Tulare County is a diverse 4,800 square miles, with extensive, mountainous public lands in the east, and some of the country's most fertile farmland in the west. It encompasses the Sequoia Park, parts of the Giant Sequoia National Monument and Sequoia National Forest, and every year hosts the World Ag Expo. How all of these diverse elements fit into a single general plan is the question that has vexed planners and stakeholders alike for the better part of the past decade.
The City of Tulare has officially given up on a proposed speedway. The premature checkered flag for the Tulare Motor Sports Complex is hardly a surprise.
On the surface, auto racing tracks seem like a sexy way to generate big economic returns. Cities such as Indianapolis, Charlotte and Daytona Beach owe a good portion of their existence to auto racing. But these places are the exception, as numerous other cities have learned over the last decade.
When an untimely freeze destroyed the Tulare County citrus crop two years ago, costing many people their farm labor jobs, the City of Lindsay responded with a program modeled on the Works Project Administration. The city built a number of projects, the most novel of which was the conversion of an empty fruit-packing plant into a 172,000-square-foot sports and fitness complex.
In a case that the court called "unnecessarily complicated," the Fifth District Court of Appeal has ruled against residents challenging the environmental review of a 219-house subdivision in the foothills of Porterville.
The City of Dinuba's redevelopment agency is entitled to tax increment that Tulare County erroneously distributed to itself and nine other local government entities, according to a unanimous state Supreme Court ruling.
