A year ago the Visalia City Council fined homeowner, Abigail Trevino, $29,500. The fine was for code violations, late fees, excessive police calls to her house for 10 years and a SWAT Team raid February, 2014. The cost to the city was approximately $15,000 and the late fees added up to approximately $14,300. At that […]
A public hearing was held during the July 7 Tulare County Supervisors meeting concerning the Papich Construction Asphalt Batch Plant Project. The asphalt plant has been operating out of a Public Works Staging Area in Goshen at Betty Dr. and Highway 99 on a temporary permit. The temporary permit was approved in 2013 so the […]
Part two in the series of “who filled in Mussel Slough” was projected to be the City of Hanford’s response to the running controversy. When the Valley Voice reached out to Darlene Mata, Community Development Director, she politely said, “the city has no comment.” Several hypotheses surround the question of who ordered the back hoe […]
The Urban Farmers for Food Freedom (UFFF) has finalized their initiative and will be submitting their paperwork to the City of Visalia next week. The Food Freedom initiative states that a maximum of 12 food-producing animals will be allowed per residence. Those 12 animals could be composed of no more than eight fowl and four […]
Eat your vegetables If you always skip over the articles about the newest, hottest trade agreement here is your opportunity for a painless recap. Consider it eating your political vegetables. Just in case you thought you were always forgetting the acronym for the trade pact, you weren’t. There are three of them, TPP, TPA and […]
An important draining basin and environmentally sensitive area on the west side of Hanford, a remnant of Mussel Slough, has mysteriously been filled in. Those responsible for filling in the slough have not yet been identified. Robin Mattos, a founding member of the Hanford Environmental Awareness Team (HEAT), noticed a backhoe in the area in […]
The Next Republican Governor In the last issue of the Valley Voice I considered Tulare County Supervisor Allan Ishida the Republican sacrificial lamb to run for governor against the immensely popular Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. But I forgot about Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin. She may not beat Mr. Newsom in 2016, but Democrats can’t win […]
During the Visalia City Council work session on Monday, June 1, the council discussed and voted on a policy for how a city council member can formally add an item to the agenda. Until now, the procedure has been informally handled during the “items of interests” portion of the general meeting. The Council considered establishing […]
The Visalia City Council held a public hearing Monday, June 1 to discuss allowing chickens in standard residential areas. This hearing comes on the heels of a Visalia City Planning Commission where the ordinance was rejected in its current form. The commission did not reject the idea outright, but felt the ordinance should require coops […]
Supervisor Allen Ishida Declares His Candidacy for Governor Supervisor Allen Ishida filed his intent to run for Governor of California on May 15. He can’t formally declare his candidacy until 2016, but wanted to get his campaign committee number from the Fair Political Practices Commission so he can start fundraising. His announcement is historically significant because […]