2009 Clovis Hall of Fame & Community Awards Gala

On June 19th the Clovis Chamber had the distinct pleasure of hosting the Clovis Hall of Fame Gala. The evening honored Clovis' finest for their contributions to the community. Below are a list of this years honorees and pictures from the event. It was the perfect opportunity to reconnect with many old friends, including former Clovis Chamber CEO Jim Ware who was honored for community leadership. Congratulations again to all the honorees!

2009 Recipients

Community Awards:
Taytum Rose Popp & Dustyn Wolfson

Clovis Hall of Fame:
2008 CUSD Governing Board—Education
Center Stage Productions—Organization
Jim and Carole Linenbach—Service to Community
Maj. Gen. Ronald H. Markarian—Service to Country
Jim Ware—Community Leadership

Citizens of the Year:
2009 Amgen Tour of California Clovis Stage 4 Finish—Local Organizing Committee

WalMart's Getting Closer

The controversial Clovis Crossings Shopping Center is getting closer to fruition after a key vote was made by the Clovis City Council on June 29th. Kudos to Bob Whalen, Nathan Magsig and Jose Flores who once again voted to approve the center. They are looking out for the future good of the city of Clovis.

The Stockton law firm hired by a Fresno couple that has opposed the center has virtually run out of steam. They will continue their frivolous lawsuit over urban decay but the EIR voted on by the Council is pretty final.

The meeting on the 29th was rather contentious as supporters and opponents squared off in comments to the Council. There was nothing new said from prior meetings but the passions were more inflamed.

Supporters spoke about increased economic activity for the city and the advantages of having additional retail. Of special concern is the construction of 2 Fresno centers adjacent to Clovis on the west and south sides. Getting our own center built is a priority.

Opponents complained about the quality of WalMart customers, traffic and the ruination of the Clovis Way of Life. They have this concept that Clovis is a quaint little town that a modern center would hurt. They are ignoring the extra income this center would create especially from people outside of Clovis.

The Clovis Chamber Board of Directors has supported the Clovis Crossing Shopping Center from day one and will continue to support the center after its opening.

Fran Blackney
Business Advocate

Water in the Valley

A few years ago, if you took a drive through the western part of the Central Valley you'd often find yourself stuck behind a double trailered truck hauling melons or tomatoes. You'd have to slow down and occasionally avoid wayward fruit that bounced off into the road.

If you took that same trip today, the drive would be truck free because there are no tomatoes or melons being grown. One of the country's largest agricultural centers has become a dried up dust bowl. Farmlands are vacant and owners and workers alike are unemployed. It is a disaster both for the area and anyone who eats food.

And what created this catastrophe? The usual culprits - the environmentalists who decided that the Delta smelt, a small bait fish, is being harmed. The fish is not even on the endangered species list.

And, of course, the federal government has caved into their wishes and decided to close the pumps that supply our valley with water. As our farms dry up, the little smelt are thriving up in Sacramento.

Our local Congressman Devin Nunes has been a hero in the fight for rational thought with this situation. Unfortunately, we can't say the same for our two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer as well as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. All three have blocked efforts to get the water flowing.

It's interesting that all three are hard core liberals who live in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is sitting pretty with their water coming from the Hetch Hetchy water system - they have no worries. Meanwhile, the area of the state that provides those people with much of their produce is drying up. They're going to have to be happy with imported fruit from Mexico and China.

Valley farmers and water supporters are not sitting by quietly. One group, the California Latino Water Coalition has been in the forefront fighting for water rights. The Clovis Chamber Board of Directors has voted to join the Coalition and support its efforts.

On Wednesday, July 1, a large rally is planned at the Fresno City Hall in Downtown Fresno. Up to 10,000 people are expected to attend. It starts at 12 noon. The Clovis Chamber will be present. We invite you to join us also.

Thanks to the hard work of comedian/farmer Paul Rodriguez, this issue is getting national attention. People in other states, especially those with farmland, are watching our situation closely knowing that at the whim of an environmentalist, they could lose their livelihood also.

We all have to make a lot of noise to get the government to listen.

Fran Blackney
Business Advocate

Clovis Chamber News and Views

Many of you are familiar with the Chamber's well attended mixers, productive networking events, informative business seminars and the large events, craft fairs and Car shows, but did you know we also have a TV show?

That's right! The Clovis Chamber has a weekly production that airs live every Thursday from 6-7 p.m. on both CentralValleyTalk.com and local channels 43.3 and 33 (33.3 after the digital switch). We've been hard at work increasing the quality of our weekly show and have been privileged to interview several of our outstanding chamber members. How do I get on this show to promote my business you might ask? It's easy! Simply attend our monthly mixer. Each month we draw several names from our mixer attendees and invite them to come on the show. Still have questions?

Check out file footage from our broadcast:

Clovis Chamber's YouTube Channel - updated ASAP

Selected Footage on ClovisChamber.com -updated every couple weeks

This month's mixer:
The Get Smart Mixer
Hosted by Kaplan College (44 Shaw Ave., on the SE corner of Shaw & Minnewawa)
Wed. June 17th, 5:00-7:00 p.m.

Explore their terrific campus building full of educational classrooms, labs, and training rooms while you network with your wonderful existing contacts and meet great new people. Clovis Chamber mixers draw 80 to 120 people, so bring plenty of business cards.

Free to members. Bring a potential member as a guest. Not a member, but interested in attending? Call Beth (559) 299-7363 for more details.

Rachel Greaves
Corporate Events Director
Webmaster

Wal Mart Should be Approved for Clovis

The Clovis Chamber Board of Directors supports the proposed Wal Mart Shopping Center that wants to be built in Clovis. The project will benefit both the city of Clovis and outlying residents.

The City Council voted in 2007 to approve the project but a lawsuit was filed by a Fresno couple using a Stockton law firm to challenge the EIR. On May 18th, another council meeting was held to hopefully vote on the EIR but the council decided to postpone the vote again until June 29th.

Objections to the project are based on the argument that there will be urban decay created by the project and that there are too many vacancies in Clovis already.

Yes there are current vacancies but whose to say they will ever be filled? Retailers are not interested in the existing buildings. If they were, the vacant Mervyn's would be filled by now. Instead, we have a new center with guaranteed occupancy on Herndon Avenue. Wouldn't it be better to have a sure thing rather than keep our fingers crossed that other vacancies will be filled?

We maintain that with the construction of the new center, other retail will follow because Clovis will be seen as receptive to economic improvement. The population is here - they just shop in Fresno now.

Time is of the essence for this decision as Clovis is being surrounded by new retail in Fresno. You have the Campus Pointe project at Fresno State and Fancher Creek being built down Clovis Avenue. If we don't start building our new center, residents will continue to shop in Fresno as they are being forced to now.

Opponents to the center want Clovis to stay "the little, small town it's known to be." The problem is that little, small towns don't produce enough revenue to cover the government services that people want.

Opponents are worried about air pollution from new visitors to Clovis. Well, they don't seem to care about the air pollution created from Clovis shoppers having to venture into Fresno to buy goods. Furthermore, more visitors to Clovis would help other retailers be exposed to additional customers. More people would come to our Old Town and see its charm.

The Clovis Chamber urges the City Council to support the economic benefits of the Wal Mart Center. Let's keep Clovis moving forward, not stagnating.

Fran Blackney
Business Advocate

ClovisPAC Opposes Propositions

ClovisPAC, the political action committee of the Clovis Chamber of Commerce, recently voted to oppose all six propositions on the May 19th ballot. The spectre of an additional two years of huge tax hikes was enough for them to vote NO.

The propositions come out of the recent, prolonged budget fight in the state of California. For months, the democrats and republicans met and argued over how to close the huge deficit. Eventually a compromise was reached where the democrats gave in on some business regulations and the republicans gave in on tax hikes.

The tax hikes are in four areas: a 1% sales tax increase, a .25% income tax increase, doubling of the vehicle license fee and removing the $200 per child tax credit. It is estimated that the new taxes will cost an average family about $1200 a year. That's a lot.

The taxes are temporary and are supposed to last for 2 years. By voting in Proposition 1A, the tax hikes will last for another 2 years. Even with the promise of a "rainy day" fund and a cap on spending, ClovisPAC cannot rationalize the tax hikes.

California has been living in la la land for so long it has no sense of reality. As the money flowed in during the great economic times of the nineties, Sacramento went on a spending spree that created new programs with no end in sight. Well, guess what happened. The economy soured and the funds for those programs have gone south. And the spending continued creating the deficit hole.

And now they're coming to us to bail them out.

What is the solution? I don't know. But what I do know is several things. 1. Sacramento has been enslaved to the public unions for way too long. This has created the untenable huge contracts for pensions and health care that can't be continued. 2. When times were good, rather than spending like a drunken sailor, they should have saved the money for a rainy day. But, they expected the sun to always shine. 3. People have had it and are fed up with working harder for less. Between the recession with huge layoffs making life miserable for those laid off and those remaining, people just don't have the funds to pay more taxes. So they will spend even less, buy fewer cars and the economy will sink even lower.

Sacramento and Washington need to leave businesses and individuals alone to succeed or fail on their own but more importantly to create income for themselves.

To Sacramento and Washington - keep your hands out of our wallets. To the voters of California, vote NO on May 19th.

Fran Blackney
ClovisPAC

BIG Hat Days - a BIG Success

Well, the BIG weekend is over and we are all BIG time tired. But what a great weekend it was.

For the second straight year, we had BIG crowds that spent BIG money at food and beverage booths, the carnival and kids' games and vendor booths. It was next to impossible to work your way through the food court at mid day on both Saturday and Sunday. The further you made your way down the street, the more choices were available. And hundreds were waiting to get into the Budweiser Beer Garden.

Out on Pollasky, merchants were busy selling everything from jewelry to photography and clothing. Non-profits were doing fund raisers or distributing information while Dr. Wayne drove his Royal Express train and told wild stories.

In the Chamber booth, we spoke to hundreds of people and distributed close to 1000 of our directories that include all our Chamber members, some with colorful ads.

Besides the Chamber and visiting vendors doing well, surrounding merchants had some of their best business. Local restaurants, clothing and gift shops were filled with customers. When we are setting up our booths, we are careful to leave room for visitors to get to Old Town merchant stores.

And, as visitors left our festival, they drove through Clovis, stopping at gas stations, stores and other restaurants, so it was a win-win situation for all.