City strategizing for new state laws concerning cannabis sales

At the latest council meeting on Monday, March 16, city economic development manager Devon Jones unpacked the latest tweaks and changes to a set of proposed ordinances that would give City Hall the right to oversee and tax recreational cannabis businesses. The process began in May 2024, and this is the third time the plans have been presented for council review.

Yet there’s still no indication the city will ever issue licenses to sell recreational cannabis, even if the proposed changes to the law are eventually enacted.

“The direction currently is to establish the entire regulatory framework for a cannabis business program, but set the number of licenses to be issued for all use types to zero,” Jones said. “This at any point in the future could be changed by a simple resolution at whatever time either the council desires to open that up, or maybe the state perhaps passes the mandate in the industry.”

The work is being done now to get ahead of any possible changes to state law that could force cities to allow recreational sales. A similar state mandate in 2023 forced Visalia to begin allowing the delivery of medical cannabis inside the city limits. It’s been a particular concern since then for Councilman Brian Poochigian.

“Let’s put some kind of tax measure on the books so we have it there so the state doesn’t come down and say, ‘Hey, you have to allow this, and this is where the money goes,’” he said of the proposed code changes. “I’m glad we’re setting up a framework where we locally can determine – if we ever decide to do this – where the money is going to go to best help our community. So, I like what we’re doing.”

City’s Cannabis Consultant to Craft Fee Schedule

In the end, the council approved spending another $12,000 on consultant fees to continue shaping the future of the city’s potential cannabis industry. HdL Companies, which serves as Visalia’s cannabis law consultant, will assist staff at City Hall with a fee schedule for various types of potential cannabis businesses.

HdL’s job is to make sure Visalia taps all available revenue from the future potential sales of cannabis, Jones said.

“Obviously fees are an important part of this entire regulatory framework,” he said. “And they (HdL) will help us in the finance department, more specifically, make sure we’re covering all bases in terms of all the applicable fees for this.”

The planning going on now is intended to ensure the city maximizes its portion of the revenue flow while making doing business reasonable. And it will not be cheap to operate a cannabis business in Visalia.

“A clear thing that we’re going to indicate is that all licensees will be expected to pay an annual minimum to the city of $50,000 or 1% of annual gross receipts, whichever is greater,” Jones said. “How we came to that figure, there was some research conducted (in) neighboring jurisdictions, I won’t go through all of it, but that number on an annual basis seemed to be appropriate.”

Visalia Studies How Other Cities Handle Cannabis Business

The city’s research included evaluating how Tulare, Porterville and Lemoore have approached licensing and fees. Data from Farmersville, Woodlake and Lindsay was not included. The three cities studied have all negotiated individually with the various retail cannabis businesses. These agreements sometimes include initial fees, and each city requires annual payments.

As the cannabis code stands now, Visalia would not charge a large initial application fee. However, one could be added.

“There’ll be application fees, like some of them you notice an annual license fee,” Jones said. “We’ll have those kinds of things, obviously.”

Each city has set its own cannabis tax rate, which varies in Tulare County from 5% to 10%. Visalia has yet to fix its retail cannabis sales tax rate, though it has set a maximum.

“The tax rate of course will be factored in,” Jones said. “Currently, we have the ability to charge up to 10%. That’ll be something we have to establish at a later time.”

The city could also reverse course on initial lump-sum payments for new applicants, Jones added.

“The initial kinds of fees are something else that could be considered,” he said. “We’d create new licensing fees. That’s something to be determined.”

City Manager to Control Applications, Appeals

Should the city ever allow retail cannabis businesses to operate in Visalia, they’ll all be required to get a conditional use permit (CUP) from City Hall to open their doors. Delivery of cannabis for medical use will be exempt.

Retail shops open to the public will be allowed in established regional and service commercial zones, as well as in commercial mixed zones. But they won’t be allowed in the city’s downtown microbrewery district on East Main Street. Businesses without storefronts – such as distributors, processors, testing labs and manufacturers – will be confined to the city’s Industrial Park.

“That would mean the industrial park proper west of Shirk (Road),” Jones said. “There are pockets of industrial zoning in town, and some light industrial. So we’re just being clear that this is specifically the industrial and light industrial zone we’re wanting to include.”

The businesses will be allowed to operate from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Because of state law, medical cannabis delivery will be allowed from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. The plan is to roll the current medical cannabis ordinances into the set of regulations now being crafted.

An entirely separate city ordinance will cover the license application process and how the applicants will be selected. The city manager will have control of who can apply and oversee the qualification process. However, those who ultimately receive the licenses will be chosen by lottery.

“The city manager is authorized to make all decisions concerning the issuance of renewal licenses and the licenses themselves,” Jones said. “And similarly, all appeals will be heard by an appointee designated by the city manager.”

By choosing licensees from a pool of qualified applicants, the city hopes to avoid becoming entangled in long appeals with applicants who ultimately don’t win the right to do business.

“This is more of the current industry standard in terms of establishing this kind of business framework. (We have a) strong recommendation from our consultants at HdL,” Jones said. “It’s kind of more streamlined, and a process that we believe will assist us with the likely appeal process that will occur for any unselected applicants.”

Loads of Paperwork Await Cannabis Biz Applicants

The application process for getting a cannabis business license in Visalia will be rigorous. Applicants will have to prove they have a location to do business and the landlord’s OK. They’ll also have to provide documentation from an insurance company that their business can be covered. The city also wants its own exposure minimized, requiring inspection agreements, statements of limitations on liability and background checks for owners and managers.

Jones said the city will look at four areas of concern.

“First is the business plan, which consists of such things as the owners’ prior licenses that they’ve held and their jurisdictions, whether they’ve had any licenses suspended or revoked in any other jurisdictions, their proof of capitalization for the project, including their construction budget,” he said.

Applicants will have to present a neighborhood compatibility plan to show the business will have adequate buffers from things like churches and schools. They’ll also need a safety and security plan, and a community benefits plan that shows how they intend to be an asset to the city beyond creating revenue.

“Knowing that we want to select quality applicants in the process, staff and the consultant worked hard on ensuring that there were certain requirements in the application process that kind of ensured quality applicants,” Jones said. “But also post-selection means to ensure that people are delivering on their development plans.”

Once a license is issued, it cannot be transferred or sold for at least five years. When a license is transferred, the city will look as thoroughly at the exchange as it looks at new applicants.

“It’s going to basically be prohibited to transfer a license during that timeframe,” Jones said. “And also any transferees or (applicants) who might want to transfer a license are approved by the city manager, and the process is essentially treated like a new application.”

Mayor Brett Taylor still has concerns about license transfers despite these precautions. He’d like the ordinance to include a considerable fee for transferring existing recreational cannabis business licenses.

“I’d like to do that, because at the end of the day what we’ve heard from the consultant that we met with is that they (cannabis business owners) just play games, change up management, change up ownership,” Taylor said. “I prefer that if we catch that, we just hit them with a transfer fee of $500,000 or $1,000,000 or whatever it may be. So if they’re going to play games, there’s going to be pain.”

When Will Visalia Allow Cannabis Sales? Not Yet!

As city officials and staff are quick to point out, there is no plan to allow recreational cannabis businesses to open in Visalia. But all the pieces are moving into place.

“We don’t exactly have a timeframe,” Jones said about creating a fee schedule. “I would assume a couple months to get the work conducted and then come back.”

And there’s apparently no sense of urgency at City Hall.

“Really, because we’re still going to be establishing the licenses at zero, we could take this in chunks,” Jones said.

Meanwhile, the public remains of two minds. Visalian Gabriel Jaquez spoke of his concerns over how cannabis businesses were certified, as well as the effect of cannabis on homelessness and mental health, and the reduced ability of workers to pass drug tests as a result.

“Anytime you have drugs and alcohol, it’s not a good thing,” he said. “Cannabis is a drug.”

Adolpho Ace Castillo, owner and operator of the popular retail cannabis outlet Banyan Tree in Fresno, spoke in favor of the city opening itself to recreational sales.

“As an operator, I just want to take you behind the curtain,” Castillo said. “At a 4% rate that the city of Fresno (charges) and at about a 600 to 700 customers per day that come into the Bayan Tree, an average of $25,000 to $26,000 or around that a month goes to the city as a local tax, and close to $200,000 a month to the state of California.”

He also asked the city council to keep ownership of cannabis businesses limited to those who already live here.

“I just want you guys to consider local ownership as a bonus of some sort as deciding who’s going to get this license,” Castillo said. “Especially in a city like Visalia, it’s going to be very limited. Please keep it local.”

The post Visalia reviews rules for cannabis sales again, but still no licenses appeared first on Valley Voice.

There will be one less item on the November ballot after the Visalia City Council decided not to ask voters for approval of a new sales tax to cover the cost of unfunded capital improvement projects already in the works, including an aquatics center, the East Side Regional Park and the third and final phase of the incomplete civic center project.

Council Divided on Unclear Motion

In a split 3-2 vote at their March 2 meeting, members of the Visalia City Council declined to spend $45,000 for a survey of voters to gauge their support for a 0.75% sales tax. Voting for the measure were Councilman Emmanuel Soto and Vice Mayor Liz Wynn. Opposing the item were councilmen Brian Poochigian and Steve Nelsen, and Mayor Brett Taylor, who had previously supported it.

The revenue generated by the tax would have been earmarked for construction projects the city expects to complete during the next decades. Those projects include upgrades to the Visalia Convention Center, improvements to the Senior Center and the long-awaited aquatics center.

In recent years, voters in Visalia have approved two similar sales tax measures: Measure N for items like public safety, road construction and parks maintenance, and Measure T to fund the needs of the fire and police departments. The idea of asking voters to approve a third tax measure, one to fund so-called capital improvement projects, such as building new facilities and upgrading existing ones, was introduced back on January 20, when the council was looking again at costs and specifications for an aquatics park.

However, the wording of the item considered March 2 apparently wasn’t clear in the minds of the council members.  Poochigian and Nelsen stated the proposed tax was only to fund the aquatics center, while Soto, who proposed it in January, said the tax revenue would be used for the long list of underfunded and unfunded projects City Hall is planning.

Mayor Wants Citizens to Take a Leading Role

But the deciding no vote that put the item to rest came from Mayor Taylor, who believes it should be citizens not the council who get the proposed tax measure in front of voters.

“If we had funds for pools and parks and East Side Regional Park, and if we could do it all tomorrow, that’d be fantastic,” Taylor said. “My eyes are wide and my tail is bushy over the potential of getting $100 million, $200 million, whatever it would get from this potential tax measure, but I always said it shouldn’t be coming from the council.”

Previous voter-approved sales tax increases, which were initiated by the council, have targeted immediate and pressing needs, and Taylor doesn’t see the urgency this time. But if citizens do see that need, he would like them to take the lead.

“If it was a major need – police, fire – that’s a different story,” he said. “I want this to come from the citizens. I want it to be a citizen-based ballot measure.”

Swimming Pool Talk Turned into Tax Measure Study

Back on January 20, after hearing about the costs and benefits of an aquatics center with both a competitive 50-meter pool and a large recreational pool for general use – 64% of the $1 million annual operating cost is labor, and 24% utilities, with the facility fees generating about half that amount – the council ultimately decided to have the staff at Parks and Rec investigate funding costs for either a one-time construction project or a phased project, as well as coming up with an initial project timeline.

But before that happened, they questioned Parks and Rec director Jason Glick about funding on hand for a swimming facility.

“We have no funding available right now,” he said.

City Manager Leslie Caviglia said a city-owned property purchased with Parks and Rec funds could be sold, and the income used for the aquatics center. The land is located at Akers Road and Riggen Avenue.

“There has been discussion that that could then be used to start a pool project,” she said. “We will be getting additional impact fees and, if you direct us, then we go out and figure out what to do. There are limitations, and then there can be tradeoffs with other projects.”

“Tradeoffs” in this case could mean delaying other projects and redirecting funding to the pools. Caviglia also introduced the idea of sales tax as a funding source. That was when Poochigian tried to put the brakes on discussion, using the ongoing three-phase Civic Center construction project as an example.

“We planned the Civic Center for 20-plus years. So for anyone who thinks this is going to be a quick decision that we’re going to vote on this, and then be done, I just want to put this in perspective that we are a government agency that doesn’t make snap decisions,” he said. “We make long-term plans, and that’s the way the city looks the way it does today.”

Poochigian cautioned construction of an aquatic center is still years in the future. Going slowly prevents mistakes, he added.

“We put a lot of thought into things. So anybody who thinks we’re going to have a swimming pool in a year, just look at the timeline. It’s not going to happen. But we want to make sure we do things correctly,” he said. “I want to temper expectations. I know there’s an article in the Valley Voice that says there’s a swimming pool coming. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be coming soon.”

That’s when Councilman Soto introduced the idea of putting a tax measure before voters.

“The one thing we can do is instead of making it 20 years, we could make it five to 10 years,” Soto said. “That can be with a sales tax measure that we let the voters vote on, and then set priorities.”

City Needs the Money, but Council Hasn’t Planned How to Spend It

Soto’s proposal would have seen voters asked to increase the city sales tax rate by 0.75%, an amount equal to the combined income of Measure N and Measure T. Those taxes generated $25 million over the last year, and the capital improvements sales tax measure should earn a similar amount.

But how the council would use that money hasn’t been discussed yet.

“How we set that percentage-wise, 70/30 with new projects opposed to current projects, that’s up for debate,” Soto said. “Measure T, which is 1/4 of a cent, and Measure N, which is half a cent, which is 3/4 cent by extension, generated about $25 million just this last year.”

The sales tax measure could have appeared on the ballot as early as November of this year. Had it done so and voters approved it, the city would have started seeing that revenue come in during fiscal year 2027-28. Soto said the need for added income is clear in planning documents.

“We have a $10 million shortfall on Parks and Rec as we speak,” he said. “This funding for the next couple of years, whether we set a timeline on it or not, would help tremendously with all the CIP (capital improvement projects) we’ve been discussing for the last couple months.”

Councilman Poochigian refused to support any move to increase taxes, while Councilman Nelsen expressed his doubts voters would OK added taxes.

“I disagree on a sales tax measure. There are other agencies looking at sales tax measures, and in the current economy, I question if a sales tax… (could get approved),” he said. “You only get one chance at a sales tax measure, and then you have to wait a while. You have got to make sure it goes through.”

Vice Mayor Wynn also supports the sales tax idea.

“I’d love to see us look at a sales tax measure that wouldn’t just be for the pool, but other recreation,” she said. “We’ve got a senior center that needs help. We’ve got a shortfall in our parks. There’s other things that are quality-of-life issues here in Visalia, and when you spread it out over a sales tax measure it’s not just people from Visalia that are helping with that burden.”

Wynn also wants to see the results of a survey of voters.

“If they come back and say no way, then we’ll have to get creative,” she said.

While Mayor Taylor supported the survey when it was proposed in January, he was worried there was no income stream to pay for the $1 million in annual upkeep an aquatics center will require.

“My worry is the cost. Saddling our community with a million dollars in debt a year, that can be dangerous. I’m not going to go into debt just to get a party pool,” he said, adding that community support is strong for public pools, but he wants more citizen involvement in finding the money to build them.

“I would like to see the community get together and see if we can really put something together,” he said.

Opposition Says Council Moving Too Fast

All that discussion, however, was at the first council meeting of the year. Two months later issues had ripened, and some opinions had changed.

When the topic was introduced at the March 2 meeting, it met with pushback, starting with objections from someone with extensive experience getting the voting public’s support behind a sales tax measure.

“I’m asking the council to … vote no on spending the money for a survey,” said Visalia resident Harold Myers. “I’ve served on two citizen committees for the city council to evaluate potential tax measures. In both cases, the process started with identifying a clear need. Only after that did we look at surveys. That distinction matters, because there is a real difference between a need and a want.”

Poochigian then reiterated his anti-tax stance, yet offering his support for an aquatics center.

“Where I struggle with this is I don’t believe in taxing our individuals for something like this,” he said. “I think it needs to be well thought out. I’m not against the pool, but to just say we’re going to tax our residents, increase taxes for that, I’m totally against.”

He and Nelsen then stated their belief the proposed sales tax measure was intended only for an aquatics center. That was the item up for discussion when the idea of a new tax was introduced at the January meeting. The wording of the item voted on March 2 does not include limiting the use of revenue to any project or fund.

“If we do go down this path, the motion was to vote purely for parks and recreation. I don’t want this to play any games and pull public safety or any other organizations that pull just to get this passed,” Poochigian said. “If you guys do decide to go down this path, I do want to make sure that this is solely for a new swimming pool and a Parks and Recreation sales tax. I think it would be very dishonest if we try to play word games just to get this passed, just so we could get the funds.”

Nelsen agreed with Poochigian’s reasoning despite the lack of any spending limits in the item presented to the city council.

“If any other fluff is put on this, it’s dishonest,” he said, adding that the idea of a new sales tax was “a knee-jerk reaction” to the city’s budget gaps.

Tax Revenue Could Fund Any City Project

Soto countered that Nelsen and Poochigian misunderstood his intent when he proposed the sales tax idea in January. The funds would be available wherever they’re needed.

“I didn’t just say the pool when I mentioned this at the last meeting,” he said. “I mentioned the convention center, which needs a lot of funding, the Civic Center Phase 3, which we don’t have the complete funding for, yes, I mentioned the aquatic center, East Side Regional Park, the $10 million in funding that we don’t have for our current parks projects, and then just recently we’re losing a grant on public safety for clinicians on the HOPE (Homeless Outreach and Proactive Enforcement) team.”

Soto said the revenue stream could be used to fund any need the council perceives, not just those projects in the works that still lack funding.

“So this is for anything that we as a council see that the city needs,” he said. “Some of these things are quality-of-life items. I don’t want to plan here for an aquatics center, Civic Center Phase 3, convention center (and) East Side Regional Park that’s going to happen 40 years from now. I’d love to see it in the next 10 years if possible.”

Nelsen, while still voting no, said the idea was more appealing to him when presented in its intended form.

“If the motion included East (Side) Regional Park, convention center, civic center, and I forget the other litany of items you said, I probably would be more in support of putting a survey out, but my recollection is the vote was for a sales tax for the pool complex, which included a rec park and a humongous pool,” Nelsen said. “I think the timing is poor. I think the economy is poor.”

He suggested using the $45,000 consulting fee to fund parks already approved by the council that have no funding or too little.

“Take the $45,000 and put it in the inclusive park,” Nelsen said. That’s been languishing for seven fricking years. It’s time to complete what we start instead of setting up another Taj Mahal, and this is what you’re looking to do.”

With Wynn and Soto supporting the proposal, and Poochigian and Nelsen firmly against it, the deciding vote fell to Mayor Taylor. He became philosophical as he explained his reasoning, praising a recent presentation on City Hall’s recent accomplishments.

“We’ve been running this city so well, what’s left? Well, really, the life enjoyment, the parks and recreation,” Taylor said. “So I can see how we got here, because so many things have been going well, what other things can we do well?”

But the proposal before the council, he said, was too loose. City leaders need more time to think through the options and consequences.

“We’re trying to rush this through, and that’s something we’ve never done on this council,” Taylor said before casting the vote to stall the sales tax survey. “Let’s think this out and put some long-term planning into this.”

The post Visalia council says no to capital improvements sales tax vote appeared first on Valley Voice.

Fences Meant to Give More Playing Time

The original plan for fencing at Riverway envisioned setting apart the 10 full-size soccer fields with chainlink fences, and it grew into a two-phase project to surround the fields, as well as to enclose the whole park, inside 7-foot-tall spiked iron security fences. The cost, of course, grew as well. The entire project allocation is $3.89 million, up from $1.5 million when first proposed.

“It’s probably going to be finished in the next few weeks. We’re hoping the project will be finished by the end of the month,” said Parks and Recreation manager Jason Glick. “There will be a punchlist (a list of possible issues with the project) with the contractor, and we expect to be done by the end of March.”

The two phases serve two purposes. Surrounding the entire park in a fence protects the whole facility. Specifically, it’s intended to end after-hours use of Riverway, which has been a target of vandalism and the scene of criminal activity, city officials say. Surrounding the soccer fields with fences inside the fence – and keeping them locked even when the rest of the park is open to the public – is the result of an entirely different issue.

“What we’re trying to do is make the soccer fields open for more of the year,” Glick said. “This is so they’ll be more available to the public.”

Fencing off the soccer fields allows grounds crews time to rehabilitate them. It also prevents the fields from overuse, a problem that has plagued Riverway in the past.

“When the park opens after the summer closure, they’ve (the soccer fields) been open for 13 weeks,” Glick said. “When November rolls around, the fields have just turned to dirt. We’re trying to avoid that for future years.”

The city is also cutting off open access to the soccer fields during the park’s regular operating hours, and that’s left some of the people who use the park on a daily basis resentful.

Lack of Answers Frustrates Park-Going Neighbors

Closing off the soccer fields with a minimum of information has left neighbors and other regular park-goers feeling as if they’ve been cut off suddenly with little or not enough explanation.

Estrella Correa, who lives across the street from Riverview Sports Park and is a frequent visitor, isn’t satisfied with officials’ responses to her requests for clear information about who can use the park and when. She’s been having problems getting answers to her questions since the plan for fencing was hatched, she said, and is still not satisfied.

“I live across the street from the park, and I’ve been asking a lot of questions about access to the park,” she said. “Then the fencing started going up, and I went to a Council Corner meeting. I spoke to Mayor (Brett) Taylor about the park being closed so much of the year. I asked if the fields could be open part of the year.”

She says she never got an answer.

“I expressed concern about the fields being open to the public,” Correa said. “He (Taylor) said he’d talk to someone and get back to me. He never did.”

Correa eventually exchanged emails with Parks and Rec director Glick, who gave her an outline of the fencing project’s development, she said, but not the practical answers she wanted. The public, Correa learned, will no longer have open, free access to the fields.But that information wasn’t readily available from the city, Correa said.

“I called the number on the application,” she said. “The woman who answered at Parks and Rec didn’t know. She didn’t know anything.”

Public Can Rent Soccer Fields, but Insurance a Must

Correa has been seeking help from her district’s council representative, Emmanuel Soto, who also had to dig to find information about when the fields were open and to whom, she said.

“I just knew the fields were closed some of the time. I was concerned about public access,” she said. “You (city officials) said all these things are discussed in public, and you don’t know. My councilman has to dig for answers. I’ve been told at the city council meeting, agendas are always available online. If you care about these things you can go to the meetings.”

Soto said he’s been fielding complaints from citizens related to Riverway Park since the fencing started going up.

“I haven’t been a big fan of the fence since the beginning, since I asked for changes to the design,” he said.

The original fencing design had no pedestrian entrance at the park’s southwest corner, making it more difficult for those living nearby to walk in. Soto said Parks and Rec fixed the issue, but he believes cutting off open access to all the soccer fields goes too far.

“They did listen to citizens about access and added a gate at the southwest corner,” he said. “At the end of the day, I don’t see any reason for the fence. You can make an argument for a couple of fields, but not all the soccer fields.”

The bottom line is any member of the public can still rent the fields for their own use. But anyone wishing to use the fields for an event must complete an application form and provide proof of $1 million in liability insurance. And the coverage has to indemnify the city against loss and litigation.

Soccer Fields Will Be Open Four Days a Week

Perhaps the reason information about who can use the Riverway fields and when is because the city’s policy is still changing. While the public will be able to rent the fields, just as clubs and other organizations have in the past, they’ll only be able to do it on certain days.

“What we’re doing right now is a pilot program of having soccer games on Saturday and Sunday,” Glick said. “We’re letting the public rent them for practices and Tuesdays and Thursdays. And they’re dark on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.”

The dark days are intended to allow the fields the recovery time they need to remain in good playing condition. Overused and under-maintained fields present a safety issue for players, and the city wants to avoid potential injuries and associated liabilities.

Soto said he’s gotten the same information as he looked into the issue.

“I reached out to staff and did get a similar answer,” he said. “They’re doing a pilot (project) this year, since it’s the first year they can control access to the soccer fields.”

The city, he said, needs to do a better job communicating its plans to citizens. Of course anyone who wishes to discuss the soccer fields, or any other city-related matter, is welcome to attend any meeting of the city council or the Parks and Recreation Committee to voice their opinions.

That might be particularly important here, as Glick said the city will evaluate the results of the pilot program and perhaps retool it. Much depends on the playing condition of the field under the new scheme.

“This is just a pilot program. We’re trying to see how this works out,” Glick said. “We’ll reevaluate when the spring is over. We’re going to reevaluate the soccer field conditions.”

The post Sports park fencing project protects soccer fields, but divides community appeared first on Valley Voice.

Projects Represent Visalia’s Unnoticed Framework

The City Council, in four meetings through April 20, will streamline project proposals and review funding options. Members of the public are encouraged to attend and add their input.

“This is all the stuff that people don’t see that happens every single day in the city,” said Mayor Brett Taylor. “It’s all the stuff that goes underground. It’s the worktrucks. It’s the stuff that nobody sees. It’s not the parks and the fun things. (It’s) being prepared for our city so we’re not constantly putting out fires and trying to find money.”

Dozens of projects in every part of the city’s roads, parks, sewers, and other systems and facilities will be affected by the upcoming decisions . Planning of this massive undertaking is already underway and will continue through the spring. The City Council will spend the next three months picking and modifying the projects to be undertaken, and figuring out how to pay for them.

Property owners and land developers can probably expect fee increases as a result.

Locking In Two Years, Planning for Four More

This week, the council started its review by looking at a hodgepodge of various aspects of its business, which are divided into independent funds. Those discussed at Monday’s meeting on February 17 included wastewater and sewer infrastructure, garbage collection, building safety, animal services, the city’s airport and wastewater treatment plant, and public transportation.

At its next four meetings the council will tackle the remaining proposed changes and upgrades to city services and properties:

March 2 – The council will address parks and recreation spending, as well as waterways, storm drainage and groundwater recharge.

March 16 – The topics reviewed by the council will include roads and transportation, landscape and lighting, and other capital improvements.

April 6 – Fleet maintenance and vehicle replacement, including firefighting and police, as well as the city’s corporate maintenance yard will be up for discussion.

April 20 – The council will review the city’s largest pool of money, the general fund, as well as firefighting impact fees and police unclaimed funds. The city’s minor league baseball park will also get a look, as will the convention center and the city’s information services division.

During all of these fund reviews, the council will consider spending for projects lasting through the middle of 2032 and beyond. However, the final decision on what to fund will only lock in the city’s budget for FY 26/27 and FY 27/28.

“Those (two budget years) are being proposed for adoption and appropriations,” said finance director Nichol Ritchie. “The remaining four years are included for planning purposes only.”

The council’s final spending decisions will come at the same time it decides on the upcoming year’s total budget in June.

Funding Shortfalls Likely Mean Higher Impact Fees

At the February 17 meeting, up for discussion first were new sewer connections and upgrades to the city’s wastewater “trunkline,” the underground piping system that moves sewage to the city’s treatment facility. Work on the trunkline will include seven projects for $4.5 million, and two sanitation upgrades for sewer connections are planned for a total of $14.2 million. Part of that funding will come from the separate Wastewater Facility Fund.

Yet both of these sets of projects have budget shortfalls. So the impact fees that support them will undergo a study to prove the anticipated increases are justified. The studies will take about 12 months to complete, and until they’re finished there’s no way to estimate how much they’ll go up, finance director Ritchie said.

In the meantime, a bit of financial juggling will move money from the Wastewater Facility Fund to keep the projects moving.

The city’s wastewater treatment plant will also see a lot of changes during the next six years, provided the money is available. A total of $76 million is earmarked for 49 projects during that time.

“The majority of the project total is for the treatment plant capacity expansion in FY 26/27 and 27/28,” said Renee Nagel, the city’s finance and technology services director. “This fund currently has cash available, however, it is not enough to maintain and replace the facility assets, which totals $315 million.”

The fund is supported by impact fees and user rates, and those will have to be reconsidered given the financing needs.

Other City Departments in Better Financial Shape

The rest of the city funds reviewed Monday afternoon seem to be in better shape.

The Transit Capital Fund includes 18 new projects at a cost of $19 million over the six-year planning period. All of those projects, including a downtown parking garage on Tipton Street between Oak and School avenues, are contingent on outside funding, such as state grants. If the funding doesn’t materialize, the projects won’t go ahead.

The same is true of the city’s Airport Fund. Six of the nine projects planned for the municipal airport depend on state or federal funding, and they won’t advance if the outside money falls through.

The Building Safety Fund is also healthy, with a $16.6 million cash balance to start the fiscal year. City Hall is planning a periodic review of the system for streamlining, and that could mean a quicker permitting process for builders.

“Each year, we go through various upgrades to the system,” said Jason Huckleberry, director of the Engineering and Development Department. “It could be reporting, that’s helpful to the public to ask for various reports. It could be efficiency operations on our end, that (when) we’re looking for reports we can kind of make proper changes to process. That would speed things up.”

The study might also increase the building department’s online accessibility.

“It also covers just modifications to the system annually that might open up additional … civic automation,” Huckleberry said. “It actually engages (in) online permitting, which is another efficiency and speed task.”

Proper Maintenance Takes Foresight and Cash

The only cause for concern from the city council on Monday was the request for new cameras and flooring at the Animal Services facility. Councilman Steve Nelsen questioned why replacing old or damaged equipment there was not included in the current year’s spending plan.

Animal Services manager Candice Harrington explained the request was a matter of getting ahead of the game.

“The floors are still functional at this time,” she said. “They are starting to chip, though, so we foresee that over time it’s going to still continue to deteriorate as we have more animals coming through those kennels, wear and tear.”

City manager Leslie Caviglia clarified why the spending was deferred.

“We are trying to anticipate and not come with last-minute crises when, in fact, we do have things that begin to fail,” she said. “In order to do that, we’ve got to project out and have that longer-term lead. We’re trying to do a better job of that. That’s what you’re seeing here. It’s not doomsday.”

Nelsen said the wording of the request had caught his attention.

“Some of the writing is alarming,” he said.

Discussion of the city’s upcoming capital improvement projects will continue during a public hearing at 5 p.m. on Monday, March 2 in the council chambers at City Hall West, 707 West Acequia Street.

The post Visalia gearing up to spend billions fortifying city’s infrastructure appeared first on Valley Voice.

The suit, which seeks compensatory damages, was filed January 14. Also named as a plaintiff is Gianna’s mother, Veronica Cruz.

Defendants include the Tulare City School District, and two of its employees: Maple Elementary School principal Michelle Hermosillo and teacher Chloe Rodriguez Hernandez. The Tulare County Office of Education, which runs AcCEL programs at 75 locations including the Maple Learning Complex on the Maple Elementary School campus, is also named in the suit, as is AcCEL program manager Kim Korenwinder.

A request for information about the investigation and resulting lawsuit was not answered by Tulare City School District officials.

Injuries Appeared Starting in Fall 2024

According to the suit, Gianna’s parents and her grandmother, Jeanette Zamora, noticed signs of physical injury to the child after she returned from school. Gianna, 10, suffers from autism and does not communicate by speech. She instead uses gestures, vocalizations and pictures to communicate, as well as a speech generator.

Her condition, the suit said, leaves her unfortunately at risk for abuse.

“Due to her disabilities and inability to verbally communicate complex events,” the suit states, “Gianna is particularly vulnerable to abuse and unable to report mistreatment to her parents or authorities independently.”

Starting in September 2024, the family noticed “linear” bruises on the child’s back, as well as small circular bruising on her upper arm. When Zamora asked the girl’s teacher, Hernandez, about the bruising, she said she was unaware of the injuries; Hernandez also said her student had not suffered a fall or other accident, the suit claims.

Around the same time, Gianna began having behavioral problems at home and became more aggressive, which the suit describes as out of character for the 10-year-old.

Reports of Abuse Lead to Police Investigation

Not long after the discovery of the girl’s injuries by her family, the lawsuit says, the parent of another of Hernandez’s students “approached Gianna’s grandmother with alarming information.” The individual allegedly told Zamora that nonspeaking students under Hernandez’s supervision had been singled out for abuse.

Further, the suit alleges this pattern of abuse was witnessed and reported by teachers aides assigned to the classroom. The suit says at least one of those teachers aides reported the alleged abuse to school administrators in late September or October of 2024.

The allegations of abuse were also apparently reported to police at about this time, according to the suit. The lawsuit claims police informed Gianna’s parents that the girl had been physically restrained and isolated by Hernandez and a Maple Elementary instructional aide. The instructional aid is implicated in the lawsuit but not named as a defendant.

According to the suit, a classroom desk was used to trap Gianna in a corner of the room. This, the suit says, is a case of the use of an illegal restraint to isolate and trap a student and isolate her. The action was neither educational or intended for the student’s safety, the suit continues, “and directly resulted in the physical bruising and emotional trauma Gianna endured.”

Teacher, Aide Named in Police Investigation

On November 13, 2024, Gianna’s parents received a phone call from an officer from the Tulare Police Department who was investigating incidents of abuse at Maple Elementary. The couple was told their child was a possible victim in an active abuse investigation involving Hernandez and the instructional aid Both are employees of the Tulare City School District.

Gianna’s parents immediately went to the Maple Learning Complex. There, they spoke to AcCEL administrator Sarah Hamilton, who allegedly told them the investigation was still in the “beginning stages.” Hernandez, however, had already been placed on administrative leave five days earlier on November 8.

Gianna’s family maintains that no one from the Tulare City School District contacted them regarding the allegations of abuse against their daughter, only learning of them when they were contacted by police.

Gianna’s father, Adolph Cruz, contacted Tulare County Office of Education superintendent Tim Hire to request information about the investigation on November 22, but received no response. Hamilton is an employee of the Office of Education, however, neither she nor Hire are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

In response to a request, the Office of Education confirmed that Hernandez and the instructional aid are not employed by that agency.

Victim of Alleged Abuse Transferred to Another Tulare School

Gianna was transferred from Maple Elementary to Garden Elementary School, also in the Tulare City School District, on December 10.

The lawsuit reports that Gianna’s behavior has dramatically improved since the transfer. Her new instructors say the 10-year-old’s aggression and outbursts have “subsided” and “decreased significantly” under their care, it says.

The lawsuit claims this positive improvement in Gianna is evidence of a “causal link” between the treatment she was allegedly subjected to at the Maple Learning Complex and the negative changes in her behavior that supposedly resulted.

The suit alleges that AcCEL administrator Korenwinder and Maple principal Hermosillo both failed to provide adequate supervision of Hernandez and the instructional aid. In so doing, the suit says, the pair failed to effectively protect Gianna.

The Tulare City School District and the Tulare County Office of Education are both accused of negligent hiring, retention and supervision of employees. The two agencies are also accused of failing to inform Gianna’s parents of the alleged abuse and allowing it to continue. The suit also says the agencies failed to contact law enforcement immediately when the alleged abuse was reported.

Further, the suit claims the severity of the situation was down-played by administrators in their communication with Gianna’s parents. Ultimately, the suit portrays the alleged abuse and the official response as “outrageous and extreme.” The suit describes an alleged cover-up of the events surrounding the alleged abuse, and alleges civil rights violations defined in several state and federal codes.

The post Suit seeks damages for abuse of autistic 10-year-old at Tulare school appeared first on Valley Voice.

Visalia’s new Parks and Recreation Master Plan should be ready for the city council’s final consideration by spring of 2027. It will likely include a long-anticipated aquatics center, a new recreation center and ongoing development of the 148-acre East Side Regional Park. To make the future plans a reality, however, City Hall will have to do some fancy financial footwork.

Unfolding a Financial Paper Tiger

On paper, the city is currently looking at an enormous budget deficit – around $44.5 million by the end of fiscal year 2029/2030 – in the Parks and Rec Facility Impact Fee Fund. Yet the situation probably isn’t as dire as it seems at first glance.

Impact fees levied by the city for new homes cover the cost of providing more parks as the city grows. Or they’re supposed to. As it stands, the fund will be $3.15 million in the red by the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.

If nothing is done to prevent it, that deficit will continue to mount until it reaches $44.5 million by June of 2030. However, no Parks and Rec projects have appropriations beyond the current city budget, meaning those projected deficits don’t exist yet except in spreadsheets. So beyond the current city budget cycle, nothing is set in stone.

“These are all projected projects,” city manager Leslie Caviglia explained. “You can still change some of those going forward.”

Some can be changed in the updated Parks and Rec master plan, but others can’t. For those the city is already looking at new ways to pay. Voters might even be asked to approve new or increased taxes to foot the bill.

The Problem Now and the Problem Later

In fact, it’s actually two different Parks and Recs funding issues the city is facing. One is a glaring sign the city must find new ways to raise revenue, hiking development fees to more adequate levels as a likely part of the solution. The other is an immediate problem involving financing shortfalls in ongoing projects that have to be filled.

This fiscal year, the Parks and Rec Impact Fees Fund started with a $12.1 million balance. The collection of impact fees and interest added another $2.1 million. But capital expenditures and operating costs will top $18.4 million, leaving a $3.15 million deficit when the dust settles.

The deficit isn’t due to poor planning, but to unexpected cost increases since the cost of the projects was estimated.

“The budget was too low compared to what the project cost is coming out,” said city finance and technology director Renee Nagel.

Four projects are responsible for the cost overruns: a new dog park, new parking lots at the Riverway Sports Park, a neighborhood park for the Pearl Woods subdivision, and a park with playgrounds specifically designed for ADA accessibility for which the city has already received state grant funding.

In all, the four projects are underfunded by $10.1 million. The biggest gap is a shortfall of $4.5 million in the $7.6 million cost of Pearl Woods Park. Plans for Pearl Woods and another park at the Elliot Properties subdivision were to be shown to the city council at its meeting on December 15, but the presentation was delayed.

When the presentation happens, it will come with a request for additional funds.

“These are two parks that are budgeted that have a little bit of a shortfall as well,” Nagel said. “Staff will be asking to transfer funds from some of the existing projects to be able to fund some of these shortfalls.”

Council approval will be required to adjust the budget to settle the deficit when the request comes.

Park and Rec Impact Fees Have to Increase

As City Manager Cavilgia noted, the city’s current Parks and Rec plans are subject to change by the city council. As the new Parks and Rec master plan is put together over the next 15 months, the shortfalls in the Impact Fees Fund won’t simply disappear as projects are altered, added or removed. The shortfalls may even grow, as the current five-year plan doesn’t include finishing the East Side Regional Park or construction of an aquatics center, both of which are council priorities.

And so City Hall staff is already putting together alternate funding sources, and the plan will be followed by a set of strategies for financing whatever projects it includes.

The most obvious target is the schedule of impact fees. The city’s current fee schedule is extremely out of step with the cost of park development, and finance director Nagel said she intends to recommend the city council increase the impact fees rates.

“It’s definitely not enough to cover the cost of constructing a park today, or to do any improvements and expansions,” she said. “So the fee is definitely behind.”

Based on the current impact fee schedule and the average rate of home construction, the city collects approximately $2.6 million a year from developers. That’s not much compared to what it expects to spend annually on parks. Nagel gave a stark example of the fund’s weakness.

“Based on Pearl Woods Park – the estimated cost is $7.5 million – the entire fee for three years would need to be dedicated for the park, which equates to 1,568 single-family houses at today’s cost that we have for this impact fee,” she said.

Long-Term Financing Gaps Need Long-Term Fixes

Nagel presented four other possible sources of additional revenue. The city could increase its tax on hotels and short-term occupancy rentals, and each 1% increase would bring in $500,000 a year. A cannabis retail sales tax could also provide a similar amount. The city could institute a utility user tax producing $2.5 million annually on a 6% rate; in Tulare County, only Visalia and Farmersville charge no utility tax.

The biggest possible source of income could come in the form of a voter-approved increase in the city’s sales tax. The sales tax cap in California is 9.25%, and Visalia’s is below that at 8.5%. Each increase of 0.25% would generate an estimated $9 million a year, meaning pushing the rate to the limit would increase the city’s income by $27 million annually.

Whatever approach the city chooses, the time to act is now, Nagel warned.

“Those are the options we discussed that are long-term ones, but will actually bring in enough to start making a difference with these larger projects, like the regional sports park, an aquatic center,” she said. “There are several large projects that (the council) would like to be done. The council has talked about them for several years, and it’s just not going to get cheaper.”

Not only does hiking the sales tax rate generate the most income, it also spreads the burden to everyone who makes purchases in the city.

“I don’t like raising taxes, but at least this puts the onus on the residents. If they want better parks, then they can vote for the sales tax,” said Councilman Brian Poochigian. “But it’s just not the residents of Visalia who are paying for this. All the visitors are paying for that.”

Putting the funding question before voters also allows the public to set the city’s parks and recreation priorities directly, an aspect Mayor Brett Taylor mentioned when describing sticker shock from the cost estimates for a new aquatics center.

“We were hit with a pretty big price tag of $15 to $30 million range,” Taylor said. “Obviously with that fund being in the hole, the discussion we’re going to have to talk about is if the community really wants those types of facilities.”

The post Visalia Parks & Rec’s new master plan faces funding puzzle appeared first on Valley Voice.

Plan to Upgrade Bike Lanes Was Years in the Making

The plan to remake Tulare Avenue isn’t a new one. The idea was first approved by the City Council in 2021 during a push to make California’s cities more bicycle-friendly. The new design puts bike riders directly against the sidewalk. Low barriers define the outside of the bike lane and prevent encroachment by passing cars.

But the scheme also requires that cars parked on Tulare Avenue be beyond the sidewalks and bike lanes. That puts them next to the lanes full of passing cars, significantly narrowing the room for traffic. It also means a lot of parking spaces have been eliminated. The loss of parking spots is inconvenient, and the 7-foot gap between the street’s edge and the parking lanes has some residents concerned for their safety and the safety of their parked cars.

Their concern is so great the council decided to revisit the issue in November, four and a half years after it was first approved. On Monday, November 17, the council approved an alternative plan that may help satisfy both the need for rider safety and parking convenience. But it wasn’t accepted unanimously.

Federal Funding Clock is Ticking

Until this year, Tulare Avenue from Santa Fe to Demaree streets had Class 2 bike lanes. Those are the usual pair of unbroken white lines that define an area for bikes directly next to the lanes of traffic. Tulare Avenue was the Visalia roadway first considered for an upgrade to Class 4 bike lanes perhaps because most of the traffic accidents involving bikes and pedestrians in Visalia happen along that stretch.

Tulare Avenue is also a direct route to the Santa Fe Trail.

The city first considered creating Class 4 bike lines back in spring of 2021. In May of that year, the city mailed out surveys on the topic, and it held public workshops to answer questions and address possible concerns. By summer’s start, Class 4 bike lanes were back in front of the City Council for consideration – this time with the public’s feedback – and on June 7, 2021 the council OK’d Class 4 bike lanes for both sides of Tulare Avenue from Santa Fe Street west to Demaree Street.

Then the money to pay for it was secured. About a year later, on July 18, 2022, $2.9 million in federal funding was accepted for the project. A year after that, on June 5, 2023, $400,000 in SB1 funding from the state was earmarked for bike lanes.

The project should have been finished this month, but the decision to revisit the plan has shifted that timeline. The project is now expected to end by January 30, 2026. The city must have its paperwork filed with the federal funding agency by April 1, 2026, and extending that deadline is not possible.

“The one thing I do want to stress … is we do have a federal funding deadline on this project that’s coming up very quickly,” city engineer Chris Crawford told the council at the November 17 meeting.

Survey Said Residents Wanted Safer Bike Lanes

Back in 2021, the city was eager to move on the project. When results came back from the survey of 2,300 citizens, support for the new bike lanes was 56%. Those opposed made up 30%, and 14% of those who responded had no preference.

Approving the project also improved the city’s chances of getting additional grant funding for other traffic projects. Having a plan to upgrade Tulare Avenue bike lanes in hand helped the city win another $11.3 million for the Santa Fe Trail project.

While the numbers looked good, they may not have reflected real opinion. Only 4% of the 2,300 surveyed by mail responded. Information about the project was sent by mail, and those living on Tulare Avenue received phone calls about it. Yet only 13 people showed up for the workshop.

The failure to communicate the scale and scope of the project could be why the council is now revisiting the issue. But it’s very late in the process.

“The big thing is we need people to show up to those (community workshops),” Crawford said. “It’s a lot easier for staff to design around issues we’re aware of, because once we get to construction, it’s extremely hard to change some of those things.”

The first of three phases in the project is already complete. Tulare Avenue from Mooney Boulevard to Watson Street has been repaved and the new lane and parking stripes have been painted. The only thing lacking is signage. Work on Tulare Avenue from Mooney to Demaree Street is ongoing, with paving complete and bike lane striping and signage to come. The final phase – Tulare Avenue from Watson to Cotta Street – has been paved, but no stripes have been painted there.

The upgrades will cover a five-mile corridor when complete.

Altered Bike Lane Plan Addresses Residents’ Concerns

Despite the late timing, the number of complaints prompted the city to reconsider the issue for alternatives that would ease problems, real or perceived. Among the concerns that seem to have real merit is the likelihood cars parked beyond the bike lanes could be struck by passing vehicles.

“There’s not much room if you’re driving a larger truck, so I just wonder about accidents and the safety,” said Visalian Arvella Franzen. She also said she doesn’t understand the new symbols the city has painted to mark the bike lanes.

Other concerns include garbage trucks blocking the narrowed traffic lanes, difficulties for those with disabilities, the current high speeds on Tulare Avenue, and of course the loss of parking spots.

The alternative plan approved last month on a 3-1 vote from the council addresses these issues. The city will widen the parking spots, meaning the driver-side doors will be further from moving traffic. City engineers will revisit their plans to find spots for added parking, and a speed study will be performed in anticipation of lowering speed limits in some areas. But the Class 4 bike lanes stay.

Bicyclist Laura Anderson said she’s pleased the city is moving forward with safer spaces for bikes.

“I really appreciate having a protected bike lane on my route,” she said. “It’s made me choose to go down that street as opposed to other streets. I feel safest when I’m riding on that street.”

Anderson would like to see more Class 4 bike lanes around town, especially since it makes her more comfortable when riding with her daughter.

“She’s younger, and that’s one of the streets where I feel like she’s safe and protected from the traffic,” she said.

New Bike Lanes May Put Residents at Risk

Robert Stavely, who has lived on Tulare Avenue west of Demaree for 45 years, is concerned with how drastically the new bike lanes cut into the street. Tulare Avenue by his home, he said, will go from 60 feet wide to about half that.

“Not only is it dangerous for our vehicles, for our family members getting in and out of vehicles, the flow of traffic, which is rather heavy down that corridor, we have a chance of getting hit on both sides,” he said.

Bike traffic is low in his neighborhood, Stavely said, and drivers will be in danger of running into cars parked up to 15 feet from the sidewalks.

Mike Pinero, also a longtime resident of that section of Tulare Avenue, is worried about how the change to the street’s layout will affect his property values. And he doesn’t like not being able to park directly in front of his home.

“Put it back where it was,” Pinero said. “It’s fine.”

Tulare Ave. Bike Lanes Part of a Bigger Picture

The bike route down Tulare Avenue is part of a larger scheme to make Visalia a more bikeable town. The portion being reworked is one part of a larger network of bike- and pedestrian-friendly projects already in the planning process.

“We have a lot of things going on that are going to be interconnected,” Crawford said.

Tulare Avenue is also home to more schools than any other street in Visalia. Several elementary schools, Mt. Whitney High School, Divisadero Middle School and the College of Sequoias, all of them border Tulare Avenue along the five-mile stretch of the project. Protected bike lanes will give children safer paths to school.

It could be that education and familiarity will help alleviate some residents’ concerns about the change.

“We understand these (protected bike lanes) are relatively new for a lot of people in the community,” city engineer Crawford said. “It kind of reminds me a lot of the roundabout issues we went through about 10 years ago. Everybody kind of likes them now.”

As part of the grant funding used to pay for the upgraded bike lanes, the city received $1.3 million to spread the word about the safer bike lanes, and education efforts will soon be underway.

“Over the next three to four years, the city’s biggest educational effort will happen to support using the bike infrastructure,” Crawford said.

Visalian Lisa Alvarado, an avid bike-rider, said she understands the concerns raised by the new bike lane, especially given the lack of participation in the 2021 survey, but safety should be the city’s overriding priority.

“Residents are worried about parking stalls. … I’m worried about my life,” she said. “I’m OK with someone walking 50 feet. I’m not OK with losing anybody.”

The post City looks at alternatives in Tulare Avenue bike lane conflict appeared first on Valley Voice.

Soccer Fields Need Protection

The original plan for fencing at the park at 3611 North Dinuba Boulevard was to isolate its 10 full-size soccer fields. The fields are extremely popular and in constant use, yet the turf needs to be regrown periodically to keep the fields up to standard for play. The city tried blocking off the fields, but the public proved to be less than cooperative.

“Without having any fencing, that (field rehabilitation) was difficult to do when we closed the park down for maintenance,” Parks and Recreation facilities manager Alvin Dias told the Visalia City Council at a meeting February 3, 2025. “We used to put in temporary fencing that would get vandalized or just destroyed, and we were constantly having to repair that.”

Those who wished to use the fields cut the fences to get in. And telling park-goers temporary barriers were needed to preserve the soccer fields didn’t help much either, Dias said.

“We started putting up signage, trying to do things to educate people,” he said. “It seemed to help, but we still cannot control the usage of the soccer fields.”

Transients, Trash Behind Expanded Fencing Project

At some point in 2024, the city received a $6.6 million windfall in the form of additional sales tax revenue. It was decided to use part of the money for construction of a chain-link fence around the soccer fields. The cost was to be $1.5 million. That was in April 2024.

In June of 2024, the council expanded the project to include the entire park inside a 7-foot-tall, spike-topped wrought-iron fence. By the time the council gave final approval for the project in July 2025, the cost had more than doubled to $3.89 million.

The reasoning for expanding the project changed too. It was no longer an issue of maintaining the integrity of the soccer pitches. The majority of the council now intended to protect the park and the surrounding community by restricting access after it closed. The park, they said, had become a popular spot for illicit activities.

“It was about a year ago, maybe two years ago, we had a young family come up and just tell us how saddened they were that before they could use their park they had to go out and make sure there weren’t any used condoms, that there wasn’t any drug paraphernalia, needles on the field,” Mayor Brett Taylor said at the February 3 council meeting. “And that’s just not OK.”

Council member Liz Wynn echoed that sentiment.

“I’ve had many complaints from people who don’t feel safe out there,” she said.

Council member Brian Poochigian also said he’s heard many similar negative remarks.

“I spend a lot of time at the sports park, sometimes I feel like too much time at the sports park, having two kids,” he said. “I constantly get stopped at the sports park with complaints about transients coming in, trash in the bathrooms, people leaving trash out there.”

Poochigian believes there is no reason to leave the park accessible when it is closed for the day.

“Me, personally, I don’t feel like people should be in the park at nighttime,” he said. “Park-time activity at nighttime, nothing good could come from that.”

Also, because encircling the entire park gives the city the option of charging admission. While there is no plan to move forward on establishing entrance fees, members of the council felt it was an option that might be necessary in the future.

None of the more than 50 other parks in Visalia are fenced.

Council Member Breaks Ranks Over Cost

City council support for the fence at Riverway Sports Park was unanimous as it was presented during the February 3 meeting. By July, Council Member Emmanual Soto had changed his view, casting the only no vote. The reason was the project’s cost, which had reached nearly $4 million by then.

“I won’t be supporting this,” he said. “I think the price tag is way too high, and there are other things that are more important.”

Other members of the council thought the expense was warranted.

“I think if this makes it safer for the children of our community and our community as a whole, then it’s money well spent,” said Poochigian.

Council member Steve Nelsen pointed to occurrences of vandalism at the park, including the destruction of two soccer fields’ playing surfaces by someone who drove onto the pitches. He said action to protect the park should have come earlier.

“In all honesty, it should have been done a long time ago to ensure the quality of the park,” he said. “There’s been a lot of damage at that park.”

Fence Keeps Neighbors From Using the Park

A frequent user of the park, which is inside his district, Soto said he understands the need to protect the soccer fields. But he also has concerns about accessibility for community members who use the park on a daily basis.

“I have families who use the park who are complaining they can’t get their strollers through the gates,” he said.

He said a young mothers group who meets regularly at the park have complained they can no longer simply walk across the street and into the park. The extensive security fence has cut off easy access, substantially increasing the walking distance and time needed to visit. The fence has become a deterrent to neighborhood gatherings.

“Now they have to walk all the way around,” Soto said. “Before they could have walked right across the street. They live right across the street from the park.”

Soto requested added gates at the southern corners of the park, but they were not included. Parks and Rec facilities manager Dias said they were not included due to safety concerns.

“The reason we didn’t put pedestrian gates there is because we didn’t want people crossing the street to access the park, during league play and things like that,” he said. “We’re trying to funnel them into safer areas to cross.”

The corners of the sports park include open areas where people gather, and the lack of access makes it more difficult for them to use the park.

“I go to that park very often to run, walk my dogs,” Soto said. “I see a lot of people in the northwest and southwest corners. They’re reading, sitting around, playing games.”

Citizen Says Safety Concerns with Security Fence

Eric Ramirez, a lifelong resident of the neighborhood who was 8 when the park was opened, said he is concerned the fence could pose a safety threat. He is also worried about unintended “cultural” fallout from building the fence.

“I love the sports park. I have multiple memories of the sports park in particular and its wide open area and the view of the Sequoia trees, the open fields and the river,” he said. “For me, the biggest question is: Who is this park for? Is it specifically a sports complex that is made only to contain sporting events, or is it a community park that is made for the community?”

He worries young people living around the park won’t have a safe place to simply hang out in the way he and his friends did.

The spikes that top the new fence are of particular concern for Ramirez.

“This particular construction of this fence with the heavy-duty points and spikes, I think it’s a safety thing,” he said. “I was a dumb kid who would have jumped that fence. I might have gotten hurt.”

“I think that the park should be for everyone,” Ramirez said. “I think that all the parks in general should be for the most amount of people they can serve as feasibly as possible.”

The post $4M security fence at Visalia park blocking out neighbors appeared first on Valley Voice.

Firing Followed Multi-Student Fight

Knox being fired came in the wake of a fight on the MWHS campus on September 16, 2024. Knox, an African-American, was supervising students when a group began an altercation that turned physical. While breaking up the melee by restraining a female student, Knox “effectively displaced the subject student’s balance, bringing her to the ground, …” the suit states. He held the girl down while calling for assistance. The incident was recorded on video.

The Visalia Police Department watched the footage and found Knox acted appropriately.But following a VUSD investigation into Knox’s handling of the matter, he was fired on October 21, 2024.

According to the lawsuit filed on Knox’s behalf in Tulare County Superior Court last month, the firing “was based on a racially prejudicial rush to judgment” and resulted from “a both flawed and incompetently conducted investigation.” The suit further claims two other non-Black campus supervisors who reacted similarly in nearly identical circumstances faced little or no fallout from their behavior.

Knox is represented by Los Angeles-based attorney Loyst Fletcher.

“There’s a disparity and what we believe is institutional racism,” Fletcher said of his client’s treatment by the district and the resulting legal action. Knox’s suit claims he suffered unduly because of the alleged mistreatment and seeks monetary damages.

The suit was filed on October 24, 2025. A preliminary court date is set for February 23 before Judge Brett Hillman.

Fired Supervisor Asked for Crisis Training

Fletcher said his client was unwillingly placed in a potentially dangerous situation without getting adequate training. But it was not for lack of trying. Knox submitted several written requests for instruction on how to deal with violent situations such as the one he was eventually forced to confront.

“Everyone gets this de-escalation training,” Fletcher said. “They’re having problems at this school.”

Fletcher’s legal filing claims that the trio who investigated his client’s conduct admitted he had never gotten the training he’d repeatedly asked for, but ultimately found him at fault anyway. Knox, according to the suit, was the only campus supervisor t VUSD who did not receive training to aid in ending conflicts between students.

“He was taking a proactive approach, but he was subjected to this unfair investigation,” Fletcher said of Knox. “How do they explain that he put this (his requests for conflict training) in writing?”

The case against the VUSD claims Knox’s dismissal “was based on a racially prejudicial rush to judgment” and resulted from “a both flawed and incompetently conducted investigation.” Knox’s supervisors, his attorney said, showed a bias by punishing others less severely.

“You (VUSD administrators) view his conduct differently than you would with someone else,” Fletcher said. “Those other people are still there. They aren’t African-American.”

Knox, who is also a football coach at other schools and a mixed martial arts fighter, did not harm the student he restrained, his attorney said.

“He didn’t put this student in danger,” Fletcher said. “The procedures, and I had an expert look at them, she was never in harm. Her intent on the other hand was to create harm.”

Fired Employee Didn’t Want Dangerous Assignment

The suit claims a “troubling pattern of racial bias” is at work inside the VUSD. Not only were other non-Black campus supervisors treated differently, Fletcher said racial bias appears to have been the reason Knox was given the job of supervising students in front of the school as they arrived.

According to Fletcher, MWHS has been experiencing increasing conflicts among students, especially when they are outside class. The danger may have been why Knox was given the assignment, one he didn’t want.

“He agreed to it, but he didn’t like it,” Fletcher said. “They assigned him to stand out in front of the school. He wanted to know, why are they giving this assignment to me?”

The VUSD issued the following statement about the lawsuit: “Student safety remains a priority for Visalia Unified. While the District does not comment on active litigation, it does take seriously any claim of discrimination, and is committed to fair and equitable treatment of employees.”

VUSD Needs Reform to Avoid Future Bias, Suit Says

Members of VUSD’s leadership have an “implicit bias” based on “stereotypes that unconsciously affect the decisionmakers’ understanding, actions and determinations,” the suit claims.

Racial bias, the suit claims, led Knox’s supervisors to believe he was more aggressive and not as competent as his non-Black coworkers.

“The decision to terminate him, in contrast to the leniency shown to his non-African American counterparts, underscores the need for a thorough examination of the underlying biases that influenced this process,” Fletcher wrote in the suit against VUSD.

Additionally, a law enforcement investigation found no reason to charge Knox with a crime because of his behavior during the incident. This, along with the discrepancy the suit claims between how Knox and others were treated by the VUSD, shows the school district needs to reform and more closely enforce its none-discrimination policies, Fletcher said.

“The decision to terminate him, in contrast to the leniency shown to his non-African American counterparts, underscores the need for a thorough examination of the underlying biases that influenced this process,” he said.

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Ultimately, the five-person board agreed to put off raising the cost of city-subsitized meals for seniors, while shooting down the idea of financial support for the Visalia Emergency Aid Council (VEAC) in a separate 3-2 vote.

Food Aid Requests Climbing Quickly

The pair of council decisions were made against the backdrop of a partial halt in federal USDA nutritional benefits. In the wake of the closure of the federal government, the USDA announced Tuesday that benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will be reduced by 35% for November.

Roughly 23% of all households in the Visalia and Tulare areas rely on SNAP funds distributed by the CalFresh program. And the fallout is already being felt at the local food pantry. There has been a big jump in city residents seeking aid since the change in SNAP, said VEAC executive director Mary Jennings.

“With the current uncertainty around the SNAP program, we have seen our food requests increase,” she said. “In October, we served over 1,750 households, reaching 5,800 individuals, an increase of over 15% from the previous October, with much of our growth occurring in the last 10 days, when it became very public SNAP was not going to happen for the month of November.”

Before Jennings made her comment, a federal judge had already ordered the USDA to use reserve funds to cover at least some of the November SNAP benefits. The 35% reduction, however, had not yet been announced.

Foodbanks Struggling to Afford Food

In 2022, 126,486 people in Tulare County received SNAP benefits. While the state reports it does not have the funds to cover the federal shortfall, an allocation of $80 million will be sent to bolster foodbanks statewide. Members of the California National Guard will be deployed to assist distribution as the crisis worsens.

Meanwhile, the cost of acquiring food for the local pantries is going up while donations are falling off. VEAC relies on FoodLink Tulare County for USDA distributions and the Central California Foodbank for supplies, and both foodbank sources are also finding it increasingly difficult to provide low-cost foodstuffs.

“With the increase in clients served and no absolute confidence the crisis will be over anytime soon, even the foodbanks are struggling and are feeling the crunch in programs and donations, resulting in less products for our pantry,” Jennings said. “This means VEAC has to purchase fruits, vegetables, dairy and a good source of protein. This really puts a pinch on a tight budget.”

Council Says No to Helping Visalia Emergency Aid

With increasing demand for its services and less federal support, Councilmember Emmanual Soto asked for a future council discussion on the possibility of the city providing VEAC with a cash infusion to help close the gap caused by the failure of SNAP. The idea had strong support from the public.

“I don’t believe that there’s anyone in this room that believes we are not being negatively impacted by what is happening at the national level,” Visalia resident Maria Guillen told the council. “To not address this issue is irresponsible at best and cowardly at worst.”

Visalia resident Michelle Kenner appeared to imply members of the city council who support the Trump administration needed to reaffirm their commitment to the community by supporting VEAC financially.

“I was wondering if the city was going to be doing any big push, especially with that organization (VEAC), because of city council members who were at the Trump inauguration; that that may behove the council to really put a big push into that, to show support with the community and for the fact we don’t have SNAP anymore,” she said.

The council would eventually vote 3-2 not to discuss a donation to VEAC. Soto and Vice Mayor Liz Wynn provided the yes votes. Mayor Brett Taylor and council members Brian Poochigian and Steve Nelsen voted no.

City Officials Say Food Is a Federal Problem

Nelsen said providing funding to the VEAC or similar organizations is not the city’s job.

“I will not support this because I think it’s the purview of our federal government to take care of the people that elected them to office,” he said. “I understand the concern; I understand the compassion; but I think the drive needs to be driven to your local representative, what I mean is your senators and your congressmen in Washington, D.C.”

Congress, however, has recessed for the year. Its next regular session is two months away on January 3.

Councilmember Poochigian agreed that providing money to VEAC is a job for the feds. The city should not interfere, as it might be somehow unwise, he said.

“Federal issues are federal issues, and local issues are local issues, and we shouldn’t get involved in a federal issue,” Poochigian said. “I’ve always been consistent on that. I think it sets a dangerous precedent.”

He also thinks it’s up to federal representatives to solve VEAC’s funding shortage, though he would support sending a letter to Visalia’s federal representatives urging them to address the problem.

“I would say that I urge Congress to act,” Poochigian said. “This is what we put them to do, and they’re not there doing their job.”

Loss of SNAP Money Will Echo Through the Economy

Councilmember Soto, who requested the council discuss helping VEAC, said he’s worried the loss of SNAP money will have deep effects in a community where one in four people relies on the federal subsidy to feed themselves.

“It’s partial funding that’s being released on Wednesday. That means there’s still a gap,” he said. “With folks not receiving their full benefits, that has a ripple effect in the community. It affects grocery stores. It affects workers. It just goes on and on.”

Soto said he was hoping for a one-time contribution to VEAC from the city, not a permanent partnership.

“If we could help with anything, if the council is willing to give on top of what we already have in our discretionary funds, I would be very appreciative, and I’m sure many of the families in Visalia would too,” Soto said.

Earlier, Councilman Nelsen said he would not support Soto’s proposal because it would open the city to a flood of requests from other local agencies in need of financial help.

“I won’t support this because it opens up a can of worms for the city financially,” he said. “If we say yes to a given program, then how do you say no to another program and then another program?”

Vice Mayor Liz Wynn, a former executive director of VEAC, supported Soto’s request to aid the organization. She urged her fellow council members to donate their city discretionary funds to the VEAC. The city, she said, is facing a crisis that needs immediate attention.

“I will support Councilmember Soto, because I think it’s the right thing to do right now,” she said. “In two weeks or whatever this comes up next, the whole thing may be over. But I think it’s at least worth having a discussion.”

After the 3-2 no vote, it appears that discussion won’t be happening.

City’s Senior Meal Prices Not Increasing Yet

The cost of city-subsidized meals at the Visalia Senior Center will not increase through at least the early months of 2026. Beyond that, however, those who count on the daily meals could see the cost of the service more than double in price.

The city’s five-year contract with Sue Sa’s Creative Catering expired last year, and the city has been contracting with them on a month-to-month basis since. However, the company owner reportedly intends to leave the business. However, the city and the company have agreed to a six-month extension while a new caterer is found.

Due to the terms of the stopgap contract, the price of meals served at the Visalia Senior Center the city pays is going up, and the council was planning to pass the increase onto the seniors. Now, they’ve decided to reconsider the city’s contribution in order to keep the burden off the shoulders of the elderly.

The proposal considered on Tuesday – and ultimately put off to a future meeting – would have seen the per meal price jump from $4.50 to $10. The city’s Parks and Recreation Department, which oversees the program, proposed phasing in the price increase, going to $6 next month, then climbing to $7.75 in March 2026.

“I think people need to understand that when your costs go up, you have to do something to cover your costs, even though this is a subsidized program. Is it something we all wanted to see happen? The answer is no, but sometimes you’re dealt a hand and have to respond to it,” said Councilmember Nelsen. “Unfortunately, I think we have to support this. If we don’t support this, the whole program goes away.”

Patty Sturgill, an advocate for seniors, said she was particularly concerned about the price increases because at least half of the seniors she represents will not get their SNAP benefits. The city-sponsored meals provide them with a lifeline, she said.

“If they don’t have these regular meals, they are not able to get them somewhere else,” Sturgill said. “These are people who can only walk next door. My building is next to the senior center. I’m here to advocate for seniors as a whole, but my seniors are at risk, very much at risk of not having any kind of nutrition.”

Sturgill feared not having affordable meals served at the senior center would have deep impacts on her clients’ health beyond a lack of nutrition. The city-subsidized midday meals also allow them to gather and socialize, which is key to maintaining mental health.

“I don’t know what else to say. I’m afraid for them,” she said. “I don’t want them to be isolated, and I don’t want them to be hungry because they can’t afford it.

Ultimately, the council ultimately decided to table the proposed rate increases until a new catering company can be found. They also requisitioned funding to pay the higher cost of meals under the current six-month contract. A request for bids by new caters will be issued by the end of the year, said Parks and Rec director Jason Glick.

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