Health center decision could come tonight

The Del Puerto Health Care District's board of directors meets tonight (7 p.m., 875 E St.) and will possibly decide on the course of action it will take in the ongoing saga of its health center. For those who haven't been paying attention, here's a recap:

The district announced plans late last year to move the Del Puerto Health Center from its current location at 1108 Ward Ave. to a much larger building in the Keystone Pacific Business Park. Its current landlord, John Ramos, appealed the Patterson Planning Commission's approval of the move, stating that zoning laws in the business park did not allow for that type of medical use. In February, the commission again sided with the district. In May, the City Council heard Ramos' appeal and sided against the district, denying the move.

Now, the district's board must decide what it will do next. At its last meeting, June 2, the board came out of its closed session discussion only to announce no decision had been made. District CEO Margo Arnold said this afternoon the board needs to make a decision. The directors could decide to apply for an amendment to the city's zoning law in an attempt to move forward with the Keystone site. Or they could decide to move on and look for another site. The district's lease at the current site runs out next year, so time would appear to be a factor in the board's decision.

I'll post again tonight if anything noteworthy comes out of the meeting.

Industrial supplier plans massive distribution center at Keystone

Grainger Industrial Supply announced today its plans to build an 800,000-square-foot distribution center in the Keystone Pacific Business Park in western Patterson. The building, slated to open in mid-2011, would be roughly the size of the CVS (formerly Longs) distribution center and would provide 150 to 200 warehouse and logistics jobs, according to a company news release.

Grainger has more than 600 branches and 18 distribution centers around the world. Far as I can tell, the closest branch is in Ceres. I'm hoping to talk with a representative from the company today. May or may not get a story on this into Thursday's paper, but we'll have something at least by next week.

Below is the full text of the news release:

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Grainger Announces Expansion in California’s Central Valley

Company to build new 800,000 square-foot distribution center in Patterson

Santa Ana, Calif. (July 28, 2009) – Grainger, a distributor of facilities maintenance supplies, today announced plans to build a new distribution center in Patterson, Calif. The company recently purchased a 45-acre property in Patterson’s KeyStone West Business Park and plans to break ground on the development in September.

“Grainger is excited to become part of the Patterson business community,” said Brian Williams, Regional Director of Distribution at Grainger. “We’ve been in California for 75 years and building a new distribution center in the Central Valley will allow us to deliver more products next-day to our customers on the West Coast.”

The 800,000 square-foot distribution center is scheduled to open mid-2011 and is projected to house more than 350,000 industrial supply products, such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, hand and power tools, and electrical and safety supplies. The company anticipates the new facility will employ 150-200 warehouse and logistics employees when complete.

Grainger currently operates nearly 50 locations in California and employs 1,000 people throughout the state. Founded in 1927, Grainger has a long history of being an active member in the communities where its employees live and work.

For more information about the new facility, media should contact JP Clark, Regional Communications Manager at (949) 300-4943 or jp.clark@grainger.com

About Grainger
Illinois-based W.W. Grainger, Inc. (NYSE: GWW), with 2008 sales of $6.9 billion, is the leading broad line supplier of facilities maintenance products serving businesses and institutions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, India, China and Panama. Through a highly integrated network including more than 600 branches, 18 distribution centers and multiple Web sites, Grainger's employees help customers get the job done.

Let's try this again, shall we?

Ok, so that first little experiment with blogging was a little spotty. Now that we've pretty well established ourselves on Twitter and Facebook, I think it's time to give this another shot.

Unfortunately, I'll be going it alone this time, as reporter John Saiz has left us for a new life in the Bay Area. I have at least temporarily taken over John's city beat. We are going to be bringing in a new reporter, but that's likely a month or so away.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to again use this blog as a means by which to offer news updates and analysis to supplement our normal coverage. I'd like to start posting updates after City Council meetings, for example, whether that means the night of the meeting or the morning after. With stories not appearing in print until more than a week after the meetings, this seems like a good way to get information out.

As for last Tuesday's council meeting, I'll have a story up on the Web site on Monday. The biggest story to come out of the meeting was Tori Hughes being named Patterson's new police chief. A story on that will be up later in the week.

Marathon meeting fails to yield decision

Forgive me if I don't quite have the energy for a long, thorough post on this, but there seemed to be enough public interest that an update was in order.

Tuesday night's Patterson City Council meeting — one of the longest in recent memory, by some accounts — included more than THREE HOURS of legal arguments, public comment and discussion about the Del Puerto Health Care Center's proposed move to the Keystone Pacific Business Park and the appeal of that move by the health care district's current landlord, John Ramos. The meeting in its entirety lasted more than five hours and stretched past midnight (I'm assuming ... I left at about 11:45 p.m. with other agenda items still to come).

There were a lot of very technical legal interpretations of zoning ordinances, CEQA law and the developer agreement between Keystone and the city. There were a lot of impassioned pleas from patients, providers and health care district board members about the need for a bigger, better facility. The arguments on both sides were convincing.

As midnight approached, council members were still discussing whether they had a solid, impartial enough interpretation of the zoning laws and whether Ramos' motives — a matter of some debate — should be part of the discussion.

In the end, the council decided to solicit the opinion of a fifth lawyer — after hearing from attorneys for Ramos, the district and Keystone, as well as City Attorney George Logan — voting to seek out a land-use attorney while promising to come forth with a decision at the next council meeting.

It appeared as though the decision became more complicated as each argument was heard, and it doesn't appear likely this is going to be truly settled anytime soon. If the council votes for one side, the other could sue. If the council votes to amend the developer agreement and require CEQA approval, it could add precious months to the project for a district whose current lease expires in less than a year.

John Saiz will have a story on this in Saturday's Irrigator and probably on the Web site sometime this week. Stay tuned.

Man dies in I-5 crash

A fatal accident snarled southbound traffic on Interstate 5 around 4:30 p.m. today. I'll have a more complete story on the Web site Tuesday, along with photos, but here's what I know for now:

A car with three people was traveling northbound on I-5 just north of Sperry Avenue when it veered onto the right shoulder. The driver apparently over-corrected and lost control, peeling across the grassy divide at about 70 mph. The car struck a southbound car head-on.

The man in the second car, who was traveling alone, was pronounced dead on the scene. The three people in the first care all suffered moderate to major injuries, and at least one was taken by helicopter to a hospital (not sure which one at the moment).

By the time I left the scene, around 5:15 p.m., southbound traffic was backed up to about a mile from the Westley exit, but it appeared to at least be moving.

I don't have any info yet on the man who died. I'm hoping to get that from the coroner in the morning (they won't release any info until the family has been notified).

Expect photos and at least a brief story on the Web site tomorrow.

This is the second fatal accident on I-5 near Sperry in less than two weeks. A Stockton woman died while traveling the same direction, just on the other side of the exit.

Property tax scam targeting locals?

Our intrepid news reporter, John Saiz, is already working on this story for Wednesday's paper, but I thought it might be good to mention it now.

There appears to be a scam going around, targeting homeowners desperate to save money in any way possible. Homeowners in Patterson and apparently all over California are receiving a letter from a Los Angeles company stating that it can save them hundreds of dollars in property taxes by reassessing the person's home (presumably for a lower value than its previous assessment) for a reasonable price of $179, or something like that.

Problem is, assessing home values is the job of the county assessor, who does this sort of thing on a regular basis — for free.

So needless to say, nobody should be paying anyone anything, no matter how official their mailings appear — and I've seen this one; it looks legit — to reassess their home and lower their property taxes.

Here's a press release we received Thursday from the county assessor:

County Assessor Warns Area Taxpayers

Assistant Assessor, Steve Yauch, today issued a warning to Stanislaus County residents about a misleading offer targeting local homeowners.  The County was recently notified of the offer by a concerned taxpayer, who received the notification from the Los Angeles-based company offering to file a “Request for Review” form with the County Assessor for a $179.00 fee.  Property assessment and assessment reviews are free services offered by the County Assessor and property owners should never pay for a service to file a request for review.

“I want to remind property owners that our office regularly reviews property tax assessments, free of charge, to carry out our obligations under California Law.  Last year, our office reviewed approximately 60,000 properties and lowered over 40,000 assessments,” commented Mr. Yauch.  “The Assessor is required by law to review the properties that were reassessed at a lower value, as of January 1, 2009.  This year, our office will review most single family residences and condos as of January 1, 2009.”

Property owners who receive assessment related mail should check the validity of the sender and contact the County Assessor’s Office if you have questions or concerns related to your assessment. 

Owners of properties with resulting reduced assessments will receive a letter by the end of June notifying them of the results.  Owners who disagree with the results or did not receive a reduction for their 2009 assessment may call our office at (209) 525-6461 and/or file an application for reduced assessment with Clerk of the Board (209) 525-6414 between July 2^nd and November 30^th, 2009.

Willett: City doing OK despite drought

As farmers plan for one of their most challenging seasons in recent memory — the product of an ongoing drought and pumping restrictions at the San Joaquin Delta — residents in the city of Patterson seem to have less to worry about.

Patterson's public works director, Mike Willett, said last week that the city — which pulls all of its water from the ground using a series of wells — is in pretty good shape because it's not yet pulling more water than is typically replenished each year.

"We haven’t seen an impact on our supply at this point," Willett said. "The groundwater levels are trending little bit downward, but to this point, it hasn't been significant. There's a lot of water down there."

That doesn't mean residents should start flooding their lawns or keeping the water running while they brush their teeth, however. The great unknown for the city is not how much groundwater is available now, but how much will be used this year by farmers short on surface water.

With allocations from the Delta potentially being cut off this year, farmers might have no choice but to pump groundwater using their own wells to protect permanent crops. How much that might affect the groundwater supply is a complete unknown at this point, and it's one of the only possibilities that could force the city to crack down on its residents' water use.

Still, Willett thinks the city will be OK because the wells used by farmers are typically shallower than the city's wells.

"Most of the city's wells are deeper," he said. "We did that intentionally, so we're not in competition with other folks."

Willett said that with the city’s ninth well set to be completed by June 1 and with the City Council taking steps to ensure the city’s future water supply, Patterson should be in good shape for some time to come.

"We’re doing pretty well," Willett said. "I'd hate to say things are in bad shape, but I'd hate to say everything's fine. It's a fine balance between letting people know that we're OK for this year and still encouraging them to conserve."

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Meanwhile, city officials and farmers alike will be praying for rain, and they might get some soon. According to AccuWeather, rain is in the local forecast throughout the rest of this week, and there could be more next week.

But it'll take a number of significant storms to bring local rainfall anywhere near normal.

After the city's most recent storm, which brought more than an inch of rain, the total for the season — which runs from July 1 to June 30 — was still at only 2.77 inches, or about half of the normal total for this point in the season.

The numbers are even scarier if you compare them to last season. In January 2008, a major storm brought the season total to 8.68 inches. But an incredibly dry spring brought less than 2 inches the rest of the season, and the total of 10.62 inches still fell short of the 10.68 average.

If this spring is anything like last spring, this season's rainfall won't sniff 5 inches, let alone 10.