There was a great turnout for this year’s Candidates Forum at the Visalia Convention Center Tuesday night, September 16. About 150 people gathered to hear their national, state and county representatives spar with their challengers on the big issues, three of which dominated: the drought, immigration reform and the High-Speed Rail (HSR). Every candidate was […]
Man on Fire During the September 4 gubernatorial debate, Neel Kashkari summed up Gov. Brown’s legislative successes for the month of August as: banning plastic bags, regulating high school football practices, and allowing pets on the patios of restaurants. We know Gov. Brown has accomplished a lot more than that, but Mr. Kashkari’s was painting […]
Visalia City Council held a special meeting Monday, September 8, to review the 2030 General Plan. The council members were generally happy with the plan that was four years in the making. Mayor Steve Nelsen said that it was “a good document leaning towards excellent.” A group called the General Plan Update Review Committee, made […]
The Tulare County Board of Supervisors (BOS) voted 5-0 at their August 26 meeting to file an Unfair Labor Practices Charge against SEIU. The decision came after an impassioned presentation by County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange that described SEIU’s inappropriate conduct during this year’s negotiations. SEIU and the county were in negotiations from March to the […]
The Water Bond hasn’t even passed yet and additional water storage is already in the works for Tulare County. A 4,000-acre-foot reservoir is being planned south of Woodlake and next to Lemon Cove where the St. Johns River and the Kaweah River split at a location known as McKay’s Point. An Indian village used to […]
Can This Marriage be Saved? The debate rages between Tulare County and SEIU. The county is filing an Unfair Labor Practices charge against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) for bad faith bargaining. Kathleen Bales-Lange, county counsel for the Tulare County Board of Supervisors (BOS), explained that there […]
This is part three of an ongoing series about CEMEX, water and wells going dry in Lemon Cove. The next article in the series will feature the arguments surrounding the construction of the McKay’s Point Reservoir. The following is a letter to the Tulare County Planning Commission dated February 8, 1970 concerning Kaweah River Rock […]
Virginia Gurrola Starts Off Running The official campaign season doesn’t start until after Labor Day, but Virginia Gurrola, candidate for Tulare County Supervisor in the 5th District, has already assembled her team and fixed up her campaign office. Her headquarters are at 238 Main St. in Porterville, and the official ribbon cutting is today at […]
Not all Tulare County rank-and-file employees got a signed contract at the end of negotiations July 21. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Bargaining Unit 2, comprised of more than 200 county maintenance, construction and custodial staff, is still working without a contract. SEIU bargaining units 1, 3, 6 and 7 just finished five months […]
This is part two of an ongoing series about CEMEX, water and wells going dry in Lemon Cove. Read part one here. At the end of 2013, a row of Lemon Cove homes along the Stillwell Mining Project, owned and operated by CEMEX, started to see the underground water levels drop. By January, several of […]