-December 16,2020-

Southwest Airlines announced this week  it will add flights to Santa Barbara and Fresno, California, next spring after adding Palm Springs, in November.

Our arrival in the Heart of California, both on the Central Coast and in the Central Valley, will round out nearly four decades of investment in our California Customers and communities,” Southwest Airlines Chief Commercial Officer & Executive Vice President Andrew Watterson said. “While other airlines seem to fall in and out of love with the state, we’re focused on increasing the reach of our low fares and flexible policies in places where we expect them to make a difference.”

“For years residents and businesses throughout Central California have expressed a desire for Southwest service and connectivity to their vast network of destinations and renowned customer service,” said Kevin Meikle, Director of Aviation for Fresno Yosemite International Airport. “Southwest will expand the Central Valley’s air transportation gateway to Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and we look forward to our new partnership with Southwest and their arrival in the spring.”

“We salute Southwest’s bold decision to enter one of the most vibrant and beautiful regions in California, bringing visitors to our sweeping coastline to experience our mild Mediterranean climate and distinctive Spanish-influenced architecture,” said Mayor Cathy Murillo of Santa Barbara. “For our residents, our partnership with Southwest will energize the economic rebound to come in 2021.”

Along with Palm Springs, which received its first Southwest flight on Nov. 19, 2020, the addition of Fresno and Santa Barbara will position Southwest Airlines as an option in 13 California airports before summer 2021, further deepening the carrier’s commitment to the Golden State. Southwest long has carried more air travelers to, from, and within California than any other carrier, a legacy sustained in the most recent reporting of U.S. Department of Transportation data on airline passengers traveling nonstop.

 UPDATE: Covid patients up to 143 on 11/12

-December 11,2020-

Kaweah Delta hospital in Visalia is caring for 111 patients with COVID-19, 13 of those patients are in the ICU. All of them are adults, intubated, and on ventilators. We have 41 total ICU beds, eight of those beds are open, and that brings our ICU bed availability to 19.5 percent. 

The number of COVID patients has increased from around 30 a month earlier.

The hospital says their biggest problem is the number of staffers that are out due to COVUD. This week the number 143- up from around 37 a month ago.

The  Medical Center is  full, at 95 percent capacity just looking at beds available for adults. Out of 333 adult acute inpatient beds for adults, 316 of those beds are occupied and we have 17 open beds. We have about 100 ventilators in our inventory and 60 are in use right now, so we have a good supply of ventilators available.

As to the Pfizer vaccine Kaweah Delta, Sierra View Medical Center in Porterville, and  county’s skilled-nursing facilities  will each receive one case -1,000 doses.

The County says the company Moderna has committed to sending  5,500 doses of their vaccine when approved  to Tulare County hospitals and nursing homes.

-December 10,2020-

New low for mortgage rates

Mortgage rates eased a bit to hit another record low last week. For the week ending December 3, Freddie Mac announced that 30-year fixed rates eased one tick to 2.71% from 2.72% from the week before. The average for 15-year loans also decreased slightly to 2.26% and the average for five-year ARMs fell to 2.86%. A year ago, 30-year fixed rates averaged 3.68%, almost 1.00% higher than today

 Ventura Coastal building aseptic production facility in Tipton

Ventura Coastal and partner Sunkist are installing a $2 million aseptic  juice processing and blending facility at their Tipton location. A permit was issued last month.The company already processes orange juice this way.

Consumer demand for aseptically packaged food and beverage products has skyrocket during the pandemic.

Aseptic products have a longer shelf life as compared to others. Aseptic packaging is a method in which both the carton and product undergoes the sterilization process to increase the shelf-life and safely preserve it for future purposes. Food and beverage manufacturers use a specialized process to sterilize both contents and the container separately in a sterile environment to prevent contamination by microorganisms. Food and beverage products  can be used without refrigeration.

Analysts say that aseptic sales for the dairy industry will reach $24.6 billion globally by 2024, up from $14 billion in 2017, projects Transparency Market Research, an Albany, N.Y.-based market intelligence firm.

 “Packaging foods in a sterile condition prevents infections and leads to better preservation, which is especially important for dairy products that undergo rapid degradation” says the firm.

Canned food demand roars back

CFB

With the arrival of winter and as COVID-19 cases rise, retailers are preparing for continued increased sales of healthy, shelf-stable items such as canned cling peaches and pears.

Catherine Brew-Cain at Del Monte Foods Inc. said the company continues to see strong demand for its products.

“Sales across all our categories are up significantly this season, including canned fruit,” Brew-Cain said. “In a typical holiday season, we see a 70% sales spike. This year, we’ve already seen a 100% lift in sales.”

Del Monte has worked to meet “unprecedented demand,” she said, “by increasing our plant operations, expanding our pack season, expanding our grower and co-packer network, executing direct customer shipments from plants and increasing labeling capacity.”

Rich Hudgins, president and chief executive officer of the California Canning Peach Association, said the initial rush of “pantry loading and borderline panic buying” early in the year that led to empty supermarket shelves eventually faded, but he added that canned fruits, canned vegetables and most center-store items continue to see increases in retail sales compared to last year.

“Between the increase in retail sales momentum and a smaller-than-anticipated 2020 crop delivery, we actually moved from struggling with an oversupply situation last spring to a much more balanced inventory position today,” Hudgins said. “We’re seeing some continued decline in food-service business, but that’s been largely offset by increased retail sales.”

The Start-Up Boom

The US Census reports new business formation is up 30% this year vs last year nationwide. Where are the numbers highest? California and Florida, each reported around 8000 new business applications in week 45 – November 7 2020. By the numbers these states were highest.

California new business applications are up 24% this year despite the pandemic and the tough business climate. Activity is up compared to the past few years. In 2019 California new business formations were up 12% but were down 7% in 2018.

The Census Bureau tracks business applications as indicated by applications for an Employer Identification Number (EIN).

California is often seen as the bad place to start a business with its recent wildfires, smoke, regulations and high housing costs. Now COVID 19 has set up a migration out of state according to reports. But those that stay may be taking advantage of new opportunities.

Ironically Covid appears to have juiced plans to get into a new business across the nation where we are experiencing the busiest year perhaps ever (see chart).

The Census Bureau reported in October that nationwide Business Applications for the third quarter of 2020, adjusted for seasonal variation, were 1,566,373, an increase of 77.4 percent compared to the second quarter of 2020.

Last week the Wall Street Journal noted the trend reporting that laid off employees are often turning into entrepreneurs launching their own businesses given the state of the economy and the new stay-at-home trend.

Recently Forbes called the trend a “startup boom.” John Haltiwanger, an economist at the University of Maryland, said that within the first two months of the virus outbreak, there was a noticeable rise in new business applications. Working on a project with the government provided him with official data detailing new business formations. He was flabbergasted as he saw the upward trend of new business applications. Haltiwanger pointed out, “The third quarter of 2020 is the highest quarter of applications we’ve ever seen.”

Another analysis of weekly applications from new businesses likely to be employers of people, not just very small businesses – shows a downturn this past spring and a ramp up by summer following perhaps the passage of millions dollars in stimulus funds by the federal government allowing potential entrepreneurs a chance to make a big change in their lives.

Here is a chart.

California car sales down 24.6% but looking up
California’s new light vehicle market declined 24.6 percent during the first nine months of this year versus a year earlier reports the California New Car Dealers Association.The U.S. market fell less, 18.4 percent. Retail vehicle sales in the state have held up better in 2020. New retail registrations fell 19.5% so far this year.Despite the trend dealers expect the market to be up in 2021.

For now light truck registrations in the state declined 17.3 percent versus the 34.4 percent drop for passenger cars.

The rate of decline in the state market eased in the third quarter of this year. 3Q ‘20 registrations fell by 19.6 percent versus a year earlier, an improvement from the 48.9 percent drop in the second quarter.

Wildfires and a slowly recovering labor market contributed to the nearly 20 percent decline in the third quarter. The market could post a small increase in the fourth quarter they say.

Hybrid /electric market share climbs to 14.3%

California motorists continue to buy electric cars with its share climbing to 6.1% so far this year. Adding hybrid electric vehicles  market share is 14.3% according to dealers reports. A year ago it was 13.4%.

-November 6,2020-

An Alaska born storm this weekend will bring colder temps, mountain snow, & coastal showers to Central California -helping to reduce the fire risk.The Central Sierra including the Tulare County mountains ,Tahoe and Mammoth could see as much as 12 inches of snow says NWS. Mammoth ski area says they will open November 15 as cold wether will also allow snowmaking.

NWS says  “Two back to back storms will bring wet weather into much of the central California interior soon. It`s long overdue and it couldn`t be more welcome!

Not only will the precipitation douse the wildfires in the Sierra, but it will finally cleanse the atmosphere of smoke and particulate matter that has plagued the region since the middle of August. The storms this weekend will also usher in the coldest weather we`ve seen since early February.”

Snow levels will lower to about 4500 feet and accumulating snow above this elevation will produce wintry travel for motorists heading into the higher elevations. NWS says rain in the lower elevations,  hasn`t fallen in any sizeable quantity since May 18th.

A break in precipitation should occur Saturday night before the second, colder storm system moves into central California Sunday.I-5 through the Grapevine and highway 58 through Tehachapi pass could conceivably become icy and/or snow covered late Sunday.)

-November 4,2020-

New fire station planned at Rancheria

Kings County representatives are in negotiations with the Tribal Council of the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Yokut Tribe for a new Memorandum of Understanding for county services. As part of the negotiation, there is  a proposal to build a new County operated fire station on tribal land. The site would be at the corner of 16th and Jersey Avenues owned by the tribe.

Goldman Sachs makes new Kings solar investment

The Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs is working on a second investment expanding its solar and battery storage in Kings County. The new project has the company retrofitting the existing  100MW Mustang Solar plant near Lemoore adding a 75 MW or 4-hour 300 MWh energy storage system. Canadian Solar who built the plant, will construct the addition. Goldman Sachs owns the Mustang facility already.

Construction of the energy storage component of the project will begin in early 2021 and is expected to be operational by the second half of the year.

By pairing solar PV with advanced battery technology operators can generate and store solar power during the day for use in the evening. This approach allows California’s power grid to absorb and integrate higher levels of reliable, safe and affordable renewable energy while contributing to the state’s climate mitigation efforts.

Earlier this year First Solar announced that Goldman Sachs acquired the 123-megawatt American Kings Solar project in a transaction that closed at the end of June 2020.

Fresno judge slams Wonderful in Pistachio Wars

Fresno judge Kimberly Gaab issued a strongly worded ruling October 26 against Wonderful Pistachios saying the company had engaged in unfair business practices – the latest chapter in what has been called the Valley’s ”pistachio wars.”

The ruling comes in the ongoing dispute between Wonderful, the industry’s largest player and Fresno growers the Assemi family who brought the latest suit.

The Superior Court judge ruled that the Assimis “have sufficiently alleged that defendant engaged in “unfair” conduct. The judge added that Wonderful who controls 60% of the industry “is using its market power to significantly threaten and harm competition.”

Among the allegations against Wonderful, the judge cited” When two processors accepted the Assemis’ pistachios, Wonderful sued them. Wonderful also filed suit to accelerate repayment of a loan it had made to plaintiffs, even though they were not in breach of the terms of the loan. In addition, Wonderful filed a CEQA action to prevent or delay the construction of plaintiffs’ new pistachio processing facility” (proposed in western Fresno County). Wonderful also tried to interfere with plaintiffs’ plans to purchase another pistachio processing facility in Terra Bella, California.

“When plaintiffs launched their new brand, Touchstone, they succeeded in selling part of their crop in the Chinese market. However, Wonderful zealously guards its position in the Chinese market. Wonderful told a set of powerful Chinese brokers that plaintiffs were treating their pistachios with hydrogen peroxide, which was false and created the impression that plaintiffs’ pistachios were of lower quality. Wonderful also acted to illegally remove Darius and Farshid Assemi from the board of the

Wonderful Almond Co-op in order to prevent them from obtaining financial information about Wonderful’s operations.”

The Assemi group is now building a new pistachio plant near I-5.

Shelving Temperance Flat Dam

Central California farm leaders have long championed construction of a new dam above Fresno. That includes leaders from Kings County. But after 20-plus years of lobbying for federal and state funding for the $3 billion Temperance Flat facility – the project has been put on the shelf.

At the the October meeting of the California Water Commission, Aaron Fakuda representing Temperance Flat Authority and Bill Swanson, Principal Engineer with Stantec informed the Commission the group would not be moving forward for now.They said they would not be able to meet Commission deadlines to receive $171 million that has been earmarked in state funding although not withdrawing formally, as of yet.

Among the factors –  the impact of the drought and the formation of groundwater management districts (SGMA) that are near term demands and a higher priority for farmers. They are “ strongly focusing on their long-term implementation for SGMA and they have not yet figured out how Temperance Flat fits into their ultimate portfolio.” says Swanson according to an account of the meeting in Aquafornia.

To make Temperance Flat happen farmers need to cobble together financial support from the state,federal government and farmer investors.

Farmer investors for now, don’t appear to be encouraged by the relatively small dollar amount offered by the state – $171 million.Some Valley interests had hoped this new dam would be  one of three major storage projects that could be funded by a $7.5 billion water bond approved by voters in 2014. But the state has not bought into the argument.

”That amount is about 5% of the total capital cost of the project, and so that raised a lot of concerns obviously among the potential investors of where is the rest of the money going to come from and how would that be allocated among the participants,” said Mr. Swanson.” So proponents can’t convince enough investors to meet Water Commission deadlines.

“The consequence of that is we don’t have the funding commitments that would allow us to advance foreseeably, to demonstrate a 75% funding commitment by January 1st, 2022.”the Commission was told.

Without a final operational plan the federal government can’t complete their analysis of the proposed project either. The Temperance Flat Reservoir Authority has requested that Reclamation place the feasibility study in deferral status until such time that an operating plan is defined, they say.

Still the Temperance Flat Authority said they’re not ready to throw in the towel but hope the Commission will allow the money to stay in the Central Valley for some water-related project.

“In determining how we move forward, we would like to make the request that the Water Commission to work with us to try and return some of those funds back to the Central Valley to help meet some of those priorities that we’ve been dealing with locally,” said Aaron Fakuda. The priorities within the Central Valley have shifted and timing is not on our side, suggested the group.Fakuda added “If even $150 million” that was awarded to Temperance Flat went into the Central Valley, “you would rival all of the money currently invested in all of the SGMA programs in the Valley.“

Another huge new priority-not related to  new storage – is fixing the water delivery infrastructure already in place that has been impacted by subsidence due to vigorous  groundwater pumping.The capacity of the CVP’s Friant Kern Canal and the State Water Project’s California Aqueduct has been limited by sinking land along their route.It will take hundreds of millions to repair.

Critics of Temperance Flat say farmers don’t want to invest in the project because it makes more sense to add recharge capacity in the Valley.

Flower growers express concern on import ruling

California Farm Bureau says low-priced flowers from Central and South America have driven many California flower growers out of business—and representatives say a new decision may accelerate that trend. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office says it will allow roses from Ecuador to enter the U.S. duty-free. The California Cut Flower Commission describes its members as disappointed, and says imports have already pushed more than three-quarters of U.S. rose growers out of business including some here in the Central Valley

-November 4,2020-

October home building surges in Visalia

Visalia home builders got the memo in October- it’s time to ramp up construction of new homes while the market is hot. Visalia permitted 79 new single-family homes in October 2020- the highest number in this COVID impacted year. The value of these new homes topped $20 million compared to $13.6 million in October 2019.

Nationally the market is strong as well. US government figures show building permits in September were  5.2 percent above the  August rate  and 8.1 percent above the September 2019 rate. Historically low interest rates added to the trend as demand for homes has spiked due the pandemic. New buyers include more renters who have now decided to buy.One study shows almost half (46%) of current renters say they would now prefer to own versus rent. That is equal to, potentially, 7.4 million new homebuyers in the U.S. The majority of them are younger (millennials and Gen X groups combined), ranging in age from 25 to 44.

Another trend nationally matches what is happening  locally – more renovation of existing homes. In Visalia in October new residential remodels were valued at $4.5 million vs $3.6 million the same month a year before.

Builders busy in Visalia include the top five – DR Horton, Beazer, Woodside, San Joaquin Valley Homes and Lennar.

Valencia plantings fail to keep up with the surge in demand

Tulare County grew more than 30,000 acres of juicy Valencia oranges in the mid-1990s. Back then, tangerine acreage was under 2000 with lemons grown in Tulare County just 4000 acres.

Now looking at the latest data – the 2019 crop report – Valencia trees have dropped to 13,800 acres in Tulare County – less than half we saw several decades earlier. Meanwhile growers have gone all-in for varieties of tangerines – now near 32,000 acres. Lemon plantings too have boomed with 2350 acres of new trees and total lemon acres now standing at 13,250 – a three-fold increase since 1995.

Clearly growers have been responding to market signals that consumers were loving those “easy peel” seedless tangerines/mandarins. Now lemons come seedless too.But they have pretty well forgotten ‘boring old’ Valencia fruit that was ‘so yesterday.’

Until this summer when bags of Valencia fruit have been flying off grocery shelves as COVID 19 jolted consumers into remembering the primal need for vitamin C .One Valencia orange can offer 70 to 100 milligrams of Vietnam C- the daily requirement. Valencias are a summer fruit that ripens in Tulare County orchard coming off the trees around April and through the summer  and available into November -navel season.

Good prices

Growers selling Valencias in October were rewarded with higher prices for the fruit fetching $24 a carton for 138 size compared to $15.50 on the same date in 2019 according to Citrus Mutual.

As of 2018 growers here clearly had no inkling of how robust demand would get for juice oranges with just 44 acres of new trees in the ground.  Farmers here planted more young grapefruit than Valencias. New plantings of lemons including the new seedless variety are hot with new acres of trees recently planted adding up to to 2350 with 10,9900 bearing acres.

Sunkist convinced 

In a recent consumer survey, Sunkist learned that the most important factor when buying citrus is the high Vitamin C content.

“Consumers are always interested in keeping their immune systems strong, and citrus is one of the easiest ways to consume this powerful antioxidant,” said Julie DeWolf, Director of Marketing Operations at Sunkist Growers.

“The research also divulged that consumers greatly prefer purchasing domestically grown products when they are available, so we have developed a ready-to-go marketing campaign to continue to support the citrus category and to keep the U.S.-grown promotions going strong.”

High in vitamin C, Valencia oranges are the only U.S.-grown orange variety in the summertime, earning its title, “The Official Orange of the American Summer.”

As to new plantings of the Valencia oranges – look for  more young trees going into the ground this winter.

Residential trash overflowing with COVID

Tulare’s residential trash volume spiked this year according to a city report. With more people remaining at home and working there due to COVID-19, residential  tonnage of trash collected by the city is up nearly 19% in September compared to the year before. Meanwhile the city’s commercial routes collected less tonnage in September- down 3.2%. Overall tonnage numbers were significantly higher at 5,279.6 tons, an increase of 11.9 percent compared to September 2019 (4,717.2 tons).