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–Influentials' first round table discussion, photos by Eric
Lindberg.
Last month, in a secluded conference room, a dozen
prominent businessmen and women got together at the invitation
of Influentials magazine with one purpose in mind–to share
their vision for the future of our community.
Of the dozen
companies invited, nine were able to make the two hour
meeting. Here’s the complete provocative, enlightening and
sometimes scary discussion.
The participants:
Bill
Benneyan, – Benart S&L Homes
Brian Blain, Blain
Farms
Doug Burr, Burr Commerical
Paul Daley, Daley
Enterprises, Inc.
Jill Icenhower, J.D., Broker – Icenhower
Real Estate & Development Co.
Darlene Mata, VP of
Planning & Acquisitions – McMillin Homes
Harvey May,
President - Paloma Development
Basil Perch – BJ Perch
Construction, Inc.
Marty Zeeb, SIOR - Zeeb Commercial
Moderator – Mary T. Hill, VP Branch Manager – Stockmen’s
Bank
RJ Latronico and Traci Myers – Influentials
magazine
Mary Hill
The first question
is: “What is your vision for the future (next twenty years)
and what’s in store for those of us wanting to live and work
in Tulare and Kings Counties?
The second question is: “If
your vision for the future is not realized, what do you see
happening?” We’ll start to my right … with Harvey May.
Harvey May, Paloma
Development
I guess two things come to mind as
trends that I see. One is Visalia, Tulare, and Kings County
have traditionally been … another part of California, almost
another state. For those of us who have lived in other parts
of California, those to the north and those to the south,
treat the Central Valley as almost a colony of California. But
in the last few years, the Central Valley is becoming more and
more like the rest of California. I don’t think that Visalia
will be a separate part of California as much as it has been
in the past. I don’t see us becoming a commuter market–though,
working in Bakersfield. I’ve seen people actually commuting to
L.A. more and more. Visalia will be a stand-alone community.
It feels more and more like the rest of California through
this last market.
The other thing I think will be talked
about is the changing patterns of development: whether or not
we’ll do a better job of integrating uses and creating more
density and those kinds of things that seem to be the popular
context now. I would agree that the way we do traditional land
development in the Central Valley wouldn’t suffer if we
changed some of the assumptions. I hope that those in charge
of making some of those land-use decisions understand that the
market still has a significant influence on that and we’re not
gonna wave a wand and go from the patterns of development that
we have today and become downtown San Francisco overnight.
Incrementally it may change and I think you’ll see some
changes in development.
I haven’t thought it through as to
what my personal vision is … to tell you the truth. I can see
patterns, but I’m not sure I’ve got a vision of what this area
will look like in twenty years. Perhaps as we flush this out,
I’ll get smarter.
Basil Perch, BJ
Perch Construction, Inc.
What I see here in Visalia
is a decrease per capita in education, culture, and
sophistication. And that bothers me because that’s a
deterioration. When I hear about compaction and putting houses
closer together … I go to a lot of places and talk to a lot
people. I just came back from Ireland and Scotland and I can
tell you what they feel. People move to Visalia for the
quality of life … not to live in a sardine can. And the people
who are trying to impose their own ideas or their agendas on
the people are gonna hurt this community in the long run. You
can see a little bit of it in the great northeast plan… St.
John’s River. They’re real compacted and fifty percent or more
are rentals. And if people want to live in a metropolitan
area, then they can move there.
When you go to towns like
Chicago and you go downtown and you see these big beautiful
buildings with apartments or condos that cost a half a million
or a million dollars, those people make wages that can afford
that. But my fear is that we’re going to push poor people into
tenant houses … and when you put poor people with big families
in small boxes, you start having problems. Now the other way
you can do it is tell all the rich people we’re going to take
your houses away … that we’re going to put all the poor people
in those houses.
RJ Latronico
Ok, so basically
you’re saying, watch what you’re planning because you may wind
up with something …
Basil Perch
You don’t
want.
Mary Hill
And the second part
of the question: If your vision is not realized, where do you
see us in twenty years?
Basil Perch
I see this town as
a town with more welfare, more crime, more social problems,
gang problems, because we’re forcing people to live in those
kinds of situations. I see the government subsidizing housing
because the poor people can’t live in those homes and
developers aren’t going to build multi-story, multi-family
houses and sell them for that much money. That’s what I see.
Mary Hill
Thank you, Basil.
All right, moving forward to … Brian.
Brian Blain, Blain Farms
I
tried to look at it from more of a farm land conversion
realizing that there was going to be a token farmer in the
group. I think in twenty years the most likely scenario is
that we’re going to continue to grow until we no longer have
sufficient non-ag jobs to support the increase in population …
or until the equity refugees no longer have the cash to move
into the area … or for whatever reason the area is no longer
attractive to those types of immigrants. I think that ag jobs
will go largely unfilled. I think there will be an
increasingly difficult time getting migrant workers … and I
think the schools and trade schools will continue their trend
of not preparing people for ag jobs. I think we’re likely to
see large blocks of land near cities put into preservation
blocks–by ag preservationists, not by farmers.
I think
we’ll continue to see water diverted away from farming,
increasing not only the cost of water but also the
availability of water … to the point where there will be lots
of marginal land and areas where nobody wants to live–like
Alpaugh–that will go out of production. I think we’re going to
see a lot of this preserve land go foul, especially on the
outskirts of towns … mostly because regulations will increase
and will become more and more punitive. This will make it more
difficult to farm. And the liability of farming near people,
residents and businesses will pretty much eliminate the
ability to farm adjacent to communities. I think counties will
probably start to relax their zoning restrictions and we’ll
see more non-ag uses, and what has been looked at as primarily
ag areas will have some of the same effects as development
influences on land on the perimeter of communities.
Mary Hill
Thank you for that …
and then the second part of the question, where I think you
may have captured part of that already …
Brian Blain
I think that the
only thing that could really make a significant change in that
would be if–because of wars or whatever–if we got to the point
where we were dependent and self-sufficient for both fuel and
food. We could see the value of farm land as farmable land …
make it more competitive and less available for development.
In other words, if farm land actually got to the point where
we were making a thousand dollars an acre profit every
year–then it would not be worth selling for fifty-thousand
dollars an acre. I think that’s about the only thing I can see
that could have a significant change in the political climate,
which would then involve allocating water and reducing
regulations and finding labor sources.
Mary Hill
Thank you. Moving
forward … Paul.
Paul Daley, Daley Homes
I
think it has to get worse before it gets better. The increase
in regulation and government from Sacramento and Washington
both are going to provide more and more restrictions–which
will drive up the price and costs of houses in the whole
state, especially in our area. Our affordability index has
been cut in half in the last couple of years and this means
more apartments … and fewer homeowners. I think homeowners are
the backbone of the community and the more programs we can
work on, the better. I am hopeful that cities will start
realizing that if they can work in alliance with non-profits
like Self Help and Habitat for Humanity … they can help
provide some affordable new housing.
If we don’t do that,
as part of my second question…would be inclusionary zoning and
then no one is going to be happy about anything. That’s
basically what I see. I think we can overcome some of the
problems headed our way. The air gets cleaner every year … and
with new homes and some of the things we’re putting into
them-like solar energy–I think we can cut air pollution and
also energy consumption, especially in the Valley.
RJ Latronico
Paul, you have
some developments in Kings County … is it different in Kings
County than it is here?
Paul Daley
Not significantly.
I think Visalia’s different from the rest of the two counties,
from the standpoint that we now have almost a … a constraint
on growth. They’re trying to force things to happen in a
certain way that the other cities aren’t. I think the other
cities are all looking to see how it works in Visalia and then
they’ll decide whether they’ll follow or not. I think Kings
County’s pretty much the same. I think there’s a bigger
difference between Visalia, Hanford, Porterville and Tulare
and smaller towns than there is between the two counties.
RJ Latronico
But Visalia
is clearly in the lead in all of this ?
Paul Daley
I wouldn’t say
that, but I would say that they’re going in a different
direction. Hopefully it’s not leading because we don’t want to
follow–at least I don’t want to follow the lead of Visalia.
RJ Latronico
Let it be known
that Paul Daley is from Tulare.
(Laughter)
Mary Hill
All right. Do you
feel you answered your second question as well? Which is, if
it’s not realized …
Paul Daley
Okay, if it’s not
realized, I think things could get very difficult. You’ll have
more and more (government) programs because you’ll have more
poverty. You’ll have more restrictions, you’ll have fewer
incentives, and every time there’s a problem we’ll be running
to Sacramento or Washington to try to solve it. And it is my
opinion that government doesn’t always solve problems.
Mary Hill
Moving on … to
Marty Zeeb.
Marty Zeeb, Zeeb Commercial Real Estate
Having been born and raised here, I guess my vision
for the community is a lot about where it’s been and where
it’s going. We have a giving community. My vision is for the
community to continue to be as giving and as community-minded
and as concerned about what goes on in the community as it is
now. So for the future, that’s a vision I’d like to see
continued. With respect to the feel of the town … it is a
town, it’s not a city. We’re not going to be a metropolitan
city per se´. I like the quality and the feel of our downtown,
without it being the huge metropolitan setting that some
people may feel when they drive it.
I like what’s going on
down there but not beyond the natural growth patterns of the
city. Just the quality that’s there–I think they’ve done a
good job of growing it, without pushing it too hard, to let it
take its natural course. Just keeping things balanced with the
commercial development in town. I wasn’t on top of it
initially–but I kind of like the idea of the new commercial
development on the north side of town. I think it’s the
reality of the growth that’s coming up there. That’s a good
element this community really needs, to keep everything from
being so overbalanced on the south side of town.
I can
really support what’s going on with that but you can’t drive
the market with too much legislation. You need to have a
vision and then use your common sense–you don’t need a
battle-ax to make it happen. Probably very few communities
give back to their community and their various non-profits and
support groups as well as Visalia does. That’s certainly
something I wouldn’t want to see go away.
Doug Burr, Burr Commercial Real
Estate
I speak from the perspective of a commercial
real estate market. I think that in the next twenty years
you’ll see Visalia becoming one of the best or biggest
warehouse distribution markets in California, due to our
central location. You’re starting to see that happening now
with some of these big companies–like VF and JoAnn
Fabrics–opening their west coast distribution centers. I see
that trend continuing for the next twenty years. We’re still
the most affordable place to open a west coast distribution
center, what with our lease rates and land costs being lower
than anywhere in California. That trend will continue.
I
think our manufacturing companies will continue to move
overseas, or out of California, due to our workers comp
issues, as well as electricity issues. I think we’ll see
manufacturing jobs decline but warehouse jobs continue to
grow. I think Visalia will still be the retail hub of this
county and Kings county will continue to grow as housing and
population increase. As far as a vision for Visalia, I–like
Marty–like the feel of the small town. I don’t want it too
compressed and over-developed downtown, and people like to
live here because it is the best community in the Valley. I
think that needs to continue and there needs to be a close
check on development so it doesn’t spread too fast. That’s my
opinion of the commercial market. If that’s not realized, if
we don’t create jobs in Visalia, I think we’ll have higher
crime, more poverty, more welfare. A better vision needs to
happen because our agriculture jobs are slowly going away and
our manufacturing jobs are going away.
Mary Hill
Thank you. Okay,
let’s move forward.
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Darlene Mata, McMillin
Homes
We need to do better at providing a community
that will keep our young people here or bring them back. My
daughter will be going away to college next year and I don’t
think she will come back to Visalia because we don’t have the
jobs or opportunities found in other areas. I hear this a lot
from other parents. We need to continue to provide housing for
all people in the communities within Kings and Tulare County,
including affordable and higher density housing, but also
traditional housing. The large lot with a backyard the kids
can play in, the American dream. The type of traditional
housing we provide that is disdained by some people in the
community. That is why people move to Visalia. That is why
people want to come back here and raise their kids here. We’ve
done great with employment and with education, but I think we
can do better. My family’s been here for five generations,
since the late 1800’s. I want to see Visalia grow as well as
it has been. We don’t need to change the way we manage growth,
we need to continue on the path outlined in the Visalia
General Plan. If we stop growing we will end up with more
poverty, less jobs, more social programs.
Mary Hill
Okay. Jill?
Jill Icenhower, Icenhower Real Estate
& Development
I’m approaching the discussion
from a sales point of view, and from a smaller developer point
of view. In Visalia right now we have an over-supply of
residential homes because there’s too much supply and not
enough demand. I believe there would have to be something like
three hundred families moving into the city each week in order
to keep up with the supply.
I think however, we have had a
reactionary, over-reactionary response to this issue. The
issue is not just supply. It’s a two pronged approach: if
there’s too much supply and not enough demand, we need to
increase the product, but also increase demand. We want this
to be a place where people continue to want to live, and we
want to attract the young professionals back after they go to
college. How do you do that when someone is just out of
college? You supply them with a job. If they don’t have jobs,
they’re not coming back.
And that is where we also need to
recognize the contributions that developers have made. They
have pumped a lot of income into this city, they have supplied
many jobs. We cannot forget about the supply end because that
is what generates jobs. I think that we need to take a more
balanced approach. Otherwise, the city will suffer and that
affects the demand. We also need to make sure developers can
make money in this city. I don’t think just being able to
build higher density housing is enough of a carrot to keep
them going.
I’m new to the city, but I realize that this
is a city of more haves than have nots. There’s not a booming
middle class population here. I think that that disparity will
continue to grow larger, which will increase the social
services necessary and we all know if that happens an increase
in the crime rate is not far behind.
Mary Hill
Thank you, Jill.
Bill …
Bill Benneyan, Benart
Homes
Gosh, I’ve been a resident of Visalia since
1964, off and on. I’ve watched the town grow and I think the
town’s done a great job with the concentrical growth pattern
around our downtown area. I work in Fresno and Visalia, but I
choose to live in Visalia. I’d like to see this town continue
to develop its needs, whether it’s affordable housing for
people who need assistance … but also for people who want
larger estate-style homes to have the opportunity for large
lots. That’s going to take cooperation with the county and the
city, with everyone working together to adopt a land-use
policy that will allow development of a Rancho Santa Fe or
Montecito or Woodland Hills like nicer areas in the state. I
think we can do that in this area.
But we can’t do it if
everybody is worried about taking care of the people who need
the help. So we need to balance our growth with the vision of
larger properties for some people … while taking care of
working people who can’t afford the larger properties. I think
that job growth is number one. If I were somehow cast into the
role of helping the community I would work very hard at
developing good jobs so that our college graduates and our
high school graduates would want to stay in this area. They
don’t come back here because we can’t give them good jobs.
Mary Hill
Thank you. Okay. For
our final round each one of you will be given three minutes to
make a comment about something another participant has said.
So we’ll start the round again. Harvey?
Harvey May
Since I didn’t
provide a complete vision with my first comments, let me make
a comment now. I came to Visalia in 1984 and the reason why
was because I got a job here. But the other reason was because
Visalia was different … Visalia has always been seen as the
Jewel of the Valley. You don’t hear that spoken as much as we
used to. I don’t know if it’s because we don’t think we are
the Jewel anymore or because we’ve grown so fast over twenty
years that we’ve lost some of that sense of community.
But
in the next twenty years I’d like to see that Jewel of the
Valley idea become more important to us again. Visalia is
different than the rest of the Valley and that’s a good thing.
And it’s a good thing for us to shoot for higher standards for
ourselves and everybody else in the community–and kinda keep
it that way. And I don’t mean that from an elitist perspective
as much as from a quality perspective. You don’t have to look
far outside of Visalia to know that there aren’t many
communities that match up with what we have. I think our
downtown is an absolutely perfect example of why Visalia is
different. People want to be there, the way they want to be a
part of our community. And I hope we continue with that. I
find Brian’s comments interesting about ag preservation and
the role of ag easements and preservation from outside, rather
than by choice of those that actually own the land and farm
the land. I’d be interested to hear a little bit more about
that.
Mary Hill
Basil,
would you like to comment?
Basil Perch
Education is key
to growth in Tulare and Kings counties. Fifteen years ago, I
tried to get the city to go out and look for a university or a
college and subsidize it for a million dollars a year. We have
a fairly big college … but they didn’t want to spend their
money. I don’t know what they did with it. We look down on
Lemoore as being unsophisticated, but they had the vision to
hook up with a junior college. They built a whole campus and
in about five to ten years, it will be Lemoore Jr. College.
That’s what we need to do here. What’s scares me is that we’re
ultimately going to lose economically.
I see the other
communities getting bigger and bigger and our economic base
getting lower and lower, and that hurts since we lose the
quality of life here. Now, it’s good to have warehousing and
distribution but those are menial jobs for uneducated people.
We need to go back to education. We need to bring education
here. That will bring sophisticated buildings here. They did
it in the 60’s and Doug Burr’s dad was one of them…they built
the industrial park and they brought the Microsoft of that era
here. Butler Manufacturing, Kawneer, Screw Conveyor … that
kind of industry was here because we had a fairly
sophisticated community. Now we’ve grown seventy five percent
in unsophistication in the last twenty years. And so that’s my
big fear–that if we keep on the way we are, we’re goning to go
down hill.
Brian Blain
There’re two
things I want to touch on; one was a kind of common thread
among many of you. I’m referring to the need for more non-ag
jobs, and jobs that our families can come back to. In
agriculture–for those of you who aren’t involved in it … well,
it’s not the same old agriculture that we had ten to fifteen
years ago. Someone with training as a mechanic is making a
minimum of $20 per hour. Supervisors who have the ability to
grow crops and supervise a crew and operate a ranch are
making… I think my lowest paid supervisor is making seventy
thousand dollars a year.
There are a lot of jobs in
agriculture, but unfortunately our schools and our society
have used agriculture as a punitive illustration of what
happens if you don’t do your homework, if you don’t go to
college, if you don’t study and if you don’t get good grades
you’re gonna be out there on the farm just like your parents
were. Well, there’re a lot of people in farming who are making
very good livings, much better than they ever could as a
computer programmer or medical assistants or … well, don’t get
me started on that one.
But anyways, the other thing …
Harvey’s comments regarding ag preservation. Most people who
make their living farming, and whose entire livelihood is
based on farming, and who are full-time farmers–they take
offense to those who use farm land and farm land preservation
as a way of controlling growth or directing growth. In almost
every case that is not done for the benefit or to the benefit
of farmers. It’s done to satisfy someone’s agenda. And it’s
unfortunate to see community leaders in any community who put
on the face of an ag preservationist worried about
agriculture, yet their actions usually have the opposite
effect. We’re seeing more and more of that and there are lots
of funds available from large cities and charitable groups …
enormous amounts of money–you know, the old guilt money that
we hear about … money that is available for the purpose of
taking farm land out of potential development path. And I
think we’re going to see a lot more of that. I think we’re
going to see those types of things used to block growth–not to
preserve farm land. If anything, they will probably make it
more difficult for people to farm in those areas. And you’re
going to see that type of thing end up as an eyesore.
Mary Hill
Thank you. Paul
…?
Paul Daley
Just a comment on
what Brian said. I grew up on an orange grove in Lindsay. We
were way out in the sticks and we didn’t have any
restrictions. But the worst thing for a farmer, I think, is to
own land next to the city where you can’t sell it to a
developer and where you have all the problems with over-spray,
dust and noise, and yet you don’t get the potential offset of
eventually being able to sell it.
I don’t know what the
rule of thumb is, but development land, I see as ag-land times
ten. Subdivision land times ten is commercial land. So
somewhere in that category …. If you must farm the land and
put up with all the complaints and all the extra problems and
costs of farming next to a city and then you can’t sell the
land and it has stay farm land…that’s a bummer.
The other
thing I’d like to point out is what everyone is talking about
… education. And from what I’ve seen in the various towns we
are in Lemoore, Hanford, Tulare, Visalia in the
past–cooperation is king, it gets things done.
Darlene was
talking about the problem with schools in certain towns, and
that’s because they don’t pass the bonds. In other towns,
every bond that comes up passes with a two thirds
majority–sometimes by three votes–but they get the two thirds
majority and that’s because the citizens understand that the
people in the leadership positions will be good stewards of
the money … that they won’t waste it, they won’t go off in
other areas, and they will build schools. I think that’s
happening in some of the other cities that I’ve dealt with.
And to get that to Visalia, would work if you could
convince the community that the school administration would
actually do what it says it’s going to do, by providing
education programs the community will buy into.
I think
you’ll find the same with affordable housing. The government
has an area, non-profits have an area, for-profit has an
area–we all do different things in different ways and we all
have things we do best and things we don’t do very good. And I
think we need to cooperate and use our strengths instead of
trying to force some people to do things that they’re really
not good at doing.
Mary Hill
Do you have a
follow-up, Marty?
Marty Zeeb
We just talked
about a vision. I wasn’t originally thinking along the lines
of my beautiful utopian ideal of Visalia. I was thinking about
some specific ideas and opinions of things going on in Visalia
right now. One of which is the ag area that Paul just hit on,
or should we say the county area between the west city of
Visalia and the City of Visalia. There is a thumb of green
island that runs up from south Visalia up to Goshen Avenue
that’s in the county. And those poor people can not farm that
property, 1) very economically or efficiently; 2) many of them
aren’t in the Williamson Act trying to protect their tax base,
and 3) most of them are so old they’re ready to die or retire.
They’re done farming, and yet there is this feeling among some
at the city that the whole area should be protected for ag.
When in reality it’s nothing more than a postage stamp in the
big picture of ag, and it’s surrounded almost entirely by
development in the city of Visalia. And they want this … this
scenic corridor down the center of HWY 198 with two hundred
feet of trees or something …
From the audience
It’s six hundred feet…
Marty Zeeb
Six hundred feet.
The reality is that one hundred feet of well-planted trees …
any kind of trees … take your pick! Sycamores! Start in the
front with some of the orchard trees and then grow bigger
trees as you go back. Everything behind there is invisible. So
you don’t need six hundred feet to hide development, to have a
soft green entrance. And yet these people want to leave it the
way it is … while people will leave farm implements and plowed
fields there as a-in your face, this is what you get. In
reality there can be a wonderful trade-off between development
and landscaping in a way that would work for everybody to
create a green buffer, and to free up this land that can no
longer really be effectively farmed by these guys who still
own the farm land there.
That’s one of my pet peeves right
now and I just can’t see how our city fathers can’t understand
that. Paul brought it up … that’s an exact prime example of
people being in a position where they can’t really farm their
property without dust or some drift going down into
neighborhoods.
Mary Hill
Thank you, Marty.
Doug?
Doug Burr
Bill touched on
something: I have two little kids and I would hate for them
not to want to come back to Visalia, or not have opportunities
to come back to Visalia to work. And Basil’s right, these
warehouse distribution jobs fill a void, but they’re not going
to bring everybody back. We need higher paying jobs whether it
is in ag or some other industry and I think to get that
industry here we need higher education here … like a college.
So I think that’s vital to attract higher education here,
which in turn would typically bring higher paying jobs. This
would allow my kids–and anyone else’s–to come back here after
getting a college education. I think that’s very important.
I don’t who mentioned it but I think the health care
situation in Visalia is really troubling. I don’t think we
have a neurosurgeon on call right now at the emergency room.
If one of my kids got hurt in an auto accident, there would be
no one to take care of him if he had a head injury. That needs
to change, that’s a vital part of the community. And I think
Marty’s right, we need to develop some of these areas that the
ag people can’t develop because they’re too near residential.
The whole green belt is a good idea but it needs to be … you
know, compromised. Or not compromised, but they need to work
with the developers to make it work. Higher education is gonna
be a real key to Visalia’s future in the next twenty years.
Traci Myers
Since you
specialize in the industrial park, what do you see happening
out there in the next twenty years? Do you see the City
running out of land?
Doug Burr
Well, if we don’t
allow more land to be brought in. The trend is the warehouse
distribution buildings, but I would like to see more
manufacturing jobs or higher paying jobs come to Visalia.
Traci Myers
Do you see a cycle
as far as manufacturing vs. distribution?
Dour Burr
I just see
manufacturing leaving the area, because of problems with the
electricity, with the worker’s comp issues. If you can build
something in Mexico and ship it here for half the cost,
they’re gonna do it. So, somehow we need to work around those
issues. I think the trend is warehouse distribution type
companies, but I’d like to see more higher paying jobs in
manufacturing. And we’re not gonna get a Microsoft type
company here unless we have a university here.
Mary Hill
Moving forward to
Darlene.
Darlene Mata
I wasn’t going
to go into the ag preservation area but since it’s being
discussed … (laughter) I agree that people using ag
preservation as a way to control growth is just not the way to
use it. It’s been done in other communities in the Bay Area
where preservationists bought ag easements specifically to
prevent a city from growing in the direction they didn’t want
it to grow. And I see that coming here and I think that’s a
shame. Using HWY 198 as the example, this area is the donut
hole in the growth pattern of Visalia. For our city leaders
it’s their greatest opportunity for in-fill development, which
is being discussed all the time. Allowing this infill
development could put off the expansion of the next urban
boundary maybe as much as ten years if this area was allowed
to develop. This would relieve some of the increasing
pressures at the edge of Visalia, where ag land is still
viable and can be farmed at a profit. It saddens me to know
that there were property owners in the corridor area that
bought their land along a major roadway, thinking they might
someday have something valuable and they have died waiting for
the day they could make some money and retire. They never saw
the day they planned for, some of them have died, some of them
have just given up.
Harvey May
Coincidentally, the
scenic corridor stopped at the city’s property.
Darlene Mata
Exactly. But I do
see that as a big opportunity, if they’d just get away from
the idea that it’s only to be used for ag land. I think it is
a shame that some of those property owners died trying to
actually get their land into the city.
Jill Icenhower
Well I guess I
won’t talk about the scenic corridor.
So, I’ll stay with
the aesthetic issues. I would like to see the city address
these more, with developments coming through. I would like
them to think about the aesthetic impact that it has upon the
city. I don’t believe there is anyone on site plan review at
this point who is working to find middle grounds.
Mary Hill
Thank you, Jill …
which brings us to Bill.
Bill Benneyan
One of the big
issues everybody’s touched on is education, and what happens
to our educational system in Visalia. I’m very familiar with
the Clovis school district, and I know that one of the big
reasons the Clovis district is successful is that they
absolutely require the parents of all the children to be very
involved in the school system. The parents even have room
duty!
At this point, publisher RJ Latronico makes a comment.
RJ Latronico
There are a lot
of people in the room who want to see the city and the county
change for the better. If we had a magic wand and we could
wave it and change things–what would you change? We talked
about education and getting a four year college here. Is there
anything else? What’s the one thing you would like to see
happen at this time right now.
Harvey May
I would go to a
comment Marty made … One of the things we talked about today
is involvement, cooperation, making Visalia a better place.
I’ve said for years, that if you want to make a difference,
you can. If you choose to be involved in the community and
make a difference on a very small level or on a large level,
there are plenty of opportunities. I hope that continues. I
think if you want to spend the time and energy we can continue
to make Visalia the place most people would want to live in
the Valley, and I hope we don’t lose that as we grow.
My
comments earlier, about us becoming more like the rest of
California … I don’t necessarily mean positively. I hate to
think of people driving into their garage, closing their
garage door, going into their house from their garage and if
they go outside at all, they’re in their backyard and nobody
ever sees anybody. There was a sense of community in Visalia …
I think there still is. But as we grow, one of the greater
challenges will be to retain that sense of community and take
the time to make a difference in the community and in other
people’s lives. I hope that continues.
RJ Latronico
Mary, you’re
officially our moderator, but I’d like to hear if you have
anything you’d like to add … your opinion is valid too.
Mary Hill
The biggest
challenge for me has been the six kids we raised here. And as
they got their education–like everyone else’s fear–they left.
One is in San Francisco, one in Seattle, one in San Jose. Then
when they come home I say, “Come on, we got a great place
here. Look at what you can pay: instead of paying a
million-seven for your house, you can come here and get
something equal for like six hundred thousand.” And he goes,
“Mother, what would I do?” And he said, “There’s nothing, you
really don’t have a middle class.”
And I kind of felt
insulted, and yet listening to everyone around the table, I
thought: What is the carrot? What is it that is really going
to bring him home? I agree with Brian, there are jobs people
don’t even think about–like farming, many very good. But
people have threatened you with that for years–that if you
don’t do your homework, farming is where you’ll end up. But
that’s not true.
What I would like to see is the
opportunity of education to move forward. We’ve had many
missed opportunities. My husband says is “How can people in
this community be so stupid as not to pass a school bond?” And
I mean that’s a big deal for him to strike out like that. And
he said, “Don’t they see the need?” I guess after living here
thirty-three years and being in banking for thirty one years,
I’ve seen so much new commercial development in the housing
industry I think we’ve come a long way, baby. And I agree that
after five generations–Darlene, you’ve seen so much and the
city fathers before us have done such a great job in terms of
where we’ve come to. And I agree with you, Jill–the bullet
train’s must stop here! And maybe that’s my summation: the
bullet train has to make a stop here … the sooner the
better.
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