Plant Your Business In Solano County!

The University of California, Davis, has signed co-exclusive license agreements with Watt Stopper/Legrand of Santa Clara, Calif

2008-04-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

University of California, Davis
April 9, 2008

DAYLIGHT HARVESTING TECHNOLOGIES LICENSED

The University of California, Davis, has signed co-exclusive license agreements with Watt Stopper/Legrand of Santa Clara, Calif., and Axis Technologies Inc. of Lincoln, Neb., to commercialize inventions that reduce the cost and increase the reliability of daylight harvesting systems. The license agreements cover a package of strategies and technologies developed by the California Lighting Technology Center
(CLTC) at UC Davis.

Daylight harvesting systems automatically adjust indoor lighting to match changes in ambient daylight.

"UC Davis is proud of its leadership in energy-saving inventions such as these. We are very pleased to have partnered with two leading lighting companies to take this technology to market to provide clean energy solutions for our nation," said David McGee, executive director of UC Davis InnovationAccess, which manages intellectual property and licensing issues on behalf of the university.

Daylight harvesting has tremendous potential to reduce both energy costs and demand for electricity at peak times. But the concept has been difficult to realize because of issues of reliability and the cost of commissioning.

"We see these innovations increasing the reliability and decreasing the cost of daylight harvesting systems," said Konstantinos Papamichael, professor of design at UC Davis and associate director of the CLTC.

Currently, daylight harvesting systems are set up by a technical expert who makes adjustments specific to the space and location. Even small changes in the lit space -- rearranging furniture, for example
-- can change the reflective properties of the space and require expensive, expert adjustments.

Papamichael added that the licensed inventions include advances in three areas. CLTC researchers have developed tools that allow the system to calibrate itself continuously and automatically, adjusting to any changes in the room and reducing the need for expert commissioning.

Secondly, the researchers have devised technology to use two light sensors, rather than one, to get a more reliable measure of ambient daylight. Finally, the team exploited the properties of photo sensors to get better measurements of light approaching the sensor from an angle, rather than just head-on.

The work leading to the inventions was supported by the Public Interest Energy Research program of the California Energy Commission.

About the California Lighting Technology Center

The California Lighting Technology Center was established in 2004 as a joint program of UC Davis and the Public Interest Energy Research
(PIER) program of the California Energy Commission. More information:
.

About UC Davis InnovationAccess

UC Davis InnovationAccess actively manages a patent portfolio of more than 840 inventions reflecting the diversity of the campus's research base, and seeks opportunities to commercialize these via licensing, with more than 480 currently active licensees. UC Davis has also seen an upsurge in startup companies emerging from campus research and technologies, with nearly 20 companies founded since 2005. The UC Davis InnovationAccess team is comprised of more than 20 professionals with PhDs, JDs, and MBAs with significant private-sector experience. More information:
.

About Watt Stopper/Legrand

Watt Stopper/Legrand is based in Santa Clara, Calif. and is a manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting controls for commercial and residential use. It is a fully owned subsidiary of Legrand, located in Limoges, France, which specializes in products and systems for electrical installations and information networks. More information:
.

About Axis Technologies Inc.

Axis Technologies Group Inc. conducts its business through a wholly owned subsidiary, Axis Technologies Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in Lincoln, Neb. Axis Technologies designs, manufactures and markets a proprietary line of energy-saving and daylight harvesting electronic dimming ballasts for the commercial lighting industry. More information:
<http://www.axistechnologyinc.com>.

Additional information:
* California Lighting Technology Center <http://www.cltc.ucdavis.edu/>
* UC Davis InnovationAccess <http://www.innovationaccess.ucdavis.edu>
* Watt Stopper/Legrand <http://www.wattstopper.com>
* Axis Technologies Group Inc. <http://www.axistechnologyinc.com>

Media contact(s):
* David McGee, UC Davis InnovationAccess, (530) 757-3442, drmcgee@ucdavis.edu
* Andy Fell, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-4533, ahfell@ucdavis.edu

FARMERS MARKET RETURNS TO UC DAVIS CAMPUS

2008-04-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

FARMERS MARKET RETURNS TO CAMPUS

An on-campus farmers market, intended to give UC Davis students, faculty and staff increased access to fresh local produce, has returned for its second season. It will be open Wednesdays, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., through June 4 on the east lawn of the Quad, a hub of campus activity.

The East Quad Farmers Market began in spring 2007 as part of a larger pilot project of the Davis Farmers Market Foundation, designed to expand sales of local produce, promote the use of farm-fresh foods in K-12 schools and on the campus, and educate consumers about nutrition and healthful eating.

The campus farmers market also complements UC Davis' own Foods for Health Initiative, an interdisciplinary effort that is addressing issues including nutrition, obesity, the availability of healthy foods, organic farming and industrial food production.

Among the dozen vendors participating in the market will be the Student Experimental Farm of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Shoppers can choose cherries, strawberries, apples, organic vegetables, nuts, olive oil and flowers.

The market is intended to help boost consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables by members of the campus community. A 2007 survey of UC Davis students found that 60 percent eat two or fewer servings of nutrition-packed fruits and vegetables per day.

The East Quad Farmers Market is co-sponsored by Campus Recreation, Campus Unions, Cowell Student Health Center, Davis Farmers Market Foundation, Davis Food Co-op, R4 Recycling and University Dining Services.

Media contact(s):
* Laura Rubin, UC Davis Health Education and Promotion, (530) 754-4878, lmrubin@ucdavis.edu
* Julia Ann Easley, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-8248, jaeasley@ucdavis.edu

Extending CA net operating losses carry-forward to 20 years would create a better business and innovative environment

2008-03-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

For the full article link to: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/18/EDO3VLH2T.DTL

Extending the net operating losses carry-forward to 20 years, as do the federal and many state governments, would create a better business and innovative environment for the development of many new therapeutic and prophylactic products.

David Martin is president and CEO of AvidBiotics, a biotechnology company developing protein products for the treatment of specific bacterial diseases of humans, with particular emphasis on antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Matthew M. Gardner is CEO and president of BayBio, an independent, nonprofit trade association serving the life science industry in Northern California.

Finding drugs to combat super bugs

By David Martin, Matthew M. Gardner
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The antibiotics we have come to depend upon to fight bacterial ear infections, pneumonias and strep throats are working less and less well. At the same time, we have fewer new drugs in the pipeline to replace the increasingly ineffective antibiotics. These problems have serious consequences for all of us. Last year, 2 million people were infected with drug-resistant "super bugs," resulting in 90,000 deaths and an additional $9.5 billion in health-care costs, according to the Infectious Disease Society of America.

The high risks and high costs of drug development, coupled with the relatively small antibiotic markets, have resulted in the limited pipelines. High overhead costs and limited market demand constrain traditional pharmaceutical companies' interests in developing an effective response. The result is a dearth of new antibiotics: between 2003 and 2007, only four new antibiotics received FDA approval.

Small entrepreneurial companies that make up much of California's life sciences industry can fill this gap. Many of these companies focus on discovering new treatments for unmet medical needs that are more difficult to develop, but have a large public impact. Small biotech companies have the institutional agility and the scientific know-how to discover and develop new drugs to combat super bug infections. Markets of considerably smaller sizes are sufficient to greatly interest small biotech companies. Yet these companies face their own challenges.

Raising capital to fund research and development is the top priority for any small life sciences company. Drug development costs continue to escalate. The average company must invest $800 million of capital over 15 years to develop a successful product and eventually achieve profitability. Because of the length of the research and development cycle for typical biotechnology products, some California tax code provisions that are intended to assist emerging industries are less than useful. In the fight against antibiotic-resistant super bugs, new solutions are needed to spur innovation and stem this deadly trend.

A case in point is California's treatment of net operating losses. Net operating losses are generated by companies engaged in research and product development but not yet making a profit. California law allows such losses to be carried forward for 10 years and written off upon profitability. Extending the net operating losses carry-forward to 20 years, as do the federal and many state governments, would create a better business and innovative environment for the development of many new therapeutic and prophylactic products.

Benicia's Universal Environmental bought by Clean Harbors Inc.

2008-03-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

East Bay Business Times - March 17, 2008
http://eastbay.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2008/03/17/daily5.html

Business News - Local News
Monday, March 17, 2008
Benicia's Universal Environmental bought by Clean Harbors Inc.
East Bay Business Times

Clean Harbors Inc. has acquired Universal Environmental Inc., an environmental services company, Clean Harbors said Monday.

Norwell, Mass.-based Clean Harbors (NASDAQ: CLHB) is a provider of environmental and hazardous waste management services. Universal Environment, which provides environmental services, has headquarters in Benicia and a site office in Sparks, Nev.

The purchase includes the land surrounding the Benicia office, which Clean Harbors said it will use for future expansion.

Universal Environmental has approximately 100 employees and was profitable and generated approximately $15 million in revenue in 2007, according to Clean Harbors' announcement.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.

Copart Grows Again

2008-03-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

Copart Grows Again

Copart, Inc. through its subsidiary in the United Kingdom announced that it has purchased the assets and business of AG Watson Auto Salvage & Motors Spares (Scotland) Limited. AG Watson operates two salvage locations in Scotland and two salvage locations in northern England. With the closing of this transaction, and including the expected closing of the pending acquisition of Simpson Salvage Sales as announced on Feb. 20, Copart will operate 15 locations in the UK and 143 locations worldwide.

In addition, Copart also announced the opening of a new facility just north of Minneapolis, Minn. This latest addition to Copart's growing footprint marks the company's second facility in the Minneapolis area and the 129th facility in North America.

Copart, founded in 1982, provides vehicle suppliers, primarily insurance companies, with a full range of services to process and sell salvage vehicles, principally to licensed dismantlers, rebuilders and used vehicle dealers, through Internet sales utilizing its proprietary VB2 technology. The Company currently operates 143 facilities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Sludge Spread: More Than 14,000 Tons of Biosolids Used in 2007

2008-03-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

Sludge Spread: More Than 14,000 Tons of Biosolids Used in 2007
By Barry Eberling | DAILY REPUBLIC | March 12, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Eastern Solano County had more treated sewage sludge, also called biosolids, spread across more ranch land as a fertilizer in 2007 than the previous year.

About 14,698 tons of biosolids were spread, a 26 percent increase, a county report stated. The treated sludge was spread across 2,408 acres, a 35 percent increase.

This is just some of the information included in an annual biosolids report received Tuesday by the Solano County Board of Supervisors.

Biosolids proved a controversial issue in 2003 when the county tightened its laws on spreading the material. People packed the board chambers to talk about odors and possible pathogens that might blow from the sludge to neighboring properties and cities.

The National Academies has stated there are no known health hazards posed by biosolids that are handled correctly, although it has also said more research is needed. Also, some ranchers say they are aided by receiving a free source of fertilizer.

For the complete story see the Daily Republic Online.

Travis Commander Shares Deployment Experiences With Business Leaders

2008-03-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

Travis Commander Shares Deployment Experiences With Business Leaders
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | March 12, 2008

VACAVILLE - The war on terror, wind turbines, the arrival of Travis Air Force Base's last two C-17s and expansions to David Grant Medical Center's services were subjects Wednesday during base commander Col. Steven Arquiette's speech to local business leaders.

Arquiette has just returned from a four-month deployment in Southwest Asia, where he helped coordinate the Air Force's air mobility, air drop, aeromedical evacuation and air refueling assets.

The commander told members of the Solano Economic Development Corp. he was glad 'to be back where everything is green.'

For the complete story see the Daily Republic Online.

Travis Commander Back From Mideast

2008-03-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

Travis Commander Back From Mideast
By Danny Bernardini
Article Launched: 03/13/2008

Col. Steven Arquiette

Col. Steven Arquiette Fresh off a four-month stint in the Middle East, Travis Air Force Base's commander met with local business leaders Wednesday to let them know about the important role the base is playing in the war on terrorism and to stress the importance of the base's relationship with the local community.

Col. Steven Arquiette's speech, part of a luncheon sponsored by the Solano Economic Development Corporation in Vacaville, wasn't heavy with statistics and figures about the base, but he did mention that in 2006-07 the strategic weapon drops to troops increased 400 percent and all other air drops increased 200 percent.

"We've promised soldiers that they can go 100 or 200 miles in and we will get them supplies," he said. "We're not slowing down."

Many topics surrounding the base, both literally and figuratively, have made headlines recently. While Arquiette didn't address the controversy of revamping C-5 aircraft or replacing them with C-17s, he did say Travis would be receiving a new C-17 in April.

What he did discuss are the wind turbines near the base that are being proposed and the planned Wal-Mart Supercenter in Suisun City. He said, in both instances, that the appropriate agencies are handling the issues and he is confident that any encroachment or radar issues will be avoided.

Some concern had been expressed in the past about the potential for the projects to interfere with Travis operations, those issues have been dealt with, he said.

As for his time overseas, Arquiette said he is happy to be back at Travis.

"To come back from the desert to Solano County, where everything is green, it was great to get back out there," Arquiette said. "My hat is off to you that help us day in and day out. I want to continue to reach out. Once you start the dialogue, it's a powerful thing."

Arquiette was asked about being promoted out of that rank after his term as Wing Commander expires in May. He said his future is still undetermined.

In the meantime, he said, continuing to grow healthy relationships and ongoing communication are key in assisting in the war and must continue if America is to come out victorious.

"If we don't get it right now, we will be fighting when my son is of age," Arquiette said. "It's not over until we win."

SMUD: New Wind Turbines Can Power Homes

2008-03-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

SMUD: New Wind Turbines Can Power Homes
Turbines Are Largest In North America
POSTED: March 11, 2008

RIO VISTA, Calif. -- The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is moving ahead with its plan to harness the power of wind for its power customers.

Twenty-nine wind turbines were unveiled Tuesday in Rio Vista. At 412 feet tall, they are the largest in North America and can power 1,000 homes without producing any greenhouse gases.

SMUD picked this area because of the constant flow of the Delta breezes during the summer, which also becomes the peak season for power demand.

"We're very hopeful that our customers are supportive of this. One of our goals is to produce 23 percent of our energy from renewable resources by the year 2011," Jon Bertolino from SMUD said.

The district is working on getting another 30 or 40 wind turbines up and running within the next two years.

Forlorn Hope's Suisun Valley wines receive high praise from Wine Enthusiast

2008-03-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

Forlorn Hope's Suisun Valley wines receive high praise from Wine Enthusiast

91 points 2005 Les Deux Matieux

90 points 2005 Gascony Cadets

What has long been "terra incognita" in the wine world -- despite being the second AVA created in the country -- Suisun Valley is boldly emerging into the consciousness of the cognoscenti as a prime viticultural site. In growers such as Roger King, who farms the Petit Verdot that becomes our Gascony Cadets, and Steve and Linda Tenbrink, whose Mr. T's Vineyard produces the Petite Sirah for the Les Deux Matieux, the Suisun Valley has nearly boundless potential. We look forward to continuing to explore the terroir of this unique valley and to producing stellar wines from its fruit for many vintages to come.

Click here to read more about the 2005 Les Deux Matieux,

Or on this link to hear tell of the 2005 Gascony Cadets

Developer Has Big Plans For Marina Shopping Center

2008-03-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

Developer Has Big Plans For Marina Shopping Center
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | March 12, 2008

SUISUN CITY - The Marina Shopping Center, Suisun City's oldest shopping center, may soon undergo a rebirth that involves extensive renovation and construction.

Redwood City-based Pellarin Enterprises unveiled what it would like to do with the aging, half-vacant shopping center to the Suisun City Planning Commission Tuesday night.

Claude Pellarin and Suisun City Community Development Director Heather McCollister stressed the proposed layout and artist's renderings shown to the commission were conceptual designs.

The extent of the renovation will depend on what tenants he can attract to fill the center, Pellarin said. He and his brother, Aaron Pellarin, plan to do the work in phases so they can work with and move existing tenants as the project develops.

For the complete story go to the Daily Republic Online.

Vallejo Group Earns 4-Star Chamber Accreditation

2008-03-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

Vallejo Group Earns 4-Star Chamber Accreditation
By RACHEL RASKIN-ZRIHEN/Times-Herald staff writer
Article Launched: 03/12/2008

The United States Chamber of Commerce on Monday named the Vallejo chamber one of only 10 in California to receive a 4-Star Accreditation.

The Vallejo Chamber of Commerce was recognized for its sound policies, effective organizational procedures and positive impact on the community, said Rick Wells, Vallejo chamber president and CEO.

To receive accreditation, a chamber must meet minimum standards in its operations and programs, including areas of governance, government affairs and technology, Wells said. The required extensive self-review can take up to six months, he said.

"We are extremely proud," Wells said. "This designation is a tribute to our outstanding staff team, and to the commitment and dedication of our volunteer leadership to build an effective and productive organization."

The Vallejo chamber is one of only four Northern California chambers to ever receive the U.S. Chamber's 4-Star rating, Wells said

The Vallejo Chamber of Commerce has more than 600 members, representing almost 12,000 employees, and works to strengthen Vallejo's economy and improve the quality of life for the entire community, he added.

Solano County gives Affiliated Computer Services $4M call center contract

2008-03-11T14:05:00.001-07:00

Solano County gives Affiliated Computer Services $4M call center contract

Solano County has awarded an amended $4 million, 3-1/2-year contract to Affiliated Computer Services Inc. to establish and operate a 311 customer service center.

ACS (NYSE: ACS), which has headquarters in Dallas, said the deal builds on its existing IT services contract with the county.

ACS will deploy the system including developing a database and service-request workflow, and ACS employees will manage and staff the non-emergency call center.

ACS said it operates more than 70 such centers for governments and commercial clients, handling 750,000 calls daily.

The company has provided IT services for Solano County since 1989.

Honeywell and Solano County in solar deal

2008-03-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

Honeywell and Solano County in solar deal
East Bay Business Times

Solano County boosted its commitment to solar energy with a 20-year solar power purchase agreement with Honeywell International Inc., the Morristown, N.J. technology and manufacturing company.

Under the agreement, Honeywell will install a 746-kilowatt solar array near the Claybank Adult Detention Facility in Fairfield and sell the electricity produced to the county to help power the jail. Honeywell plans to install the solar panels on bus ports it will build at a parking lot for local school buses near the facility.

The county expects it will save more than $1 million a year in energy costs over the next 20 years, at which time it will have the option to purchase the solar array or continue to purchase the electricity.

The solar project is expected to generate nearly 1.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, or enough to power more than 100 homes a year. It will supply more than 60 percent of the facility's electricity needs, and will cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 14,500 metric tons over the course of the contract.

It is the third solar electric facility in Solano County, and brings the county's renewable energy power generation to more than one megawatt.

Vacaville Police Chief Honored

2008-03-11T13:06:00.001-07:00

Vacaville Police Chief Honored
By Reporter Staff
Article Launched: 03/07/2008

Vacaville Police Chief Richard Word was honored Tuesday in Fresno with a service award recognizing his commitment to youth and youth outreach.

The presentation was made at the annual California Police Chiefs' conference, where Word received a commemorative plaque from the Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California organization.

Word, a member of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids since 2000, is wrapping up his one-year term as president of the California Police Chiefs' Association.

The group is a bipartisan, non-profit, anti-crime organization led by more than 350 sheriffs, police chiefs, district attorneys and victims of violence. Its mission is to take a critical look at the research about what really works to keep kids from becoming criminals. Among the strategies proven to be effective are preschool, after-school programs, child abuse and neglect prevention programs and intensive interventions for juvenile offenders.

"Chief Word has demonstrated his commitment to kids by participating in outreach to policymakers and the media and spreading the word about effective crime prevention strategies," said Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Director Barrie Becker, in a prepared statement.

"Prevention and intervention are critical components of what my department does," said Word. "Investing early in supportive services for kids and families and getting kids engaged in healthy alternatives to crime is a proven way of preventing crime before it ever happens."

FIRST ROBOTICS COMPETITION RETURNS TO UC DAVIS CAMPUS

2008-03-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

University of California, Davis
March 11, 2008

FIRST ROBOTICS COMPETITION RETURNS TO CAMPUS

[Editor's note: Photos from previous years' competitions are available. Contact Andy Fell (info below) for details.]

The Davis/Sacramento FIRST Robotics Regional Competition returns to the Pavilion at the UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center March 20-22. Thursday is a practice day, and competition rounds will run all day Friday and Saturday. The event will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, and admission is free.

Thirty-seven teams including more than 1,000 high-school students from across Northern California will take part, competing for a range of honors and prizes, college scholarships, and a shot at the national championships in Atlanta later in the year. Local teams taking part include Davis Senior High School; Hiram Johnson High School; Elk Grove High, St. Francis High and Jim Elliot Christian High, Lodi; and a joint team from Woodland and Pioneer high schools in Woodland.

The Woodland schools' team is mentored by UC Davis engineering students from the Chicano and Latino Engineers and Scientists Society
(CALESS) and the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES).

In the bleachers at this year's competition will be groups from nine local schools that take part in MESA (Math, Engineering, Science Achievement), a statewide program that helps disadvantaged students excel in math and science from school to college graduation. The Sacramento State/UC Davis MESA program, the largest in the state, is based at CSU Sacramento.

"The opportunity for educationally disadvantaged students to participate in what will be part of their future is immeasurable,"
said Jean Crowder, director of the local MESA program. "It is the goal of the Sac State/UC Davis MESA program to continue to provide the academic support these students need to engage in the FIRST Robotics program and competitions."

Two years ago, a similar group from Hiram Johnson High School attended the competition at UC Davis. That inspired the students to take part in the 2007 competition -- where they took home honors as the best rookie team.

"We hope we can get the kids and their teachers excited about FIRST, and get them back as competitors next year," said Renee Maldonado, director of student development and recruitment for the UC Davis College of Engineering and also one of the volunteers who make FIRST happen.

FIRST ("For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology") was created in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter, as a unique "varsity sport" for the mind, combining the excitement of sport with science and technology. Through FIRST, high-school students discover the rewarding and engaging process of innovation and engineering, and become curious and interested in science and mathematics.

Beginning with a synchronized national kickoff event held Jan. 5, the teams have had just six weeks to design, build and test a robot to take part in this year's competition, based on a "starter kit" of sensors, wheels and other hardware. They work with professional engineers who volunteer as mentors.

Every year, FIRST organizers unveil a new game to challenge participants. In this year's game, "Overdrive," robots have to race around a track while shepherding a 10-pound, 40" ball and lifting it over a bridge.

Teams at regional competitions are judged on the effectiveness of their robots, their power of collaboration and partnerships, and the spirit and determination of their students. Teams are then rewarded for excellence in robot design, demonstrated team spirit, community involvement, gracious professionalism and ability to overcome obstacles. Successful teams from regional competitions go on to the national championships in Atlanta later in the season.

Based in Manchester, N.H., the nonprofit FIRST organization designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge and life skills while motivating young people to pursue academic opportunities in math, science, engineering and computer technology.

"The FIRST Robotics Competition is not just about the design and building of sophisticated robots. These students also develop maturity, professionalism, teamwork and mentoring skills that enrich their lives," said Kamen. "Many of our students develop an affinity for their science and math courses, go on to study engineering, technology or science in college, and also to pursue employment opportunities with sponsoring organizations."

Major sponsors of the Davis/Sacramento regional competition are Abbot Labs Diabetic Division, Chevron Inc., the Bay Area chapter of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering and UC Davis.
Individual teams also are expected to find their own sponsors.

Additional information:
* Davis/Sacramento Regional FIRST Competition
* Main FIRST Web site

Media contact(s):
* Andy Fell, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-4533, ahfell@ucdavis.edu

Reputation Of Travis Solid In D.C.

2008-03-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

Reputation Of Travis Solid In D.C.
By Danny Bernardini/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 03/05/2008

Fairfield government officials spent Tuesday rubbing elbows with Air Force generals in Washington, D.C., discussing Travis Air Force Base. And, today, they will discuss other issues with congressional members.

Mayor Harry Price, Councilman Chuck Timm and City Manager Sean Quinn all made the trip to discuss future funding for Travis and city projects. The group talked with The Reporter via conference call Tuesday after a long day of meetings.

The consensus among two- and three-star generals was that Travis has built a great reputation and has come through for the Air Force. Timm said Travis was commended on its strategic airlift activities and the fact that encroachment has not been a problem in regard to the base.

"Folks in the Pentagon are very pleased with the way the Travis community has responded to their needs," Price said.

Timm, who is only in his fifth month of serving on the council, said although it is easy to get blown away by the fact the group is talking to high-ranking officials in national landmarks, the job at hand is to bring home some funding.

"This is out of my realm, it's heavy stuff. It's actually exhausting," Timm said. "We have something they want, that's cooperation. We have a list of things we want. We try and stress the importance and hope they see that.

"We're here two days going from sun-up to sun-down," Timm added.

Quinn said one advantage Fairfield has is that officials have been heading to Washington, D.C., for lobbying. He said the familiarity helps while discussing issues.

"One comment we heard is that they appreciate it that we come back every year," he said. "They recognize that and commented on that. We have a history there."

He said the group has several specific issues on their list, rather than just discussing broad topics.

"This isn't a shotgun approach, it's a rifle approach," Quinn said. "We targeted several things we wanted to discuss and met with the right people."

Some of those items outside Travis' gates include the following:

• $3 million for Fairfield/Solano Radio Interoperability;

• $2 million for the design and construction for a new parking garage for the Fairfield Transportation Center;

• And, $350,000 to improve after-school programs for middle school students.

Danny Bernardini can be reached at county@thereporter.com.

Paper Turns 125

2008-03-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

Paper Turns 125
Reporter celebrates its storied past
By Jennifer Gentile
Article Launched: 03/10/2008

Museum Director Shawn Lum reads over archived editions of The Reporter. (Rick Roach/The Reporter)

When he founded the Reporter in 1883, publisher James D. McClain made his mission plain with his inaugural editorial.

"So far as the Reporter is concerned," he wrote, "We hope to make it a welcome visitor to every voter in Solano County. To the best of the publisher's ability, it shall be made newsy, discuss live questions and criticise whomsoever lay themselves liable to criticism."

The first edition of Vacaville's hometown paper, which celebrates its 125th anniversary today, is preserved in a collection by Richard Rico, who would himself take the helm of the newspaper in 1972. Reflecting on his journalism career in a 2004 editorial, Rico wrote, "this newspaper has been more effective in positive aspects of Vacaville than anyone will ever know."

"Decision makers by the score have come and gone ... and many have been positively effective," he continued. "But since 1883, The Reporter has always had the advantage of perspective and history. It drafted it, and it helped make it."

The Reporter's Beginnings

The Reporter's story began with McClain, who was formerly a newsman with the St. Helena Times. In the book "Vacaville, The Heritage of a California Community," he is described as a "Missouri democrat with a hot temper" who soon became "the community's most vocal booster."

McClain's weekly paper rolled off the Main Street presses on Saturdays, and some of the earliest editions are stored alongside other local artifacts on the Vacaville Museum's second floor. The front pages lacked photos but featured ads for undertakers and blacksmiths, train and church schedules, property transfers and even an occasional poem.

A March 1884 edition shows that traffic accidents have always made the news. A team of horses "took fright," according to one story, "and after running a quarter of a mile, threw the occupants of the wagon out."

Less than two years after starting his paper, McClain sold it to Raleigh Barcar - a New England-educated attorney and faculty member of the California Normal and Scientific School.

Barcar gave the publication a new name: the Judicion. McCain resurrected The Reporter shortly after, which competed with the Judicion for two years.

Yet another local paper came on the scene in 1889, when Henry Fisher and Albert Sears launched the Vaca Valley Enterprise. The papers co-existed only until the early 1890s, when Barcar bought out the competition and consolidated all under the title of the Vacaville Reporter.

The Rico Family Legacy

Clayborn Adsit and Edward C. Andrews, both of Oakland, each bought half-shares of the paper around the turn of the century. Asdit's resume included the St. Helena Star and the Oakland Enquirer.

The Rico family entered the picture in the 1920s when the owners of the paper hired Louis Rico, one of seven children of a local fruit rancher, Costanzo Rico, and his wife, Filomena. While the work didn't suit Louis, his 15-year-old brother, Johnny, proved a perfect fit.

Johnny Rico started out as a printer's devil before moving on to typesetting, writing and selling advertising. His wife, Grace, ran a stationery shop in the business office, and the couple welcomed their only child, Richard, in 1934.

"My mother and father worked shoulder-to-shoulder," Richard Rico said. "It's basically all I've ever known; I was a newspaper kid raised in the back shop of a newspaper." In school, he took photography classes with the "express intent" of applying his skills to the family business.

Adsit died in 1932, and his share of the paper was sold to Johnny Rico. Andrews also sold his interests to Rico when he retired in 1942.

Like his father, Richard Rico worked his way up through the organization, becoming assistant publisher in the 1960s. It was also in the '60s, Richard said, that "we felt the community had become big enough" to warrant a semi-weekly paper. With the addition of Fridays in 1977, it began publishing three days a week.

On the occasion of its centennial anniversary in 1983, The Reporter became a five-day daily. Its frequency bumped up to six days a week in 1985 and then to seven in 1986 .

All the while, Richard said, his paper was entering various competitions and winning "hand over fist." He was named publisher of the year in 1981 by the California Press Association, and organizations including the California Newspaper Association and the National Newspaper Association routinely recognized The Reporter.

Like the community it served, the paper continued to grow, Richard said, and "we realized we needed more space." In 1992, the Reporter moved from the downtown site it had occupied for more than a century to a new Cotting Lane plant, where it remains today.

The Reporter reached another milestone in 2002, Richard said, "when it became more and more obvious that we didn't have the resources to make The Reporter grow any more than it already had." He announced that year that he would sell the family business to Denver-based MediaNews Group, which at the time owned approximately 50 daily newspapers.

The former publisher said the decision was "impossibly hard" and "a painfully difficult thing to do."

"I'll never get over it ..." he said. "I never knew where the paper ended and I began."

Richard Rico was succeeded as publisher by Steve Huddleston, who accepted a position as NorthBay Healthcare's vice president for public affairs this year. With his departure, Gregg McConnell became only the eighth publisher in the history of The Reporter.

Looking to the Future

According to Richard Rico, the best part of his Reporter life was "just being a part of the community and watching the community grow."

"I'd like to think we had a part in its growth and stabilization," he said, "being there in the front lines of watching Vacaville grow from a small town to a small city." As for the future, he said he hopes that "we get through this rough patch, all newspapers are in it together."

"And I hope print never goes away," he added. "I really believe there is a sense of touching ink on newsprint that gives you more of an intimacy with the day's news."

Vacaville Museum Director Shawn Lum seemed to agree, referring to newspapers as "one of the richest sources of primary evidence."

"One of the things that's so impressive about newspapers is that its something that's meant to be temporary, but its one of the best resources we have," she said, adding with a laugh, "We even know the hair color of some of those young bachelors in 1884."

The Reporter's impact on Vacaville through the past 125 years, she continued, could only be described as "huge."

"Vacaville, like so many California towns, has really grown with its own self-image ...," she said, "and we rely on The Reporter to help us understand who we are."

The story behind the roots of Reporter's beloved rooster

This story, reprinted from the 1983 centennial edition of The Reporter, explains the proud tradition of the Reporter's esteemed mascot. - Editor.

The proud rooster, the cock-of-the-walk that perches atop Page 1 with each Reporter edition, just isn't there by chance, you know. He's not just another pretty face that works where all others have failed.

No sir.

The more conventional, albeit plucky, rooster was used regularly on Reporter pages starting in 1884 when publisher Raleigh Barcar first placed him atop an editorial. It was a November edition of his Vacaville Judicion, the local newspaper that came on the scene after Barcar purchased The Reporter from its founder, James D. McClain (and later changed Judicion back to Reporter in the 1890s).

The rooster was the symbol of something new (a new administration for one thing), something to crow about in the new Judicion. Then he was sent to the barnyard for a few months. But on March 7, 1885, the beginning of the third year of publication for the Judicion, Barcar called on the fowl again. It graced the top of an editorial that read:

"We resurrect our rooster from the dusty shelf he has occupied since last November and today his clarion crow is as clear as when in the autumn days of doubt he proclaimed his faith in the ascendance of the democratic Sirius. And now while the young administration is taking its first steps, we invoke the cheering inspiration of Sir Chanticleer in the struggle toward Reform. We find reason for joy, too, in the closing of our second volume and the pleasant prospects greeting us on the threshold of our new journalistic year. Crow, you cuss, and may you never weary in well-doing."

After that, the rooster was used whenever Reporter editors wanted to emphasize news of import, such as the date in 1892 when the township voted to incorporate.

The rooster emblem was not used as a front-page "flag" log until he was reincarnated by Vacaville and Nut Tree graphic designer Don Birrell.

City Leaders Lobby in D.C.

2008-03-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

City Leaders Lobby in D.C.
By Ben Antonius | Daily Republic | March 04, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Keeping Travis Air Force Base robust was the theme of the day during the city's annual lobbying day in Washington, D.C.

Mayor Harry Price, Councilman Chuck Timm and City Manager Sean Quinn made the rounds with the nation's top military officials at the Pentagon on Tuesday, discussing the future of the C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster III programs among other Travis concerns.

The three are in the nation's capital this week to push Fairfield's issues with state and federal leaders. The delegation will meet with congressional leaders today.

'We are the messenger,' Timm said. 'The Air Force officials were very circumspect in what they want. They know the monetary issues, they're facing a deficit just like we are.'

Atop the lobbying priority list was the continuation of the C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster III military transports, both of which operate out of Travis.

For the complete story check out the Daily Republic Online

Airport Commission Takes Look At Wind Farm Project

2008-03-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

Airport Commission Takes Look At Wind Farm Project
By Danny Bernardini
Article Launched: 03/11/2008

For the first time in more than a year, a group other than the Solano County Planning Commission will be discussing a proposal to install up to 88 wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills.

The Solano County Airport Land Use Commission will hear the issue Thursday night, a year after voting against the issue the first time around for fear of the turbines affecting the radar system at Travis Air Force Base.

The difference this time is that officials at Travis are no longer objecting to the proposal, as stated in a letter written by Wing Commander Col. Steven Arquiette earlier this month. A previous letter written by Arquiette - asking the planning commission to delay the project until a new radar system was installed at the base in October - had postponed decisions at several meetings for months.

The latest Arquiette letter, indicating the base will no longer object to the project, came after the Air Force Flight Standards Agency concluded that the radar and turbines could co-exist.

There are currently more than 700 wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills. Travis officials have said the newest batch potentially would cause a problem since the blades of the turbines may make it seem like smaller planes drop off the radar screens while images of others appear when they aren't actually there. The latest endeavor, titled Shiloh II Wind Project, proposes to build up to 88 turbines.

The company proposing the project, enXco, has offered Travis a gift of up to $1 million that the base may use anyway it wishes. Greg Blue, regional manager of external affairs, said that offer has yet to be claimed. "We have an unsolicited offer," he said. "The offer is still on the table. Whether they choose to accept it or not is their choice."

Blue said there is a specific process Travis must go through to accept a gift to the Air Force. He said that process could take up to four months. He added that there has been no established timeline or expiration date for the gift and that his firm is waiting for a response.

The Solano County Airport Land Use Commission meets Thursday at 7 p.m. in the multipurpose room of the Solano County Government Center in downtown Fairfield.

Governor Tours Fairfield Plant

2008-03-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

Governor Tours Fairfield Plant
Cites Trained Workforce as a Key Rebuilding Tool
By Reporter Staff
Article Launched: 03/11/2008

A staff member at the Northern California Carpenters Training Facility in Fairfield explains a process to the governor on Monday. (Courtesy photo)

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured a carpenter training facility in Fairfield on Monday morning and then held a press conference to announce the launch of a new campaign designed to recruit construction apprentices to help build future public works projects included in his Strategic Growth Plan for the state.

The governor visited classrooms and spoke with participants at the Northern California Carpenters Training Facility on Chadbourne Road before formally announcing the launch of his "I Built It!" campaign.

"There is really no job out there more satisfying than working to make California even greater than it is today," he said. "These apprentices will be actually building a better California, with their own hands and skills. I know each of them will take pride in helping repair and rebuild our state for future generations."

Schwarzenegger visited a classroom in which trainees were learning math, saying that it was "great to see the enthusiasm" of the trainees.

The governor said he hopes to see the state recruit some 200,000 apprentices in the next few decades. They will be needed, he said, for the projects that will be funded by the 2006 voter-approved infrastructure bonds that authorized $42 billion for education, housing, levee repair, flood control, parks and transportation projects.

Under California law, one apprentice for every five journeymen is required to be employed on all public works jobs. In addition, the state is projected to have a major labor shortage in many of the building trades due to the retirements of highly-skilled baby boomers over the next 10 to 12 years when many of the infrastructure projects will be in full swing.

According to the governor's office, it is estimated that within the next six years the state will need more than 73,000 carpenters who will earn a median hourly wage of $23.20; 25,000 plumbers, pipefitters, steamfitters and electricians who will be paid a median wage of $22-$23 per hour and 15,000 operating engineers who will earn a median wage of more than $27 per hour. Similarly, there is an equally critical need for laborers, cement masons and concrete finishers and ironworkers to build the bridges, highways, schools, levees and housing the state will need over the next 10 to 12 years.

For more information about apprenticeship programs in California, visit www.dir.ca.gov/das/.

SMUD Plants More Turbines At Wind Farm

2008-03-11T09:47:00.001-07:00

SMUD Plants More Turbines At Wind Farm
By Barry Eberling | DAILY REPUBLIC | March 10, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Twenty-one new turbines that stand taller than the Statue of Liberty are poised in the Montezuma Hills to provide enough electricity for 21,000 homes.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District erected the turbines to join 31 turbines it already owns in the area near Rio Vista. It plans to add still more turbines by 2011.

How future SMUD wind farm expansions will deal with radar issues recently raised at Travis Air Force Base remains to be seen.

In a series of letters last year, base commander Col. Steven Arquiette expressed concerns about other proposed wind energy projects. The giant turbines cause such problems as planes dropping off the Travis radar, he wrote.

Those letters went to Solano County in regards to turbine projects by private companies. Since SMUD is a government agency, it does not need county approval to install turbines on the 6,265 acres it owns in the Montezuma Hills.

SMUD officials have already met with Travis officials. The radar issue will be included in an environmental impact report on the future turbines, utility spokeswoman Dace Udris said Monday.

The SMUD Board of Directors would approve whether to put more turbines in the Montezuma Hills on utility property and under what conditions.

Radar issues don't necessarily mean the death knell for wind projects. Arquiette this month wrote that 75 more turbines proposed by Escondido-based enXco are unlikely to pose any additional risks to civilian and military aviation.

There are already about 700 turbines in the Montezuma Hills.

But Arquiette also wrote that his comments applied to the enXco project only and that the Air Force will continue to express concerns about cumulative effects of other wind turbine projects.

The base is getting a new radar system that should be operating by year's end. Then it will determine whether turbines cause any problems with the new radar.

Solano County has for more than a decade promoted the Montezuma Hills as a location for non-polluting wind energy. SMUD uses electricity generated from the turbines during the summer, when power demand in the Sacramento area increases and winds typically sweep through the Montezuma Hills.

The utility started its Montezuma Hills wind energy project in 1994, although it has since replaced the original turbines with newer models.

Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646, Ext. 232, or at beberling@dailyrepublic.net.

Governor Touts Apprentice Training

2008-03-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

Governor Touts Apprentice Training
By Ben Antonius | Daily Republic | March 10, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger paid Fairfield a visit Monday to promote a state effort to recruit construction apprentices for public works projects.

Schwarzenegger visited the Carpenters Training Center for Northern California on Chadbourne Road, a facility that trains apprentice-level carpenters. The event coincided with the launch of the 'I Built It!' program, which aims to get more young people into apprenticeships.

The governor was joined by state Labor Secretary Victoria Bradshaw and John Duncan, director of the state Department of Industrial Relations. Before the press conference, Schwarzenegger toured the facility, visiting a classroom in which apprentices were getting a refresher in construction-related mathematics.

'We want to reach out and find as many apprentices as possible,' Schwarzenegger told the class. 'I think we're looking for 200,000, so tell your friends about it.'

Under California law, public works projects require one apprentice for every five journeymen on the job. California has more than 65,000 apprentices, and the need is expected to grow in coming years.

Thousands of craftsmen are expected to retire over the next several years, creating a shortage of workers in skilled trades. On top of that, California is poised to embark on $42 billion in infrastructure improvements, ranging from roads to schools and jails.

'This is a really, really great time for people to get really great jobs,' Schwarzenegger said.

The carpentry center offers classes and gives students the opportunity to hone their building skills. A typical apprenticeship takes four years, and once each quarter an apprentice will come to the center for a week of classes and shop work.

Fairfield resident Geoffrey Eccles has been an apprentice for about 10 months and had only praise for the program. Eccles said he had been working at a local burger restaurant when he decided to pursue a different career.

'I love this,' he said. 'I'll be doing this for the rest of my life.'

Throughout the morning visit, Schwarzenegger tried to reinforce the concept behind the 'I Built It!' program, that workers would carry the accomplishment of having built major parts of California's infrastructure. The governor at one point likened the effort to President Dwight Eisenhower's 1956 push to build the Interstate Highway System.

'It's a historic thing,' Schwarzenegger said. 'You'll be able to say to the kids, 'I was a part of rebuilding California.''

Reach Ben Antonius at 427-6977 or bantonius@dailyrepublic.net.

County Hires Solano EDC For Studies

2008-03-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

County Hires Solano EDC For Studies
The Reporter
Article Launched: 03/10/2008

Solano County has awarded a three-year contract to the Solano Economic Development Corporation to create and annually update the first Solano County Index of Economic and Community Progress as well as conduct the in-depth profiles of five Key Industry Clusters.

The Index and Clusters, which target innovation and opportunities, will create a foundation of baseline information that better positions Solano County communities to attract new growth businesses and industries.

"This is a tremendous step forward in Solano County's collaborative effort to assist local communities and businesses in creating a baseline of data that will make future economic development decision making easier," said Scott Reynolds, Solano EDC chairman.

Solano EDC will be working under contract with Doug Henton, president and co-founder of Collaborative Economics. The firm is the originator of the Index of Silicon Valley, which measures the economic strength and health of that community by highlighting challenges and providing an analytical foundation for leadership and decision making.

In the last 15 years, Collaborative Economics has worked with leaders in more than 40 regions to help their communities break from traditions that hold them back and put them on a new pathway to success.

Henton is also a consultant to the California Economic Strategy Panel, California's state economic strategy process linked to innovation, industry clusters and regions.

The three-year $484,500 Solano EDC contract includes the follow components:

• The annual Index includes a unique set of economic, workforce, housing, education, transportation and related indicators that together tell the story of the county and its seven communities' growing role as a regional hub of innovation and opportunity.

• A Land Inventory and Absorption Study will identify all undeveloped parcels in the county that are zoned commercial and industrial. This study will identify the parcel's readiness for development.

• Five key industry profiles will be created over the next three years. Each cluster will provide a focus for meeting the twin challenges of economic growth and workforce investment. A target of opportunity, such as biotechnology industry, can be export-oriented, population-driven, or represent an opportunity with career potential for local residents. This portfolio of clusters will enable the Solano EDC and local economic developers to more successfully target companies for expansion and growth.

Supervisor Michael Reagan, immediate past chairman, said "the commissioning of these reports demonstrates the county's commitment to attracting more quality jobs ... . These tools will be a tremendous asset to the cities in their economic development efforts."

Last year Reagan was the driving force behind the county hosting a series of three summits to formulate a collaborative Solano County economic development vision and find a new role for the county in supporting existing countywide economic development efforts.

Summit participants included local and state government, transportation and water resources, local economic development professionals, business and industry, education, nonprofit groups, and the labor and trades.

"The collaborative leadership of the county cannot be stressed enough," said Michael Ammann, Solano EDC president. "Their support just makes it all come together between local governments and the private sector."

"The Index and Cluster Studies will go a long way toward providing the sorts of information necessary to keep Solano on track with future growth opportunities while keeping Northern California high-growth companies informed about Solano County and opportunities for their future expansion," Ammann added.

Economic Group To Get Travis Status

2008-03-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Economic Group To Get Travis Status
Article Launched: 03/05/2008

A "State of the Base" speech featuring Col. Steven J. Arquiette, commander of the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis Air Force Base, will be presented March 12 to members of the Solano Economic Development Corporation.

The meeting is sponsored by Travis Credit Union, and will be held at the firm's corporate headquarters at One Travis Way, Vacaville. Registration begins at 11 a.m. and the program and luncheon begins at 11:30 a.m. Cost is $25 for members, and $35 for non-members.

Arquiette is responsible for 24,000 active duty, re- serve and civilian personnel who are stationed at the base.

Col. Arquiette's Air Force wing supports a worldwide air mobility mission. The Travis wing has C-5, KC-10 and C-17 aircraft, responding to combat operations and humanitarian relief efforts.

Reservations may be made by contacting Solano EDC, 864-1855.

$21.6 million UC Davis new recital hall to be located near the corner of First and A streets to open in 2011

2008-03-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

University of California, Davis
March 10, 2008

SUSTAINED BY MUSIC THROUGH HARD TIMES, A DAVIS FAMILY GIVES BACK

[Editor's note: Photos of the Noda family, images of the planned recital hall available on request.]

A Davis family with a long history of supporting music, science, Japanese-American civil rights and other humanitarian causes has donated $1 million to the UC Davis Department of Music to help build a major new music recital hall. The gift, the largest in the music department's history, will support construction of a modern, 400-seat performing arts facility on the edge of campus near downtown Davis.

Due to open in 2011, the new recital hall near the corner of First and A streets is expected to become one of the most active concert venues in the Sacramento region.

The gift from Grace and Grant Noda and their adult daughters, Kathy Miura and Tanya Yan, was announced Sunday at the annual performance of the combined UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and Alumni Chorus. In appreciation, the campus plans to name a courtyard on the west side of the new recital hall in honor of the Nodas. The Noda Family Courtyard will be an outdoor site for lectures, informal performances and artist receptions.

"We are tremendously grateful to the Noda family," said Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies.
"In musical performances, space is a true partner in the performance.
It is impossible to make music of the highest quality without having a performance space with good acoustics. What a well-equipped lab is to science, a superb recital hall is to music. We have excellent
students: They need a good space in order to reach their potential."

In addition to the recital hall, the new facility will include four new teaching studios, recording controls, an ethnomusicology studio, artist and audience amenities, and production and teaching offices.
The Noda Family Courtyard will connect the recital hall to the existing music building.

The $21.6 million project will be financed by a combination of public and private support: $16.1 million from a bond issue proposed for the November 2008 ballot and $5.5 million in private contributions. With the Noda's gift and others, $4.4 million in private funding remains to be raised.

The recital hall is expected to accommodate more than 100 concerts annually, including such music department presentations as chamber festivals, the free noon concert series and performances by student and professional resident ensembles and artists in residence. The new space will also provide additional programming options for the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

The new facility will represent a critical addition to teaching space for the Department of Music. For example, enrollment in Music 10, a large basic survey course that will be taught in the new recital hall, has grown from 50 to 750 since 1966, when the present Music Building was constructed. The number of undergraduate music majors has increased more than 13-fold during the same period, from 11 to 150, and the number of faculty has ballooned from six to 39.

The Nodas are both second-generation Japanese-Americans. Grace Imamoto was born in 1920 in Berkeley and raised in Orange County.
Grant Noda was born in 1922 in Turlock. Neither family had much money
-- Grant's father, a farmer, often struggled to feed nine children, while Grace's father earned a modest living as secretary of the Farmers Association of Norwalk and principal of the local Japanese language school, where her mother also worked as a teacher.

Nevertheless, Grace and Grant both grew up with pianos in their homes. Grace studied piano and cello as a child and went to Los Angeles with her father to hear performances by Rachmaninoff and other world-class musicians. Her youngest sister, Alice, referred to as a "musical genius" in a 1935 Los Angeles Times story and photo, played piano for Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Paderewski and U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. Grace's other two sisters also learned instruments as children.

"Nisei Memories: My Parents Talk About the War Years," a 2006 book written by Grace's nephew, Paul Takemoto, tells the story of her family's separation, internment and loss in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Given time to grab only a toothbrush and her Bible, Grace's mother was arrested and jailed at Terminal Island for three months. Her father was imprisoned first in Tujunga then in Santa Fe, N.M.

It fell to Grace, then a senior at UC Berkeley, to return home to care for her younger sisters until "relocation" orders arrived, instructing the rest of the family to report to an "assembly center"

at the Santa Anita racetrack. The Imamoto girls, joined by their mother after her release from Terminal Island, shared a stable there for 10 months. The next stop was an internment camp in Jerome, Ark.

After 11 months in prison, Grace's father was reunited with his family at the camp. Grace was able to leave after his return, when Quaker benefactors arranged a live-in job for her with a family in Minnesota. Her parents remained at the camp until it closed, in March 1946. The couple had $41 between them when they were released.
Because Grace's father now had a criminal record, the only work he could find was as a housecleaner. Her mother took a job as a cook.

Grant's story was similar. He was detained with his mother (his father had died) and siblings, first at an "assembly center" in Merced, then at a relocation camp in Amache, Colo.

Grant and Grace met after the war when he was working as a research scientist at UC Berkeley and she was teaching elementary school in Richmond. The couple moved to Davis in 1958 when Grant accepted a position in the UC Davis Department of Botany (now the Department of Plant Sciences). While Grant managed the department's laboratory by day and studied real estate at night, Grace raised the couple's two daughters, volunteered for many community organizations and was active in the peace movement, from protesting nuclear weapons (she was arrested at a Nevada test site in the early 1990s) to marching against the Vietnam War. She has also been engaged in local politics, recently working to name the Davis Joint Unified School District's newest elementary school after Fred Korematsu, a San Leandro man whose arrest and conviction for refusing to report to a relocation camp during World War II was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court's decision was explored in a 2001 documentary, "Of Civil Wrongs and Rights."

After his 1985 retirement from the university, Grant devoted himself full time to the real estate business he had been building for more than two decades.

"That guy works as hard as any human being I've ever known," said Takemoto, the nephew. "He's done very well, and they've basically devoted their lives to helping other people."

The family supported the creation of a mural at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. -- Grant's alma mater -- that memorializes the Japanese American internment experience. The Nodas have also given to an opera program for young people in San Francisco, donated to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, contributed to local Democratic candidates and, before their gift to the recital hall, had donated more than $100,000 to UC Davis over the years in support of the arts, ethical studies and the sciences.

Music has been central to their lives. For Grace, it was a bright spot during the war years, when she taught rote singing to children in the internment camp. Since the war, she has been a loyal patron of the San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony and local performing arts.

"Music has been my life," she said in a recent interview, "so I wanted to leave something when I am gone."

Tanya says her mother sees "something very generous about music. Rich or poor, everyone has access to it. It transcends race, social status. It is apolitical. It has been a constant in my mother's life, through everything."

Although the Nodas make philanthropic decisions as a family, the latest major gift to the music department was especially important to Grace, Tanya added.

Anna Maria Busse Berger, professor and chair of the Department of Music, said the Noda Family Courtyard "will be a wonderful place for student and patron gatherings, and will long honor the Noda family's generosity."

Berger also said she hopes that the Nodas' gift will inspire others to contribute to the recital hall. "A music performance building is the primary need for the continued success of the music program," she said. "It is very much needed to accommodate the expansive growth in the quality and size of the program."

The University of California Regents approved the project last November and authorized the plan to seek $16.1 million in bond financing for its construction. The regents are expected to approve the plan for supplemental private funding when they vote later this year on the final design.

Media contact(s):
* Claudia Morain, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9841, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu

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FAIRFIELD, CA CENTER OF SUPPORT FOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WINE INDUSTRY

2008-03-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA’S FAIRFIELD, CA CENTER OF SUPPORT FOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WINE INDUSTRY

http://www.fairfield4business.com

FAIRFIELD, Calif., January 22, 2008 — From beverage packaging solutions to glass container manufacturing companies, the city of Fairfield, CA is home to a myriad of companies that support Northern California’s wine industry. Located halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento, at the gateway to the Napa Valley, Fairfield offers a strategic location and value-priced real estate opportunities.
Wine-industry related businesses located in Fairfield include Saint-Gobain Containers, Owens-Brockway, ACI Cork USA, Biagi Brothers, Demptos Glass, Diablo Valley Packaging, Saury USA, and the Grateful Palate.

Reasons for Choosing Fairfield
Reasons for locating in Fairfield include: an accessible location with easy access to the heart of wine country in Napa and Sonoma, proximity to ports, freeways, airports, and rail lines, available land with room to expand, and an accessible and responsive city government.

Accessibility to Transportation
Fairfield is located halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento, approximately 15 miles from Napa and 27 from Sonoma County. It has easy access to four ports (Benicia, Oakland, San Francisco and West Sacramento), three international airports (San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento), passenger rail lines, rapid transit, and freight lines.

Three years ago Diablo Valley Packaging, http://www.dvpackaging.com, a family-owned packaging company, outgrew its facilities in Benicia, and moved its headquarters to a 100,000-square foot facility at 2373 North Watney Way in Fairfield. The company provides a wide range of packaging solutions for the food, beverage, and wine industries, from customized packaging programs to low-cost, commodity-grade-container options. One-third of the company’s business is related to the wine industry. Its products specific to the wine industry are glass packaging, wine bottles, the capsule, and in some cases, corks.

Easy access to the heart of California’s wine industry— Napa and Sonoma--was one of the main reasons the company chose to locate in Fairfield. Other factors included good warehousing capacity at a reasonable price and accessibility to transportation with good trucking rates into and out of the area.

“Fairfield has good geographics and demographics,” says Pete Reno, president of Diablo Valley Packaging. “Its freeway access is well-suited to receiving in-bound shipments as well as sending shipments out to our customers. Its location also benefits us because it provides access to a solid workforce from throughout the Bay Area and Sacramento.”

Saury USA, http://www.sauryusa.com, represents a French barrel manufacturer in business since 1993. It sells and markets French oak wine barrels to the wine industry and has its main office in Napa Valley’s Oakville, CA. The company is leasing a 25,875-square foot Fairfield warehouse located at 2345 South Watney Way. Future plans are being considered to house an American-Oak-production facility at the site, but no timeline has been established.

“Our reasons for opening a location in Fairfield were due to the fact that Fairfield is strategically located close to the Interstate,” says Bayard Fox, general manager of Saury USA.

Available and Responsive City Government

Saint-Gobain Containers is the second-largest glass container manufacturer in the nation. In 2006, the company relocated its wine-sector headquarters, warehouse, distribution facilities and operations in Fairfield from two buildings that had been in the city since 1995 into one new facility approximately 10 miles from the previous location. This new location provides a centralized office for the company’s wine-sector sales, operations management, and customer service.
The new facility, which has more than one million square feet of storage and warehouse space, located at 2600 Stanford Court, was built to serve the glass container distribution needs of California’s wine and food industry. It operates 24-hours a day, five days a week with a staff of approximately 80 people.
"The city of Fairfield worked diligently to support our vision of a state-of-the-art distribution center that we all could be proud of," said Peter Walters, Vice President, Purchasing and Distribution for Saint-Gobain Containers.

Access to Wine Country

Grateful Palate Imports, http://www.gratefulpalateimports.com, a wine importer and distributor, headquartered in Oxnard, CA since 1997, imports Australian wines and sells them through a distributor network. It also sells online, shipping to states that allow direct shipment of wine. The company has opened a warehouse and offices in a 60,000-square-foot space at 2449 South Watney Way in Fairfield.

“The Fairfield location provides us with accessibility to our distributors in Northern California’s wine regions,” says Ben DeSantis, controller of Grateful Palate Imports.

Since 2003, ACI Cork USA has been in Fairfield in a 30,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art processing plant at 2870 Cordelia Road. It imports and wholesales natural wine corks from Portugal where its parent company, Alvaro Coelho, Irmaos, S.A. is located. The Fairfield site, which has nine employees, provides the American wine market with top-quality natural and technical cork closures. Approximately 65 million corks are processed annually by the company, who sells them to wineries throughout North America.

“We chose Fairfield as our location because it is centrally located between two important wine regions—Napa and Sonoma counties and the Central Valley and the price was right,” says Armando Andrade, ACI Cork’s General Manager.

Fairfield Offers Important Business Benefits

There are many reasons Fairfield continues to appeal to manufacturing and commercial entities seeking to grow their businesses: an accessible Bay Area location, abundant space, value-priced real estate, a diverse workforce, and a unique set of regional amenities. For additional information on the city of Fairfield, visit http://www.Fairfield4Business.com.

###
For Media Information, contact:
Miriam Schaffer
The Placemaking Group
510-835-7900 ext. 207
mschaffer@PlacemakingGroup.com

Planners Get 500-Megawatt Rower Project

2008-03-04T13:20:00.000-08:00

Planners Get 500-Megawatt Rower Project
By Jennifer Gentile/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 03/04/2008

The Planning Commission could recommend changes to city code tonight that would allow a 500-megawatt power facility to be built in Vacaville.

The changes, which would be made to the city's Land Use and Development Code, must be completed before a proposed natural gas-powered peaker plant could be built on 25 acres of the site of the Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant. In December, the City Council granted Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Power Ventures, Inc., a three-year-option to lease the acreage.

"In order to proceed with the proposed project, the proposed use must be consistent with the city's zoning for the site," city planner Fred Buderi explained in a written staff report. The existing zoning, he added, "does not list thermal power plants as either a permitted or a conditionally permitted use."

The site is zoned for community facilities, Buderi pointed out, accommodating utility buildings, hospitals, libraries and other uses that provide a community benefit. Staff is recommending that thermal power plants be added to the list.

"A power-generating facility, under the authority of state approval, would be consistent with the purpose of the (community facilities) zone, the staff report said.

If the amendment is approved, the report continued, "the type of power-generating facility allowed ... would be only those that are regulated by the state of California." The state's oversight is very rigorous, Buderi said, and "wouldn't really allow these things to pop up anywhere."

Another requirement under the amendment, according to the report, is that proposed sites must be within "a reasonable distance" from the infrastructure needed for a plant to operate. Staff has said that natural gas, water and power lines all are readily accessible at the Easterly site.

Even with the city's support, the plant has a number of hurdles to clear and has an estimated completion date of 2012. Competitive Power Ventures intends to compete for a contract with PG&E, which is expected to issue a request for proposals in the coming months.

The commission's vote serves as a recommendation to the City Council. The panel meets at 7 p.m. in the Council Chamber at City Hall.

Jennifer Gentile can be reached at vacaville@thereporter.com.

Discovery Kingdom To Open 40th Season

2008-03-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

Discovery Kingdom To Open 40th Season
Times-Herald staff report
Article Launched: 03/04/2008

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom begins its 40th year when it opens to the public on Saturday, park officials said.

This season also marks the park's second year with its Land, Sea and Sky areas. Last year's park transformation included a name change that better reflects the park's unique offerings as a wildlife, oceanarium and theme park, officials said.

Plans for the 2008 season include:

• The opening of Tony Hawk's Big Spin, a roller coaster based on professional skateboarder Tony Hawk. • A new bounty-themed sea lion show, "Pinnipeds of the Caribbean." • A new bird show, "Bird Drop Inn." • A "digital revolution" parkwide, with mounted plasma TVs airing Six Flags-related content, advertisements and highlights from some of Dick Clark Productions' shows; Six Flags Radio plays music and content throughout the park, along with ambient Land, Sea and Sky-themed music; cell phone charging stations throughout the park, and for the second year, a Nintendo Wii Station. • Johnny Rockets, a franchise restaurant offers classic American food and a special Six Flags-branded milkshake. • Odin, the white Bengal tiger, starring in Odin's Tiger Splash Show. • A revamped killer whale show and a Caribbean-themed showcase for the park's Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. • Thomas Town, a kids' area devoted to the characters from the Thomas the Tank Engine series. For more information call 643-6722 or visit www.sixflags.com/discoverykingdom.

Travis Backs Wind Farm

2008-03-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

Travis Backs Wind Farm
By Danny Bernardini/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 03/04/2008

Officials at Travis Air Force Base have withdrawn their objections to a proposal to install up to 88 additional wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills - turbines, that some believe may affect radar systems at the base.

A letter to Solano County, written Monday by Travis Wing Commander Col. Steven Arquiette, states that Travis no longer would stand in the way of the project after being informed by superiors that there were no "reasonable expectations" of problems with a new radar system currently being installed at the base.

There are currently more than 700 wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills. Travis officials have said the newest batch potentially would cause a problem since the blades of the turbines may make it seem like smaller planes drop off the radar screens while images of others appear when they aren't actually there.

The latest project, titled Shiloh II Wind Project, proposes to build up to 88 turbines, but has been delayed for more than a year after Arquiette informed the county that the base was concerned about the project. The issue now will head to the Solano County Airport Land Use Commission on March 13 and to the Solano County Planning Commission on March 20.

Another letter, written by Gen. Arthur J. Lichte - Commander of the Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois - was sent to the turbine's producers, enXco last month.

It stated that the Air Force Flight Standards Agency had concluded the proposed turbines would not be an issue with Travis' new radar system. The letter also informed enXco that Travis would be telling the county of this revelation.

"Although the wind turbines currently operating in the wind resource area do adversely impact our radar coverage, we believe opportunities will soon arise both to improve overall radar performance and to work with enXco to mitigate that impact," the Lichte letter read.

Neither the Air Force nor enXco could say whether that mitigation effort will include a gift to Travis of up to $1 million that was offered by enXco at a Feb. 21 Solano County Planning Commission meeting. That money was offered to improve the radar system anyway Travis chose.

Sgt. Matt McGovern, with Travis public affairs, said Monday that the base had no comment on the money offer. Gregory Blue, regional manager of external affairs for enXco, said he was aware the situation had been resolved, but didn't know if the gift would be accepted.

Blue did say that the two sides are setting up a joint committee to study any possible effects and come up with a way to solve those issues.

"We were trying to help them enhance their radar and we're doing it in the form of a gift," Blue said from his San Ramon office. "It's all about enhancing the radar so we can co-exist. We are continuing to work together as good neighbors."

Blue said that if the project gains approval by the county's planning commission, his company likely would apply for permits the next day and hopefully be done with construction by the end of the year.

Danny Bernardini can be reached at county@thereporter.com.

PG&E Begins Work To Meet Growing Needs

2008-03-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

PG&E Begins Work To Meet Growing Needs
By Ben Antonius | Daily Republic | March 03, 2008

The PG&E substation at Union Avenue and Ohio Street will be getting equipment upgrades over the next two weeks. Photo by Brad Zweerink

FAIRFIELD - To keep pace with a booming population, PG&E plans to launch an overhaul of its Fairfield substation today.

The three-month, $2.9 million project is part of a larger effort to improve the company's infrastructure statewide, PG&E officials said.

'As our communities grow, we constantly grow,' PG&E spokeswoman Jennifer Ramp said.

The project is expected to be completed by the beginning of June and will likely involve occasional outages for residents in certain areas. The outages will be planned and announced in advance, but no plans were available Monday.

The project itself will involve replacing approximately 750 feet of underground high-voltage cable exiting the substation at Broadway and Ohio streets and crossing under Union Street to Jefferson Street.

The company will also be replacing the transformer bank at the facility. The new giant transformer bank will be delivered to the substation March 17, at which point outages are likely.

The additional capacity is necessary to meet the continued increase of electrical demand in the area, especially during the hot summer months when electric consumption is at its highest, the company stated.

The new equipment will provide an additional 13.4 megawatts of capacity, enough to serve 2,680 residential customers in the Fairfield area.

Ramp said the company typically projects what its capacity needs will be 10 years in advance.

'This project was approved a few years ago and construction's now getting started,' she said.

The Fairfield project is one part of an approximately $2.8 billion effort by PG&E to improve the reliability and capacity of its infrastructure across Northern California, Ramp said.

Reach Ben Antonius at 427-6977 or bantonius@dailyrepublic.net.

Travis Commander To Speak At Solano EDC Luncheon

2008-03-04T09:31:00.000-08:00

Travis Commander To Speak At Solano EDC Luncheon
Daily Republic Staff | | March 03, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Col. Steven Arquiette, commander of Travis Air Force Base, will be the keynote speaker at the Solano Economic Development Corp. luncheon March 12.

The luncheon will be 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Travis Credit Union, One Travis Way in Vacaville. Tickets are $25 for Solano EDC members and $35 for non-members.

To purchase tickets or for more information, call 864-1855 or send an e-mail to pat@solanoedc.org.

Energy Measures Could Bring Business

2008-03-03T10:18:00.000-08:00

Energy measures could bring business to San Joaquin County
By Hank Shaw
February 29, 2008
Capitol Bureau Chief

SACRAMENTO - Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento are setting the stage for a renewable energy boom that will reach into San Joaquin County.

The House of Representatives passed a measure 236-182 Wednesday that would extend a tax credit for renewable energy companies focusing on solar, wind or biofuels.

On Thursday in Sacramento, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata unveiled a series of state measures to boost renewable energy research and development, including a $3 billion bond proposal intended to expand solar and wind energy in California.

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, was a wind energy expert before he came to Congress in 2006, and he helped craft the congressional bill, which was also supported by Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Atwater. The Mother Lode's congressman, Dan Lungren, did not vote on the measure.

McNerney hailed the measure as a key step in developing a critical mass of renewable energy companies in and around San Joaquin County. His goal is to make the region a clean-energy hub.

"If we can get a few more of these companies to set down roots here, it will build synergy and attract other companies," McNerney said. "We're beating the bushes to make something happen.

McNerney said he's been approached by four clean-energy firms that want to relocate to San Joaquin County. He says they could decide as early as this summer.

If San Joaquin County is to be a hub of a renewable energy boom, the Port of Stockton will be its center.

Jim Walker, vice chairman of the board of the wind energy firm enXco - which has an office in Tracy and operates wind turbines throughout the area - said the Port of Stockton is one of the few places where the massive turbines and towers can be shipped in by sea. Stockton specializes in bulk cargo, not the boxcar containers that dominate most other California ports.

Indeed, Sacramento-based Pacific Ethanol is planning to build a refinery at the port, as is USBioDiesel Group LLC. Another firm, Community Fuels, is planning to install biodiesel production equipment at the port.

In addition, Akeena Solar has an office in Manteca.

Walker said enXco plans to build about 100 new wind turbines around Rio Vista that would generate enough power to supply more than 36,000 homes. Without the tax credit passed by Congress, that would not have happened.

Both Walker and McNerney said that the relatively young solar and wind industries live - or die - on federal and state research and development tax credits. But those credits are subject to the whim of Congress.

"It's a long-term industry supported by a short-term policy," Walker said.

McNerney said he's uncertain of the measure's fate in the Senate.

"It's going to be close," he said. "They're going to do what they're going to do. We have to do what we think is right."

Many Republicans don't like the proposal because Democrats would pay for it by ending an existing tax break for oil and gas companies.

Contact Capitol Bureau Chief Hank Shaw at (916) 441-4078 or sacto@recordnet.com.

Wines Are Winners

2008-03-03T09:51:00.000-08:00

Wines Are Winners

Ledgewood Creek Winery in the Suisun Valley received three silver medals for its locally produced wines recently.

The recognition adds to a long list of awards received by the winery since its first vintage in 2001.

The series of silver awards were received in the 2008 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition and awards went to the winery's 2005 Estate Syrah, 2006 PicNique Red Cuvee, and its 2006 PicNique Chardonnay.

Ledgewood Creek is located just off Interstate 80 at 4589 Abernathy Road. For more information, call 426-4424.

Environmental Studies

2008-03-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

Environmental Studies
Park to add Nature Center complex
By Danny Bernardini/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 03/03/2008

Mel Hargis, of Rio Linda, walks his dog along a trail Saturday at Lake Solano park, which is getting a $3 million nature center. (Ryan Chalk/The Reporter)

Plans are in motion to build the Lake Solano Nature Center, which county officials hope will become a hub of activity for the area.

A call for bids for the project will go out in March and construction hopefully will start in the summer, said Dan Sykes, Solano County Parks Services manager. Plans are to have the center opened by February 2009.

The 5,000-square-foot building, estimated to cost $3 million, is pegged to be built near the entrance of the campground and would house 4,000 square feet of exhibit space, along with offices for the park rangers and storage space, Sykes said.

Sykes and others hope the center will become an anchor for the area, including Lake Berryessa, and will attract many to the park that is often overlooked.

"It's a project that has been dreamed about at least the last 10 years," Sykes said. "It's a really good moment for Solano County parks."

The center will offer a wide variety of educational components, Sykes said, including an aquarium featuring native species and even help toward water safety. Sykes said he also hopes the center will become a meeting place for volunteers, park stewards and field trips to the area. He said they may also may be able to rent out the area to make some money for the parks.

The collaborative effort between the county, the Bureau of Reclamation and community groups like the Putah Creek Discovery Corridor Collaborative did take some time, but after construction and design questions have been worked out, Sykes said it's all starting to come together.

"We're ready to get this project done. Part of it was getting a consensus on design - that took several years," he said. "It really will raise the profile of Lake Solano Park."

Just because plans are moving forward, it hasn't stopped the county from seeking more funds. Tuesday's county supervisors meeting featured the board going ahead with applying for a $150,000 grant to go toward educational aspects of the center.

Besides the educational portion, Sykes said he was excited for the rangers at the park to finally have a top-of-the-line facility.

"The rangers are really working out of a sub-standard space," he said. "We want to give them a new home."

The Lake Solano Nature Center will become a meeting place for volunteers, park stewards and school field trips. (Artist's rendering/Courtesy image)

Danny Bernardini can be reached at county@thereporter.com.

British Coming With 37 Regional Stores

2008-02-29T11:53:00.000-08:00

British Coming With 37 Regional Stores
By Reporter Staff
Article Launched: 02/29/2008

A British firm that announced earlier this month its plans to build 18 stores in the Bay Area, including Fairfield, announced Thursday that it will build an additional 19 stores in the Sacramento region, including two in Vacaville.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market will begin opening its stores across the region in 2009, pending final negotiations, said company CEO Tim Mason.

In Vacaville, the two stores will set up in long-vacant storefronts including the former Ralphs at Nut Tree and Elmira and the former SaveMax site on Alamo Drive at Butcher Road.

Other locations in the Sacramento region will include several in Sacramento, Oak Park, Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, Folsom Rancho Cordova and Rocklin.

"The Sacramento region is a great fit for us - it is vibrant, fast-growing and widely known as having one of the most diverse populations in the U.S.," said Mason. "We're looking forward to bringing fresh, wholesome food at affordable prices to all types of neighborhoods throughout the Sacramento area."

The company announced earlier that it would also be building in Fairfield, Vallejo, Napa, Antioch, Concord, Danville, Mountain View, Oakland, San Jose, Walnut Creek, Hayward and San Francisco.

Mason said the company has "been very encouraged by the response to our stores thus far. Every single week brings more good news as sales, customer numbers and repeat visits are all growing."

Fresh & Easy currently has 55 grocery markets open throughout Southern California and in Nevada and Arizona. The company is a subsidiary of U.K.-based Tesco, one of the world's largest international retailers.

The stores are a new concept in grocery retailing. They measure up to about one-fifth the size of a typical grocery store, but shoppers can buy all of their groceries there.

And the chain prides itself on carrying products that don't contain added transfats, artificial flavors and contain as few preservatives as possible. It also carries a variety of organic produce and natural foods such as cage-free eggs and hormone-free meats.

Each store employs approximately 20 to 30 people. All Fresh & Easy employees work a minimum of 20 hours per week, which ensures everyone is eligible for comprehensive and affordable health care. Entry-level positions pay well over the minimum wage, starting at $10 an hour in California, and offer a quarterly bonus of up to 10 percent.

State Planning Investments In Green Business

2008-02-29T11:50:00.000-08:00

State Planning Investments In Green Business
By Mike Zapler/MediaNews Sacramento Bureau
Article Launched: 02/29/2008

SACRAMENTO - State lawmakers on Thursday unveiled a package of bills designed to spur investment in clean energy research and help California compete with other states and nations for green jobs.

Several of the bills, however, are costly or would involve incurring billions in debt, which could hurt their prospects as the Legislature grapples with what is a now estimated $8 billion deficit. (The governor and lawmakers took action earlier this month that is expected to cut in half what was then a projected $16 billion deficit).

Still, legislators and green tech company representatives said that state government can play an important role in boosting a fledgling but potentially lucrative industry for California.

"The digital revolution was heavily subsidized," said Assemblywoman Lori Saldana, D-San Diego, who is pitching a $2 billion bond measure (AB 2003) to invest in solar, wind and other alternative energy technologies. "And it was a very smart investment by the federal government."

Two senators are proposing similar bond measures, one also for $2 billion and another for $3 billion. And Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, has a bill (SB 1760) calling on state agencies to craft a plan to spend $200 million on green energy research.

The bond measures and other proposals come as state regulators work to implement AB 32, the ambitious 2006 initiative to slash state greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. On Thursday, a committee of businesses executives, many in the green technology field, presented a report outlining ways to streamline government regulations and use technology to meet the bill's mandate.

The full report is available online at www.arb.ca.gov/cc/etaac/etaac.htm.

Solar Energy Will Give Dixon High New Boost

2008-02-29T11:43:00.000-08:00

Solar Energy Will Give Dixon High New Boost
By Melissa Murphy/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/29/2008

The sun will be shining brightly on Dixon High School despite the gloom-and-doom news of the district's million-dollar deficit.

Dixon Unified School Board President Shana Levine announced Thursday morning during the "State of the City" address that the district will be working with Honeywell International to construct a massive solar energy facility adjacent to the new school campus.

Last year, the district applied for a tax rebate from the state for solar energy projects. The rebate awarded to the district will be given to Honeywell to construct the three-acre, 700 Kilowatt facility. That facility will generate more than enough to provide 90 percent of the school's energy needs.

The building of the new solar farm in the next few months will cost the district absolutely nothing.

Levine explained that the facility will be floor-mounted, with a tilt access to allow the screens to move with the sunlight.

"As it rotates it will get the maximum amount of sunlight possible," she said.

Levine explained that it will also have an educational component as well. Honeywell plans on building a kiosk on campus that would monitor and track usage for students to see.

"I imagine the elementary students will benefit educationally as well," she said. "They can take a trip to the high school to learn about solar energy."

Levine said that teaching the younger students will play a crucial part in their future.

"We're doing our best to set an example and trying to be good stewards," she said. "These young kids will have to look at prices in a different way when they're older."

Honeywell already is known in Solano County for working with the county's Board of Supervisors, which approved a 746,000-watt solar array project to reduce power costs at the Claybank Adult Detention Facility. The solar array will also serve as shade structures for the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District buses, which currently are using the old missile magazine site as a parking lot.

Another benefit of generating solar energy is that the Dixon Unified School District will have a set cost, which will be less than the regular rate PG&E charges.

"We're doing what we can to save the environment," said Ed Eusebio, retired director of facilities. Eusebio is now working with Schools Facility Services as a consultant. "One thing is for sure, we will be using a renewable energy and less fossil fuels. It has the potential of saving us millions of dollars."

Melissa Murphy can be reached at dixon@thereporter.com.

Dixon Sees Good Signs On Horizon

2008-02-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

Dixon Sees Good Signs On Horizon
By Melissa Murphy/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/29/2008

From Pepper the sheep, to a racetrack proposal, to a Mediterranean fruit fly invasion, to the opening of a new high school, Dixon has been through interesting times recently.

"We rode a wave of optimism during a time of an unsteady economy," said Mayor Mary Ann Courville Thursday during her annual "State of the City" address.

• Pepper the sheep caught worldwide attention when a neighbor complained about her living in a residential back yard, however the sheep was allowed to stay.

• Dixon voters were able to voice their opposition to a proposed horse racetrack.

• Unwanted visitors arrived late last year in the form of Mediterranean fruit flies, forcing a quarantine that could be lifted this spring.

• A deteriorating high school on East A Street finally was replaced with a brand new high school just outside of downtown.

The city has had some major ups and downs, but there are bright spots on the horizon, the mayor said.

Courville highlighted that Genentech will be building a research facility in Dixon, a $75 million project. Dixon is also inching closer to having a train stop in the city and recently received a $1.33 million grant to improve its railroad tracks and pedestrian platform.

One downside is that the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has fined the city $220,000 for noncompliance of a Cease and Desist Order. The city is in the process of appealing that fine.

There was also a tragic homicide that shook the city.

Police Chief Don Mort, however, reassured residents that Dixon is still a safe city. Christina Baxley, 41, was gunned down in November just outside the apartment complex where she lived.

Mort said Baxley's murder was the sixth in the city in 17 years.

"We're not immune to crime," he said. "We are still a safe community."

This year, Mort has challenged, teachers, parents, students and the rest of the community to help the city have an incident-free prom night.

In the near future, residents will be receiving blue collection bins for Dixon's first curbside recycling service. The city will also celebrate the 95th anniversary of public library service. District Librarian Gregg Atkins said he continues to explore options of moving the library to a newer and more spacious facility.

Meanwhile, Dixon is still sitting pretty good financially and is economically outperforming other cities in the state and locally outperforming the trends, according to Economic Development Director Mark Heckey. And, the city is still looking into ways it can develop its Northeast Quadrant to bring in more revenue for the city, he said.

Courville reassured the city that financially the city is doing OK, but that staff is proceeding with caution.

"The city is never completely safe," she said. "But know the City Council is always committed to serving the community. To have the quality of life here that we love and enjoy, our strength lies in our unity to make Dixon the best it can be."

Melissa Murphy can be reached at dixon@thereporter.com.

Vacaville's Vitality

2008-02-29T11:27:00.000-08:00

Vacaville's Vitality
City bursting with reasons for optimism
By Jennifer Gentile/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/29/2008

Vacaville City Manager David Van Kirk reviews highlights of the past year in the "State of the City" address Thursday. (Rick Roach/The Reporter)

While factors like the economy weigh heavily on communities statewide, city leaders on Thursday said there is much to be optimistic about in Vacaville.

Community leaders gathered Thursday morning at the Hampton Inn and Suites to hear Mayor Len Augustine and City Manager David Van Kirk deliver the annual "State of the City" address. They took the opportunity to make a few announcements, including a 13.4 percent drop in serious crime and the addition of businesses like Circuit City and Camping World to the community.

The pair's presentation followed the outline of the city's strategic plan, which is based on the goals of ensuring public safety, strengthening the local economy, promoting community viability and maintaining effective and efficient city services.

Kicking off their report with public safety, the presenters said staffing in the police department's patrol division grew to 46 officers in December and monthly sweeps have led to hundreds of arrests.

The audience applauded the latest crime statistics, prompting Augustine to respond, "We're really proud of that. I think (Chief) Richard Word and his staff have done a great job."

Revitalizing struggling shopping centers is one way to bolster the local economy,
Augustine said. He described an overhaul planned for Alamo Plaza and announced that a Circuit City will move in to the former CompUSA building at Nut Tree Parkway and Helen Power Drive. Camping World, which had a location in Cordelia, now plans to open a location on Quinn Road.

Referring to the County Square Asian Market, which is set to open in April at the beleaguered Peabody Shopping Center, the mayor said, "This one's going to be a regional draw, I believe."

As for the new Nut Tree, Van Kirk said, "There's a lot of activity going on" although there have been "some growing pains for the village area." A full-service Thai restaurant plans to move in next to Amici's, he said, while the Elephant Bar also has signed a lease.

Downtown, Augustine said the vacancy rate is less than 1 percent, "which is really quite phenomenal." The Opportunity Hill project, aimed at creating a mixed-use extension of downtown, will move forward with approval of a two-story office building.

Other downtown projects on the horizon include an extension of the CreekWalk to McClellan Street, which should proceed this spring, and reconstruction of the Great Wonders playground this fall.

The ever-important billion-dollar-plus triangle, bordered by Interstates 80 and 505, will bring thousands of jobs to the city in the coming years, the pair said. Kaiser Permanente's Medical Center opens in 2009, and employees should start to occupy the 159,000-square-foot State Compensation Insurance Fund campus next year.

Amid a nationwide slump in the housing market, Van Kirk said, "there is good news and bad news on the residential side." He noted the city's annual allocation in 2007 for building permits was 1,327, while only 327 were actually issued.

The good news, he said, is that Vacaville has not had the foreclosure rate of some other Bay Area cities, and that the city has some residential activity in difficult economic times.

Opponents of development in the Lagoon Valley have exhausted their legal avenues, and Van Kirk said the city is looking to receive a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers for the project this summer.

More than 10,000 signatures were submitted earlier this year in support of an urban growth boundary, which was part of the city's agreement with the Greenbelt Alliance for the Lagoon Valley development.

The City Council can approve the boundary outright this spring, study it further or allow voters to decide.

"It's a reasonable thing, it sets parameters," Van Kirk said, adding the boundary is "adequate to meet our needs over the next 20 years."

The presenters listed a number of accomplishments toward promoting community viability, from the city's upcoming youth and senior summits to energy-efficient initiatives like a compressed natural gas vehicle program and a 1-megawatt solar panel project at Alza.

Fiscally, Vacaville has not been immune to the challenges facing its neighbors. The city has had to scale back its sales tax growth projections and also implement a hiring freeze.

"The way you don't get into deep problems is to recognize problems early on," Van Kirk said, adding, "all in all, we're hanging in there."

Like cities throughout California, however, Vacaville could be impacted by the state's budget deficit.

"That's our concern, quite frankly, are outside influences on the city," the mayor said. Without unforeseen circumstances, the city expects to finish the year with a 15 percent reserve.

Work continues on Vacaville's Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, set to open near I-80 and Leisure Town Road in 2009. (Joel Rosenbaum/The Reporter)

Jennifer Gentile can be reached at vacaville@thereporter.com.

Vacaville Leaders Say City Is Making Ends Meet

2008-02-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

Vacaville Leaders Say City Is Making Ends Meet
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 28, 2008

VACAVILLE - Times may be tough, but Vacaville has been fortunate and will continue to be so in 2008.

That was the message that Mayor Len Augustine and City Manager David Van Kirk gave to a gathering of civic leaders Thursday morning at the Hampton Inn.

Local leaders were told Vacaville faces tight times, but that won't affect city services and the city is continuing to see more commercial development.

Augustine's biggest concern is how California's budget problems may affect Vacaville when the state attempts to deal with its $16 million deficit.

The sales tax revenues on which Vacaville depends dropped from a predicted 6 percent increase to a 1 percent increase, which cost the city $1.7 million in income.

A $700,000 increase in property tax revenue softened the blow. Van Kirk also instituted a hiring freeze and dipped into city reserves to make ends meet.

'All in all, we are hanging in there, but we have to be very vigilant,' Van Kirk said.

'Our philosophy is that you can't spend more than you take in,' Augustine said.

Augustine then lauded just-released crime statistics that show serious crime in Vacaville dropped by 13.4 percent in 2007.

Vacaville is moving forward in its efforts to be ready for potential disasters, especially flooding.

Last year, the city started its Vacaville Emergency Response Team to train residents to help deal with emergencies in their neighborhoods.

It is also building the first two of four planned floodwater detention basins this year along Alamo Creek. The third is planned for 2010, and a local developer has promised to build a fourth.

'A lot of progress has been made,' Van Kirk said.

On the economic front, the city is seeing some of its older shopping centers revived, Augustine said.

The center on Peabody Road will soon have Country Square Market open its doors, and the owners of Alamo Plaza are planning to renovate the shopping center on Alamo Drive and Merchant Street.

The city has also seen a lot of activity in what Van Kirk called 'the $1 billion triangle,' between interstates 80 and 505 in northeast Vacaville.

He specifically pointed out Kaiser's hospital expansion, the construction of the State Compensation Insurance Fund building and the Koll Company office project.

Some businesses are also relocating from western Fairfield to Vacaville, such as Camping World, which is moving out of Cordelia.

Portions of the Nut Tree shopping center have 'experienced some growing pains,' according to Van Kirk, but the city is looking forward to seeing more businesses such as The Elephant Bar move in there.

Augustine applauded the economic good fortune of the downtown area, which has 99 percent of its businesses occupied.

That is 'phenomenal in this day and age,' the mayor said.

Vacaville's next big redevelopment project, Opportunity Hill on the east side of the downtown, is the negotiation process with developers to create mixed-use office, retail and senior housing projects, Augustine said.

The nearby Creekwalk along Ulatis Creek is slated to be repaired and open to pedestrians by May, and renovation of the aging Great Wonders playground will be done in October.

The city's residential housing growth has been 'a mixed bag,' according to Van Kirk, 'but we are faring a lot better than the rest of the Bay Area.'

Vacaville is issuing fewer housing permits than before, but still more than neighboring cities. The city's foreclosure rate is 'a lot less than elsewhere,' Van Kirk said.

Van Kirk described a proposed growth boundary ballot initiative as one the city can live with, adding it will be 'adequate to handle the city's growth for the next 20 years.'

Persistent lobbying of the state Department of Transportation to fix I-80 through Vacaville has paid off, Augustine said. Plans to repair the highway has been moved up two years and will start this spring.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

Vacaville Crime Drops By 13.4 Percent In 2007

2008-02-29T10:44:00.000-08:00

Vacaville Crime Drops By 13.4 Percent In 2007
By Audrey Wong | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 28, 2008

VACAVILLE - Thirteen may be a lucky number for Vacaville, which experienced a 13.4 percent decrease in serious crimes in 2007.

This is the second year in a row that the city experienced a drop in crime, said police Chief Richard Word. In 2006, Part I crimes fell 4.2 percent, according to city spokesman Mark Mazzaferro. Part I crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, vehicle theft and arson.

The biggest drops from 2006 to 2007 occurred in robberies (112 to 83), vehicle thefts (331 to 274) and thefts (1,733 to 1,473). Homicides increased by four cases and rapes by three cases last year.

One of the homicides was a 2006 attack in which the victim died in 2007, said Word, who added that four of the homicide suspects are in custody. The chief attributed the increase in rapes to sexual assaults by acquaintances.

Vacaville's efforts to combat crime last year were buoyed by the addition of 10 patrol officers, increasing the total to 46. A second Crime Suppression Team was also added in 2007.

The department has two vacant patrol officer positions it can't fill because of a city hiring freeze. But two officers are undergoing training in the field, and another two are attending the academy.

'In terms of staffing, I still think we're in an upswing,' Word said.

Other reasons for the drop in crime are more parole and probation sweeps, and residents willing to report suspicious activity. Word cited a recent incident in which someone reported a person trying to open car doors. Police later caught a parolee in connection with two automobile burglaries.

'We encourage (the public) to call,' Word said. 'It makes our job so much easier and makes Vacaville safe.'

Although Word is pleased with the statistics, he added that work needs to be done in gangs, drugs and recidivism among juvenile criminals.

'We're still arresting kids 11 to 17 years old about 30 to 40 times,' he said.

Many of those young people are repeat offenders. Police often meet with probation officers and school officials to address the needs of juveniles.

One solution to divert young people from crime is providing good mentors. The city has a Police Activities League and Vacaville Area Boys and Girls Club. The department also has a social worker for young people involved with gangs.

Reach Audrey Wong at 427-6951 or awong@dailyrepublic.net.

Cajun Cooking Comes To Fairfield

2008-02-29T10:21:00.000-08:00

Cajun Cooking Comes To Fairfield
By Ben Antonius | Daily Republic | February 28, 2008

Darrell and James Gambrell enjoy a meal at the new Huckleberry's restaurant, a cajun-themed restaurant that opened Wednesday in Fairfield. Photo by Chris Jordan

FAIRFIELD - Not exactly a traditional home of Cajun cuisine, the city nevertheless landed the second site for a new 'Bayou-themed' restaurant.

Huckleberry's opened Wednesday near the corner of Travis Boulevard and Oliver Road, a site previously occupied by Original Mel's diner. Huckleberry's, a new chain of franchised restaurants, opened its first location in October 2007 in Exeter, near Visalia.

'It's basically California cooking with a Cajun flair,' said Randy Brooks, owner of the restaurant and founder of the parent company, Fresno-based Dynaco Inc. 'We have a lot of items on the menu that you see in California, but they have a Cajun flair.'

Huckleberry's claimed the spot after an aggressive marketing effort by the city after Mel's closed.

The location and the fact it was already equipped as a restaurant made it a desirable spot for the company to take over, said Curt Johnston, the city's assistant director of economic development. And the city was happy to land a brand unique to Northern California.

'We actually prefer the new concept because we know that it's going to be a restaurant that isn't in this immediate market area,' he said.

And although Huckleberry's is new, parent company Dynaco is well-established as a restaurateur, noted Lorraine Hernandez, who was the city liaison to the company.

Dynaco is also the parent company of Country Waffles and Perko's Cafe and Grill, and has other new restaurants in Yukon Jack's and Cool Hand Luke's Steakhouse.

'All of our concepts are kind of intertwined,' Brooks said. 'We try to make them noncompetitive with each other.'

The restaurant is open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., serving breakfast and lunch only. Its breakfast menu includes items such as a southern quiche and a Cajun breakfast burrito. For lunch, Brooks said the menu includes Cajun-inspired menu items such as catfish and mushroom-smothered skirt steak.

Reach Ben Antonius at 427-6977 or bantonius@dailyrepublic.net.

UC research to focus on biofuel from plants

2008-02-28T22:06:00.000-08:00

UC research to focus on biofuel from plants
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Harnessing the sun through solar panels is a great idea in principle, but harvesting stored solar energy from plants is a more promising and economical approach to help meet global energy needs, a UC Berkeley biosciences expert said Wednesday.

Former Stanford biologist Chris Somerville, who recently moved to the Berkeley campus to head the new Energy Biosciences Institute funded with half a billion dollars from BP, said the potential of photovoltaic technology for meeting the world's rapidly growing energy needs hasn't panned out in the 87 years since Einstein won the Nobel Prize for discovering the photoelectric effect.

A better bet, Somerville told a packed audience on campus, is to lay microscopic siege to the Earth's abundant plant cells, break down their walls and extract their sugars to produce alcohol for fuel.

It was the second public bruising of solar panels by a prominent UC Berkeley researcher within a few days.

Last week, the campus released a report by energy expert Severin Borenstein saying the costs of today's solar panels far outweigh the benefits. He said the money now spent on putting photovoltaic panels on homes and businesses would be better spent on research into improving them.

Somerville agreed that "direct solar" is too expensive.

"I certainly think direct solar would be better if the cost could be brought down," he said in a lecture explaining why Berkeley and its academic partners, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, are joining with BP to fashion biological keys for unlocking solar energy stored in plants.

Meeting U.S. energy needs would require 26,000 square kilometers of solar panels operating at their current efficiency of 15 to 20 percent, an unlikely prospect given that only about 4 square kilometers of photovoltaic panels have been built in the world, he said.

The institute will not focus on the main method of biofuel production in the United States today - which is fermentation of corn mash to produce ethanol, known also to backwoods distillers as moonshine - but on second- and third-generation biofuels that don't have the same environmentally damaging effects as heavy reliance on corn, Somerville said.

By pioneering ways to break down cell fibers, the institute's researchers hope to be able to convert any plant material - including fallen trees, lawn trimmings, food waste and especially fast-growing dense plants like miscanthus - into practical sources of biofuel. See article at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/28/BAKQV9QAF.DTL

Online resource
Information about research at the Energy Biosciences Institute:

www.energybiosciencesinstitute.org

E-mail Charles Burress at cburress@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/28/BAKQV9QAF.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Vacaville City's flood control takes step forward

2008-02-28T17:15:00.000-08:00

City's flood control takes step forward

The Reporter:
City's flood control takes step forward> By Jennifer Gentile/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/27/2008 06:14:05 AM PST

The City Council advanced Vacaville's flood-control efforts Tuesday night,
approving a basin project in the northeastern part of the city.

The council approved the design concept and environmental assessment for the
Encinosa Detention Basins project, which the city plans to build on 60 acres
northeast of the Pleasants Valley Road and Foothill Drive intersection. The
project involves two additional basins, which would give the city another
140 acre-feet of storm-water storage capacity.

The Encinosa basin north is the larger basin and will be situated on the
north side of Encinosa Creek at the end of Edgewater Drive, providing
storage capacity of 107 acre feet. The Encinosa basin south will be built on
the south side of Encinosa Creek adjacent to Foothill Drive and have 33-acre
feet of storage capacity.

In a report, staff said that "the presence of wetland areas and other
environmental issues were identified at the project site." Staff has been
working with state and federal agencies, according to the report, to modify
the project and reduce environmental impacts.

A declaration, which the council approved along with the project design,
indicates that environmental impacts from the project could be reduced to a
less-than-significant level. The declaration circulated through the State
Clearinghouse for 30 days, and notices were sent to residents within 600
feet of the project site.

Staff explained that Encinosa Creek drains into Alamo Creek, which has been
known to spill over its banks during heavy rainfall and cause widespread
flooding. The Ulatis Drainage System Study, which was released in the fall
of 2007, recommended that Vacaville build upstream basins as a flood-control
measure.

"This is an important step in resolving the issues pointed out in (staff's)
presentation," said Councilman Steve Wilkins. He also praised staff for its
work on the project, including "identifying where we need to situate the
basins" so they would have the greatest impact.

In addition to City Council, several agencies like the California Department
of Fish and Game, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Department of
Fish and Wildlife must also sign off on the project. The Department of Water
Resources, Division of Safety of Dams, will have oversight of the design and
construction of the Encinosa north basin because of its size.

The city is looking to obtain all permits by May and award the project in
June. Construction could begin as early as July and be completed this fall.
The $2 million project is being funded by a combination of grants and
development impact fees, according to the public works director.

Jennifer Gentile can be reached at vacaville@thereporter.com.

Market Chain Picks 19 Area Sites

2008-02-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

Market Chain Picks 19 Area Sites
Newcomer Fresh & Easy specializes in grab-and-go foods.
By Jon Ortiz - jortiz@sacbee.com.
Published February 28, 2008

Sacramento's turbulent grocery scene is about to get another good shaking.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets plans to announce today that it has locked up 19 store sites from Vacaville to Folsom and from Lincoln to Galt.

The 19 stores will open next year, with an unspecified number added later. Some will be newly built, while others will move into vacated retail spots.

Backed by billions of dollars from Britain's Tesco PLC, the world's third-largest retailer, Fresh & Easy's start in the Sacramento region will give locals a new food shopping option in what is already one of the nation's most competitive grocery markets, experts say.

While traditional chains such as Raley's, Safeway and Save Mart Supermarkets still have about a year to tweak their strategies, "any new competitor is bad news for an established chain," said Robert Reynolds, a Moraga-based grocery industry consultant who is familiar with Sacramento. "New players always siphon away some dollars from existing businesses."

The Fresh & Easy concept depends heavily on private-label goods and prepared grab-and-go food offered in stores roughly the size of a Trader Joe's. Tesco is pouring $2 billion to design and build hundreds of 10,000-square-foot stores in California, Nevada, Arizona and the Midwest.

Tesco has said it is committed to placing stores in underserved urban areas with little or no access to healthy foods purchases – including one at 34th and Broadway in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood.

"Our goal is to serve every neighborhood," said Fresh & Easy spokesman Brendan Wonnacott. "As we move forward, we'll be looking at sites all over Sacramento."

Fresh & Easy combines elements of a traditional grocery store and a convenience store. At about one-fifth the size of a typical supermarket, the sparsely decorated stores emphasize fresh items, prepared take-home food and private-label goods. They also carry a limited selection of national-brand merchandise among their 3,500 items.

Supermarkets generally carry 30,000 products or more.

Most perishables that Fresh & Easy sells come in small plain packages: $4.99 for a 32-ounce green bean casserole, $3.72 for 15 ounces of fruit salad, $3.99 for a 17-ounce serving of Thai chicken and shrimp.

Fresh & Easy doesn't take American Express, checks or manufacturers' coupons. Forget Safeway-style loyalty cards.

Union labor is out, too. That's a sore point with grocery labor unions, which have protested in front of stores in Southern California. But Fresh & Easy says the practice allows it to trim costs and pass the savings on to shoppers.

Another cost-cutting feature: Every checkout line is set up for self-service.

In December, Goldman Sachs analyst John Heinbockel told Supermarket News, an industry publication, that prices at two Fresh & Easy stores he sampled in Southern California ran 13 percent to 15 percent less than those at major grocery chains.

Since its November debut in Southern California, the company has opened stores in Las Vegas and Phoenix, for a total of 55. Last month it announced 18 locations in the Bay Area that will open next year.

Experts say Tesco must expand quickly to maximize its investment in an 88-acre Riverside distribution center.

"These are unique stores, offering a unique environment with a unique approach to selling food," said George Whalin, a retail consultant based in San Marcos who has visited the stores. "But they are so different that it could take a while for customers to embrace them."

Indeed, Fresh & Easy has hit some bumps.

Early news accounts of excited customers waiting in long lines at store openings have given way to articles about distribution challenges and empty shelves. Others have criticized the stores' bland avocado green decor and Spartan furnishings.

Company spokesman Wonnacott said the interiors reflect Fresh & Easy's underlying theme.

"Simplicity. Our stores are simple to shop, the shelves are low and simple, the supply chain is simple," he said. "These all reflect our commitment to keeping costs low."

Some industry observers have concluded that Fresh & Easy's revenues are low, too. In a conference call with investors earlier this month, Citigroup analyst Jim Prevor estimated that individual store sales are averaging $50,000 to $60,000 each week. That's about 75 percent below the company's expectations.

Tesco has not made public Fresh & Easy's sales numbers.

On Wednesday, Wonnacott called reports about the financial performance "pure speculation. We've only been open for four months. Sales, customer numbers and repeat visits are all growing. The response from our customers has been very encouraging."

In December a report by TNS Retail Forward, a consulting group in Columbus, Ohio, concluded that Fresh & Easy "potentially represents a significant threat to the U.S. food retailing industry."

The stores could reach $4 billion in U.S. sales by 2011, the report predicted, and $10 billion by 2015. That would put it among the top 10 U.S. grocery retailers.

The challenges haven't kept Fresh & Easy from adding stores at breakneck speed. If all goes as planned, the chain will have at least 200 stores in the West by the end of the year. It also reportedly is considering sites in the Chicago area.

Whalin, the San Marcos consultant, expects new stores, including those in the Sacramento area, to reflect the lessons Fresh & Easy has learned.

"It would be foolish to discount this company without giving them a fair shake," he said. "Tesco is formidable. They tend not to have many failures. The Fresh & Easy concept is new. It will take time to get legs."

Fresh & Easy's push into Sacramento has been a source of local scuttlebutt for more than a year. With another year before stores open here, long-established competitors say they're ready.

"Save Mart has been in business for 55 years, and we have seen competitors come and go," said Alicia Rockwell, a spokeswoman for Modesto-based Save Mart Supermarkets, which controls about 11 percent of the Sacramento-area grocery market. "We also have the advantage of being locally owned and operated. We think that gives an advantage in sourcing product and understanding the needs of our shoppers."

Bill Coyne, Raley's president and chief executive, said in a recent interview that the company doesn't fear Fresh & Easy moving into the West Sacramento-based chain's home turf.

Raley's nameplate stores and its Bel-Air brand together take in about 33 cents of every dollar spent on groceries in the Sacramento region, according to TradeDimensions, a market researcher.

"Competition is good," Coyne said. "It makes us better."

Calls and e-mails to Safeway Inc. headquarters were not returned. The Pleasanton-based company is one of America's biggest traditional grocery sellers. Its 31 Sacramento stores account for about 21 percent of the local market share.

Solano To Conduct Economic Studies

2008-02-28T09:06:00.000-08:00

Solano To Conduct Economic Studies
By Barry Eberling | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 27, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Solano County's economy is going under a microscope.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved spending $484,000 for a series of financial studies over the next three years. The Solano Economic Development Corp. will oversee the work.

Results can be used by the private and public sectors to attract and plan for business growth in the county. Initial studies are to be completed by late this year.

'Working across the county with our city partners and the private sector, I think we'll have the opportunity to make a tremendous difference for the people of Solano County,' Supervisor Mike Reagan said.

But Supervisor Barbara Kondylis cast the lone vote against proceeding with the studies. She didn't want to spend $484,000 at a time when county programs such as mental health face cuts.

One study will look at undeveloped properties in the county zoned for commercial and industry, and analyze to what degree they have available services such as water, roads and sewer service.

'We need to know where we can grow and what barriers, if any, are in the way,' Solano EDC President Michael Ammann said.

Another study will look at 20 or so key local economic indicators, such as housing, the economic workforce and transportation.

A third set of studies will look at economic clusters, such as life science industries, clean energy production and agriculture.

The studies are an outgrowth of three Economic Summits hosted by the county over the past year.

Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646, Ext. 232, or at beberling@dailyrepublic.net.

Taste Of Vacaville Coming To Suisun City

2008-02-28T09:03:00.000-08:00

Taste Of Vacaville Coming To Suisun City
By Carol Bogart | Daily Republic | February 27, 2008

SUISUN CITY - If you have been going to Vacaville to dine at the restaurant that Daily Republic readers have voted that city's best the past three years, you might be able to enjoy a similar dining experience in Suisun City by November.

Merchant & Main Grill and Bar owner Bob Tooke has signed a lease to open a 4,000-square-foot restaurant in Harbor Square at Solano and Main streets in Suisun City's Waterfront District.

Tooke said the restaurant's look and menu won't be identical to Merchant & Main's, but he added the as-yet unnamed restaurant will resemble Merchant & Main in that it will be 'casual, comfortable and fun.' The new restaurant will accommodate 130 to 140 diners.

Tooke believes his new restaurant will draw from Suisun City, Fairfield and some of the '30,000 cars that pass by daily on Highway 12,' he said.

Suisun City Mayor Pete Sanchez said negotiations with Tooke have been going on for about five months, and the city has agreed to erect any sort of sign Tooke desires on Highway 12 'to let people know Suisun City has a new steakhouse.'

In a nod to the Delta, some menu items will have a Cajun flair, Tooke said. Fresh fish, barbecue, steaks and prime rib will be among the 'modern American cooking' he said he will serve. The restaurant will also have a full bar, he said, and 18 beers on tap.

The restaurant will be open for brunch both Saturday and Sunday, lunch five days a week, although Tooke didn't say which days, and dinner Monday through Sunday. He may decide to offer all day dining, he added.

The entry to Tooke's restaurant will face Solano Street and Harbor Plaza to draw business during public events in the plaza, said Frank Marinello, co-managing partner of Main Street West Partners, the developer of Harbor Square.

The restaurant will have a rear dining patio that will overlook Harbor Square's courtyard and that there may be a few cafe-style tables on the front patio, Tooke said.

Harbor Square's shell will be completed by September, Marinello said. Tooke hopes to begin interior work on his new restaurant at that time.

Both said the goal is for the restaurant to open in November, just in time for the holiday season.

'Main Street West is pleased that an operator as successful as Bob shares our vision of the Waterfront District being a premier dining destination in the county,' Marinello said.

Tooke said, in his view, the Suisun City waterfront 'is the coolest thing around.'

Reach Carol Bogart at 427-6955 or at cbogart@dailyrepublic.net.

Ledgewood Creek Earns Three Silver Medals

2008-02-27T14:08:00.000-08:00

Ledgewood Creek Earns Three Silver Medals
By Daily Republic staff | | February 26, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Ledgewood Creek Winery of Suisun Valley earned three silver medals at the 2008 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.

Silver medals were awarded to Ledgewood Creek's 2005 Estate Syrah, 2006 PicNique Red Cuvee and 2006 PicNique Chardonnay.

Ledgewood Creek Winery is at 4589 Abernathy Road. Its tasting room is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

For more information, call 426-4424.

Teen Center To Bear Name Of Yarbrough

2008-02-27T13:21:00.000-08:00

Teen Center To Bear Name Of Yarbrough
By Ben Antonius | Daily Republic | February 26, 2008

FAIRFIELD - There were tears aplenty and one rekindled relationship on Tuesday night.

Billy Yarbrough's family members, friends and supporters came out to watch the City Council name the soon-to-be-built teen center after the longtime developer and philanthropist.

'Of all the honors he has received in his lifetime, none would be more important than this,' said son-in-law Anthony Russo.

Over the years, Yarbrough and wife Louise built an extensive legacy of philanthropy in the community. They donated 18 acres for the Fairfield Expos baseball team, built the Octo Inn Soccer complex and contributed to the Fairfield Center for Creative Arts, high school athletic fields and the skate park in Allan Witt Park.

Fairfield moved closer to a long-term teen center Feb. 19, when the council unanimously approved leasing a 9,300-square-foot space near the intersection of Travis Boulevard and North Texas Street.

The city plans to renovate the space and offer supervised tutoring, basketball and boxing through the Police Activity League. Once site improvements are finished in summer, the building's official name will be the 'Billy G. Yarbrough Youth Center.'

'Billy and Louise Yarbrough have given a lot to this community and we have a lot to thank them for,' said City Manager Sean Quinn.

Yarbrough started Solano Concrete in 1960 and later formed development firm B&L Properties, through which he has been an active political donor. Since 2005, B&L Properties has contributed to the successful election campaigns of Councilmen John Mraz, Frank Kardos, Chuck Timm and Matt Garcia.

Yarbrough, a land developer, largely withdrew from Fairfield affairs after a 2005 falling out with some controlled-growth proponents then on the council, who Russo said 'lost sight of the values Billy championed.'

That relationship appeared to be on the mend Tuesday, however; All five councilmen read part of a resolution honoring Yarbrough, who could not attend the ceremony due to failing health. And daughter Debra Russo presented the city with a check for $50,000 to be put toward the long-term endowment for the teen center.

'More than anything, we just wish it to be successful,' Russo said.

It is technically the family's second such contribution.

In July, Fairfield announced the discovery of a 33-acre parcel of land, apparently deeded over by Yarbrough in the 1980s and then forgotten for 25 years. Officials are hoping to put proceeds from selling the land toward the endowment as well.

Before the Yarbrough presentation took place, officials with the city Twilight Rotary club presented the council with a $5,000 check from a recent fundraiser, also to be put toward the teen center.

'If we can get the rest of the community behind us, we will see a difference,' Timm said.

Reach Ben Antonius at 427-6977 or bantonius@dailyrepublic.net.

Students Give New Clock Tower To SCC

2008-02-27T13:10:00.000-08:00

Students Give New Clock Tower To SCC
By Nika Megino | Daily Republic | February 26, 2008

Wayne Aguigui, a member of Solano Community College's student government, tries to attach a ribbon on the school's new clock tower before a dedication ceremony Tuesday afternoon. Photo by Brad Zweerink

FAIRFIELD - There's a new sound at Solano Community College.

A 17-foot-tall, four-faced Verdin clock tower now stands in the college's main quad. It is a gift from SCC's student government, which donated money to the project.

At noon Tuesday, 10 chimes rang to signal the start of the dedication ceremony for SCC's latest addition.

'It really adds a touch of class to our college,' said Harjot Sandhu, president of SCC's student government.

The creation of the 1,300-pound, blue-and-white clock tower was made possible by two donations totaling $50,000 from SCC's student government.

A student government donation of $22,000 went toward the purchase of the clock, which was part of the college's Campus Enrichment Plan.

'The installation of the street clock is the first idea to come to fruition from that plan,' Sandhu said.

The plan, created by a former student government board, outlines suggestions from faculty and students that would help the college with its identity and signage. The student government donated $28,000 toward the plan.

Vice President of Student Services Lisa Waits said the students' donations marked their commitment and dedication to the college.

'Measure G dollars didn't make this happen,' Waits said. 'The story of this clock tower is the students. Thank you very much, students, for this gift to the college.'

Measure G, a bond passed in 2002, has funded many of the college's construction projects, including the new Student Services Building and the SCC Vallejo Center.

Sandhu said the purpose of the clock was to add a destination marker to the campus and help students get to class on time.

The clock will 'change the language of the campus' as students start to tell each other to meet near the clock tower and include the clock in giving directions, Waits added.

A surveillance video camera has been installed to protect the clock, which is located on a concrete platform, said Frank Kitchen, SCC's director of facilities.

The Verdin Company has crafted clocks for the University of Norte Dame and Walt Disney World.

Reach Nika Megino at 427-6953 or nmegino@dailyrepublic.net.

Supervisors Authorize County Economic Studies

2008-02-27T12:51:00.000-08:00

Supervisors Authorize County Economic Studies
By Barry Eberling | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 27, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Solano County's economy is going under a microscope.

The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved spending $484,000 for a series of financial studies during the coming three years. The Solano Economic Development Corp. will oversee the work.

Results can be used by both the private and public sectors to attract and plan for business growth in the county. Initial studies are to be competed by late this year.

'Working across the county with our city partners and the private sector, I think we'll have the opportunity to make a tremendous difference for the people of Solano County,' Supervisor Mike Reagan said.

But Supervisor Barbara Kondylis cast the lone vote against proceeding with the studies. She didn't want to spend $484,000 on them at a time when such county programs as mental health face cuts.

Supes Plan Economic Studies

2008-02-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

Supes Plan Economic Studies
Board Expected to Hire Solano EDC to Complete the Reports
By Danny Bernardini/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/26/2008

In an attempt to unify economic development efforts across the county, the Board of Supervisors will discuss today contracting the Solano Economic Development Corporation for a variety of studies.

The Solano County Board of Supervisors will contemplate hiring the Solano EDC to the tune of $484,250 to create an Economic Indicator Index, a Land Inventory and Absorption Study as well as the profiling of five Key Industry Cluster Analyses.

The creation of these studies comes after many discussions in 2007 toward maintaining a high quality of life by promoting sustainable economic development within Solano County, according to staff reports.

The content of those studies are as follows:

• The Economic Indicator Index will document aspects such as economics, workforce, housing and education and the role of Solano County as a regional hub of innovation and opportunity.

• The Land Inventory and Absorption Study will identify all undeveloped parcels in the county that are zoned commercial and industrial. It will also include if they are development ready.

• Key Industry Cluster Profiles will focus on areas such as bio- and life-sciences; agriculture and food processing and energy production.

The first report on these studies is expected in November with annual updates to follow.

The Solano County Board of Supervisors meets today at 9 a.m. in the Supervisors Chamber in Fairfield.

Danny Bernardini can be reached at county@thereporter.com.

Hotel To Join 'Emerging Market' In Suisun City

2008-02-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

Hotel To Join 'Emerging Market' In Suisun City
By Carol Bogart | Daily Republic | February 25, 2008

SUISUN CITY - Visitors to Suisun City will soon have a new option for an overnight stay. Within the next few months, ground will be broken on the Hampton Inn and Suites, a 102-room hotel.

The hotel will be bordered by Lotz Way and Civic Center Boulevard. Its entrance will face Driftwood Drive.

To create a pleasing streetscape as visitors approach the hotel, the city is considering a design that would recast Driftwood Drive as a 'meandering cottage lane.' Economic Development Director Jason Garben called the design a 'work in progress,' and it may be included in plans that are being finalized for the city's Harbor Center Drive Extension Project.

Public Works Director Fernando Bravo said the project's core construction costs are estimated at $800,000. Plans call for full street improvements for portions of Lotz Way and Driftwood Drive, he said, to enhance traffic circulation, pedestrian safety and landscaping.

The hotel is slated to open in summer 2009.

The city's willingness to invest 'a lot of money in creating energy along the waterfront' was a big reason that Basin Street Properties, the hotel's Petaluma-based developer, chose Suisun City for the project, said Paul Andronico, the company's senior vice president.

'We saw Suisun as an emerging market with a downtown that's in the process of being revitalized,' Andronico added. 'They really provide the anchors that allow the private development to go forward and be successful.'

Andronico also pointed out that the involvement of Frank Marinello, a managing partner of Suisun City-based Main Street West Partners, was a key in Basin Street's decision to build in the city. Andronico said Marinello helped find the site and worked with Basin Street on the hotel's design.

Main Street West's Harbor Square retail/restaurants/office space project in the city's Waterfront District is scheduled to open in September.

Reach Carol Bogart at 427-6955 or at cbogart@dailyrepublic.net.

Star Awards presented to Outpatient Ambulatory Services team at Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo

2008-02-25T22:07:00.001-08:00

Award announced

The Outpatient Ambulatory Services team at Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo has been recognized for excellence in patient satisfaction.

The OPAS staff received a Star Award from Sutter Health for its dramatic performance improvement in caring for outpatients the third quarter of 2007.

Star Awards are presented to individuals and departments that go above and beyond to enhance patient care or promote the mission of Sutter Health.

"Since they aren't dealing with people who are admitted to the hospital, OPAS team members have a very short time in which to make a positive impression on patients and their families," said Kim Trumbull, R.N., chief nurse executive.

Some of the things the OPAS team did were:

• Staff nurses brought in CD players and headsets, new books and magazines, for the waiting room, so patients and their families would be comfortable

• To enhance the waiting room, overhead light panels were installed with colorful and cheerful images such as clouds and rainbows

• A pager system, like those used in popular restaurants, was instituted to allow families to move throughout the hospital while waiting for their loved ones' procedures to be completed.

The Buzz Oates Group of Companies has acquired the former Serta facility

2008-02-25T22:04:00.000-08:00

Oates group buys Serta site

The Buzz Oates Group of Companies has acquired the former Serta facility, a 220,800 square foot industrial space at 2050 Cessna Drive in Vacaville, from National Bedding Company, LLC.

The acquisition was made for an undisclosed price.

Steve Moreno with BOGC represented the buyer in the transaction.

In a press release, the company said the acquisition is consistent with the company's new strategic initiatives to diversify its product and service delivery of construction, real estate and property management services.

The Buzz Oates Group of Companies creates and manages facilities for commercial real estate users by designing and building retail centers, office/warehouse/distribution centers and state-of-the-art Class A office space.

Nut Tree Continues To Evolve

2008-02-25T09:29:00.000-08:00

Nut Tree Continues To Evolve
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 22, 2008

The Nut Tree Market Pavilion and Fenton's Creamery are seen through the windows of an empty retail space at the Nut Tree Village in Vacaville. The development is continuing to bring in new businesses and renovate the existing space. Photo by Brad Zweerink

VACAVILLE - The Nut Tree Village is still a work in progress.

That's how Westrust representatives have described the premier retail center, which will see businesses such as The Elephant Bar restaurant and the Huntington Learning Center open their doors this year.

It also means renovations for the Nut Tree Market Pavilion and Bocce Grove to make these places more customer-friendly.

'In the long term, we want to meet the interests of the community, create a special place made up of special tenants,' said Sean Whiskeman, managing director of leasing and marketing for Westrust. 'We have gone a great distance to market to unique tenants that are not in the community.'

That runs the gamut from retailers such as Borders and Fenton's Creamery to non-retail businesses such at the Huntington Learning Center.

Whiskeman said the most exciting parts of Nut Tree are going to be in the buildings surrounding the Bocce Grove, where the center has most of its vacancies and future tenants who are in the planning stages of opening businesses.

One is an upscale, full-service Thai restaurant that will be taking 2,500 square feet next to Amici's East Coast Pizzeria.

Once finished, Nut Tree will have what Whiskeman calls a gathering of restaurants that cater to a range of needs from the quick service offered by small places such as Jamba Juice to full-service establishments such as The Elephant Bar, whose site is now being graded.

'It will really be unmatched in the corridor,' Whiskeman said.

Westrust readjusted Nut Tree's direction earlier this year when it approached the city to ask for more freedom in what businesses it can bring into the retail center. Westrust wants to consider banks, health and beauty services, children's learning centers, adult educational facilities, optometry services and medical offices.

Vacaville City Council members were concerned these would dilute the retail-oriented vision of the Nut Tree and damage the shopping center's regional reputation.

City leaders agree that times have been difficult for Nut Tree's developers and they want to work with them to bring in more quality businesses.

'We want the Nut Tree to be a success and we will do what we can to facilitate that,' Vacaville Assistant City Manager Laura Kuhn said.

The first such new business to enter Nut Tree Village in the wake of the City Council's approval is the Huntington Learning Center which is leasing 2,000 square feet of space there.

Huntington, based in Oradell, N.J., has been in business since 1977 and has more than 300 centers in 40 states that provide tutoring for students from elementary to high school.

Local businessman Craig Lash is opening a Huntington franchise in the Nut Tree because 'I could not think of a better choice than Nut Tree.'

'You could not ask for better visibility,' Lash said of the location within sight of Interstate 80.

Lash plans to open the center in two months with a small staff that will grow as the center builds enrollment.

Earlier this month, Nut Tree's developers announced that the Market Pavilion and Bocce Grove will undergo a $1.5 million renovation to make the areas more accessible to patrons and user-friendly for tenants.

The renovation centers on the 10,000-square-foot Market Pavilion and will allow tenants to have exterior storefronts, highly visible entrances and outdoor seating areas to accommodate patrons of the various restaurants.

The move was made to stimulate more foot traffic that would make it easier for the tenants there to stay in business.

Nut Tree's Bocce Grove will also get a makeover to recreate more of the original Nut Tree atmosphere. This includes taking out four of the eight bocce courts to make way for an outdoor fire pit for public gatherings, a central plaza featuring a stage for community activities and 12 benches.

Two family-oriented playground areas featuring interactive, animal-shaped climbing toys and other fun activities for children will be constructed.

There are still plans to put a hotel and conference center at the Nut Tree, but Vacaville is still looking for a developer to build it.

Last fall, Nut Tree developer Roger Snell backed off from plans to build a hotel and conference center, saying the project was not economically feasible due to the change in market conditions.

The hotel and conference center remain a major goal for the City Council, and city officials are in talks with at least one potential hotel developer.

'We are hanging in there,' Kuhn said. 'The market being what it is, we are looking at all our options and coming up with a game plan.'

While not part of the Nut Tree itself, Travis Credit Union Park may be destined for the bulldozer once the city and the ballpark's owner reach an agreement on the land's future use.

The ballpark, which is now in the hands of CT Realty Corp., closed in early 2007 after five years of financial losses.

CT Realty Corp. has been in talks with the city for some time, and the City Council received a briefing on the ballpark's status in a closed session earlier this month

No action has been taken yet, according to Vacaville City Manager David Van Kirk.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

County Cuts Vacaville Out of New Building Project

2008-02-25T08:47:00.000-08:00

County Cuts Vacaville Out of New Building Project
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 22, 2008

VACAVILLE - Solano County is moving ahead with plans to build the William J. Carroll Government Center on East Monte Vista Street, but without the city of Vacaville's participation.

'The county is now taking the lead,' Solano County spokesman Steve Pierce said.

The Solano County Board of Supervisors will decide Tuesday whether to tell its staff to go ahead with hiring people to design the center and manage its construction.

The county is budgeting $7 million to build the center, but that amount may change as planners better define what the building will look like, Solano County General Services Director Spencer Bole said in a report.

County staff had been negotiating with Vacaville officials for some time about including city-owned land in the project and having the city take part in construction and use of the building.

In 2002, both parties signed a memo of understanding that the facility would be built by the city. A large portion of the building would then be leased to the county.

Plans on who will do what changed during talks since then. Those talks failed to bear fruit this year, and the supervisors told county staff on Feb. 5 to terminate negotiations.

County officials dedicated the site at the intersection of Brown Street and East Monte Vista Avenue in 2006 and announced it would be named after Carroll, the longtime Vacaville mayor and county supervisor. Carroll died in 2003.

If all goes well, the new center will be built and become a central site for county health and social services for north county residents in three to five years, according to the County Architect's office.

Vacaville intended to use a portion of Carroll building for a new home for its Housing and Redevelopment Agency, which is presently located on Eldridge Avenue.

The city is now tentatively considering building its own facility on land it owns next to the county center site to give the Housing and Redevelopment Agency new offices to replace its older, cramped quarters.

The Vacaville Police Department's FIRST Program, which deals with domestic violence, may also be housed there, City Manager David Van Kirk said.

A new Opportunity House homeless shelter had been considered for that location. In light of what has happened, the city is considering finding another site for it.

Vacaville's Redevelopment Agency wants to move the Opportunity House from Catherine Street to make way for the neighborhood's redevelopment into a mixed use project.

The City Council will discuss the matter and give Van Kirk direction during the closed session portion of the council meeting Tuesday night.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

City OKs EIR for Benicia Business Park

2008-02-25T08:45:00.000-08:00

City OKs EIR for Benicia Business Park
East Bay Business Times - by Jessica Saunders
Friday, February 22, 2008

Developer Albert D. Seeno Jr. can begin preparing a detailed plan for his proposed 528-acre Benicia Business Park after the City Council's Feb. 19 vote certified the project's environmental impact report.

The council certified the report with the understanding that the proposed project as described could not be approved without significant modifications due to numerous conflicts it has with the city's General Plan, said Dan Schiada, city public works director. The developer, Discovery Builders Inc. of Concord, opted to pursue the EIR separately from the project review.

The council also directed the developer to incorporate new mitigation measures for Interstate 780 traffic effects and to include analyses on urban decay and environmental sustainability, Schiada said.

"Those were some of the key elements they need to address to make the revised project consistent with the General Plan," he said.

A call to Discovery Builders for comment was not returned in time for publication.
Seeno has been trying for nearly 30 years to start construction on the proposed light industrial and commercial park on a hilly parcel northeast of the new Benicia bridge off of Interstate 680. The site, which overlooks the Carquinez Strait and Suisun Bay, is adjacent to the city's existing industrial park.

No tenants have been identified.

The General Plan conflicts include the proposed grading of 9 million cubic yards and removal of most of the site's southern hills. The city's environmental protection policies discourage grading of hillsides.

The boot-shaped property is the largest undeveloped tract remaining in Benicia.

Discovery Builders, owned by Seeno's son Albert Seeno III, is seeking approval for the business park under contract for property owner West Coast Home Builders, which Seeno Jr. and his brother Tom Seeno own.

jsaunders@bizjournals.com | 925-598-1427

Train seats getting scarce Long-haul intercity trains can hardly meet demand

2008-02-24T22:10:00.000-08:00

Train seats getting scarce
Long-haul intercity trains can hardly meet demand
By Erik N. Nelson, STAFF WRITER
Article Created: 02/22/2008 02:46:44 AM PST

SACRAMENTO — While most of their co-workers were still snug in their beds, about 60 of the Bay Area's hardiest commuters milled about the platform at Sacramento's Amtrak station, waiting to board the Capitol Corridor's first train of the day.

After a few minutes, the doors opened on Train 521, and the bleary-eyed travelers climbed aboard.

With a departure time of 4:30 a.m., it's known as the Oh-My-God Train.

"It's a quiet train. If you walk through the train, a lot of people are asleep," said Betty Digilio, a 45-year-old Sacramento resident who starts work at 6:30 a.m. at the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland.

It's not as quiet as Eugene Skoropowski expected, however. As the Capitol Corridor's managing director, he launched the early run in 2006 thinking it might be popular with San Jose-bound commuters boarding in Oakland, where it arrives at the more human time of 6:21 a.m.

But a year-and-a-half later, about a third of the train's average of 140 to 180 passengers board in Sacramento, and those numbers keep climbing at all times of the day.

The Corridor and California's two other intercity rail lines, the San Joaquins from Oakland to Bakersfield and the Pacific Surfliner trains from San Diego to San Luis Obispo, carry 20 percent of Amtrak's nationwide passengers.

While ridership on those California routes has grown 43 percent to 5 million annual trips in 2007, vehicle miles in the state have gone up only 8 percent, and
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the population has risen 11 percent. State funding for this fast-growing sector has not kept pace, however.

So five hours after Train 521 departed, Oakland-basedSkoropowski was also in Sacramento, sitting down with legislators and officials from the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority and their counterparts who run the other two railroads.

A daylong series of meetings and events calls attention to the fact that as travelers and commuters clamor for seats on their trains, officials struggle to expand service to meet that demand.

Since a voter-approved bond jump-started the Capitol Corridor in 1990, the line has received only sporadic capital funding from state coffers averaging only about $578,000 a year.

"We have worked very hard with the dollars that have been given to us," said Forrest Williams, a San Jose city councilman who chairs the joint powers authority that governs the Capitol Corridor, "but we have reached that point where we cannot expand any more" without compromising service.

Some relief is in the works from a new state-wide transportation bond, which will pump $400 million into intercity rail improvements. Last year the Legislature budgeted $187 million of that, of which $150 million will pay for six new trains — two for each of the three rail routes.

To keep pace with burgeoning demand, officials said they will need a stable source of income such as the state program that helps maintain local streets and roads. The fund should start at about $55 million a year and rise at the same rate as ridership, they argued.

The rail advocates are also backing the development of a fourth line, starting with one train a day, that provide the "missing link" between the Capitol Corridor's terminus in San Jose and the Pacific Surfliner's northernmost station in San Luis Obispo.

Robert Oakes, transportation policy aide to Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, said that while the senator always has been supportive of intercity rail, he was surprised to hear of standing-room-only trains.

"That's really good news, but you don't want to scare people away," he said. "It's one thing to stand on BART. It's another thing to stand for an hour and a half on the Capitol Corridor."

Contact Erik Nelson at enelson@bayareanewsgroup.com or 510-208-6410 and read the Capricious Commuter blog at InsideBayArea.com.

Vallejo Area homes becoming more affordable

2008-02-24T21:08:00.000-08:00

Area homes becoming more affordable
By RACHEL RASKIN-ZRIHEN/Times-Herald staff writer
Article Launched: 02/23/2008 07:51:38 AM PST

More people should be able to afford a Vallejo-area home now that prices have dropped, though stricter mortgage loan requirements make it difficult, local real estate experts said Wednesday.

The California Association of Realtors released its latest affordability index Tuesday, reporting that 33 percent of households could afford to buy an entry-level home statewide in the fourth quarter of 2007. That compares to 25 percent for the same period a year ago.

The San Francisco Bay Area has been among the least affordable housing markets nationally, reaching a 14 percent affordability rating at the height of the real estate boom.

In fact, in a California Building Industry Association report released in January 2005, the Vallejo area was the country's 20th most-expensive Metropolitan Statistical Area. The median price for existing homes in the area then was $399,000.

The median listing price for a home in Vallejo as of two weeks ago was $369,000, said Solano Association of Realtors president Lori Collins. The median home price in Benicia is $599,000 and it's $509,000 in American Canyon, she said.

Solano County's affordability rating in February, 2005, was 13 percent, and one would have needed $100,000 annual income to
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qualify, according to reports at the time.

Though the latest figures for Solano County and local cities were not immediately available Wednesday, the state report notes that statewide, a minimum household income of more than $82,000 was needed to buy a $411,170 entry-level home in the fourth quarter of 2007. This is based on an adjustable interest rate of 6.21 percent and assuming a 10 percent down payment. That would mean a monthly payment including taxes and insurance of $2,740, according to the report.

"Prices are significantly lower than they were last year, so they're more affordable to more people," Collins said. "But credit is still a huge issue. You must have much better credit and a larger down payment to qualify for a loan now."

Local Realtor Jeff Dennis echoed Collins' view.

"They calculate affordability based on home prices, interest rates and average income," he said. "Since interest rates are still relatively low and I think average income has remained steady, the lower home prices and increased availability should make buying a home here more affordable."

E-mail Rachel Raskin-Zrihen at RachelZ@thnewsnet.com or call 553-6824.

Even as Sonoma County economy slows, it is expected to create jobs

2008-02-23T06:40:00.000-08:00

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Back Article published - Feb 18, 2008
SONOMA COUNTY BUSINESS FORECAST: Even as Sonoma County economy slows, it is expected to create jobs
SSU economist says good, weak indicators create a ‘growth recession’
by William Jason
Staff Reporter

SONOMA COUNTY – Sonoma County already is in a mild economic downturn, but the slowing is likely to be short-lived and will happen amid continued job growth, constituting a so-called “growth recession,” according to Dr. Robert Eyler, an economist and head of the Center for Regional Economic Analysis at Sonoma State University.

“Right now, I’m bullish about 2009 where I’m less optimistic and a little bit bearish about 2008,” Dr. Eyler said.

Statistics tell a mixed story about the local economy. Indicators such as building permits, default notices, help wanted advertisements, and unemployment applications – used to forecast economic performance – are at their weakest levels of the decade.

Much of that weakness stems from turmoil in the housing market. Notices of default increased more than 150 percent in 2007 to 2,171, and new building permits dropped 31 percent to 1,062.

Meanwhile, indicators such as job growth, retail sales and personal income – used to describe the current economy – remain strong. For example, non-agricultural employment climbed 1.1 percent in 2007, and by December 2007 it was up 3.2 percent since the end of 2005, according to figures from the Sonoma County Economic Development Board.

According to Dr. Eyler, the mixed indicators show that economic activity in Sonoma County is likely to slow in 2008, but job growth will be maintained in certain sectors.

“It’s probably going to be in retail, personal services and other types of low-wage jobs,” Dr. Eyler said. “That’s where we’re likely to see growth in the coming year.”

While housing weakness is one of the key causes of the predicted downturn, Dr. Eyler said declining home prices could have short-term benefits for businesses facing a shortage of local workers.

“There’s certainly some subset of the economy that gains from housing falling because people can afford to live where they work,” he said. “The flip side is, as a construction worker or real estate services professional it does affect my job. It’s difficult to know how that will balance for the entire county.”

Sonoma County’s trends are mirrored elsewhere in the North Bay, although Napa County boasts higher growth in areas such as jobs, sales and income.

“Sonoma County has really matured as an economy,” Dr. Eyler said.

Throughout Sonoma County and the North Bay, external trends, such as the declining value of the dollar, will also impact businesses. The currency decline, steepened by federal interest rate cuts, is helpful to export sectors such as technology, wine and tourism, but will put a squeeze on businesses that rely on local and domestic markets.

“If you’re an exporter you’re jumping up and down because this is exactly what you want to see, but if you’re a retailer, it’s going to cost you more to put goods on your shelves,” Dr. Eyler said.

The banking sector is also the beneficiary of declining short-term interest rates. Local banks have already been reporting higher profit margins as a result of declining interest rates for savings and money market accounts and certificates of deposit.

Another external factor that could impact the local economy is the 2008 presidential election, which could dampen business activity because of uncertainty about future tax policies and federal spending.

“Until people feel some sense of clarity about who’s going to be in the White House, I think there will be some really slow decision making about business employment and things like that because they’re not sure about what kind of regime they’re going to get,” Dr. Eyler said.

Meanwhile, the state’s budget crisis will crimp local and state agencies and institutions.

Planners Delay Decision, Get Wind of New Travis Response

2008-02-22T09:07:00.000-08:00

Planners Delay Decision, Get Wind of New Travis Response
By Danny Bernardini/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/22/2008

Standing 350 feet above the Montezuma Hills, some 90 state-of-the-art wind turbines produce power for FPL Energy at the High Winds Energy Center west of Rio Vista. (Reporter file/Rick Roach)

In what is becoming a familiar action, the Solano County Planning Commission delayed a decision again Thursday night on whether 88 additional wind turbines can be installed in the Montezuma Hills.

The commission is waiting for the latest response to the situation by Travis Air Force Base.

The issue has been before the planning commission since early last year and the latest delay is until at least March 20, but could be even longer depending on how quickly environmental documents can be finalized.

The proposal for turbines, titled the Shiloh II Wind Project, by enXco is to build 88 of them on land located southeast of Travis. The problem is that Travis officials fear that the new turbines would interfere with a new radar system that will be operational by October.

The newest addition to the proposal is that enXco now is offering up to $1 million to Travis for any potential problems those turbines may cause.

Col. G.I. Tuck, acting wing commander at Travis, said the base stands by its original statement of having the project delayed until the new radar system is in place. He also added that the base likely would be issuing a formal response to the $1 million offer shortly.

There are currently more than 700 wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills, but the newest batch potentially would cause a problem as the blades of the turbines may lead to smaller planes appearing to drop off the radar screens while images of others may appear when they aren't actually there, according to Travis officials.

Thursday night's meeting featured comments from both Travis and lawyers for enXco. Anne Mudge, enXco's lawyer, said she is confident the offer will be accepted and a deal will soon be in place to build the turbines. She also apologized for the issue again being delayed.

Danny Bernardini can be reached at county@thereporter.com.

Rio Vista Bass Festival Returns To Its Roots

2008-02-22T08:54:00.000-08:00

Rio Vista Bass Festival Returns To Its Roots
By Carol Bogart | Daily Republic | February 21, 2008

Good friends J.E. Wiley and Gary Bryant try their luck for Striped Bass with other fishermen during the 2005 Rio Vista Bass Derby. The bass derby has been going strong for years, but the festival was canceled last year. Organizers are looking at bringing the festival back. File Photo 2005. Photo by File 2005

Rio Vista - Have a hankering for the simpler times of yesteryear? If so, you aren't alone.

That's why the Rio Vista Bass Festival is returning to its roots of 60 years ago after being canceled last year due to a lack of interest.

'The festival had become more like a carnival with big food wagons from L.A.' and less like a small town fair, said Linda Lannon, executive director of the Rio Vista Chamber of Commerce.

When residents were asked how the festival could be changed, Lannon said the frequent reply was, 'Make it more like it used to be.'

Gone will be the commercial food and other vendors. In their place will be food prepared by service groups such as the Lions and Rotary clubs. Area artisans will replace commercial purveyors of crafts, photos and other art.

When last years' festival was canceled, it caused so much confusion that even the historic Bass Derby suffered, Lannon said. Only 900 anglers entered the 2007 derby, a drop of 300 compared with 2006. Anglers may have thought the derby had also been canceled, she added.

Local artisans interested in being vendors at the festival can request to be added to the chamber's list, Lannon said. When the application process is finalized in about a month, those who have e-mailed the chamber will be notified.

Lannon said area artists should put 'art/crafts vendor' on the e-mail subject line.

The festival, which will be Oct. 10-12, will feature a parade, carnival, queen's contest, pancake breakfast, talent shows, chili and Portuguese bean cookoffs and a fireworks display.

All Rio Vista community groups are encouraged to participate, Lannon said, and the chamber is hosting monthly planning meetings.

Lannon is confident the festival 'will be much better this year,' as will attendance at the Bass Derby, she said.

Reach Carol Bogart at 427-6955 or at cbogart@dailyrepublic.net.

Rio Vista Bass Festival
Oct. 10-12
Info: Call 374-2700 or e-mail linda.lannon@riovista.org, hope.cohn@comcast.net or bjcohn@comcast.net

2008-02-22T08:43:00.000-08:00

February 2008

Table of Contents
- Real Estate Roundup (January 2008)
- Scott Reynolds – 2008 Chairman of Solano EDC
- 2007: A strong economic year for Solano County
- 2007 Highlights
- Did you know?

Real Estate Roundup (January 2008)
CBRE (http://www.cbre.com/)
-Building 126, Mare Island, Vallejo – 16,958 sf lease to Alamillo Rebar
-Building 674, Mare Island Vallejo – 8,804 sf lease to EP Architectural Builders
-865 Cotting Lane, Vacaville – 5,000 sf lease renewal to K.C. Engineering

Colliers International (http://www.colliersparrish.com/)
-64 Union Way, Vacaville – Land sale of ±1 acre industrial parcel to Rave Properties

Cornish & Carey (http://www.ccarey.com/)
-5080 Park Road, Benicia - 17,482 sf lease to CDX
-6730 Goodyear Road, Benicia, 8,045 sf lease to Industrial Gasket
-370 Chadbourne Road, Fairfield 4,000 sf lease to Cal Trans

Grubb & Ellis (http://www.grubb-ellis.com/)
-2489 Courage Drive, Fairfield – 7,347 sf condo sale to Fit Tech
-Watt Court , Fairfield - 2.97 acre land sale Cowan Thompson

Scott Reynolds named to chair
Solano Economic Development Corporation board
S. Scott Reynolds, managing shareholder in the law firm of Gaw Van Male, has been named 2008 Chairman of the Solano Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors. Reynolds will serve as chair as Solano EDC celebrates its 25th year anniversary.

Reynolds is general counsel for many corporations with headquarters in California, and is a certified specialist in probate, estate planning and trust law certified by the California State Bar Association.

He received his J.D. from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law. Actively involved in the community, Reynolds is on the NorthBay Healthcare Foundation, the Fairfield-Suisun Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Vacaville Rotary Club.

2007: A strong economic year for Solano County
2007 was a good year for Solano County, and economic development leaders predict the area is poised to take on the financial challenges of 2008.

At the EDC annual meeting Sam Zuckerman, senior economic writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, told the 300 attendees that Solano County has the assets needed to meet the uncertain times ahead.

“Skilled labor, land, access (to the Bay Area and Sacramento), a diverse economy and a strong government will allow Solano to grow within the next two years at a solid pace,” Zuckerman said.

Michael Ammann, president of the EDC, made the same prediction, also citing benchmarks that point to continued growth. Zuckerman and Ammann acknowledged the challenges faced regionally, statewide and nationally – housing, market volatility and technical downturns.

“We have the most diverse Bay Area economy,” Ammann said, “And that will allow us to overcome the challenges facing our state and nation.”

Major 2007 economic projects highlight the EDC’s Annual Meeting
Major developments, infrastructure projects and increasing sales tax during 2007—all created a good year for Solano County cities. Michael Ammann, EDC president, gave attendees at the annual meeting a brief overview of 2007’s major accomplishments. These included:
· BENICIA: Expansion of the Benicia Industrial Park, including Bio-Rad, Cole Supply and Bruni Glass; new downtown boutiques and cafes; sales tax revenue increased 16%.
· DIXON: Campbell’s Soup invests $20 million in plant improvements; retail growth; hybrid vehicle startup company.
· FAIRFIELD: 2 million sq. ft. project at Green Valley Corporate Park; Sutter Medical Offices, CalBee America snack food; new auto dealerships.
· RIO VISTA: Waterfront development plan approved; research center at the former Army Base; Rio Vista Industrial Park infrastructure improvements.
· SUISUN CITY: Harbor Square construction; neighborhood improvements, apartments and family mixed uses; future Highway 12 development approved.
· VACAVILLE: Kaiser Hospital construction; Genentech expansion; Alza multi-million solar farm; State Compensation Insurance Fund offices.
· VALLEJO: Transportation and retail/commercial opportunities including the Vallejo Intermodal Facility; heavy-ion cancer treatment center; expansions at Touro University and California Maritime Academy.
Ammann also citied Travis AFB, a low unemployment, and the potential for expanded biotech manufacturing as highlights for Solano County economic development.

Did you know?
Solano County is the only county that has had two cities serve as the state capital. Can you name the cities?

Vallejo from January 5, 1852 to February 4, 1853 and Benicia from February 4, 1853 to February 25, 1854 (right: Benicia State Capital Building)

The Solano Economic Development Corporation’s mission is to enhance the economic vitality
and quality of life in Solano County communities through the attraction,
growth and retention of business and industry.

Solano EDC Team

Mike Ammann, President (mike@solanoedc.org)
Sandy Person, Vice-President (sandy@solanoedc.org)
Pat Uhrich, Office Manager (pat@solanoedc.org)
Andy Turba, Special Projects (andy@solanoedc.org)

Solano Economic Development Corporation
360 Campus Lane, Suite 102, Fairfield, CA 94534
Phone: (707) 864-1855 Fax: (707) 864-6621
Website: http://www.solanoedc.org/

Council OKs Environmental Report For Business Park

2008-02-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

Council OKs Environmental Report For Business Park
By SARA STROUD/Times-Herald staff writer
Article Launched: 02/21/2008

On Tuesday night the Benicia city council approved the environmenatal report for the proposed Benicia Business Park project just off of Lake Herman Road. (Stacey J. Miller/Times-Herald)

BENICIA - After a lengthy discussion, the City Council voted 4 to 1 late Tuesday to green-light the environmental report for the controversial Benicia Business Park.

Although the council certified the environmental impact report, members attached "substantial conditioning" to their approval. They asked for more environmental review and changes so the project will comply with the city's general plan, City Manager Jim Erickson said.

Traffic, pollution and urban decay in other parts of town are among the city's concerns, Erickson said.

In addition to vocal project opponents, union construction workers who hope the project will create jobs squeezed into the packed council chambers for the proceedings.

"It was the public's night," Mayor Elizabeth Patterson said.

But, Patterson said, some residents may have been surprised by her vote to pass the report after she has long expressed her ardent opposition to the project in its current form.

"It was a done deal," Patterson said, since three council members were already on board to accept the report.

"I tried to make the best of a bad situation," by insisting on additional environmental review in potential problem areas, Patterson said.

Councilman Tom Campbell cast the lone dissenting vote.

"We're a hop, skip and a rationalization from the project being OK'd," Campbell said Wednesday. "The project doesn't work, it doesn't match the plan and it's not at all what we're looking for."

While Campbell questioned the authority of the council's authority to add requirements, City Attorney Heather McLaughlin said state law dictates that the project must conform with the city's general plan.

"It's a pretty strong statement," McLaughlin said of the council's caveats.

The next step likely will be for the project to face Planning Commission review. This must be done within 50 days, but city staff wondered Tuesday night whether the applicant might seek more time to adjust the project.

The proposed mixed use development is slated to occupy about 528 acres between Lake Herman Road and E. Second Street.

Sal Evola, vice president of project developer Discovery Builders, said in a recent interview that an approved report will allow the company to create a project that fits within the environmental framework.

A representative from Discovery Builders was not available for comment Wednesday.

E-mail Sara Stroud at sstroud@thnewsnet.com or call 553-6833.

Vacaville Mayor Cautiously Optimistic

2008-02-21T09:33:00.000-08:00

Vacaville Mayor Cautiously Optimistic
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 20, 2008

VACAVILLE - Mayor Len Augustine is fairly restrained when he describes the state of the city's fortunes for this year as 'OK.'

Although he is very optimistic about leading a city that doesn't face layoffs and cuts in services, Augustine is careful to note Vacaville still faces many challenges in keeping the city's ship on an even keel.

'I am cautious and not trying to think it is better than it is,' Augustine said. 'We have to keep on top of it and deal with any problems before they become big.'

That has included action taken by city officials last month to impose a hiring freeze and to carefully reach into the city's reserves to cover expenditures.

On the flip side, Augustine is looking forward to ribbon-cutting ceremonies for businesses such as the Kaiser Hospital and the State Compensation Insurance Fund that will bring more jobs to the city.

'The future looks bright. This is a tremendous opportunity for people to find employment,' Augustine said.

Augustine's comments are a preamble to the state-of-the-city address he and City Manager David Van Kirk will give Feb. 28 at the Hampton Inn Suites.

Augustine said he doesn't foresee any changes in city services, adding he is pleased city police and fire departments are fully staffed and doing well.

One indication of that is a 15 percent drop in major crime across the city in the past year, he said.

Vacaville has also seen a small, but appreciable rise in the number of new home construction permits, Augustine added.

Foreclosures are a problem in Vacaville, Augustine said, but the city's home foreclosure counseling program has helped some residents through that.

Retail areas such as Vacaville's Nut Tree Village and the area around it are adding tenants, Augustine said. The Olive Garden recently opened just south of Interstate 80, and the site for a Elephant Bar restaurant in the Nut Tree is in the process of being graded.

Augustine also pointed out that some of the city's older shopping centers, which suffered from vacant store fronts, have been doing better.

County Square Market, a major Asian specialty market, is close to opening its doors on Peabody Road, and the owners of the Alamo Plaza center recently got city approval to make significant improvements, Augustine said.

Augustine attributed much of the city's good fortune to its residents, community groups such as the veterans and faith-based organizations that are involved with the community.

The one thing that could really derail Vacaville, according to Augustine, is the state's massive budget crisis. He said the state could take a run at local revenues to make ends meet, a tactic that has been tried in the past.

'I am very cautious about what is happening with the state,' Augustine said.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

Honeywell Powers Solano County Detention Facility With Solar Panels

2008-02-20T13:41:00.000-08:00

February 12, 2008

Minneapolis, MN, USA: Honeywell Powers Solano County Detention Facility With Solar Panels

Honeywell today announced that Solano County in the San Francisco Bay Area has awarded the company a solar project that is expected to save the county more than $1 million in energy costs over the next 20 years. Under the agreement, Honeywell will install a 746-kilowatt solar array near the Claybank Adult Detention Facility and sell the electricity produced by the panels to the county for use in the detention facility.

"Solano County is committed to using renewable energy wherever we can to offset greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels," said John Vasquez, Solano County supervisor. "It's also a wise financial decision. The new solar array will help us lower and stabilize operating costs, allowing us to focus more resources on serving our residents."

The solar array is expected to generate almost 1.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually -- enough energy to power more than 100 homes per year. It will supply more than 60 percent of the electricity necessary to run the detention facility, and it will significantly reduce energy costs during peak consumption when utilities typically charge a premium.

"Identifying the right renewable energy technology to meet a customer's unique requirements, and doing it in a fiscally responsible way, is our goal in helping customers go green," said Kent Anson, vice president of Global Energy for Honeywell Building Solutions. "Solano County will benefit for years to come from the financial and environmental benefits this project will deliver."

Honeywell will install the solar array on a former military site, which has been converted into a parking lot for local school buses, close to the detention facility. The company will build bus ports on the lot and place the solar panels on top of the structures, generating renewable energy and providing shade for the vehicles.

"We're taking land that can't be developed and putting it to good use," said Jason Campbell, facilities manager for Solano County. "Not only are we using green energy, but we're doing it in a smart, sensible way."

With this solar installation, the county will bring its power generation capacity to more than 1 megawatt through renewable energy technology. The county has two other solar electric facilities: a 230-kilowatt system on the roof of the Health and Social Services building and a 120-kilowatt array on the parking structure of the County Government Center.

Honeywell expects to install the solar panels and begin providing Solano County with electricity by September 2008. After the 20-year agreement expires, the county can continue purchasing electricity from Honeywell or acquire ownership of the panels.

Further details about: Honeywell Building Solutions

UC Davis Olive Center Fact Sheet

2008-02-20T12:55:00.000-08:00

UC Davis Olive Center Fact Sheet
January 14, 2008

What will the Olive Oil Center do?

The center's mission is to enhance the economic viability of the California olive industry.

In the land-grant university tradition, UC Davis intends to bring together the academic expertise necessary to help the California olive industry overcome the current stagnation in its table-olive sector and to provide guidance in developing production methods for the growing olive-oil sector.

The center plans to develop olive-related courses for UC Davis students, conduct research in a variety of fields and provide continuing-education short courses for members of the olive industry.

Why is UC Davis starting this center?

The University of California has a distinguished history of collaborating with the olive industry stretching back to 1898, when UC Berkeley Professor Eugene Hilgard and pioneering California olive producer Frieda Ehman worked together to develop a canning process for black ripe olives.

During the past decade, University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisors and specialists have coordinated olive-oil production short courses, olive-oil sensory evaluation short courses and educational grower tours to Europe. They also helped start the California Olive Oil Council, developed the first International Olive Oil Council taste panel recognized outside the Mediterranean region, collected industry productions statistics and developed a cost study to help assess the crop's investment potential. The university also has conducted research on high-density planting systems, pruning levels, mechanical harvest, variety evaluation, orchard irrigation, plant nutrition, disease management and olive fruit fly control.

Today, UC Davis has internationally recognized authorities in key areas related to olive production and processing. The campus also has a young, but successful, olive-oil production program and more than 2,000 olive trees, which comprise the most extensive collection of olive varieties in North America.

How is it being financed?

The center has received $75,000 in seed funding from the campus's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Office of Research. Startup funds totaling $25,000 also have been provided by industry affiliates. Proceeds from the campus olive-oil production program will help provide operational funding for the center, which hopes to attract further funding from state and federal agencies, and industry.

What kind of equipment will be required?

The new center will include state-of-the-art milling equipment. In fall 2008, the Olive Center plans be processing olive oil with the equipment.

Where will it be housed?

The center's administrative headquarters will be in the academic wing of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science complex, which is under construction and scheduled for completion in June 2008. The milling equipment will initially be housed in the Department of Food Science and Technology's food-processing plant and later moved to a new campus facility that will be built in the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science complex. Classes and research activities will be housed in a variety of campus locations.

Who from the university will be involved with the center?

The center will be coordinated by Executive Director Dan Flynn, who also manages the UC Davis olive-oil production program. Faculty co-directors will be plant scientist Vito Polito and food scientist Charles Shoemaker. More than 30 individuals from the fields of plant science, food science, agricultural economics and agricultural engineering have expressed interest in participating in the new center. These include campus researchers and University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisors.

How will the olive industry be involved?

Members of the California olive industry have been instrumental in helping UC Davis define the practical problems that might be addressed by the center. The industry also has provided startup funds for the new center. The campus hopes that members of the industry will participate in public outreach courses and maintain ongoing communications with university researchers.

BACKGROUND ON CALIFORNIA OLIVES:

Are olive trees native to California?

No. Olive trees originated in Asia Minor, spreading about 6,000 years ago from Iran, Syria and Palestine to the rest of the Mediterranean region. Records show that in the mid-1500s, olive tree cuttings were taken by the Spaniards to Peru. In the 1700s, Franciscan monks brought olives to Mexico and northward as they established the California mission system. The first recorded planting of an olive tree in California was in 1769 at Mission San Diego de Alcala.

How old is the California olive industry?

Commercial olive farming in California began in the late 1800s, primarily in the valleys of Central and Northern California. Those early olive crops went into olive-oil production but, in the early 1900s, the industry shifted, as canning technology resulted in higher returns for table olives than for oil. Today, 90 percent of California's olive production is for canned olives, with only 10 percent crushed for oil. This is just the opposite of Spain, the world's leading olive producer, which grows 90 percent of its olive crop for oil and only 10 percent for cured olive products.

How big is the California olive industry?

California is the only state in the nation producing a commercially significant crop of olives. Approximately 70 to 80 percent of the ripe olives consumed in the United States come from California. While the olive is an important specialty crop for California, the state's olive industry is dwarfed by that of Spain. For example, a 2002 Census of Agriculture indicated that California had 39,591 acres of olives grown on 1,549 farms, while Spain had more than 5.6 million acres of olives grown by 571,150 producers.

During the past 25 years, health-conscious consumers have led a revival in olive oil as a flavorful alternative to vegetable oils. Demand for olive oil has doubled during the past 10 years. California now produces about 400,000 gallons of olive oil annually.

The development in recent years of new tree varieties that can be efficiently machine-harvested has also led to large new plantings of olive trees. Industry experts forecast that California's volume of olive oil will increase by 500 percent in the next five years.

Which are the leading olive-producing counties in California?

The top olive-producing counties in California are Tulare, Tehama and Glenn counties.

What olive varieties are grown in California?

California farmers grow dozens of different olive types. The five most important California table-olive varieties are the Manzanillo, Sevillano, Mission, Ascolano and Barouni. The Manzanillo represents the most acreage, while the Sevillano and Ascolano are valued for their larger olive size. Olive-oil producers have planted large numbers of the Arbequina, Arbosana, Koroneiki, Frantoio, Mission, Manzanillo and Leccino varieties.

More information about California olives is available online from:

The UC Fruit and Nut Research and Information Center: http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/crops/olive.shtml
The California Olive Oil Council: http://www.cooc.com/

Media contact(s):
• Dan Flynn, Olive Center, (916) 825-7536 (, jdflynn@ucdavis.edu
• Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu

UC Davis Launches New Olive Center
January 14, 2008

Hoping to do for olives and olive oil what it has done for grapes and wine, the University of California, Davis, today launched the first university-based olive research and education center in North America.

Plans for the new UC Davis Olive Center, which is part of the university's Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, were unveiled in San Diego during the international Winter Fancy Food Show, a gathering of 16,000 retailers, restaurateurs and other vendors of specialty foods.

The center has been established with a combined $75,000 in seed funding from the campus's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Office of Research. Startup funds totaling $25,000 also have been provided by Corto Olive, the Musco Family Olive Co., Bell-Carter Foods, the California Olive Oil Council and the California Olive Ranch.

"The university had the privilege of helping move California wines into the world's highest rankings," said Dan Flynn, executive director of the new center. "Now we look forward to harnessing UC Davis' research expertise to help vault California olives and olive oil into that same league."

Neal Van Alfen, dean of UC Davis' College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences said: "This is the beginning of a historic new partnership with one of the state's most promising industries. We are confident that it will lead to advances in olive growing and processing, and a better understanding of the link between olive products and consumer health."

Alan Greene, president of the California Olive Oil Council and a vice president of the California Olive Ranch, said: "The olive center will help all olive producers, large and small, tackle the pressing challenges facing our industry. We anticipate that the center will enhance the economic viability of the California olive industry in an extremely competitive international marketplace."

UC Davis, with its faculty of plant and food scientists plus more than 2,000 olive trees in the campus landscape and research orchards, is uniquely positioned to host the new center. Its olive trees comprise what is thought to be the most extensive collection of olive trees in North America.

In 2005, UC Davis began pressing and processing olive oil from its trees, using the proceeds to help cover the cost of maintaining the trees. In 2007, the campus processed 425 gallons, which translated into 6,500 bottles of olive oil. The campus's three olive-oil blends earned silver and bronze awards at the 2007 Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Competition.

Flynn, who manages UC Davis' olive oil production program, said the new center's initial priorities will include strengthening California's olive oil labeling statutes, conducting research on issues identified by olive-oil and table-olive producers, and identifying better laboratory methods for detecting adulterated olive oil. The center also plans to establish a certified-organic olive orchard and will develop a research taste panel to help improve the quality of olive oils.

Serving as faculty co-directors for the center will be Charles Shoemaker, a professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology, and Vito Polito, a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences.

More than 30 individuals from UC Davis and the UC Cooperative Extension have expressed interest in participating in the center. They represent a variety of disciplines including plant sciences, food science, agricultural economics and agricultural engineering.

The center's program will be devoted to teaching, research and educational activities. As planned, the teaching component will eventually include a general-education class on olive oil; student internships; and short courses on olive growing, and olive-oil processing and sensory evaluation.

An olive-oil processing plant will be placed in the new Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science complex, which is under construction and scheduled for completion in June 2008. The new Olive Center will include state-of-the-art milling equipment. The Olive Center plans to begin processing olive oil with the equipment in fall 2008.

The olive-oil processing plant will enable the center to examine the impact of different olive varieties, environmental factors and growing practices on olive-oil quality. Researchers affiliated with the center will also explore potential health benefits of olives and olive oil, pest management strategies and mechanical harvesting improvements.

In the area of public outreach, the center will offer short courses on the production and sensory evaluation of olive oil. It also will develop an informational Web site and library. And, the Robert Mondavi Institute will showcase olive trees in its edible organic garden.

The University of California has a long history in olive-related research, teaching and outreach, stretching back to 1898 when UC Berkeley Professor Eugene Hilgard and pioneering California olive producer Frieda Ehmann worked together to develop a canning process for black ripe olives. That tradition continues today through the efforts of UC Davis researchers and UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors.

Additional information:
Olive Center fact sheet

Media contact(s):
• Dan Flynn, Olive Center, (916) 825-7536, jdflynn@ucdavis.edu
• Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu

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Copart Opens Third Facility In Alabama

2008-02-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

Copart Opens Third Facility In Alabama
Daily Republic Staff | | February 20, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Copart Inc. has opened a 61-acre greenfield facility in Hueytown, Ala. The facility is the auto salvage company's third in Alabama, 128th in North America and 138th worldwide.

The facility is 14 miles southwest of Birmingham and will provide service to the greater Birmingham area.

'This new facility allows us to be closer to our customers in central Alabama and expands our national and international footprint,' Copart founder and CEO Willis Johnson stated in a press release.

Company Offers Travis $1 Million To Resolve Turbine Issue

2008-02-20T09:02:00.000-08:00

Company Offers Travis $1 Million To Resolve Turbine Issue
By Barry Eberling | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 19, 2008

FAIRFIELD - A company that wants to build as many as 88 additional wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills has offered Travis Air Force Base $1 million to correct radar problems that are threatening the project.

Air Force officials are expected to respond in the near future, a Solano County Planning Commission report stated. Air Force officials said last year the giant, electricity-generating turbines and their spinning blades can cause problems such as planes dropping off the base radar.

Planning Commissioners on Thursday will decide whether to delay the matter until March 6, when more information is expected to be available, or they could simply deny the project.

The commission meets at 7 p.m. at the Board of Supervisors chamber, 675 Texas St.

Solano County for years has targeted the Montezuma Hills near Rio Vista for non-polluting energy. There are about 700 turbines covering the rolling, windswept landscape, some more than 400 feet tall from base to the top of an upturned blade.

But Travis officials in March 2007 and September 2007 submitted letters regarding the Shiloh II proposal for 88 more turbines by Escondido-based EnXco. They said the existing wind turbines have already caused problems with base radar.

The base should have a new radar system installed by late this year. Base officials have asked to delay any more turbine construction until they see how this new radar handles the existing turbines.

Erecting more turbines before that would cause 'safety concerns for both civil and military aviation,' base commander Col. Steven Arquiette wrote to the county in September 2007, the last letter the county has received from Travis on the topic.

EnXco representative Annie Mudge told the Planning Commission Dec. 6, 2007, the delay could hurt the company. It has made commitments to third parties, invested millions of dollars in the project and could lose tax credits that expire at the end of the year.

Company and Air Force representatives have continued talking since then, with the Planning Commission's blessings. EnXco radar experts concluded the new turbines wouldn't appreciably hurt the existing and planned radar systems at Travis, a county report state. Still, it offered as much as $1 million to upgrade the radar system.

The $1 million could be used for such things as getting a secondary radar feed from the Stockton Metropolitan Airport and assisting with an alternative radar location at or near Travis, the county report stated.

Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646, Ext. 232, or at beberling@dailyrepublic.net.

Teen Center One Step Closer To Reality

2008-02-20T08:59:00.000-08:00

Teen Center One Step Closer To Reality
By Ben Antonius | Daily Republic | February 19, 2008

FAIRFIELD - It isn't a functioning teen center yet, but a signed contract for one is still an unprecedented step.

The city inched closer to establishing a long-term home for the Police Activities League on Tuesday, when the Fairfield City Council unanimously approved a contract to lease the 9,300-square-foot space for the program.

'It is really nice to see this done,' said Councilman Frank Kardos, who with Councilman John Mraz has spent much of his first term on various teen center proposals. 'It is a great first step.'

Under the deal, the city will make the needed improvements to the site then turn it over to the Police Activities League, a nonprofit group staffed by police officers and other community members on a volunteer basis.

Several police and community service officers kicked off the first PAL program in the fall of 2007 by partnering with after-school programs at E. Ruth Sheldon, Anna Kyle, David Weir, H. Glenn Richardson, Cleo Gordon, Fairview and Bransford elementary schools.

Police officers are already involved in the program and the fire department has been mentioned as a source of volunteers as well.

However, Mayor Harry Price said he believes the community at large will be lining up to volunteer as well.

'My sense is people want to be involved,' he said. 'The burden won't just be on the police department . . . it won't be on the fire department.'

Without a permanent home, PAL has been coaching basketball and football teams at scattered sites around the city.

Those programs would largely move to the new site once it is up and running and other activities would be added, including boxing and academic tutoring.

The terms of the deal call for the city Redevelopment Agency to pay the lease on the site until the center is capable of taking over the payments.

Because redevelopment money is meant for long-term projects, the city essentially has a 15-year lease, broken up into three five-year terms for $625,000 each.

There was no shortage of superlatives for the project Tuesday. Mission Solano Executive Director Ron Marlette said the vote was 'a great decision,' Councilman Matt Garcia called it 'wonderful' and Mraz described the move as 'a turning point for Fairfield.'

'It's hard to put a dollar figure on this,' said Councilman Chuck Timm. 'It's an investment in our future.'

Reach Ben Antonius at 427-6977 or bantonius@dailyrepublic.net.

Revitalization Sharpens For Plaza

2008-02-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

Revitalization Sharpens For Plaza
New Asian store projected as anchor for shopping center on Peabody
By Jennifer Gentile/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/17/2008

Cellophane still covers several display cases at the County Square Market, which is in the process of moving in to Vacaville's Peabody shopping center, but it won't be long before they contain all manner of Asian fare.

The store is a work in progress, and according to General Manager Richard Yen, it should be opening at the beginning of April. The family-owned operation has claimed a more than 25,000 square-foot space in the plaza, which is located on Peabody Road.

The city is hoping the new business will revitalize a shopping center that has struggled for roughly two decades. According to Economic Development Director Mike Palombo, the center has had "a tough life," particularly since losing a Lucky's grocery and an adjacent Thrifty drug store.

A Chandler's furniture store occupied the site afterward, and according to Palombo, the use did not generate enough return trips to turn the plaza around.

The city seized the opportunity to bring the Asian market to town in July. That process required the City Council to transfer development impact fee credits, which reduced ownership's cost of moving in by about $33,000.

"Even though (the market) is a specialty store," Palombo said, "It'll generate a lot of return trips and it'll be very good for that center."

Yen said the Vacaville store is about 8,000 square feet bigger than County Square Market's other location in Pleasant Hill. In the past, the family has had operations in Oakland and San Francisco, and it is in the process of adding another location in Alameda in the coming months. The Vacaville store will feature a full-service deli, offering selections like restaurant-quality dim sum, and a meat counter that can cut to a patron's specifications.

"We also have background in the restaurant industry," the general manager said, referring a Bay Area eatery the family operated called Jade Villa. "Our chef is very professional."

Large tanks stand ready to house dungeness crab, lobster and other live, seasonal seafood. Another section will be devoted to fresh fish.

"If a customer likes oysters," he said, "that's what we're also famous for." Both Asian and American produce will be available in another part of the market.

The shelves will be stocked with "about 60 to 70 percent Japanese and Korean products," Yen said, adding, "If you want it, we have it, pretty much."

Remodeling and set-up will continue in the coming weeks, and like the city, Yen is optimistic about the business's reception in Vacaville.

"I think Vacaville is a very family-oriented, traditional city," Yen said, "and we are a very family-oriented business, so it's a good place for us to be."

Jennifer Gentile can be reached at vacaville@thereporter.com.

Economic Agency Gets New Chairman

2008-02-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

Economic Agency Gets New Chairman
Article Launched: 02/17/2008

S. Scott Reynolds has been named chairman of the Solano Economic Development Corporation board of directors.

Reynolds, currently the managing shareholder in the law firm of Gaw Van Male, will serve as the 2008 chairman for the economic development organization which is currently celebrating its 25th year anniversary.

Reynolds serves as general counsel for several corporations with headquarters in California and is a specialist in probate, estate planning and trust law certified by the California State Bar Association.

Actively involved in the community, Reynolds serves on the NorthBay Healthcare Foundation, the Fairfield-Suisun Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Vacaville Rotary Club.

British Firm To Bring Small Format Grocery Stores To Region

2008-02-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

British Firm To Bring Small Format Grocery Stores To Region
Blanca Torres/Oakland Tribune
Article Launched: 02/17/2008

The British invasion of Bay Area grocery stores has begun: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Stores announced recently the locations of 18 Bay Area new stores - including a pair in Solano County and a number elsewhere in the East Bay - that will open in 2009. The chain, owned by British retail giant Tesco, operates grocery stores in a small format, around 10,000 square feet, that focus on fresh and prepared foods at low prices.

The confirmed locations include Fairfield, Vallejo, Napa, Antioch, Concord, Danville, Mountain View, Oakland, Oakley, Sunnyvale, San Jose, Walnut Creek, Hayward and San Francisco.

"We're delighted to be here," said Tim Mason, chief executive of Fresh & Easy, at press conference held in Oakland. "(The Bay Area) is an area of growth that is receptive to change and it has great weather."

Tesco, one of the world's largest retailers, has been preparing its entry into United States for years and has planned to invest $2 billion in the expansion.

The company has opened 37 stores in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona since last fall. It expects to have 50 stores by the end of February and up to about 150 by early next year.

Worldwide, the company operates more than 3,200 stores in 12 countries and created the Fresh & Easy concept specifically for the American market.

"This new concept comes from a very experienced retailer," said Louis Bucklin, professor emeritus of marketing from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. "(Tesco) needs to have an operation in the United States because they're not here, but developing a similar format to existing stores here does not seem to work."

Fresh and Easy stores measure up to about one-fifth the size of a typical grocery store, but despite the small dimensions, Mason said shoppers can buy all of their groceries there.

Mason said the chain carries products that don't contain added transfats, artificial flavors and contain as few preservatives as possible. It also carries a variety of organic produce and natural foods such as cage-free eggs and hormone-free meats.

About half of the store's products are proprietary brands.

For decades, grocery stores have steered more toward larger stores, big selections and numerous brand options.

"(The Fresh & Easy concept) is contrary to a lot of the conventional wisdom on which the grocery business has made all of its decisions for a long time," said Bob Reynolds, a grocery consultant with Reynolds Economics in Moraga.

While it may seem risky, the small model has some advantages.

"Fresh & Easy looks for neighborhood locations," said Jon Stansbury, a San Jose-based partner with Terranomics, a retail commercial real estate firm that took part in Tesco's deals in the Bay Area. "These are sites that are on the way home from work in the neighborhoods where people live.

County Seeks Funds To Renovate I-80 Truck Scales

2008-02-19T08:55:00.000-08:00

County Seeks Funds To Renovate I-80 Truck Scales
By Barry Eberling | Daily Republic | February 18, 2008

FAIRFIELD - Solano County's quest to get state bond money to renovate the eastbound California Highway Patrol trucks scales on Interstate 80 will continue Thursday.

The California Transportation Commission has $2 billion in state bond money to hand out. It will hold a hearing in Oakland to hear pitches from regional contenders. The meeting is 10 a.m. at the Caltrans office, 111 Grand Ave.

'We will be there as part of the Bay Area,' Solano Transportation Authority Executive Director Daryl Halls said.

Then it will be back to waiting. Halls doesn't expect the commission to make a decision until March or April.

County leaders want $49 million for a $100 million project, with the rest of the money coming from other sources. They want to relocate the eastbound scales a short distance, make them larger and create better merge lanes for the trucks entering and leaving I-80.

Among other things, the project is designed to improve traffic flow on the congested freeway.

The $2 billion the CTC will award is part of the $20 billion state transportation bond measure passed by voters in November 2006. This particular part of measure targets projects that improve trade corridors.

Regions across the state have submitted $4.1 billion in potential projects, twice the available money.

'There's competition,' Halls said. 'There's going to be jockeying behind the scenes.'

Also nominated are projects on the Capitol Corridor train route, including the addition of tracks to the Oakland-Martinez route. That would help freight traffic and help the trains stay on time. The cost is $215 million, with $108 million to come from the bonds.

Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646, Ext. 232, or at beberling@dailyrepublic.net.

I-80 HOV Funds Approved OKd

2008-02-15T11:28:00.000-08:00

I-80 HOV Funds Approved OKd
Summer work set, Red Top Road to Air Base Parkway
By Reporter Staff
Article Launched: 02/15/2008

Funding for construction of carpool lanes on Interstate 80 from Red Top Road to Air Base Parkway was formally approved Thursday by the California Transportation Commission.

The commission voted to allocate some $331 million in new funding for transportation projects across the state, using funds from Proposition 1B, the $19.9 billion transportation bond approved by voters in 2006.

Included in the allocation is $38 million to add 17 miles of new carpool lanes through Solano County.

Solano Transportation Authority Director Daryl Halls said the vote formally allocates the funding, meaning construction can commence this summer as previously planned.

"This is a very important project," Halls said. "It is another part of the I-80/I-680 improvements."

This project will save an estimated 10,000 daily vehicle hours of delay, state officials said.

Other Proposition 1B projects that received allocations Thursday included $22 million to install hundreds of traffic monitoring stations in the Bay Area and Inland Empire.

That funding includes enough for 84 such monitoring stations in the Solano area from Benicia to Yolo County and some in Napa

These stations utilize traffic technology (traffic cameras, vehicle speed and
volume detectors, and other devices) to help ease traffic congestion, improve response time to accidents and provide traffic information to the state, the media and the public.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger commended the allocations.

"California voters will see their investments in our transportation infrastructure at work across the state. Not only will these projects help our economy by moving people and goods faster, but they will also help keep people at work with well-paying jobs," Schwarzenegger said.

Harbor Square Begins To Take Shape In Suisun City

2008-02-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

Harbor Square Begins To Take Shape In Suisun City
By Carol Bogart | Daily Republic | February 14, 2008

Construction crews work on the Harbor Square development on Main and Solano streets in downtown Suisun City Thursday morning. Photo by Brad Zweerink

SUISUN CITY - Metal scaffolding rises from the construction site, framing has begun, and Harbor Square is quickly taking shape at the corner of Main and Solano streets in the city's Waterfront District.

The office/retail/restaurant complex is being developed by Suisun City-based Main Street West Partners. Managing partners Frank Marinello and Mike Rice said the 40,000-square-foot, two-story building is on track to open in September as projected.

Harbor Square will lease space in the range of $2 per square foot per month, Marinello said, and have as many as 10 offices on the second floor, ranging from 1,500 to 5,000 square feet. There will also be an open courtyard.

Marinello said no two restaurant tenants will offer the same cuisine. He believes the addition of dining options may bring more patrons to existing establishments such as the Athenian Grill and Babs Delta Diner.

Ground will be broken next month on the 102-room waterfront Hampton Suites Hotel, said Marinello, who added the hotel won't have a restaurant. The hotel's patrons will be able to walk to what will soon be an array of restaurant choices.

Also within walking distance of new waterfront amenities will be people who buy one of 16 homes in a Lotz Way development, which Rice and Marinello said will break ground later this year.

Rice said Main Street West is sufficiently optimistic about the future of the housing market that the developer hopes to build as many as 80 homes on a waterfront parcel located between City Hall, the lighthouse and the new hotel, which is slated to open in spring 2009.

Suisun City is uniquely situated to take advantage of its waterfront appeal, Marinello said, in that it has Solano County's only commuter rail, the Capital Corridor. He points to a growing demand from consumers for mass transit that is within walking distance of coffee shops, stores and restaurants.

'It's all walkable,' he said.

Main Street West Partners controls 14 parcels in Suisun City, Marinello said, and planned developments 'represent a $100 million investment in Suisun.'

Harbor Square is currently in discussions with multiple high quality potential tenants, Marinello said. Once the building opens in the fall, 'I'm confident it will be filled soon thereafter,' he said.

Reach Carol Bogart at 427-6955 or at cbogart@dailyrepublic.net.

Mitigation Bank Opens In Solano

2008-02-14T11:13:00.000-08:00

Mitigation Bank Opens In Solano
Sacramento Business Journal
Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Wildlands Inc., a mitigation and conservation banking firm, has opened a new mitigation bank in Solano County.

The 627-acre North Suisun Mitigation Bank is to mitigate the impact of development of endangered vernal pool species and the endangered California Tiger Salamander. The bank was created to serve the 12-county area, including Colusa Contra Costa, El Dorado, Napa, Placer, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties.

"The North Suisun Mitigation Bank provides much-needed habitat to mitigate the impacts of numerous development projects along the Interstate-80 corridor," said Sandy Person, vice president of the Solano County Economic Development Corporation, in a prepared release.

Developers purchase mitigation credits to comply with permit obligations required by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fist and Game.

Suisun City Fatifies Wal-Mart's Proposal

2008-02-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

Suisun City Fatifies Wal-Mart's Proposal
By Reporter Staff
Article Launched: 02/14/2008

In a unanimous decision, the Suisun City Council voted late Tuesday night to approve a Wal-Mart Supercenter in the city.

The decision has opponents to the plan saying they are considering filing a lawsuit to stop the project as well as a separate recall efforts against the council members.

The proposal for the store to be located on a 20.8-acre parcel near Highway 12 and Walters Road includes 230,000 square feet of commercial space including a 215,000-square-foot store building plus a fuel station and mini-mart and an 8,000-square-foot sit-down restaurant or commercial use site and parking.

The decision came after a lengthy meeting that stretched into the wee hours before an overflow crowd that was at times boisterous.

Opponents issued a press release Wednesday vowing to fight on and blasting the council for what they said was its decision to build in an unsafe area.

The council's decision was made in three parts. First, was to overrule an Airport Land Use Commission finding that the store is not compatible with nearby Travis Air Force Base. Second was to certify an environmental impact report on the project. Third was to approve the project itself.

City Public Information Officer Scott Corey said the council demanded and Wal-Mart agreed to a number of conditions to win the approval.

Among those conditions was an agreement to build an enhanced sound wall to separate the project from homes on the north side of nearby Petersen Road. Wal-Mart officials agreed to extend the wall an additional 300 feet and will pay for a study on extending it even further.

Wal-Mart also agreed to conditions designed to ease fears about the future of the site. If the store closes and goes dark for 36 months, Wal-Mart agreed it would demolish the building or give the city payment for demolishing it.

"That agreement is designed to ease fears about future blight," Corey said, adding that the firm believes the store site will flourish economically.

Nut Tree To Boost Visibility

2008-02-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

Nut Tree To Boost Visibility
Renovation plan would create a food court and a candy court in a bid to increase foot traffic and business.
By Jennifer Gentile/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/14/2008

Developers on Tuesday unveiled a $1.5 million renovation plan for part of Vacaville's Nut Tree Complex.

It would attempt to give businesses greater visibility, separate the market pavilion into two distinct areas and cut the number of bocce courts in half.

The renovation would affect the Nut Tree Market Pavilion and the Bocce Grove - components of the overall 80-acre entertainment and shopping complex that is situated along Monte Vista Avenue. Master developer Snell and Co. has teamed with Westrust on the Nut Tree project.

"I think everybody understands the intention of this renovation," said Sean Whiskeman, managing director of leasing and marketing for Westrust, "which is to increase foot traffic, increase visibility." The goal would be for business to increase for the tenants.

The Market Pavilion comprises about 10,000 feet of the overall Nut Tree Village and is home to tenants like Fenton's Creamery, Made in California, Jelly Belly candies, Villa Corona Mexican restaurant, Winters Fruit Tree and others. Three businesses have moved out of the pavilion in recent months, citing a lack of activity and landlord-tenant issues in some cases.

"The Market Pavilion renovation plan calls for minor facade modifications that will allow tenants to have direct exterior storefronts along with highly visible entrances and outdoor seating areas," according to a prepared statement from Westrust.

In the same statement, Whiskeman said, "The spirit of the renovation is to open up this portion of the project and make it more accessible to visitors while stimulating foot traffic for our tenants."

The renovation also would create two distinct eatery sections - a food court and a candy court. The food court would include Villa Corona and other restaurants, while Jelly Belly, Fenton's and Vintage Sweet Shop would be a part of the candy court.

"It's actually the same tenants that are there right now," said Danielle Tocco of Amies Communications, "with a few new additions that will be named in the future."

Although he did not say specifically what the renovation would mean for businesses in the pavilion, Whiskeman said, "We will be working very closely with the tenants during this time and during this transition. We're working through those details at this point."

The renovation of the bocce grove would bring in an outdoor fire pit for public gatherings, as well as 12 benches, and establish a central plaza with a stage for community activities. Four of the eight bocce courts would be retained, and two playground areas with "interactive, animal-shaped climbing toys" would be created.

Vice Mayor Chuck Dimmick said he liked the idea of a larger area for gathering. As for the bocce ball courts, he said, "(They) haven't been getting much use. Eight courts was a lot."

Councilman Curtis Hunt said the concept "seems a little more organized, a little less disjointed." Like Dimmick, he pointed out that it provides "a larger area for community events."

Both councilmen also mentioned an idea to involve the city's Community Service Department in running bocce activities, which would hopefully increase the use of the remaining courts.

At least one tenant, John Jamison with Jelly Belly, was enthusiastic about the proposal.

"I'm very excited and upbeat over it," he said. "I think the visibility is tremendous for all of the tenants that will be there. It will be more open and easily accessible."

The proposal must go through the permitting process at the city level before it is implemented, Whiskeman said, adding, "Westrust will work closely with City Council and city staff on planning details and all necessary permits during the planning process."

Jennifer Gentile can be reached at vacaville@thereporter.com.

UC Davis Assist Livermore Lab in Tech-Transfer Awards

2008-02-13T13:22:00.000-08:00

East Bay Business Times - February 11, 2008
http://eastbay.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2008/02/11/daily10.html
Monday, February 11, 2008 - 12:19 PM PST
Livermore lab gets tech-transfer awards
East Bay Business Times

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will receive two awards for successful technology transfers to businesses.

The awards are given out by the Federal Laboratory Consortium, which is made up of more than 250 federal government laboratories.
LLNL won for developing the first compact proton-therapy system for treating cancer patients, and the first portable neutron detector that can assist in detecting illegal nuclear materials.

The cancer therapy system, developed in collaboration with the University of California Davis Cancer Center, is compact enough to fit in any major cancer center and comes at about one-fifth the cost of a full-scale machine, the lab said in its announcement.

Conventional proton therapy facilities require 90,000 square feet and cost more than $100 million to build, the lab said. The Livermore system is in a lightweight structure about 6.5 feet long.

The technology was licensed in February 2007 to TomoTherapy Inc. (NASDAQ: TTPY) of Madison, Wis., through an agreement with the University of California Regents.
The nuclear-materials detection system was LLNL-developed technology licensed to the Advanced Measurement Technology ORTEC division of Ametek Inc., of Oak Ridge, Tenn. That resulted in the ORTEC Fission Meter, a portable neutron detector that can identify fissile neutron sources such as uranium and plutonium, and can differentiate between weapons-usable materials and other items.

The awards will be presented May 8 during four-day national technology-transfer meeting in Portland, Ore.

The Federal Laboratory Consortium was established in 1974 to facilitate the transfer of federal lab technology to the public and private sectors.

All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.

Honeywell Powers Solano County Detention Facility With Solar Panels

2008-02-13T12:25:00.000-08:00

Honeywell Powers Solano County Detention Facility With Solar Panels
Tuesday February 12, 2008
Power Purchase Agreement Helps County Leverage Green, Renewable Energy While Reducing Costs

MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Honeywell (NYSE: HON - News) today announced that Solano County in the San Francisco Bay Area has awarded the company a solar project that is expected to save the county more than $1 million in energy costs over the next 20 years. Under the agreement, Honeywell will install a 746-kilowatt solar array near the Claybank Adult Detention Facility and sell the electricity produced by the panels to the county for use in the detention facility.

"Solano County is committed to using renewable energy wherever we can to offset greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels," said John Vasquez, Solano County supervisor. "It's also a wise financial decision. The new solar array will help us lower and stabilize operating costs, allowing us to focus more resources on serving our residents."

The solar array is expected to generate almost 1.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually -- enough energy to power more than 100 homes per year. It will supply more than 60 percent of the electricity necessary to run the detention facility, and it will significantly reduce energy costs during peak consumption when utilities typically charge a premium.

The new array will deliver substantial environmental benefits as well, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by more than 14,500 metric tons over the course of the contract. According to figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, this is equivalent to removing almost 3,100 cars from the road for a year or planting more than 12,000 acres of trees.

"Identifying the right renewable energy technology to meet a customer's unique requirements, and doing it in a fiscally responsible way, is our goal in helping customers go green," said Kent Anson, vice president of Global Energy for Honeywell Building Solutions. "Solano County will benefit for years to come from the financial and environmental benefits this project will deliver."

Honeywell will install the solar array on a former military site, which has been converted into a parking lot for local school buses, close to the detention facility. The company will build bus ports on the lot and place the solar panels on top of the structures, generating renewable energy and providing shade for the vehicles.

"We're taking land that can't be developed and putting it to good use," said Jason Campbell, facilities manager for Solano County. "Not only are we using green energy, but we're doing it in a smart, sensible way."

With this solar installation, the county will bring its power generation capacity to more than 1 megawatt through renewable energy technology. The county has two other solar electric facilities: a 230-kilowatt system on the roof of the Health and Social Services building and a 120-kilowatt array on the parking structure of the County Government Center.

Honeywell expects to install the solar panels and begin providing Solano County with electricity by September 2008. After the 20-year agreement expires, the county can continue purchasing electricity from Honeywell or acquire ownership of the panels.

Honeywell International is a $36 billion diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes and industry; automotive products; turbochargers; and specialty materials. Based in Morris Township, N.J., Honeywell's shares are traded on the New York, London and Chicago Stock Exchanges. It is one of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is also a component of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. For additional information, please visit www.honeywell.com. Honeywell Building Solutions is part of the Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions business group, a global leader in providing product and service solutions that improve efficiency and profitability, support regulatory compliance, and maintain safe, comfortable environments in homes, buildings and industry. For more information about Building Solutions, access www.honeywell.com/buildingsolutions.

Suisun Approves Wal-Mart

2008-02-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

Suisun Approves Wal-Mart
By Reporter Staff
Article Launched: 02/13/2008

In a unanimous decision, the Suisun City Council voted late last night to approve a Wal-Mart Supercenter for the city.

the proposal for the store to be located on a 20.8-acre parcel near Highway 12 and Alters Road includes 230,000 square feet of commercial space including a 215,000-square-foot supercenter building plus a fuel station and mini-mart and an 8,000-square-foot sit-down restaurant or commercial use site and parking.

The decision came after a lengthy meeting that stretched into the wee hours.

City Public Information Officer Scott Corey said the council demanded and Wal-Mart agreed to a number of conditions to win the council's approval.

Among those conditions was an agreement to build an enhanced sound wall to separate the project from homes on the north side of nearby Petersen Road. Wal-Mart officials agreed to extend the wall an additional 300 feet and will pay for a study on extending it even further.

Wal-Mart also agreed to conditions designed to ease fears about the future of the site. If the store closes and goes dark for 36 months, Wal-Mart agreed it would demolish the building or give the city payment for demolishing it.

"That agreement is designed to ease fears about future blight," Corey said, adding that the firm believes the store site will flourish economically.
For more details, see Thurday's print edition of The Reporter.

Council OKs Plan on Office Project

2008-02-13T09:15:00.000-08:00

Council OKs Plan on Office Project
By Jennifer Gentile/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/13/2008

The City Council agreed Tuesday night to exclusive negotiations with a local businessman, who wants to build a two-story office building on the edge of downtown Vacaville.

The council unanimously approved the agreement with resident Greg Banks, who owns Banks Integration Group downtown and wants to develop 1.7 acres in the northeast corner of Wilson and Mason Streets. Banks has said that he approached the city with his idea more than a year ago.

Staff has been in talks with Banks at the same time that it has been working with EDAW - the firm charged with drafting a master plan for the city's Opportunity Hill area.

The city's goal is to revitalize that area, which encompasses several acres on the eastern outskirts of downtown, with mixed-use development.

Banks' intended site is within the scope of the project, and according to staff, the master plan has identified it as "a potential area for office development."

The compact that the City Council approved Tuesday gives Banks and the city one year to negotiate a disposition and development agreement, and also to have land-use and construction entitlements in place.

It also calls for a $20,000 deposit from the developer, which will be applied toward the purchase price if negotiations are successful.

Offering his support, Councilman Curtis Hunt said, "I think it's an exciting project, and it's a ... jumpstart for a project that's important to all of us."

Following the council's decision, Banks said, "Obviously, I'm very pleased. I've been looking forward to this for a long time."

Banks said his proposed building will be environmentally friendly and include "as many green initiatives" as possible."

Several other downtown business owners are interested in the project, he said, and he already has arranged to fill about 60 percent of the proposed building.

One of those potential owner/occupants is Anne Campbell, who has law offices downtown and said she's been friends with Banks for years.

"It's a win-win," she said, explaining that the city is interested in starting the Opportunity Hill project and keeping businesses and people downtown. "It's going to be a really gorgeous building, too."

Although the agreement calls for a yearlong negotiation period, Banks said, "We hope to move a little quicker than that."

His goal is to break ground in the fall and to occupy the building in 2009.

Jennifer Gentile can be reached at vacaville@thereporter.com.

Businessman's Idea Appeals to Vaca Council

2008-02-13T09:01:00.000-08:00

Businessman's Idea Appeals to Vaca Council
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 12,2008

VACAVILLE - The City Council on Tuesday night agreed to enter talks with a Vacaville businessman who wants to construct the first building in the city's Opportunity Hill redevelopment project.

Downtown businessman Greg Banks was praised by the council for his proposal to build a two-story building on a 1.7-acre site on Wilson Street between Catherine and Mason streets.

'He wants to come to us because he wants to stay in Vacaville,' Redevelopment Agency Director Cyndi Johnston said.

Vacaville's Redevelopment Agency wants to turn the area into a pedestrian-friendly mix of offices, retail and housing.

Bank's proposed building is the first specific project to come forward. He will have a year to finalize negotiations with the city.

'It is an exciting project and it's great that its a local person who is doing it,' said City Councilman Curtis Hunt, whose response was indicative of the council's sentiment.

Banks owns an engineering firm already located in downtown Vacaville and does business with biotech firms in the area.

His proposed building will house his business and several other tenants.

'I am really excited,' Banks said. 'This is a chance for small business people to develop their own spaces.'

The Redevelopment Agency has been slowly buying the four-block area of old single-family homes and small businesses around Catherine Street since 1999 with plans to turn it into a mixed-use extension of downtown.

The office building's location includes the current Opportunity House homeless shelter.

There are plans in the works to move the Opportunity House to a new location in the Brown Street area where Solano County also plans to build a new social services center.

In other business, the council also agreed to enter exclusive negotiations with Solano Napa Habitat for Humanity to build a second affordable housing project in the city.

Habitat for Humanity has talked about building 11 housing units on a site on the east side of Rocky Hill Road, according to Johnston. Habitat for Humanity previously had plans to build five homes on the site, but its agreement with the city had expired.

The specific form of the project will depend on an agreement between the two sides.

Napa Solano Habitat for Humanity is part of the international nonprofit Habitat for Humanity, which has built more than 155,000 homes around the world.

So far, Solano Napa Habitat for Humanity has built eight homes and renovated one in Solano County.

The last house it built in Vacaville was finished in late June 2006 at 575 Rocky Hill Road.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

Vacaville to Hold Youth Summit in March

2008-02-12T09:06:00.000-08:00

Vacaville to Hold Youth Summit in March
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 11, 2008

VACAVILLE - City leaders want to hear what young people have on their minds, so they will hold a Youth Summit on March 8 at Ulatis Community Center.

This will be the city's third such summit, and it will be more interactive than the first two, said Mark Mazzaferro, one of the organizers.

'It's up to the kids what direction we will go in,' Mazzaferro said. 'It is more kid-driven than in the past. We really want to hear what is on their minds.'

The summit, which is primary aimed at middle school students, will be 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. High school and older elementary school students can also attend.

The keynote speaker will Stu Cabe, a nationally-known motivational speaker who talks to students about treating people with respect and kindness.

Students will then break into several workshops to discuss issues that are important to them.

'The goal is to have each person there make a commitment to make a change in their lives personally or become a part of something in the community,' Mazzaferro said.

Last year, about 125 students gathered to hear lectures and talk about issues such as personal safety and gangs.

The March 8 summit will also have refreshments, games and live entertainment.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

528-Acre Business Park Goes Before Benicia Council

2008-02-12T09:02:00.000-08:00

528-Acre Business Park Goes Before Benicia Council
East Bay Business Times - by Jessica Saunders

The Carquinez Strait with Benicia, left, and Martinez on the right. The proposed business park is in yellow. (Courtesy photo by Roy Tennant)

View Larger A controversial 528-acre light industrial and commercial development that has been in the works for 30 years may take a major step forward Feb. 19 when the Benicia City Council meets to consider the project's environmental impact report.

Developer Albert D. Seeno Jr. has been trying for nearly 30 years to build a light industrial and commercial park that could generate 7,600 jobs on the boot-shaped property, the largest undeveloped tract remaining in Benicia.

The hilly parcel located northeast of the new Benicia bridge on Interstate 680 adjacent to Benicia's industrial park, overlooks the Carquinez Strait and Suisun Bay.

Among the controversies, the proposed development would require grading of 9 million cubic yards and substantial removal of hillsides to the south of the site. City leaders have said they would like to preserve more hills.

Discovery Builders Inc. of Concord, owned by Seeno's son Albert Seeno III, is seeking approval for Benicia Business Park under contract for property owner West Coast Home Builders. West Coast is owned by Seeno Jr. and his brother Tom Seeno, according to Discovery Builders Vice President Salvatore Evola.

Discovery Builders has opted to pursue the EIR separately before presenting a detailed project plan for review by the city. That is the developer's right, but it has created "some misgivings among the public that the project as proposed is what is going to be done," said Charlie Knox, the city's community development director.

Those misgivings have included claims that the developer plans a truck stop and repair facility on the site, as well as a 200,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store.

"We are not building a Wal-Mart and we are not building a truck stop. You heard it from me," Evola said.

Seeno's leasing and management firm, Sierra Pacific Properties, has been shopping Benicia Business Park for several years and gets calls weekly from interested companies who want to know the development status, Evola said. Those calls have included Extended Stay Hotels, Courtyard by Marriott and Trader Joe's, so those types of businesses are contemplated for the 837,000 square feet of commercial retail space, he said. No tenants have been identified so far.

"We can't focus on the users, the tenants or the project details until we have a certified EIR," he said.

Uses contemplated for the 4.5 million square feet of light industrial space, under the city General Plan, could include wholesale, distribution and storage facilities, research and development uses, and related industrial and commercial services. Additional uses such as auto sales and services, mini-storage, restaurants, bars and churches may be allowed with a use permit, according to the parameters outlined in the EIR.

A 1999 version of the project was rejected because of federal officials' concerns that the plan called for filling in three natural water drainages. Now the most important drainage, a creek and adjacent wetlands, is preserved as part of 212 acres of open space - 40 percent of the total - in the middle of the project. Evola noted the entire property is zoned for development.

One key issue is the report's finding that the proposed project would "substantially conflict" with environmental protection policies in the city General Plan, which unlike other impacts cannot be mitigated, Knox said. The policies discourage grading of hillsides and disturbance of streams and wildlife corridors, and require retaining scenic views, among other issues, he said. Excavating 9 million cubic yards of soil, despite plans to balance it on site, and filling in two natural water drainages are conflicts.

Discovery Builders has acknowledged in face-to-face meetings with the city that it will have to make changes to the project, Knox said.

The city staff plans to recommend the council certify the EIR, Knox said. But he also planned to ask the city manager's approval to further recommend the certification specifically require the project to "fit with the General Plan."

It's up to the council to decide whether the development is consistent with the General Plan, Evola said.

The proposed EIR going before the council Feb. 19 is the third for the site since the 1980s, Evola said.

jsaunders@bizjournals.com | 925-598-1427

UC Davis FOOD ENGINEER PAUL SINGH ELECTED TO NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

2008-02-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

University of California, Davis
February 11, 2008

FOOD ENGINEER PAUL SINGH ELECTED TO NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

R. Paul Singh, distinguished professor of food engineering at the University of California, Davis, whose research has applications in areas ranging from food processing to space exploration, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. This is one of the highest professional distinctions for engineers in the United States.

Singh, who holds a joint appointment in the departments of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Food Science and Technology, is one of 65 new members and nine foreign associates elected to the academy this year.

The National Academy of Engineering is one of four organizations that make up the National Academies, established by Congress to advise the nation on a wide range of scientific issues. Singh is the ninth current or retired faculty member from UC Davis to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering; the late Robert Fridley, Ray Krone and Roy Bainer were also members.

"Professor Singh's research has profound importance to a fundamental human concern -- the safety of our food," said Enrique Lavernia, dean of the College of Engineering. "His contributions to our understanding of technology's interaction with food chemistry has implications for sustenance in daily life as well as extended space travel. The College of Engineering is extremely proud that Professor Singh's achievements are being recognized in this way."

Charles Bamforth, chair of the Department of Food Science and Technology said: "We are so proud of Paul; this is supreme recognition of his brilliance as a researcher. He is also a remarkable teacher, so innovative and productive. He is an inspiration to us all."

Singh, a member of the UC Davis faculty since 1975, has a distinguished portfolio of research discoveries in areas such as energy conservation, post-harvest technology, freezing preservation, and mass transfer in food processing.

His laboratory is currently working on the design and development of food processing equipment for NASA's manned mission to Mars. The research team also is conducting studies related to fluid flow and heat transfer during thawing and freezing and is designing packaging systems that will allow more efficient cooling of strawberries.

He has mentored more than 100 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars while at UC Davis, and now teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on unit operations in food processing and on heat and mass transfer in food engineering.

Singh earned his doctorate in engineering from Michigan State University in 1974. He also holds a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a bachelor's degree from Punjab Agricultural University, India, both in agricultural engineering.

In 2007, Singh received the Kishida International Award from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. The award recognizes Singh's visionary leadership and outstanding contributions to teaching, research and technology transfer in food science and engineering worldwide.

He was elected to the Food Engineering Hall of Fame in 2003, and in 2000 was selected as a fellow in both the Institute of Food Technologists and the American Society of Agricultural Engineers. He also has taught numerous short courses for members of the food industry in the United States and abroad.

He currently is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Food Engineering published by Elsevier Ltd.

Media contact(s):
* R. Paul Singh, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, (530)752-0811, rpsingh@ucdavis.edu
* Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu

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Solano County: A Growing Regional Hub

2008-02-11T11:27:00.001-08:00

Solano County: A Growing Regional Hub

Solano County is positioned as the hub for Northern California’s expanding biotech industry—expected to double in the next 10 years.

Michael Ammann, president of Solano Economic Development Corporation, told business and government leaders at last week’s Solano Economic Summit (Thursday, Dec.13) in Fairfield, that the cities in Solano are already key players in biotech, but could see that role expanded tremendously in the coming years.

“Is Solano ready to double?” Ammann asked. “It has all the potential to double an already successful posture.

Ammann said Northern California currently has 900 companies in the biotech sector. Some 120 are publicly owned, employing 90,000, with a $6 billion annual payroll. The Average wage is $68,000. Currently there are 393 marketed products, and 400 new products in Phase II and III clinical trials.

The region has four major life science research universities with more than one-half billion dollars in research funding.

“And, all that is expected to double,” in the next ten years,” Ammann said.

Solano County is centrally located to server this expanding industrial sector, Ammann said.

Currently, Genentech, Alza and Novartis have major facilities in Vacaville, and Benicia is home to Bio-Rad. Vallejo will soon see Siemens, and Genentech will build a major R&D facility in Dixon.

Ammann said that with biotech’s expansion, other sectors also will expand. Food and beverage, for example, benefit from the R&D in the life sciences. Currently, with Mariani Foods, Clorox, Budweiser, St. Gobain, Cyto Sports Drinks, Abbott Labs and JG Guittard, Solano County is a growing locating in this economic sector.

“We are a regional hub of opportunity and innovation, built on growth in energy, food/beverage and life sciences,” Ammann said. “We can create a strong diversified economy based on the needs of a growing regional population who must fined a way to turn on the lights, eat and stay health.”

Source: Solano Economic Development Corporation (12/19/07)

The Solano Economic Development Corporation Was Awarded a $5,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Company Grant

2008-02-11T09:06:00.000-08:00

The Solano Economic Development Corporation Was Awarded a $5,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Company Grant
February 10, 2008

The Solano Economic Development Corporation was awarded a $5,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Company grant to support economic development programs countywide, EDC officials announced.

The Solano organization was one of 75 local government and community-based agencies to receive PG&E grants, the announcement said.

This is the grant program's sixth year, and in that time $1.7 million has been awarded to 325 projects, EDC officials said. Solano EDC, which celebrates 25 years in the county this year, received its first PG&E grant in 2002, they said.

Vacaville Council To Weigh Office Building Project

2008-02-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

Vacaville Council To Weigh Office Building Project
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 08, 2008

VACAVILLE - The City Council is being asked Tuesday to let its redevelopment agency start exclusive negotiations with local developer Greg Banks to build an office building on Opportunity Hill.

Banks wants to build a two-story building on a 1.7-acre site on Wilson Street between Catherine and Mason streets.

The redevelopment agency has been slowly buying up the four-block area of old single-family homes and small businesses around Catherine Street since 1999 with plans to turn it into a mixed-use extension of the city's downtown.

Vacaville Redevelopment Agency Director Cyndi Johnston has said in the past she wants to see that area become a pedestrian-friendly mix of offices, retail and housing.

Bank's proposed building is the first specific project to come forward. He will have a year to finalize negotiations with the city.

The office building's location includes the current Opportunity House homeless shelter.

The City Council approved plans early last year to move the Opportunity House to a new location in the Brown Street area where Solano County also plans to build a new social services center.

'We are working with Vacaville Community Housing, who owns the Opportunity House, and the Vacaville Social Services Corporation for a new location,' Johnston said.

In other business, the City Council will also decide to whether to enter exclusive negotiations with the Solano County Habitat for Humanity to build affordable housing on Holly Lane.

Habitat for Humanity wants to build as many as 11 duet or single-family homes on the site that would go to income-eligible families.

This would be the second time Habitat for Humanity has built homes in Vacaville. The international nonprofit group built four homes on an adjacent site 10 years ago.

The City Council meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday in its chamber at 650 Merchant St.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

Sacramento International was state's fifth-busiest airport in '07

2008-02-08T13:26:00.000-08:00

Sacramento Business Journal - February 1, 2008
http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/01/28/daily57.html

Sacramento Business Journal
Friday, February 1, 2008
Sacramento International was state's fifth-busiest airport in '07

Sacramento International Airport was the fifth busiest airport in California in 2007, county officials said Friday, rising up one place from the year before and edging past San Jose International.

Last year the airport saw a 30 percent increase in international travelers and a 4 percent increase in domestic passengers, for a total of 10,748,982 passengers.

The increase in international flights was due to the debut of Air Canada, which began nonstop service to and from Vancouver. The airport's other international flights are to various destinations in Mexico.

"Obtaining a route to Vancouver was the No. 1 air service priority of the Sacramento County Airport System for several years," said G. Hardy Acree, director of airports.

Fairfield's Crime Rate Drops

2008-02-08T12:56:00.000-08:00

Fairfield's Crime Rate Drops
Largest Decline Is In Assaults
By Reporter Staff
Article Launched: 02/08/2008

Crime is down in Fairfield, according to statistics released Thursday by the Fairfield Police Department.

Overall, the city saw a 4.3 percent drop in Part I Crimes in 2007 compared to 2006. Part I crimes include violent crimes such as murder, rape and robbery, and property crimes such as burglary, theft and arson.

The largest decreases in crime came in the number of aggravated assaults, where a 10-percent drop was reported and robberies where an 8 percent drop was recorded.

The number of murders and rapes remained the same from 2006 to 2007 - there were 7 murders and 36 rapes each year. However, the overall violent crime rate in the city went down by 9 percent, from 647 violent incidents in 2006 to 590 in 2007. That drop is attributable to the large decrease in robberies (from 241 in 2006 to 221 in 2007) and aggravated assaults (from 363 in 2006 to 326 in 2007), officials noted.

Property crimes were also down across the board. Burglaries dropped 6 percent, theft was down 3 percent, auto thefts declined 4 percent and arsons were down 6 percent.

The overall reduction continues the downward crime trend in Fairfield, officials said. From 20002 to 2007, Part I crimes have decreased by 11 percent.

"I believe our hard-working officers and our continued focus on working in partnership with the community are two of the factors which have contributed to the current reduction in crime," said Police Chief Kenton Rainey. "While there are other elements which also impact crime, we will continue with our COPPS philosophy and proactive commitment to improving the quality of life in Fairfield."

The COPPS, Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving, program is an approach to policing that is more proactive and fosters relationships among the community, government and police. It divides the city into service areas, with each area assigned its own lieutenant, sergeants and team of officers who get to know the area, residents and issues and can deal with problems before they arise.

That crime is down in the city doesn't mean the department's work is done, officials said.

"The Fairfield Police Department will continue to track its service levels to maintain satisfactory staffing standards and ensure quality public safety," a press release on the crime statistics concluded.

Discussion Highlights Fairfield's Potential

2008-02-08T12:47:00.001-08:00

Discussion Highlights Fairfield's Potential
By Ben Antonius | Daily Republic | February 07, 2008

FAIRFIELD - City leaders got their opportunity to sell Fairfield and others also weighed in Thursday as the East Bay Business Times hosted its Growth Cities discussion.

The forum involved moderators and audience members asking questions of a four-member panel, which included Fairfield Mayor Harry Price and former mayor Gary Falati. It was billed as an opportunity for businesses outside the area to become acquainted with Fairfield.

'In the case of Fairfield, we have a city that has tremendous aspirations, tremendous potential and is advancing itself on several fronts,' said East Bay Business Times Publisher Mike Consol, who served as the event moderator.

Throughout the event, Consol and audience members peppered the panel with questions about available industrial land in the city, crime rates, water quality and school quality.

Joining Price and Falati on the panel were Bill Mellerup, vice president of community development for homebuilder Lewis Planned Communities, and Matt Bracco, senior director for the Cushman and Wakefield real estate firm.

Observing that the city has historically done well in luring large companies such as Anheuser-Busch, Clorox and Copart, Inc., Consol asked what aspects of Fairfield attracted them.

High-quality water from Lake Berryessa and access to interstates 80 and 680 have both been major factors, Bracco said. He also praised the city staff in the Community Development Department for being willing to 'take the time to sit down with companies and walk them through the process.'

'They're deal-makers,' he said.

Consol also asked about the city's negatives, of which crime was mentioned prominently. Chamber of Commerce President Leslie Fay said she also hears from members about transportation frustrations and a need for more highly-skilled workers.

Price, a former teacher, and Falati, former president of the Fairfield-Suisun School Board, agreed that schools are improving and said more can be done.

'One question I constantly get is, 'If I move here, will I have to send my children out of county,' ' Price said.

Reach Ben Antonius at 427-6977 or bantonius@dailyrepublic.net.

Grants Give Businesses A Face-Lift

2008-02-08T12:42:00.000-08:00

Grants Give Businesses A Face-Lift
By Carol Bogart | Daily Republic | February 07, 2008

The Athenian Grill's new awnings and exterior paint were paid for through Suisun City's Facade Improvement Grant program. Eligible businesses can apply for grants up to 10000 dollars to pay for exerior improvements. Photo by Mike McCoy

SUISUN CITY - If some businesses in Suisun City appear all spruced up, it may be a result of the city's Facade Improvement Grant program.

Athenian Grill and a new dance studio, Just Gotta Dance, have fresh coats of paint and new awnings. The work was funded through h grants awarded by the city's Economic Development Department.

Don and Arlene Grass, owners of Just Gotta Dance, bought their building nine years ago. The grant saved the couple $8,000 on paint, awnings and new gutters.

Arlene Glass said the application process, which involved submitting three bids to the city, was simple. She added that she and her husband found the program to be 'absolutely wonderful.'

Vivien Togonon is project manager for the Facade Improvement Grant program and the Matching Rehabilitation Grant program, which benefits eligible businesses.

To be eligible, a commercial building must be located within the city's redevelopment project area. Togonon said the city's Redevelopment Agency provides the money. To date, four businesses have been awarded facade improvement grants, she said, and one has used the Matching Rehabilitation Grant.

The Matching Rehabilitation Grant matches a business owner's equity investment dollar for dollar up to $25,000. It can be tapped to pay for such items as seismic upgrades, electrical and plumbing upgrades, and tenant improvements.

The Facade Improvement Grant can only be used for exterior improvements to $10,000.

Such improvements, which can include window glazing and signs, must be integrated into a comprehensive architectural theme, according to grant requirements.

With both grant programs, the improvements must be consistent with city zoning ordinance and be approved by the Community Development and Economic Development departments.

Reach Carol Bogart at 427-6955 or at cbogart@dailyrepublic.net.

To learn more about applying for a Facade Improvement Grant or Matching Rehabilitation Grant, go to www.suisun.com. Click on Business and then go to Economic Development. For more information, call project manager Vivien Togonon at 421-7347.

Walking Tour, Book To Retrace Suisun City's History

2008-02-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

Walking Tour, Book To Retrace Suisun City's History
By Carol Bogart | Daily Republic | February 07, 2008 15:59

Main Street in downtown Suisun City pictured in a historic picture, above, and how it appears today. A walking tour and book about Suisun City's history are in the works. Photo by Vacaville Heritage Society (top) Brad Zweerink (bottom)

SUISUN CITY - A one-time brothel where women sat on a display in the second-floor windows may be one stop on a Suisun City walking tour now in the works.

Brothels and saloons flourished when Suisun City was a bustling port, said Garry Rowe, board president of the Suisun Historic Waterfront Business Improvement District.

The walking tour is being coordinated by Sandi Hudson, a Suisun City resident who owns a Web site design firm.

The district will pay for the walking tour with money it received from the Heritage Society of West Central Solano when the society disbanded. Rowe said the county had awarded the society a $5,800 grant to use toward a walking tour. The society then gave the money to the district 'to move the project forward.'

Hudson is almost ready to start designing a brochure for the tour that will include historic homes, buildings and points of interest. The brochure will feature a map that matches the numbered sites.

Rowe and Hudson both would love to see Suisun City have a heritage commission of its own, and maybe even Victorian-themed, guided walking tours during seasonal events sponsored by the city. First, though, 'We have to get a self-guided (tour),' Hudson said.

In addition to the walking tour, Rowe is researching Suisun City history for a book proposal he hopes to submit soon to Arcadia Press, which publishes small books depicting a city's history largely through photos with 30- to 50-word captions.

Arcadia Press contacted Rowe two months ago with a proposal.

'In researching the information, I kinda caught the bug,' said Rowe, who added he has learned things he didn't know about Suisun City, even though his family has been in the area for generations.

For instance, he said, the 'military influence' was felt during World War I when the Liberty Train came through the city to sell war bonds. Hudson said the city contributed a regiment of men during the Civil War.

Photos of a train wreck downtown in which the engineer was killed, a schooner being loaded with potatoes, flooded streets and more may be included in the book, which Rowe said will be 128 pages or more.

While Rowe already has 70 vintage shots of Suisun City he acquired from the Vacaville Heritage Council, he hopes current and former residents will have photos to contribute. The book will feature as many as 110 photos.

As photos are selected for the book, Hudson particularly likes those from the 1800s. Rowe also likes those of more recent history. He points to the Pioneer Ballroom, a one-time music venue where, in September 1966, rockers attended a Grateful Dead concert.

Bringing the city's history alive through such projects could attract visitors, Rowe said, and that would be good for business.

Babs Curless, owner of Babs Delta Diner, said the tour and book will be 'wonderful.'

Babs Delta Diner is a Suisun City landmark. Hanging on its walls are 'a couple old pictures of how Suisun used to look,' said Curless, who added that a walking tour will prove popular because 'so many people walk down here at night' to enjoy the waterfront.

Curless' diner overlooks the water. Some of her customers are old-timers who share stories about the city's history, such as how a building where Curless opened her first Suisun City restaurant was once a roller rink.

Rowe said he believes many residents take the city's history for granted. He and Hudson hope the book, tour and other projects now in the 'talking' stage will change that.

Reach Carol Bogart at 427-6955 or at cbogart@dailyrepublic.net.

SUISUN CITY SNAPSHOTS

To submit photos for considered for the book on Suisun City's history, call Garry Rowe at 631-0609 or contact Sandi Hudson at 707-429-9794 or webdiva@hudsonbusiness.net.

Student Center Opens At SCC

2008-02-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

Student Center Opens At SCC
By Melissa Murphy/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/07/2008

One day after a state proposition that would have benefited community colleges failed at the polls, a spanking new Student Services Center opened Wednesday at Solano Community College.

Gerry Fisher, superintendent and president at the college, welcomed students, faculty, staff and the community to the grand opening of the center Wednesday afternoon.

"A lot of people put a lot of work into this," Fisher said of the center. "This is really all about the students. They're really going to benefit from this."

"This building is in response to what the students' needs are," added Lisa Waits, Vice President for Student Services. "People here care about the students and there is a sense of pride."

Although the building isn't quite finished - there's still landscaping work to be done - Fisher and others are pleased with the outcome.

"It looks pretty good to me," he said. "We're finally here and it works just like we anticipated."

Fisher explained that the building focuses on the services the college provides for the students. The new two-story, 37,000 square-foot facility houses, among other things, admissions and records, a campus information center, counseling, financial aid and six classrooms.

"The open atrium allows students to see all the services from one spot," he said. "It's a great facility.

The people and the layout of the building really work together."
Student Body President Harjot Sandhu agreed.

"Its really the sum of all the different student services," he said. "The students won't have to go all over campus because the services are now conveniently in one place."

The $15.5 million project is fully funded by Measure G, a bond passed in 2002.

"This is really a big thank you to the voters who passed Measure G," said SCC Board President Phil McCaffrey. "This is the second of three crowns."

Solano Community College recently opened a new facility in Vallejo, followed by the opening of the Students Services Center in Fairfield. The college is also looking to expand its facility in Vacaville.

The grand opening came on the heels of a defeated Proposition 92.

The proposition, which failed with 57 percent "no" votes, would have established in the state constitution a system of independent public community college districts and Board of Governors.

Generally, it would require minimum levels of state funding for school districts and community college districts to be calculated separately.

It would also have set community college fees at $15 per unit per semester and would have limited future fee increases.

"I'm sad it didn't pass," Fisher said. "I think it's time for the community colleges to be recognized on their own. We just haven't achieved the support that we deserve."

Fisher credits the failure as a "sign of the times."

"Maybe in another time we could have a different result," he said. "We'll still need the ongoing support. There are a lot of challenges ahead because of the state budget."

Still, the failed proposition didn't damper any moods Wednesday afternoon.

"This is just the beginning for our students," Waits said. "This is a very exciting time for all of us."

Melissa Murphy can be reached at dixon@thereporter.com.

Suisun Valley Prepares To Grow Wine Business

2008-02-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

Suisun Valley Prepares To Grow Wine Business
East Bay Business Times - by Judy Jacobs

Wooden Valley Winery's Ron Lanza and Suisun Valley Grape Growers Association's Roger King. Stephanie Secrest | East Bay Business Times

While few people realize that Fairfield has a wine region, the grape growers of Suisun Valley, where vineyards were first established more than a century ago, are determined to grow the region's identity, increase the number of wineries located there and produce higher-value wines. And they're counting on the efforts of the Suisun Valley Grape Growers Association and the Solano County General Plan's update, currently under way, to help them achieve their goals.

The number of wineries claiming the Suisun Valley AVA (American Viticulture Appellation), is growing for the small region, which measures three by eight miles and extends into the Fairfield city limits. In order to be a Suisun Valley wine, "85 percent of the fruit has to come from the area," said Roger King, president of the Suisun Valley Grape Growers Association.

"Five years ago, only three wineries had a Suisun Valley label. Now there are 22 wine labels that are Suisun Valley." The area encompasses 15,000 acres, with 3,000 acres under vines.

Because the area is not as well known as Napa and Sonoma, its grapes fetch lower prices. "Napa gets $5,000 per ton, here it's just $2,000," King said.

Along with the growth in Suisun Valley wine labels has been a growth in wineries.

"We were grape growers, but one of our strategies was to grow more wineries, and that's been a pretty big accomplishment. We now have six wineries," King said. These include Wooden Valley Winery & Vineyards, Ledgewood Creek Winery, Mankas Hills Vineyards and Vezer Family Vineyard.

The development of these wineries has been a longtime effort and partly the result of the attempt to keep Suisun Valley rural. In the early 1970s the city of Fairfield had wanted to annex Suisun Valley, but the Solano Irrigation District, which supplies water to Suisun Valley farms, opposed annexation and filed a lawsuit.

"In 1974, the city of Fairfield and the district agreed not to deliver potable water to Suisun Valley (from 1974 to 2006)," said Rick Wood, Fairfield's assistant director of public works/utilities. "It was intended to help Suisun Valley remain agricultural." The settlement allowed the city to build a pipeline across Suisun Valley and a reservoir, creating a water supply that encouraged Anheuser Busch Cos. to establish a bottling plant in Fairfield. At the same time, the city dropped its intention to urbanize Suisun Valley, Wood said.

In 2002, the city and the SID amended the agreement and extended it to Dec. 31, 2010. They also agreed to create the Suisun Valley Fund, with each entity contributing $100,000 a year between 2003 and 2010. The fund is governed by the Suisun Valley Fund Advisory Committee made up of two members from the Fairfield City Council, two members from the SID and two landowners who are actively engaged in agriculture. The money is to be spent on programs to preserve and enhance agriculture in Suisun Valley.

One of the funding beneficiaries is the Suisun Valley Grape Growers Association.

"In 2003 we called a meeting of the growers and invited 40 growers. Thirty showed up to talk about what to do with the money. We decided to form an association. We knew we had to promote this appellation," said King. "We're 100 percent focused on sales and marketing of grapes using wine to help achieve that goal."

One of the ways to increase the economic impact of the grape-growing business is to make more wine locally.

"Only 3 to 5 percent of the grapes that are crushed here are used for Suisun Valley wines," said Ron Lanza, vice president of Wooden Valley Winery & Vineyards, which was established by is grandfather in 1955. "The Lanza family only uses 10 percent of the grapes we grow. We would like to go in the other direction. Eldorado County is an 80 percent end user, but they have about 20 wineries."

What does the grape drain mean economically? With about 96 percent of the grape output leaving Solano County, the loss would be between about $50 million and $170 million a year based on retail prices, depending on the class of wine, according to King. And that doesn't include sales tax and jobs. Based on wholesale prices, the loss would be between about $33 million and $114 million.

One way to help alleviate the grape drain is to attract more winemakers. And a way to attract more winemakers is to change the agricultural zoning in Suisun Valley from the current minimum 40-acre parcels to 20-acre parcels, something that both the Suisun Valley Fund Advisory Committee and the grape growers association have proposed be incorporated into the General Plan update.

The county expects to complete the draft of the General Plan by March, with public hearings in May and hearings before the Solano County Board of Supervisors in July. Some elements will have to go before the voters at a yet-to-be-determined election date after that.

Meanwhile, another major goal, which is expected to be achieved with the addition of more wineries, is to make Suisun Valley a tourist destination.

"There are tours and tastings at Jelly Belly, Budweiser ... a couple of chocolate rooms have tasting rooms. There are olive oil tasting rooms. Fairfield can position itself as a winery town, if it so pleased," said King.

The Vezer Family Vineyards and Winery's barrel room. Photo courtesy of Vezer Family Vineyards and Winery

jjacobs@bizjournals.com | 925-598-1451

Suisun Valley Branding Itself As Agricultural, Winery Tourism Destination

2008-02-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

Suisun Valley Branding Itself As Agricultural, Winery Tourism Destination
East Bay Business Times - by Judy Jacobs

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While Suisun Valley grape growers are trying to put the area on the Northern California wineries map, others are working to preserve the valley as a viable economic agricultural entity.

The Suisun Valley Fund has hired Tracy Ellison as agricultural ambassador to brand and market Suisun Valley as an agricultural tourism destination. She manages www.suisunvalley.com, created to publicize the valley's wineries and farm stands.

"Our big event is the Fun Family Farm Days in August, September and October. Everyone on our Web site or farm trails map - about 20 vendors right now - heightens their activities," Ellison said. The activities include wine tasting, grape stomps, U-pick produce and hayrides.

Meanwhile, Victoria Erickson, owner with her husband of Erickson Ranch and chair of the Suisun Valley Fund Advisory Committee grower subcommittee, has taken the lead in creating the Suisun Valley Harvest Trails Association.

"When the (Suisun Valley) fund ends in 2010, there has to be some kind of organization that will continue what they've started," she said. "We want to continue to make Suisun Valley known to the world outside Suisun Valley."

She is completing the paperwork for the Suisun Valley Harvest Trails Association to become a nonprofit. "When we become a nonprofit, we'll be able to access funds through the Suisun Valley Fund," she said.

"People have been waiting for this association to come along. We can open the (harvest trails) map to more people. We'll also be able to have members and associate members."

Erickson hopes the association will help the valley achieve her vision. "I would like to see Suisun Valley be the type of valley where people can come and get an eclectic mix of farm stands, restaurants and wineries - and maybe eventually B&Bs," she said. "A place where people can spend a day or a couple of days to discover what Suisun Valley has to offer. A combination new and old. We should take the old and build on what's here."

jjacobs@bizjournals.com | 925-598-1451