The event was to celebrate the coming of a $90 million new courthouse and the building of a new Porterville Fairgrounds.
“This is probably the most substantial project we've ever seen in Porterville,” said John Corkins, president of the Porterville Fair Board, before a crowd of more than 100 city leaders who turned out to celebrate the conclusion of what had been a long process.
More than two years ago discussions began on the city selling the land on East Olive Avenue where the Porterville Fairgrounds has sat for 60 years to make way for a full- service courthouse - the South County Justice Center.
Negotiations on the $2 million sale of city property were completed just in December and that paved the way for the new courthouse and the relocation of the fairgrounds to the Porterville Airport.
The state plans to construct a beautiful nine-courtroom courthouse on the southwest corner of the property that sits along Olive Avenue bordered by the old Santa Fe railroad on the west and Plano Avenue on the east. The California National Guard Armory, on the southeast corner, will remain.
The new courthouse will replace a sorely inadequate three-courtroom Porterville Courthouse. The new courthouse will handle criminal, misdemeanor and family court cases and will have more than four judges to start, with room to grow to as many as nine judges. Tulare County has 19 judicial positions and of those two are in Porterville now and two in Tulare.
“Nobody is happier than I am to have this facility,” said Tulare County Superior Court Judge Glade Roper of Porterville. He served many years as judge in Porterville, but since the courts were consolidated, he has served in Visalia as well.
He said when he started 20 years ago, the Porterville judgeship was almost a part-time job. Today, he said the caseload is more like that for two people, often exceeding 800 cases a day.
He noted that when the court was consolidated in 1998, “the burden on this court was awesome.” At that time the county began to look at options and one included moving everything to Visalia, another was to develop a full court in Porterville. The decision was eventually reached that Porterville needed a new courthouse - a decision fully supported by the state that listed the need in Porterville as one of its judicial priorities.
“This is the beginning
to the answer of overcrowded conditions here,” he
noted.
The new court will be state of the art in many ways, and
perhaps the first building in the county with a “green
roof.”
Designer Dennis McFadden said the entire roof will be planted with vegetation. “It will be a green roof that extends out to the landscape,” and will be utilized by employees and jurors, he said.
Noting that the courthouse is historically the centerpiece of a community, he said the Porterville Courthouse will be a “building for the 21st century” and will be “a 100 year building.”
“We need to do a building the community can invest its pride in,” said McFadden.
Another key feature of the project is that the building will be surrounded by earth berms and heavy landscaping. It will also feature an outdoor courtyard with walkup windows for people to do their business with the county.
“Our greatest goal is to have a great place to work and a place of dignity and calm for those who work with the justice system,” he said.
Another feature of the new courthouse that Roper noted, is it will have 326 parking spaces. That is a huge gain over the fewer than 50 spaces at the current courthouse on Morton Avenue.
Construction should begin early next year with the opening scheduled for 2013.
The building is key to the revitalization of downtown Porterville, noted Mayor Pete McCracken. It is located less than two blocks from the main intersection of downtown - Olive Avenue and Main Street - and the city already has plans to incorporate the new courthouse into the downtown.
“Porterville, we've got it going,” said McCracken, adding, “This will be the foundation for revitalization of downtown Porterville.”
Corkins noted that the fair board has been discussing for years the relocating the fairgrounds to give it more space, but only now have all the stars aligned to make that happen.
“This has been a wonderful process for this community. We think we'll have one of the premiere fairgrounds in the state of California,” he said.
Work has already begun at the new site where Corkins hopes the 2011 Porterville Fair will be held.
The new fairgrounds, just southwest of the airport, is on a 25-acre site. It will include an open air arena designed to host many types of events, over 14,000 square feet of indoor exhibit space and an expo hall. More importantly, it will provide plenty of room for parking and future growth.
This year's fair in May will be the last at the Olive Avenue site.
State Sen. Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) was a key player in getting the courthouse funded.
“You are witnessing a transformation of this property and a new fairgrounds,” he told the gathering. “Let it be a source of pride for the community.”
Visalia - Las Vegas may be in Visalia's future soon.
Great Lakes Airlines, which flies two flights daily from Visalia to Ontario, will sometime in the near future offer flights from Visalia to Las Vegas.
Monica Taylor, director of sales and marketing for the airline, said “it's in the future” for the airline to offer flights to Vegas, but “we don't know when just now.”
Visalia Airport Manager Mario Cifuentez confirmed as well that Great Lakes is looking at offering service to Las Vegas.
“I don't know if they'll drop Ontario and shift to Vegas. They may just add Vegas,” said Cifuentez, adding that Visalia has a good market to Ontario. “I think we could support one flight a day to Ontario, then one or two flights a day to Las Vegas,” he said.
“Ultimately, we'll see Vegas,” he said, explaining that Vegas would be a better destination for Visalia passengers. “I feel use will go up with flights to Vegas. People want to go to Vegas,” he added.
Last week, Great Lakes announced it would begin April 7 offering flights from Merced to Las Vegas, dropping its Ontario service completely. At one time the Merced to Ontario flight included a stop in Visalia, but that ended in January. Now, Visalia passengers are only offered two direct flights daily to and from Ontario.
Great Lakes will offer two flights daily from Merced to Vegas.
“We will include Visalia in the Las Vegas service,” said Taylor Tuesday. Unknown, is if the airline will continue to offer any flights into Ontario.
She said that few Merced passengers were using the Ontario service, while Visalia has quite a few passengers taking advantage of the flights. “Ontario has served us pretty well in getting people to the L.A. basin,” she said.
However, Ontario has lost many of its connecting flights, making it less attractive as hub where passengers can connect to flights elsewhere.
That same problem opened
up McCarran International Airport in Vegas. Before Great
Lakes, previous carriers in Visalia flew into Vegas, but
Great Lakes had trouble getting space at the busy airport.
That has changed and now that Great Lakes has space, it
can add more flights into Vegas, including from Visalia
Taylor said McCarran still offers many connecting flights.
Also in January, Great Lakes reduced its flights to Ontario from three to two, mainly because of poor weather.
Great Lakes has been servicing the Visalia Airport since September of 2008. The airline can carry up to 19 passengers.
Move Would Require Measure T Plan Revision
Visalia - When the Measure T plan was drawn up in 2002 before voters approved Visalia's public safety quarter percent sales tax increase, there were many assumptions on how the money would be spent.
In 2004, voters of Visalia passed the measure - one of the first local sales tax measures passed in the state of California.
In the past six years much in the plan has been accomplished, including two police substations, a new fire station in the northwest corner of the city and the hiring of numerous police officers and firefighters.
Today, one major project remains in that plan and the city is asking the public to give its blessing to a significant change. Instead of building a new fire station in the southeast corner of the city, Fire Chief Mark Nelson is proposing that new station be constructed in the southwest corner of the city.
“When I ran all the data, I realized we had a problem on the southwest side of Visalia,” said Nelson, saying the city urgently needs a station in the southwest corner of the city.
Another major factor in altering the Measure T plan is that the city has been able to lease a portion of the state fire station at Lovers Lane and Walnut. That lease was just extended to 2018.
And, growth has not been as rapid in that quadrant of the city as many expected.
“It doesn't make sense to build over there,” said Nelson.
He has gotten the OK from the Visalia City Council to take his plan to the citizens. Nelson hopes to get their blessing on the change and has planned a series of public meetings to explain the need for the southwest station, including at the weekly Talk of the Town meeting every Thursday at noon at Jack & Charlie's Restaurant. Nelson will be the guest there March 4.
Nelson said his department has over 1,200 calls annually in that southwest corner of the city “that we are not meeting the response time standards.”
The goal is to respond in 5 minutes or less 90 percent of the time. Today, the department is doing that about 80 percent of the time and the average response time for all emergency calls is 5 minutes, 47 seconds. The department has about 8,500 emergency calls a year.
What is important, the chief pointed out, “Building a station in the southeast would not improve response times.”
Not only does the city need to revise the Measure T plan, but there are no provisions in the plan to make changes.
Nelson presented his need for the revision at the February city council retreat and got the council's blessing for his proposal on how to go about getting public approval of the change.
“We're not amending the plan. We just reallocating the resources,” he explained. He plans a large community information effort, seeking input on the change. He will hold specific meetings in both the southeast and southwest sections of the city.
“We'll get all this feedback and go back to the council and then the council will decide to make or not make the revision,” he said. So far, no one has opposed the revision.
Efforts Already Made
Nelson said he has already taken steps to lower costs and improve response times. Last February, the VFD eliminated responding to “low level medical aid calls” unless they are the only responders available. “We do screen the calls and assign them a priority,” he explained, adding that cut out 1,400 responses in the last year. That has freed up firefighters to respond more quickly to emergency calls.
Also, the city has applied for a Safer Grant that will pay for nine new firefighters for two years right now. Measure T allocates 14 new positions, but Nelson is only asking to fill 10 of those to help man the new station. If the grant is approved, it would provide $1.9 million to pay those salaries for two years, and then the Measure T money would kick in.
New Station
The new station, which will be similar to the station that is at Shirk and Ferguson – minus the training room and training facility - would cost $2-3 million. It will have two engine bays and be staffed by three firefighters 24 hours a day.
The goal, however, is to get a station opened in the southwest corner quicker than it will take to construct a new facility. If the Measure T revision is approved, Nelson has a plan to put in a modular station to get services to that area of the city quicker. With that idea, he feels a station can be opened by this summer.
However, he is conscious of costs, knowing that any money spent on the temporary station will come out of the money available for the permanent station. No site has been selected, but the chief said he has identified several locations with a mile radius of Tulare and Akers.
to Four Industrial Users
Dinuba - It's one of the busiest sites in northern Tulare County yet few people know much about it.
Hundreds of tons of commodities arrive, are stockpiled and leave the Dinuba area site every weekday. The former Sequoia Forest lumber mill site, now called Port Ivory, is located on about 110 acres just north of Dinuba on Avenue 424.
On any given day about 40,000 tons of various agricultural commodities and wood products are stored on the site. About 100 rail cars a week deliver grain and other products from the Midwest to the Dinuba location. About 80 truckloads leave the site every day, most of them destined to dairies, cattle ranches or other agricultural venues. In addition, the site is the truck terminal for a solid waste hauling company. It's a busy place.
Three companies operate at the site: Richard Best Transfer, Miramonte Sanitation and ALW wood products. Dinuba Energy Co., which operates a 12.5 megawatt co-generation plant supplying energy to Pacific Gas and Electric, sits on an adjacent 20 acres which was part of the original 130-acre site.
Richard Best Transfer, Miramonte Sanitation and Chuck Littlefield are the owners of Port Ivory. Littlefield, operations manager for the transfer company, said naming the site Port Ivory continues a connection with the rail station of that name many years ago.
With the rail spur, wells, ponding basin, sewage system and proximity to the green energy system, the location continues to draw interest from other companies. Port Ivory is looking ahead to potentially connecting to the Dinuba Energy Company for its power supply, Littlefield said, although talks are in the preliminary stages.
Recently, representatives from an undisclosed company seeking a site to construct a 300,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility toured Port Ivory. They were drawn by the available space, rail and energy access and other amenities as well as zoning, Littlefield said.
He added there are about four or five office spaces available for lease in the headquarters building.
Littlefield said the officials gave no indication what company they represented but said the company is looking at sites in Nevada and California.
The agricultural commodities which come into the site include dried distillers grain, a by-product of ethanol production. They are off-loaded onto paved areas then loaded to trucks from major feed companies such as J. D. Heiskell, Archer Daniel Midland, Gavilon, Western Milling and others who transport it to their mills for mixing or directly to dairies. Usually, the commodities are unloaded to paved areas then reloaded. In some cases, Littlefield explained, the material is unloaded from the rail cars directly to trucks but that process generally takes more time. The Port Ivory facility does have several large covered areas. Materials piled on the paved areas are covered with massive tarps in poor weather.
The wood products company, ALW, collects and grinds wood which is shipped overseas for ground cover for playgrounds. Some is sold to Dinuba Energy to fuel the co-generation plant.
Richard Best Transfer is the largest customer for the San Joaquin Valley Railroad in Tulare County.
Littlefield, who has been involved in attempts to halt a move by SJVR to decrease service in the Valley, said without rail service at Port Ivory, Richard Best Transfer would be out of business.
SECOND FRONT PAGE
What's New
The COS board of trustees has extended the contract of College President Dr. Bill Scroggins to 2013. There was no change to his $204,520 annual salary, but his vacation days were increased from 20 to 25 and both his car allowance and his expense allowance were increased.
Family Health Care Network has received word that it will not be getting any stimulus money to expand its health clinic on Oak Street in Visalia or to build new clinics in Goshen and Woodlake. CEO Harry Foster said the Visalia expansion is on indefinite hold, while they are moving forward, but slowly, with the plans for the Woodlake and Goshen facilities.
Construction on Mooney Boulevard continues to lag, with landscaping and median continuing and the finish of paving on hold until the temperatures warm up (they are close), reported Lisa Salazar of the Visalia chamber of commerce. In a related matter, Salazar said the city won't begin work on the two intersections on Mooney – Walnut and Whitendale – until May and work will take about four months.
The Visalia City Council agreed to take a look at South Mooney Boulevard and what needs to be done to ensure that roadway remains one of the city's major retail centers. The approximately $30,000 study will look at several issues, including zoning laws that right now prohibit car dealers and supermarkets from opening along Mooney.
A change in federal law effective Monday now allows firearms in many national parks, including Sequoia and Kings Canyon National parks. People who can legally possess firearms under federal and state law can now possess those firearms in the national parks in that state. Prior to February 22, firearms have generally been prohibited in national parks – except in some Alaska parks and those parks that allow hunting.
Big Fresno Fair Chief Executive Officer John C. Alkire was inducted into the Western Fairs Association's Hall of Fame on Jan. 24 during its annual conference in Reno. Alkire, who once headed up the Tulare County Fair, Kings County Fair and later Mid State Fair, became the 77th person inducted into the Hall of Fame since it commenced in 1953 to honor individuals who have made great contributions to the fair industry. ”It is truly an honor to join the distinguished list of individuals that have been inducted into the Western Fairs Association's Hall of Fame,” Alkire said in a news release.
Gas prices continue to run 60 cents higher than a year ago, but at least they are holding steady. The Auto Club reported Tuesday that the average price for unleaded regular in Tulare County was $2.949 a gallon, down less than a penney from a month ago. However, last year at this time the price was $2.396 a gallon. “Gas price declines are continuing at a very slight level,” said Auto Club spokesperson Jeffrey Spring last week.”
By Miles Shuper
Visalia - A major renovation to one of Visalia's major nursing and rehabilitation center has begun and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Earlier this month work began on a $2.5 million upgrading and expansion of Visalia Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The entire interior of the main building which includes 62 resident rooms, four nursing stations, four dining rooms, a kitchen and several offices, will be renovated with modern fixtures, custom woodwork and new paint, according to Brandon Bigelow, VNRC administrator.
The long-time Visalia facility was purchased in June, 2009, by Plum Healthcare Group, a San Marcos-based company which owns and operates 21 skilled nursing facilities in California and other West Coast sites.
“It's the dawning of a new era at VNRC. We're not just throwing up a coat of paint and calling it a renovation. There isn't a portion of the seven and one-half acre property that won't be extensively redone.”
The size of the facility's rehabilitation gym is being doubled and there will be upgrading of the flooring, walls, doors, fixtures and equipment in the gym to create “a sleek, modern environment for physical, occupational and speech therapy,” Bigelow said.
Also, each resident room will feature state of the art television mounts with high-end flat panel television sets at every bed, Konecto flooring, phones at every bed and an upgraded call light system, the administrator said.
The exterior renovation, which started more than a month ago, includes a half-acre healing garden featuring a street view waterfall, cutting edge sound system, custom wooden gazebo, wooden bridge and brand new landscaping with flowers, shrubs and trees.
“We feel there isn't a better place for folks in the area to come for a short time to rehab from their injuries,” said Bigelow.
The facility is located in northeast Visalia on Houston Avenue between Ben Maddox Way and Lovers Lane. The facility has a 176-bed capacity and employs about 200 people.
Visalia - Visalia Unified School District is ready to go to full area elections for its board of trustees, the city of Visalia, along with Tulare City Schools District, Tulare Joint Union High School District and the city of Tulare, are all studying the need to go to area elections for their elected bodies.
The Voting Rights movement is not only alive in Tulare County, but the Central Valley, noted Bob Montion, former CEO of Tulare Local Healthcare District, during a presentation before the Hispanic Roundtable last week.
Montion, a strong advocate for area elections that are designed to allow for better representation on governmental bodies, especially minority representation, said the biggest test will come in June when his former hospital district goes to court in an effort to not go to area elections.
The hospital district was sued by a group of plaintiffs calling for the hospital board of trustees to be elected from within five districts, rather than at-large. That suit was filed more than two years ago. It could be the first case of its kind to go through the courts in California, but Montion said it will be a costly case as well - maybe surpassing $5 million. The case has been ongoing for more than three years.
Montion was CEO of Alta Hospital District in Dinuba when plaintiffs there called for district elections. Stan Carrizosa was then a young superintendent of the Dinuba school district.
Leading that suit then, and leading the suit against Tulare hospital district, is Joaquin Avila, a renowned voting rights attorney credited with writing the California Voting Rights Act that was passed in 2001.
“He has a passion bringing communities that vote at-large, to area elections,” said Montion, noting that the issue is a sensitive one and often gets labeled as an ethnic issue.
However, he said the issue is to get more people involved in the political process and key to that, he said, is whether a certain block of voters are “polarized” by the at-large process.
“At-large elections dilute the vote of minority populations and that leads to polarization,” stressed Montion.
Carrizosa, now superintendent of Visalia Unified, said VUSD voluntarily took it on to go from its present system of a hybrid area voting system to “actual district elections.” An advisory committee has already been at work and he said the plan is to be prepared for full area elections beginning in 2011 after the census is completed.
“If you get out in front of it, it is a fairly inexpensive process,” he said.
Lali Moheno, who unsuccessfully ran for supervisor after being appointed to a seat on the board of supervisors, said it can be a difficult process to challenge the status quo.
Visalia Unified is not alone in voluntarily moving forward with area elections. After threatened with a lawsuit, Hanford schools decided to move toward area elections, as did Madera and Fresno Unified School District.
Montion said it makes economic sense to not fight what is a growing trend.
He explained the city of Modesto first opposed an effort to election council members by area, but after losing at the state appeals court and the state Supreme Court, is now setting up area elections. However, the fight cost the city more than $3 million in legal fees.
“Take the message of Modesto and spend that money on your kids, your hospital, your roads,” urged Montion.
With Tulare County over 60 percent Hispanic, Montion said the need for area elections is obvious, and the right thing to do.
“It is an opportunity to sit down and be part of a positive social change,” he said.
Dr. Gil Aguilar, president of the roundtable, said it is important for young Hispanic children to see Hispanics in leadership positions.
By Steve Pastis
Visalia - “A photograph is worth 1,000 words,” explained local historian Terry Ommen about his efforts to gather old photographs that tell the story of Visalia and Tulare County's past.
Ommen, who compiled photos and captions for Arcadia Publishing's recent “Then and Now” book about Visalia, said he receives photos “in all different forms. They come to me in boxes on my doorstep, some are e-mailed, some I borrow, scan and return.
“People know that by getting them to me, I'll get them out,” he added. “My collection is open to anybody. If anybody is doing research, I am open to getting them copies of everything they need.”
He includes some of the old photos in his newsletter which he posts at www.visaliahistory.blogspot.com.
“When I get a photo, I always put a magnifying glass to it,” Ommen said. “There may be a sign on the building or a poster on the side. I tend to analyze them very carefully because there is history there.”
He recently found a photograph that showed horses hitched to rings like those that have been preserved in some of the curbs in downtown Visalia.
“People said that horses were tied to them, but I'm always a skeptic so I wanted to see proof,” Ommen said. “I could see horses and so clearly I could see reins going to the curb. That was the 'smoking gun' evidence. I was so excited.”
A few weeks ago, Jan Morrison gave him a photograph of the “Dotty Dean” fire.
“At the time it didn't sound at all familiar to me,” Ommen noted in his newsletter. “However, when she showed me the photograph, I knew exactly the fire she was referring to. I knew it as the Elks Club building fire. On Dec. 1, 1959, mysteriously the old 1917-18 building caught fire and burned beyond repair. Jan was at the fire with her father, Leo Morrison, who took this picture. The Elks building was in the heart of Visalia on the southwest corner of Main and Locust streets. The fire wiped out a nice classic old Visalia building.”
Laura Spalding, who describes herself as “a local history buff,” gave Ommen some old photos of Visalia and Ivanhoe. “My family came here in the early days of Visalia,” she said, noting that her ancestors, members of the Kelly family, were ranchers in Ivanhoe. “They came from Arkansas on the historical wagon train.
“My mother was a saver like I have been,” she said. “Because of all the related families, we used to get together and exchange photos. I ended up with all my mother's pictures.”
“There are so many photos tucked away in private collections that really don't see the light of day – we're just scratching the surface.” Ommen said.
“To me any photo that shows something that hasn't been shown in a photograph before is significant,” he said. “To me, buildings that I've never seen pictures of are probably more significant than others.”
But a photograph of Constable William English, the earliest known photograph of a Visalia lawman, was an important recent find for Ommen. “He was part of the posse that got Sontag and Evans up at Stone Corral (near Yettem),” he said. “The photo came from a man who was a deputy district attorney in the Bay Area.”
For more information or to join the Historic Happenings membership list (which is free), email Ommen at histerry@comcast.net or call 901-3227.
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
February 25, 2010
