterville Airport, acquiring Porterville Aviation, a charter operation which also has contracts to provide aviation support for the U.S. Forest Service.

Dave Nenna, CEO of TREDC and former Tule River tribal administrator, said the business operating name of Porterville Aviation will be retained and former owner Ed Wood will stay on board for a year to help with the transition.

Nenna said the business acquisition includes Porterville Aviation's FAA 135 certificate, which allows it to charter airplanes, as well as four aircraft and three contracts with the Forest Service to provide aviation support during fire season. The contracts include providing “lead attack” or what are sometimes called “spotter planes” for the Forest Service.

TREDC is building a new hangar at the Porterville Airport which will house Porterville Aviation, Nenna said. The new hangar will be located next to Tule River Aero-Industries, another tribal-owned company. Porterville Aviation operations have been moved to Aero-Industries on an interim basis until the new hangar is complete, he added.

Wood will remain as chief pilot and will be lining up other pilots for the coming fire season, Nenna said.

Wood said he has “mixed emotions” about the sale of the business he has owned for 39 years, but is looking forward to retirement. He and his wife, Bonnie, plan to spend time traveling and at homes they own in the desert and on the coast.

TREDC was chartered by the Tule River Tribal Council in 1989 and is governed by a board of directors that includes tribal and non-tribal representatives.

Porterville Attorney Richard Christenson is the current president of the TREDC board of directors. Vice president is local CPA Earl Parks. Secretary treasurer is Ted Ensslin, insurance agent and former Porterville mayor. Other board members are Steve Tree, executive director of Porterville Sheltered Workshop, Doug Mead, retired senior VP with Beckman Industries and Tom Alford, retired senior VP with Bank of the Sierra.

Christenson said the acquisition of Porterville Aviation will “breathe new life” into what the economic development body is trying to accomplish.

Tule River Tribal Administrator Rodney Martin said the acquisition of Porterville Aviation by TREDC is “another step toward a broad-based economic development strategy” that includes Eagle Mountain Casino, Eagle Feather Trading Post and Tule River Aero-Industries.

Nenna said Tule River Aero-Industries was started in October 2001 and has grown to become a full-service aviation company offering sales and service. Among its activities was participation in certification of an innovative SMA diesel engine retrofit for the Cessna 192. The long certification process has paid off for Aero, Nenna said, since it is now the sole North American installer of the retrofit engine.

Cessna's fitted with the new environment-friendly low maintenance engine have made their way from Aero's hangar at the Porterville Airport to locations all over the world.

Nenna said there are a number of aviation-related opportunities that Tule River Aero-Industries and TREDC are exploring.

“We think there will be an economic boon on the aviation side,” Nenna said of the Porterville Airport's future. “There are many opportunities.”