SACRAMENTO – Yesterday, Assemblymember Devon Mathis (R-Visalia) reintroduced a bill to address the severe shortage of emergency shelters and feeding programs for homeless Californians in disadvantaged communities. The bill (AB 246) would authorize the Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to lease certain properties to cities and counties at a cost of $1 per month to build […]
JM Williams has a vision for the future of education in the South Valley, and he’s hoping the community will put its support behind it and the aptly-named organization he’s founded–The Vision 4 The Valley. “We want to bring a four-year university to Tulare County by 2030,” Williams said. The effort is in its earliest […]
The Tulare County Board of Supervisors swore in two new members on January 8, Eddie Valero for District 4 and Dennis Townsend for District 5. After taking their oath of office each new supervisor addressed the room. Townsend spoke on his experience on the road to the election. “When I started campaigning about a year […]
Cutting costs and improving delivery of care are the driving motives behind a new partnership between Kaweah Delta Health Care District in Visalia and Porterville’s Sierra View Local Healthcare District, say the CEOs of the county’s two largest hospital districts. Not a Merger While not a full merger, the new joint powers agreement (JPA) should […]
Absentee ballots some voters in Tulare County expected to receive ahead of the general election never arrived, and one voter says his name disappeared entirely from the county’s voting rolls. No Record Found Frank Hill, who has lived at and voted from the same address in Tulare for the last five years, says he grew […]
On September 27th, Assemblyman Devon Mathis held a public safety forum in the Visalia Veterans Memorial Building. Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, Tulare County District Attorney Tim Ward, and Visalia Chief of Police Jason Salazar were on the panel addressing concerns surrounding new legislation and current efforts to ensure public safety. The meeting was held […]
The Tulare County League of Women Voters hosted a forum September 27 inviting Tulare County Superintendent of Schools candidates Tim Hire and Craig Wheaton to debate the issues facing our schools. State Assembly District 26 candidates Devon Mathis and Jose Sigala were also invited and their portion of the forum will be featured in our […]
In a democracy, elections are the public’s way of hiring its representatives. Campaigns are, essentially, job applications. And candidate forums are job interviews. This is an opportunity for the voters to see and hear candidates’ views on crucial issues. To that end, our co-sponsoring civic organizations are presenting a number of forums in advance of […]
Editor’s note: This story has been extensively updated. Local news radio station KTIP AM 1450 will soon have new ownership, and Kent Hopper, the station’s operations manager and lead on-air personality, has been fired from his position. José Arredondo, owner of Tulare-based KGEN, a Spanish-language station, is in the process of purchasing the 70-year-old news […]
The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Bakersfield Office is asking for the public’s opinion on a plan to open some 1.6 million acres of land in Central California to hydraulic fracturing–an oil and gas extraction method more commonly known as “fracking.” Environmentalists should definitely be very concerned the Bureau has started looking at fracking again, […]