August Hotel Occupancy Up In Visalia: South Valley tourism is looking up. Occupancy at Visalia metro area hotels was up 4.2% in August compared to the same month a year ago and Bakersfield was up 4.6% – while Fresno bucked the trend and was down 2.6% says Smith Travel Research. The latest numbers for Visalia are an improvement in the trend line year to date -down 1.1 in occupancy. But August, the biggest travel time of the year, saw the Visalia metro area with 71.9% occupancy compared to 69% in August 2011 and 5.7% more rooms sold.

Sierra Club Filing Lawsuit Against County General Plan: The Kern Kaweah chapter of the Sierra Club is filing a lawsuit Sept 28 says their attorney Babak Naficy, claiming that the County’s General Plan Update, adopted Aug 30, violates the requirements of California’s General Plan law and the California Environmental Quality Act. The advocate group Tulare County Citizens For Responsible Growth “recently made a $10,000 donation to support the Sierra Club’s Tulare County General Plan legal fund” the Three Rivers-based group wrote on their website.The organization supports directing growth into existing communities and protecting agricultural land and open space.

VWR Can Start Shipping From Visalia: Despite an appeals court ruling against the City of Visalia, the 500,000sf VWR International distribution center opposed by the Teamsters Union, can open their doors for business says city attorney Alex Peltzer. ”Our understanding  is that they are days away from a final OK by our building department for a certificate of occupancy” says Peltzer. They have a temporary certificate now, he says, and once the final is Ok’d, the pharmaceutical company could begin shipping product right away.While the Teamsters got a Fresno appeals court to agree to have a lawsuit reinstated in Tulare County Superior Court ,the union’s request to order an injunction on operations was thrown out. The company is closing several unionized facilities prompting the lawsuit claiming the city did not properly follow CEQA rules.The facility will employ 100.

California August Milk Production Falls 5.8%: Those hot August days helped reduce milk production in California in August by 5.8% compared to the same month in 2011 while across the US production fell 0.2% says USDA. The California reduction came despite the fact USDA said there were 10,000 more cows milking than a year ago, just opposite the conventional wisdom who said there was massive liquidation. The decline in production is welcome in that it appears to have improved prices. Cheese on the CME hit $2 this week, the highest level since July a year ago. That’s the best news of the year for hard hit dairy operators who have faced both sky-high feed costs and low milk prices for much of this year. Also, corn is down from $8.40 a bushel to $7.40 in the past month.

On September 25 the LA County Board of Supervisors approved a $75 million plan to relocate 512 low security inmates to a vacant correctional facility in Taft,in the southern San Joaquin Valley, cutting LA’s daily prisoner housing cost by more than half. The move comes as Los Angeles seeks to close its violence-plagued Men’s Central Jail and relocate up to 3000 inmates in several phases.

“We believe Coalinga is next in line” says that Fresno County community city manager Darrel Pyle, adding that Coalinga city staff is already in advanced discussions with LA County to accept another round of prisoners next year relocating up to 526 of them to the vacant Claremont Correctional Facility. The complex has been closed for more than a year after the city lost a Department of Corrections contract. That loss has had the city scrambling to find new inmates to  fill the place.

Also in line is the City of Delano Correctional Facility, says Pyle, with all three cities moving to forge a Joint Powers Authority to help manage costs.

The LA deal would bring some 98 jobs back to Coalinga – lost last summer as well as an estimated $11.5 million in economic activity estimates Pyle.

The backfilling of these vacant corrections’ facilities comes as local jurisdictions including Los Angeles have had to shoulder the burden of the court mandated transfer or release of thousands of prisoners that have impacted local jails that are now overflowing – including Fresno.

The state prison population peaked at 173,000 in 2006 but saw a gradual decrease to 163,000 in late 2010. Even so, California penal institutions were operating at 175% of their design capacity. Poor health care delivery prompted the U. S. Supreme Court to order the transfer or release of more than 30,000 prisoners within two years. Now,Governor Brown’s realignment of the criminal justice system has accelerated the prison population’s decrease.
In response to the Supreme Court mandate, California now sends many lower-level offenders to local custody instead of to state prison. Since the advent of realignment on October 1, 2011, the total in-custody prison population has fallen by 12%, from 161,000 to 141,000 at the end of February 2012.

If the pressure is on at local jails like LA and Fresno – some places like Coalinga and Avenal in western Kings County have seen a decline in city income because of the loss in state funding and correctional jobs.

Avenal city administrator Steve Sopp says in the past three years the state prison population in town has declined from 7500 to 4500 with losses to the city of revenue and jobs.

If the inmates are not in state prison they are now in overcrowded local jails with officials like Fresno police chief Jerry Dyer having to handle the spillover into the streets and an increase in crime.

This summer Fresno reported an increase of 50% in homicides with Dyer pointing in interviews to a failing criminal justice system and bad economy as contributing factors.

A recent news report said” The Fresno County jail’s door has swung open again. Just days after opening a new floor of the jail, the sheriff’s office has started releasing inmates again because the place is too full.”

Back in Coalinga, city manager Pyle says the city expects up front funding from LA County to upgrade the Coalinga facility to handle more inmates.

LA County has offered Taft nearly $500,000 at the outset of the contract to pay start-up expenses says Pyle.LA county is now paying $112.84 per day to house the inmates that will cost them $61 per day in Taft.

Curbing obesity among Mexican-heritage children in California’s Central Valley is the focus of a new center set to open its doors Thursday in the Fresno County town of Firebaugh.

Called “Ninos Sanos, Familia Sana” (Healthy Children, Health Family), the center is a collaborative effort of the University of California, Davis, the University of California Cooperative Extension, and local communities and organizations.

“Opening this center really gives us an opportunity to work with the community — to be there for children and families and show we are committed to promoting good nutrition and physical activity,” said Adela de la Torre, professor of Chicana/o studies and director of the Center for Transnational Health at UC Davis. “We want to help them learn the best approaches to preventing obesity now and in the long term.”

Part of a five-year, $4.8 million study aimed at identifying effective approaches to combating obesity, the center will address a problem that affects more than four in 10 children born to parents of Mexican heritage, putting them at greater risk of early diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Planning for the study, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, began last year. The study will conclude in 2016.

During the study, 400 Firebaugh children and their families will receive practical tools, education and incentives to help them eat healthy diets and get sufficient exercise. Interventions will include:

• $25 monthly in vouchers for families to buy fruits and vegetables at participating markets;
• classroom instruction for children on nutrition and physical activity;
• 10 family education nights per year in which parents will learn how to select and use fresh ingredients to prepare healthy meals for themselves and their children; and
• twice-yearly health screenings to monitor weight, blood pressure, body-mass index, skinfold thickness and waist circumference.

At the same time, 400 children and families in the town of San Joaquin will receive:

• twice-yearly health screenings
• a series of forums designed to assist parents in supporting their children’s education

The San Joaquin community will also benefit from these outreach
activities:

• UC Davis will collaborate with area schools to enrich the science curriculum.
• A community mural project will depict the rich cultural heritage and history of the community. (The mural, painted on an outdoor wall of a community learning center in San Joaquin, will be unveiled on Sunday, Sept. 16).

At the study’s conclusion, de la Torre and her research colleagues will have data to show whether the food vouchers and health education programs tested in Firebaugh are effective, using San Joaquin as a control. San Joaquin families and schools will then receive much of the same intervention used in Firebaugh, with assistance from UC Cooperative Extension specialists.

Both Firebaugh and San Joaquin are located in Congressional District 20, an area with the nation’s lowest human development index, an international measurement of wellbeing based on longevity, standard of living and other factors.

“The irony here is that their parents may harvest vegetables in the fields — some of the richest agricultural land anywhere in the world — but their children rarely share in this bounty,” de la Torre said. “We need to provide better access to fresh vegetables and fruit in stores and teach these families how to prepare these foods in easy and convenient ways, to make these good foods part of their lives. That is what this program is about.”

An agricultural economist, de la Torre has studied Latino health issues in the U.S. and Mexico for more than 25 years.

Throughout the study, an advisory committee made up of school, community and parent representatives from each community will provide feedback on program strategies, approaches, concerns and solutions to the barriers that prevent children from maintaining healthy weights.

Participants include parents who have volunteered to have their families take part; grocery stores; health professionals (Sablan Medical Clinics); a nonprofit, community-based program of promotoras, or outreach workers (Proteus, Inc.); school teachers and administrators (Firebaugh-Las Deltas Unified School District and Golden Plains Unified School District in San Joaquin).

Also participating are about 20 educational specialists, economists, nutritionists, psychologists, physicians, and graduate and undergraduate students from UC Davis and the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Lucia Kaiser, Cooperative Extension specialist in the UC Davis Department of Nutrition and a co-investigator on the study, said:

“This project is an exciting opportunity for UC Davis and UC Cooperative Extension to pull a multidisciplinary team of social scientists, nutritionists and other professionals to work in partnership with an underserved community to prevent a pressing health problem — childhood obesity.”