Hanford Insider - March 18, 2024 - Guest Brad Albert

Step into the pulse of Hanford City, where Brad Albert from the City Parks and Community Services Department unravels the latest community developments and local event buzz. This week's episode pays homage to the legacy of former Mayor Marci Buford and greets a fresh batch of Hanford Police officers. The Downtown Improvement Project's fate hangs in the balance, as we dissect the ARPA-funded initiative's critical features like potential roundabouts and enhanced safety measures. Don't miss my "LIVE" YouTube debrief for an eagle-eye view of the council's decisions on Tuesday evening. We also serve up can't-miss local happenings, from cultural exhibitions to family-oriented festivities. 

As the Hanford Insider, it's my pleasure to guide you through a cornucopia of springtime escapades. Mark your calendars for the Anthem Blue Cross-sponsored Easter egg hunt—where fun meets tradition at Civic Park. We'll explore the Civic Auditorium's historical renovation and celebrate the oak floors that have stood the test of time. Plus, we're buzzing with anticipation for the Hanford Boys & Girls Club "Innovation Lab" grand opening, set to ignite STEM passions among our young scholars. Join the ranks of the Hanford Insider community by subscribing to our newsletter, ringing in with your voice messages, and engaging with us across the social stratosphere. 

Eric Bentley also stops by for an update on all of the high school baseball and softball action.

You can find the Hanford Insider at www.hanfordinsider.com and on social media at @hanfordinsider
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

On this episode of the Hanford Insider. We'll check in with Brad Albert from the City of Hanford Parks and Community Services Department. Rob will have a quick community calendar update and I'll be back to update you on all of the high school sports action. This is the Hanford Insider for Monday, march 18th.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the Hanford Insider. I'm your host, rob Bentley. Thanks for listening In community news this week. At Tuesday's City Council meeting at 7pm, the city will be recognizing former Mayor Marcy Buford in honor of National Women's History Month. Miss Buford served on the City Council for 20 years, from 1988 to 2008. Also during the meeting, the council will be pending new Hanford Police officers Marisa Juarez, kevin Wheat and Priscilla Valdevinos.

Speaker 2: 1:10

The meeting won't be all celebration, though. There are some tough decisions that are going to have to be made. Hanford City staff will be seeking direction from the City Council on design elements in the Downtown Improvement Project being proposed by InterWest Consulting. In June of 2022, the city decided to allocate $4.4 million in ARPA funding specifically for Downtown Improvements. Several design firms have been working on plans and now the city must make final decisions on Tuesday as to what the project will look like in order to meet the timelines of the funding. It is not clear if the contracts have to be secured by the end of 2024 or the city may lose funding.

Speaker 2: 1:48

Regarding the proposed roundabout at the intersection of 7th and Doughty Streets, according to the Peterson Engineering Group and InterWest Consulting Group, a single-lane roundabout will result in a better level of service, increased safety and a better cost-benefit ratio than a four-way stop. There are a number of citizens who feel a roundabout is unnecessary. Which way do you think the council will vote? Between bulb outs these are those landscaped areas that reduce pedestrian crossing distances across the street. Are they going to be included in the final plans? There are many mid-block crosswalks that are not ADA compliant in the Downtown area. Should the council remove them? Should the project include curbless sidewalks or traditional raised sidewalks? Should new trees be planted in the ground or in raised boxes? If the decision is to go with raised boxes, should they be movable for special events? Should the project include additional lighting for safety? Should seating be included in the project area and, if so, what type? These are the decisions that will be made on Tuesday night. It's likely going to be a full house at the meeting, even though the public was given the chance to speak at the study session on March 5,. The council voted to allow a special public comment period at this week's meeting prior to the Downtown Improvement Project agenda item to give residents one last opportunity to speak about the project. If you're interested in how all this is going to go down. I'd encourage you to subscribe to my YouTube channel because I'll be going live following the meeting Tuesday night to talk about the decisions that are being made. You can find my channel by searching Hanford Insider on YouTube. In other community news, it was great to see a post by Gary Feinstein with an update on the renovations happening at Neighbor Bowl at Hanford High School. It looks like things are on track to be finished with the project in time for graduations in June.

Speaker 2: 3:39

Here are some things coming up on our community calendar. The Carnegie Museum of Kings County will open their next exhibition, kings County's Asian Experiences, this Friday, march 22. This is going to be a year long show in two parts. The museum is located at 109 East 8th Street and is open each Friday, saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5. Admission is $5 per person, with a family maximum of $10. For more information you can visit the website at carnegimuseumofkingscountyorg.

Speaker 2: 4:09

The Children's Storybook Garden and Museum will be holding a bunny brunch and Easter celebration on Saturday, march 23, from 9.30 to 10.30. Pre-registration is required. Register by calling the garden at 559-500-9966. There's a rabbit show at the Kings Fairgrounds on Saturday, march 23, from 8.30 to 4.30. Events of all shapes, sizes, breeds and colors will be judged and on display. There will also be rabbits and equipment for sale. The public is invited and admission is free. Consolves Faso Flowers is holding a spring outdoor pop-up show on March 24 from 11 to 4 at their shop at 603 East Greenfield Boulevard. There will be lots of handmade items created by those in the community.

Speaker 2: 4:55

There are a lot of great events coming up in 2024. You want to be sure to mark your calendars now for the 4th annual Autism Awareness 5K Run and Walk on Saturday, april 6 at the Quail Run Park on Glacial Wave. Contact Brie Vargas at 559-997-5442 or Stacey Brazil at 559-967-945 for further information. We'll have Stacey and Brie on the show next week to talk about this awesome event With the King's Players and Children's Storybook Garden. Museum. Murder Mystery Dinner is on April 20. The Hanford Chamber of Commerce Taste of the Valley is in the Civic Park on April 26. On Sunday, april 28, there will be a Mother's Day vendor fair and hat bar in the Carnegie Museum Garden from 11 to 4.

Speaker 2: 5:43

For you Car Show enthusiasts, mark your calendars now for the Hanford Fortuna Hall 2nd Annual Classic Car Show on Saturday, march 30. The Hanford West High School Bandbaker's Cars on Campus Car Show will be on April 27. And the 3rd annual Carnegie Museum of King's County Downtown Hanford Car Show will be held on June 8. Registration is now live at CarnegieCarShowcom. I'll be grabbing events as I see them on the Hanford Central Calendar and social media pages. If you have an event coming up and you'd like some help getting the word out, let's work together. Send your information to HanfordInsider at gmailcom. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a complete calendar of events. Well, it's great to welcome to the show again Mr Brad Albert, who is the Parks and Community Services Director for the City of Hanford. I thought, now that the weather is warming up and activities are really starting to get kicking into high gear, that'd be a great idea to have him on the show. Welcome to the show, brad.

Speaker 3: 6:48

Well, thanks, ron, for having me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 6:51

Brad, I know you've got a lot of activities coming up, so let's hit on just a few of them. I know you're really excited about the Spring Kids Camp coming up March 25 through the 29th.

Speaker 3: 7:01

Yeah, absolutely. This is a day camp that we do during the Easter break annually. It's located over at the Longfield Center. It's a combination of recreation and Richmond art field trip. It's an all day camp, so parents who might be working it's a convenient place to have the kids go. We have probably about 10 spots remaining, so it's filling up pretty quickly and folks can just go on to the city website and register for that camp. But we have a great staff who's done this camp for many years, very experienced and just a really good time. The weather is usually pretty nice. We can get them outside, visit some of our parks and we're happy to provide that camp.

Speaker 2: 7:51

That's great. So on Tuesdays you have the food truck takeovers in the Civic Park. How's that looking so far this year?

Speaker 3: 7:58

We had our first few no, our first one and it went pretty well. Again, words gotta get out in word of mouth. We generally have a lot of the downtown business. Folks walk over to Civic Park. Our first one we had some, you know, taco San Marcos was out there, which is a popular one. Really neat is through Winter Wonderland we actually purchased 10 picnic tables so we have better seating now. We're gonna be getting some umbrellas for some shade out there just to make it more comfortable. And as you said, the weather you know the weather is getting better. So that happens on the first and third Tuesday of every month from 11.30 to 1.30. We'll be rotating our vendors so there'll be different options available for folks there. So check the website. But again, it's kind of signifying spring is here and it's time to get out and everything's looking green and beautiful after all our rain.

Speaker 2: 9:05

It certainly is. I drove by the park this morning and, just beautiful, it's greening up nicely. So, speaking of the park and the green, you have a big egg hunt coming up on March 29th. We do.

Speaker 3: 9:20

This is a big event for us. On March 29th, from 10 am to 2 pm, right in the middle of Civic Park is our annual Easter egg hunt, and something really neat happened this year. One Blue Cross came in and said we want to be the major sponsor and we want all of the young people to be able to have the Easter egg hunt at no cost. That's fantastic. So this one is really filling up fast because of that. But there's basically three age groups. We have one to three year olds, four to six year olds and then seven to nine year old. We will have the Easter Bunny there and they'll be hopping around. Families will be able to take their picture with the Easter Bunny. We're going to kind of decorate the pastel patio up a little bit for photo ops, so that will be great.

Speaker 3: 10:18

Our carousel will be open. Freddie the firetruck will be out taking people for rides. We'll have some food vendors and we'll have some other fun activities in conjunction with that. They're kind of timed, so you've got so many minutes to go pick up your eggs. Every young person will get their own basket this year and again, all funded through the sponsorship with Anthem Blue Cross. So really neat situation this year We've never had a major sponsor come in and offer this, so we're very thankful for that and we think it's going to be a great day while face painting out there. So again, really family friendly atmosphere that day. So that's on the 29th, from 10 to two and again on our website and that one, I know, is going really quick.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Well, that's fantastic. You know the Civic Center is such a hub of the community not only the park for things like your fall carnival that you know. Recently we had the Renaissance Fair and, of course, winter Wonderland. We talked about it that a few weeks ago and the success in that. But I know that the Civic Auditorium building actually is closed right now for some remodeling. Do you have an update on how the progress is coming with the paint and the flooring and when we might see the doors open again?

Speaker 3: 11:41

Yeah, and construction always is a little bit of a moving target. But from my understanding we had three basic projects the ceiling, the interior painting and the flooring. Our city council directed staff were continuing with actually oak flooring. The original lasted a hundred years so I think it's a pretty durable surface. So they've done the ceiling, they've completed the painting and now the flooring I believe is being done as we speak. We had to raise some of the floor electrical outlets because we're actually going to put it on top of the existing floor. So the original floor will be there. It will just be one layer down. At one time we were going to take it all out and redo it. So that's commencing and right now for us for reservations. We're confident we'll be able to reopen for reservations on July 1. Could be sooner but that's the date that we're going with and in July already is a very busy month there for reservations. So July 1 will be the date that folks can go in and see the beautiful new interior.

Speaker 2: 13:04

So you talked about the building and the floor being a hundred years old and I know that the city is really excited about gearing up for the hundredth anniversary of the Civic Auditorium building, and on the outside I know it says 1924, but the building actually wasn't completed until 1925. So that's a great reason to celebrate coming up right.

Speaker 3: 13:27

We're beginning to put together a committee for that birthday party. It will be sometime in the summer of 25,. Not exactly sure if it will be a themed or dressed as a historical 100 years ago, but we all know that's a beloved building. That's the iconic Hanford landmark. I think the building and Civic Park is really the heart of, in many ways, historically, culturally, of our community. So I'm sure that will be a well attended and a very special event for a lot of folks.

Speaker 2: 14:07

It certainly will. It most certainly will. So a huge event for the city of Hanford that I know the Parks and Community Services Department has been working on is all of the retrofitting Longfield Center for more community use. But you've also retrofitted some more buildings down there for the Boys and Girls Club and that kicks off at the end of this month. Let's hear about that.

Speaker 3: 14:29

Yeah, we are so excited. We are partnering with the Boys and Girls Club of the Sequoias out of Visalia and we will be opening the Hanford Boys and Girls Club and we call it the Innovation Lab, located at the Co Park building. So right across the street from Longfield, right in the park. We have completely resurfaced, repainted, bought all new appliances in the kitchen, we purchased 20 laptop computers and it will be a STEM-based after school program for grades 7 through 12. And the elementary school district has a very vibrant after school program but the 7 through 12th graders do not have after school. So they'll have an opportunity and we're out recruiting young people as we speak that are interested in project-based learning robotics, rocketry, engineering, mathematics, computer coding, computer gaming. We hope you know in the future that we have competitive teams competing in the robotics with other schools throughout the valley and maybe throughout the state. So we're really happy that we're going to be able to offer that to young people. And this all came about really from a conversation I had with Dr Victor Rosa, with the high school district. He says we really don't have as much time as we'd like to devote to STEM and so we thought let's do that and we're hoping that is the hook.

Speaker 3: 16:14

The grant we received a five-year grant so we're stable for five years. We've got folks in the community that want to form a fundraising committee so the long-term sustainability of the club can be intact. But we want to take kids to JPL and Pasadena. We want to take them to Stanford. We want to take them to Silicon Valley. We want to just show young people in Hanford that's out there and it's available. You know there's many, many roads that lead to the same destination. So that's part of this whole thing and tied into that. You know, the Boys and Girls Club brings a plethora of programming and staffing and just their model of youth development and prevention. This was funded through Prop 64, which is actually the legalization of marijuana. So prevention will be woven in to all of our activities, really helping young people make good choices, because I think ultimately that's what it comes down to.

Speaker 3: 17:21

So we're real excited. We've been working real hard. They've been out recruiting kids on campuses. One thing that's going to be really neat we're working with CART. We will be able to transport the kids from their schools to Cope Park at no charge every day. That's great, and then the parents will be responsible to pick them up in the early evening and so this will be in the junior highs and in the high schools. That's fantastic. So they'll pick them up, bring them in, and we're working with some STEM folks in Avid up in Fresno for some curriculum, but we're going to jump in and I think it's just a wonderful opportunity for young people. That again, we've never had a Boys and Girls Club that I know of, so it's a great addition. It's for us, it's just another way to help or assist young people in Hanford any way we can.

Speaker 2: 18:21

That's such a great program and I know the city is really super excited about it, as is the citizens of town. I know you've been doing a lot of work reaching out to the local schools and informing people about what the program is going to be, and having Cart as a partner just is just an amazing way to go about this. Let's close this up real quick. So, with all of these activities going on, you've got the plunge that'll be opening before you know it. If people are interested in getting a job with the city of Hanford, as maybe a recreational leader or a lifeguard, what opportunities do they have to join in Great question.

Speaker 3: 19:01

We are currently recruiting for two positions Lifeguards. As you mentioned, the plunge will be opening as soon as school gets out in June and we do basic lifeguarding, we do swim lessons, a lot of things there. We're also recruiting for summer camp counselors, so folks that work with the youth throughout their whole activities and you know our camps come to the plunge and swim and all of that. So really good opportunities for everyone. You know people always think, you know, lifeguards have got to be that young person, but not necessarily so they're good jobs, they're good entry-level jobs. So that is available and you can find that again on the city's website. If you go to the HR department those jobs will be posted. There'll be instructions on how to apply. It's all done electronically.

Speaker 3: 19:57

We interview nearly everybody who applies, you know, to see if they're a good fit and we're really just looking for good people. We'll help with certification for the lifeguards. We go through Red Cross and make sure everybody's, you know, certified, but that's all kind of provided they just have to have the one to. We'll do the what, the specifics, but if they're motivated to do that and you know we're in the people business, so you know good personalities, good work ethics, enjoy being around other folks, young and old, and you know it's okay to have fun while you're working. And, again, safety will always be our number one, but you know we need to have fun and we like to do that, and so, folks that appeals to, we'd love to have them apply for those positions.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Well, the city certainly is lucky, brad, to have you and your staff putting on such great events and always looking to the future. We talk about the city mantra, of planning tomorrow's and I think definitely you're headed in the right direction with these initiatives with Boys and Girls Club and providing activities for the youth and giving them an opportunity to get a job and serve and learn how to mentor people. That's so amazing and you know, having you on the show is always a joy because there's always so much going on. We had a little quiet time after Winter Wonderland but definitely, with the weather warming up, here we go, hold on right.

Speaker 3: 21:28

Yeah, we're a bit still recovering from Winter Wonderland, but we're actually planning next year. I've got one really other quick event. This has not until April 13th, okay, but we're real happy. We have a brand new playground at Irlef Johnson Park and that's going to happen on Saturday, april 13th. It will be like at 10 am. We're getting the flyers ready but we actually move the playground structure, we think, to a better location closer to the neighborhood.

Speaker 2: 21:58

I agree.

Speaker 3: 22:00

And it's in fact if people want to go over there. It's actually I shouldn't say this it's open now. It just got finished last Friday, but it's got a shade structure, we have benches for parents to sit and watch and so we're really happy. So we'll have a ribbon cutting kind of celebration on April 13th, but then you know that's just another. You know we have a lot of parks we take care of and when we can we try to upgrade and improve and expand. So Earl F Johnson will be on the 13th and we invite the entire community to come out and just celebrate and we hope to have a lot of kids playing on the playground.

Speaker 2: 22:41

Well, thank you so much, Brad. If you'd like to get in touch with Brad, you can contact the city website at Hanfordcity and you can find the Parks and Community Services social media on Facebook. And thank you so much, brad, for coming on the show again.

Speaker 3: 22:56

Rob, thanks again. I appreciate it. It's a busy time, but the weather's starting to be in our favor, so hope to see everybody come out.

Speaker 1: 23:11

And now it's time for Hanford Insider Sports with Eric Bentley. In baseball, hanford High was dominant, taking down Dinuba 12-4, and Hanford West 6-1. The bullpups improved to a solid 6-3 overall on the year. As for Hanford West, the loss against the bullpups was their only blemish of the week, as they bested Bakersfield 6-5 and Selma 3-2. Those two victories brought the Huskies to an even 5-5 overall this season. Ansier Pacific was not able to pick up a win, getting shut out in their two games against Hoover and Kerman. However, the Golden Bears maintained their above 500 status with a 5-4 overall record.

Speaker 1: 24:18

On the softball side, hanford West saw their hot start slow down as they went winless in the central showdown, falling to Templeton, st Joseph and Menachie. However, they were able to pick up a win earlier in the week, 11-1 over Corcoran. The Huskies sit at an impressive 7-4 and 1 so far this year. Hanford High went 1-2 in the central classic, as they took down Mission Prep 5-2, before falling to Orange Cove and Salinas. The bullpups are now 4-6 on the year. Ansier Pacific fell to 1-7 this season, as Golden West got the better of the Golden Bears 13-3. As always, please send any scores, stories, stats or accomplishments that you'd like us to cover to Hanford Insider at gmailcom. I'm Eric Bentley and this has been your Hanford Insider sports report.

Speaker 2: 25:23

Well, that's it for this week's show. If you enjoyed the show, leave a review on my website. If you'd like to join the Hanford Insider email list, stop by my website at hanfordinsidercom to sign up for updates. You'll also get an exclusive copy of my newsletter in your inbox each week. You can also send me feedback by voicemail through my website by clicking on the microphone icon. I'd love to hear from you. Your comments may even be shared on the show. I also need your help getting the word out about the show by liking and sharing on social media or just telling a friend. For more information about the show, you can find us podcasts on Facebook, instagram threads X and YouTube at Hanford Insider. If you have a show idea, be sure to email me at hanfordinsider at gmailcom and I'll get going on it. Thanks for listening. The weather's great. Get out there and enjoy it. Have a great week.