Summer Camp will Feature
Teachers, Performers and Students
By Rick
Elkins
Violinist Danielle Belen, first prize winner of the 2008 Sphinx Competition, has put together the camp – Center Stage Strings – for June 14-20 in Three Rivers. She is also an instructor at the prestigious Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, a school for aspiring, but accomplished, string soloist.
The camp will bring
six students from Colburn and two other students - one from
Seattle and the other from the prestigious Idyllwild Arts
Academy Theatre
in Southern California. The students range in age from 9
to 20.
Belen did not rule out local students from attending, but they would have to be playing violin at a high level already. The school is definitely not for beginners. “We'd love to have local students, those on track to professional careers.”
Why Three Rivers? “I wanted an intensive place for my students to go to study for the summer,” said the impressive 27-year-old soloist. “Of course, I immediately thought of Three Rivers. It's so beautiful.”
Belen's connection to Three Rivers is a good story. When her father retired her parents looked for a place out of Southern California in which to live. They looked out of state and in northern California before discovering Three Rivers, where they obviously settled.
On a recent visit to her parents, Belen met Haxon, a realtor and an arts advocate in Three Rivers. The two got to talking and the next thing she knew, the music camp was in place and rolling.
“Within days he had people interested and a venue for our performances,” smiled Belen. He has also helped to set up host families for the students and some of the guest artists and teachers. “He's taken this above and beyond my wildest dreams,” she added.
“It is not just for students. We're also bringing in world class performers because of my connections,” she said.
Among those is Robert Lipsett, another member of the Colburn faculty and a world-class violinist. William Hagen, a 17-year-old violin virtuoso who has played with some of the major orchestras in America and Jennie Jung and Diego Miralles will also take part in the camp.
Four performances are planned. Hagen will perform at 7 p.m. on June 15. The faculty trio – Belen, Jung, Miralles – will perform at 7 p.m. on June 19 and a wrap up concert featuring the students at 5 p.m. on June 20.
In addition, said Belen, Lipsett will hold a “master class” on June 18 that is open to the public as a “glimpse of what these young virtuosos go through.”
All of the concerts, as well as the summer camp, will be held at the Three Rivers Community Presbyterian Church in the main chapel.
Accomplished Artist
Belen began playing the violin at age 5, and realized about age 13 that it was something she really wanted to pursue. By age 15, she started to focus intensely, practicing four hours a day.
It paid off. She recently performed as soloist with the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Nashville and San Francisco symphonies, the Boston Pops and the Florida and Cleveland Orchestras.
She is a graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music and the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, where she is now a member of the faculty. However, she has been giving violin lessons since she was in high school.
She enjoys teaching master classes and leading community engagements across the country in conjunction with her professional performance appearances, but said performing is equally rewarding.
“I couldn't do one without the other,” she said.
Hopes for School
Belen hopes to see the summer camp grow both in numbers of students and with more sessions.
“We'd love to turn this into a month-long camp like I went to as a kid,” she said. She hopes to see it grow to as many as 40 students at a time.
“Our mission is to really focus on these talented students on their instruments to become the best soloists they can be, also to enjoy the outdoors.”
The world of classical music has become so competitive, she pointed out, that even if one's goal is to be an orchestra performer, they almost need the same skills as a soloist.
Cost for the camp is $800 and Belen's parents will serve as the main hosts, feeding the students during their stay
Belen, who plays on a 1709 Allessandro Gagliano violin from the Mandell Collection of Southern California, said she hopes to bring recitals to Three Rivers during the year as well.
For more on the school go towww.centerstagestrings.com or call 561-4078.
Tulare County - Tulare County Sheriff's candidate John Zapalac said he wants to change the culture in the department to be more friendly and helpful to citizens.
“We need to pay attention to the community,” Zapalac said during the Talk of the town gathering at Jack and Charlie's restaurant last week. He is seeking the office for the second time and seeking to unseat four-term Sheriff Bill Wittman. The election is June 8.
“Let's refocus our attention. Let's get back to serving the people and more importantly. Let's give the people their money's worth,” he said.
Zapalac, who worked in the sheriff's office for 17 before becoming chief of police in Woodlake 11 years ago, laid out his agenda, saying that working with youth and being more involved in the community has paid huge dividends in that city.
“This approach we're doing in Woodlake, this is what we need to do countywide.”
Zapalac said crime is very low in that small community and while conceding the county is a much larger issue, he feels that dents in crime countywide can be accomplished with a fresh approach.
While he said Community Based Officers is a good concept, he said, “It is not something you do because you have a grant or it's an election year. It should be a philosophy.” He called the plan recently announced by Wittman, “Political based policing,” vowing if he were sheriff it would be a “community based organization.”
Zapalac touted the success of Camp Zap, a camp for young people he started 10 years ago at his ranch outside of Woodlake. What began with about 30 Woodlake youth, today serves more than 150 kids from a wider area, including Ivanhoe and Cutler-Orosi.
“Our juvenile crime rate went down,” he said, adding the juvenile court system even noticed the drop in Woodlake juvenile offenders.
If elected sheriff, he said he would not only continue the camp, but would want to see it expanded and others begun in the county.
Like his opponent, Zapalac is critical of plans by the state to release prisoners. “I don't have a problem they (prisons) are overcrowded. I do have a problem with the governor releasing prisoners,” he told the gathering, adding they already know that 70 percent of those release will commit another crime.
He said the two main issues in the sheriff's race are gangs and drugs.
“These are two things eating up this county,” he said. Zapalac said ways to combat that are to work more with young kids and do more education on the harm drugs cause.
While Zapalac wants to focus more attention on crime prevention, he knows that cracking down on crime is still important.
He said he would assess the entire county as to where growth has occurred and where crime rates are the highest. “We need to add more to patrol. The case needs to be made to supervisors that nothing else matters than public safety,” he said.
Asked why he wants to become sheriff, he responded, “I'm still young. I'm excited about what I'm doing in Woodlake. I just see the work that needs to be done at the county level.”
Tulare - Declining milk supplies was blamed for Land O'Lakes' decision to idle its Tulare cheese plant, a move expected to affect about 80 employees.
City officials were notified of the decision Tuesday, as were employees and their union, Teamsters Local 517.
“Land O'Lakes will be working with the union on the transition,” Gary Germaine, director of operations, butter and cheese told Mayor Craig Vejvoda in a letter informing him of the decision.
“I know this news is very unfortunate, but this was a necessary business decision,” Germaine said.
“Unfortunately, a declining milk supply made it exceedingly difficult to continue operating the cheese facility at this time,” he wrote. “We are currently planning to ramp down cheese production sometime during the latter half of the year.”
Once this is done, milk shipments will be “directed to our core butter manufacturing where, as you know, we have invested heavily in the past few years,” Germaine said.
Land O'Lakes has more than 200 dairymen within a 30 mile radius and employs more than 450 workers. In addition to cheese, the Tulare plant produces butter, buttermilk powder, whey protein and other products.
At one time Land O'Lakes had two Tulare cheese plants, but in 2007 it sold Cheese & Protein International to Saputo Cheese USA Inc., which was already operating in Tulare.
At a 2008 luncheon celebrating 10 years of Land O'Lakes' presence in Tulare – it merged with Dairyman's Cooperative Creamery Association in 1998 – company officials described the Tulare plant as the largest single-site milk receiving and processing facility in the U.S.
Last year the plant underwent a $75 million Galaxy expansion, which is allowing it to produce spray dried dairy products. The project added 100 jobs to the company's payroll.
Because of the positive impact of that expansion on the city, the Tulare Redevelopment Agency and Land O'Lakes forged an owner participation agreement that will give the food processing company 90 percent of the new net tax increment revenues generated by that project. This means the current assessed value of the project site would have to climb above the current $94.2 million.
Land O'Lakes officials have told city and redevelopment leaders that it is planning a second expansion, called Eclipse, which would be done in multiple phases with the first phase generating an estimated $10,000 in assessed value and the second about $25 million. That second expansion has not taken place.
Plugged into the 2009 agreement with the city is the requirement the company employee no fewer than 450 full-time employees to qualify for the second, third and fourth levels of agency assistance.
Visalia- While the city of Visalia has not taken a position on California Water Service Company's request for a 63 percent rate hike spread out over two years, it has been frustrated for what it feels is a lack of opportunity to have a say in the process.
“It's been a very interesting process,” city of Visalia Assistant City Manager Leslie Caviglia told the city council. She said staff actually went to the administrative law judge overseeing the rate hike request and asked to be part of the process, but she said for the city to take a very active role it would have had to hire specialized attorneys and engineers.
Cal Water is seeking approval from the California Public Utilities Commission for an increase that will raise the monthly cost of water for the average Visalia homeowner by more than $17 a month by 2013. Cal Water asked to have its rate raised 21.1 percent in January of 2011, then another 22.3 percent in January of 2012, and finally another 18.2 percent in January of 2013.
The average increase from the first year hike would be $4.96 (about 17 cents per day in 2011); $6.21 (about 21 cents per day) in 2012; and $6.21 (about 21 cents per day) in 2013. Residents pay $23.71 a month now.
Remaining flat-rate customers with lot sizes of 6,001 to 10,000 square feet would see a monthly increase of $6.82 in 2011 and $8.84 in 2012, although Cal Water plans to complete metering all flat-rate services in that year.
According to the city, the PUC Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) filed an analysis of the request and suggested an 18.6 percent rate hike in the first year, and “approximately 2.5 percent in each of the next two years. According to Caviglia, Cal Water has refuted that analysis and continues to push for a higher rate increase.
Caviglia said part of the frustration for the city is the lack of opportunity for the public to get involved. Cal Water held only one public meeting on the rate hike request – last fall – and only three residents and a reporter with the Valley Voice turned out. There have been no other meetings, either by Cal Water or the PUC.
Phil Mirwald, local manager of Cal Water, said he would be willing to hold another public meeting and that right now the process is in the hands of the PUC.
“I know the rate increase is a lot,” he said, adding it will raise the average water cost from $1.12 a day to $1.70 a day.
The PUC has held four public meetings across the state for all of Cal Water's rate cases – the closest in Kernville. Hearings were scheduled to begin Monday in San Francisco.
City Council member Steve Nelson said the requested increase is out of line. “I think it's unconscionable to ask for a 63 percent rate hike. If you want to talk about stimulus, put the money in the hands of the people. Asking for a 63 percent increase is a sin.”
Fellow Council member Mike Lane agreed, suggesting that the company spread the increase over more than two years.
Cal Water says the rate increase is to cover growing operation costs as well as to pay for more improvements to the system, including a third large water storage tank.
Cal Water has 38,567
customers in Visalia, manages 492 miles of pipeline, and
has 72 active wells, seven treatment plants, four storage
tanks and four booster pumps.
The company in Visalia plans to add the new storage tank,
install new emergency generators to keep water flowing in
case of a blackout, make computer system improvements, build
more treatment plants and finish installing water meters
at all sites.
The city filed a motion for “party status” in the rate proceedings saying that the requested increase over three years “will have a significant negative impact on residential and commercial ratepayers during the current economic downturn.”
Because of the process, the city intends on asking Assemblywoman Connie Conway to seek legislation requiring the PUC to hold hearings locally on such rate requests.
Visalia - Bernard te Velde Jr. has plans for the old Sierra View Golf Course property and it's not a round of golf.
Te Velde is developing the land where once an 18-hole golf course stood and where a 176-home subdivision was planned into farmland and a small ranchett-style subdivision.
“It's just a nice spot to live between Visalia and Tulare,” he said last week of the land on Avenue 264 east of Road 124.
The te Velde family farms in the area and last year he purchased the 115 acres from Reynen and Bardis, a residential development company that had purchased the land from the Mangano Company that first proposed the site for a 176-home subdivision.
Reynen and Bardis also had plans for the controversial subdivision that was opposed by the city of Visalia, but then the real estate market went south and with it Reynen and Bardis. That company, which had several projects in Tulare County, basically abandoned them, along with its plans for Rancho Sierra.
Te Velde has already transformed the once overgrown golf course into farm land. He is planting corn today, with plans to plant walnuts in the fall.
All that is left of the golf course is a small portion of the parking lot and an old entrance sign that reads “No carts in parking lot.” Other than a few healthy oak trees, the land is bare.
Te Velde said the clubhouse and a lot of what was left of the golf course was already gone when he purchased the land, but he still had to remove many of the trees and shrubs. He said they took out 750 trees and left behind all but a few unhealthy oak trees.
So overgrown had the property become since the golf course close in 1996, that a major fire broke out there last year threatening several of the nearby homes. That fire threat is now gone.
“It was such an eyesore,” he said of the old golf course. “It was pretty much a mess. People were dumping garbage out there.”
Instead of building 176 homes – which the property is still zoned – te Velde wants to develop 16 one-acre lots.
“We've got to get the county to agree,” he said of a process that is moving slowly. He said he trying to amend the original plan.
He said the 16 lot plan, which would be in a horseshoe about where holes 10, 11 and 12 once were, is more in line for the area. The residential area will take up about 15 acres, with the walnuts about 100 acres.
SECOND FRONT PAGE
What's New
Caltrans told members of the Mooney Boulevard Business Association that landscaping along Mooney Blvd. is nearly complete and crews expect to begin paving next week. Paving will take place primarily at night with lane closures and will take one month to complete. For daytime paving, two lanes will be kept open. Work on the south end of Mooney will take place next week in terms of dug outs, moving sidewalks, etc.
Ken Nunes, an accountant in Tulare, was appointed by the COS board to fill the board vacancy left by the retirement of Sue Shannon last month. Nunes will serve Ward 2 and will have to run in November if he wants to remain on the board. Nunes was one of four people interviewed by the board at a special meeting Monday.
An official with the city of Visalia said interest in the city's industrial park has picked up in the past couple of months, with one large user inquiring. That large user could be looking for up to 400,000 square feet of space.
Design of the Santa Fe All Purpose Trail on the east side of Visalia was awarded to Provost and Prichard Consulting Group at a cost of $219,100.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority is holding public meetings to update the public on the High-Speed Train project through Kings, Tulare and Kern counties. There will be no formal presentation. Maps and other information will be available to review and comment on. Authority representatives will be on hand to answer questions about the project. A meeting was held in Hanford Tuesday, with the next one scheduled for May 4 in Wasco and on May 5 at the Technology Learning Center in Corcoran.
City of Visalia Housing and Economic Development Director Ricardo Noguera was hoping Tuesday to contact Joe Levy after he announced he was bringing back Gottschalks, only under the name – Gottschalk by Joe Levy. The once-proud local retail chain closed last year after failing to come out of bankruptcy. Noguera said he has a couple of locations the store might fit into – one the old Mervyn's store at the Sequoia Mall. Gottschalks was located at the Visalia Mall, where Macy's is today. Levy announced Tuesday he was opening his first store in Clovis, with plans for more in the Central Valley, but did not give specifics. The Visalia Gottschalks was said to be one of the strongest stores in the chain.
Following a down year in 2009, when California new vehicle sales declined to almost 1,000,000 units, it would appear as though the state's new vehicle market has turned the corner toward recovery. New light vehicle registrations in the state were 280,148 units in the first quarter of this year, a 19.8 percent improvement versus a year earlier. The market was up over 30% in March. Auto Outlook is now predicting that new vehicle registrations for the entire year will approach 1.18 million units, up 13.6 percent from 2009. Despite the increase, the market will still be down significantly from the two million.
The COS President's Award, called The Step Beyond Award and it is earned by those who have gone beyond their regular job duties to perform outstanding service to COS is being awarded to Anna Williams, Counseling faculty member; Marjorie Scheidt, coordinator at the Hanford Center; John Bratsch, Dean of Human Resources; Francis Gusman, VP of Student Services.
DDs Discounts, a clothing store with an outlet already on South Mooney Blvd., is looking to add a 22,000 s.f. store in the Food 4 Less shopping center on North Dinuba Blvd. The company submitted plans to the city's site plan Review committee last week and were given the go ahead to proceed. Officials indicated the company wants to begin construction this summer. Also, there is interest by another store that would complete the build-out of that center.
The Tule River Tribe east of Porterville was awarded $135,584 and the Yurok Tribe near Lemoore was awarded $79,145 to bolster their food distribution programs. The funding, announced by Agriculture Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon, comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It is to be used for the purchase of equipment and the improvement of facilities needed to provide food assistance to low-income families on and near Indian reservations.
Three Tulare County schools received the Virtues and Character Recognition Award from the Bonner Center for Character Education at Fresno State. Honored were Monte Vista Elementary School in the Porterville Unified School District; Oak Grove Elementary School in the Burton School District and Sundale Elementary School.
Visalia City Council and Planning Commission members approved a package of proposals to preserve a 200-foot scenic corridor along west Highway 198 and will allow consideration of future land development opportunities on both sides of the corridor.
The City of Visalia was recognized by the nonprofit Arbor Day Foundation as a Tree City USA community for its continued commitment to urban forestry. It is the 27th year the City has earned this national designation by meeting the four standards.
Target Corporation reported that its net retail sales for the five weeks ended April 3 were $6.233 million, an increase of 12.5 percent from $5.543 million for the five weeks ended April 4, 2009. On this same basis, March comparable-store sales increased 10.3 percent.
Tulare County - While most are happy to see the rain and snow, the series of late-spring storms does have a downside.
The third storm of the month that arrived Tuesday brought some showers and more importantly, lower temperatures again this week, slowing the ripening of some tree fruits, causing headaches for strawberry growers and delaying the planting and growth of cotton, reported Tulare County Agriculture Commissioner Marilyn Kinoshita.
Last week's storm dropped eight-tenths of an inch - .56 on Tuesday alone. For the month of April, 2.38 inches of rain had been measured before Tuesday's storm arrived, more than triple the average of .75 of an inch.
With the rain has come snow – a lot of it. Farewell Gap at the 9,500-foot elevation above Visalia got 19 inches of snow last week. Giant Forest above Porterville got 17 inches of new snow. As of Monday, there was still eight feet of snow on the ground at Farewell Gap.
Citing April's storms, the state Department of Water Resources (DWR) increased its 2010 allocation of State Water Project deliveries to 30 percent, up from 20 percent. The feds increased their allocated to 30 percent last week.
“The spring storms have been good to California's snowpack, allowing us to increase our water deliveries to communities, farms and businesses this year,” said DWR Director Mark Cowin. “Still, three years of drought, low reservoir storage and regulatory limits on Delta pumping to protect fish keep our allocations far below average and underscore the need for ongoing conservation across the state.”
Electronic snow surveys indicate that statewide, water content in the mountain snowpack is 132 percent of normal for the date.
At Kaweah Lake, storage this week has topped 95,000 acre feet, about two thirds full. With the warmer temperatures and storms, inflow into the lake has increased the past several days. As a result, more water is being let out of the lake as the level rises.
Good & Bad
Kinoshita said the rainfall has been beneficial to cattlemen and growers who are able to avoid an irrigation run right now.
“The rain helps range land. Our cattlemen are just as happy as can be,” said the ag commissioner. “Row crop guys say it's just one less irrigation they have to do,” she added.
For stone fruit and cotton growers, it is another story. Especially damaging are the far below normal temperatures that have accompanied the storms.
“It's been so cool that stone fruit ripening is a bit slow,” she said, adding that cotton would like to see temperatures in the upper 80s to low 90s. The warmer temperatures are needed to warm up the soil so cotton can be planted.
The rain does hurt the quality of hay that has been cut but not baled, and recent winds knocked down some wheat stocks, but overall, the storms have not done that much damage.
However, after three dry years, very few are complaining too loudly.
Tulare County - Visalia Mayor Bob Link set the table at last week's conference of retail leaders and developers when he said, “The Central Valley is probably the ripest place in the state for growth.”
Link gave the opening remarks at the regional meeting of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) that drew not only local leaders, but key players in the development of retail centers throughout the Valley.
Ricardo Noguera, Visalia Housing and Economic Development director, said the goal of the conference was two-fold. The first was to showcase the Central Valley and the opportunities it offers developers, and the second to showcase local developers like Don Orosco who put together Packwood Creek shopping center.
ICSC is a global trade association of the shopping center industry. It has 60,000 members in the U.S., Canada and more than 80 other countries. The Central Valley Alliance includes shopping center owners, developers, managers, marketing specialists, investors, lenders, retailers and other professionals from throughout the South Valley and Central Coast.
Orosco was joined in a panel discussion of keys to successful retail centers by David Paynter, who has developed many shopping centers in the Valley, including the Target Center in Porterville, and Fred Meno of the Woodman Company that is managing the Preferred Outlets of Tulare.
Each spoke of their major centers and the efforts to get the established, with Orosco saying cities like the Visalia are in a good position today because they have managed growth in the past.
“In this economy, communities that have growth constraints will do the best because they are not overbuilt.” Paynter said to be a successful retail developer a person has to know the market, know their prospective clients and stay atop of developments in the market place.
“It is important to cultivate your relationships with everyone involved. You need to keep those relationships,” he told the people in attendance.
Paynter and Orosco both praised local leaders for their willingness to work with developers.
Meno said they are looking to improve that Tulare center, including working with Galaxy Theater there to sell it additional land so the theater can add four more screens.
He also said they are looking at adding a food court and to improve marketing, saying the Tulare center rates a B-minus in terms of sales at about $300 per square foot a year.
“This center is probably protected. It has its own captive audience and is doing very well,” he said.
As for plans to expand the center which had been planned for the past few years, Meno said they are now looking at what to do with the 40 acres the center owns. He also said they are looking at bringing in some European brands, such as Gucci and Armani, along with top brands like Bloomingdale's and Sacks.
“It's a good center that can become great,” he said.
Orosco detailed his task in convincing the city council 10 years ago that it could handle another large shopping center such as Packwood.
“It was a daunting task,” he said, adding a major part of the debate was whether to build near Highway 99 or on South Mooney Boulevard.
He said he attracted retailers like Lowe's to the site, telling them they would not only draw from Visalia, but Tulare as well.
Noguera was pleased with the turnout – about 150 people – and said the response was definitely good enough to bring back the meeting, and perhaps it, next year to reach out to more communities in the region
Tulare County - Juan Guerrero is going ahead with his campaign for Fourth District Tulare County supervisor.
After bowing out of an active campaign in early March due to the passing of his mother, Guerrero announced Monday he was re-entering the race based on the prompting of community members who have been urging him to resume his campaign.
He and five other candidates are seeking to replace incumbent supervisor Steve Worthley, current Board chairman, who is seeking his fourth term on the board.
Guerrero, who failed in an attempt to have his name removed form the ballot, said he paid $3 in outstanding ballot fees and will resume his June 8 primary election bid.
“I have been receiving many phone calls from members of the community urging me to get back into this race. The people that called told me that me they were going to vote for me whether I campaign or not. If they are going to vote for me, I want them to get something of value for their vote. I do not want their votes to be wasted.”
Other candidates, besides Worthley, are Brian Rouch, Donny Barton, Erika Paine, Maggie Florez and write-in candidate Ruben Macareno.
Guerrero said, “I have been a part of this community every day of my life since 1957. I have to get back in and win this election for my community, for my family and for all of the people that I care about and who have supported me my entire life.”
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
April 29, 2010
