By DAVID ROSS
The Valley Center Fire Protection District board will have to “re-do” the decision-making process that led to its decision three weeks ago to enter into negotiations with Mercy Ambulance to provide paramedic services to VC and a large service area that includes Hidden Meadows and Lake Henshaw.
According to County counsel, the fire board acted improperly when it held discussions relating to the selection of the paramedic provider in closed session, adjourning to a public session only to take the vote.
NOTE: This procedure is not new. The board followed exactly the same procedure when it chose Sycuan Ambulance two years ago.
Because of County counsel’s ruling, the whole process will be replayed at a hearing held at the board’s regular meeting, Oct. 16, 7 p.m. at the VC water board room.
Meantime, one of the three companies that bid to provide the service, Americare, has already appealed the earlier decision and wants the board to use an entirely new source selection committee. That committee’s composition is secret until after the decision-making process is over, at the insistence of the County’s Emergency Medical Services, which oversees the process of the water district choosing a paramedic provider.
Fire Chief Kevin O’Leary told The Roadrunner that he will be looking into Americare’s objections.
“If they get their way it could cause Valley Center to lose its ALS (Advanced Life Support),” said the chief. It would be nearly impossible to go through a new search for a provider and meet the Nov. 14 deadline when the current provider, Sycuan Ambulance, will stop providing service.
Mercy Ambulance, a Mariposa County-based company, was recommended by the source selection committee, which reviewed all of the proposals.
The other companies that made proposals were Americare and San Diego Medical Services Enterprises.
Ever since the vote was taken on Sept. 22 Americare has peppered the fire district with letters saying that it planned to appeal the decision.
Americare’s contention is that Mercy Ambulance misrepresented its experience. According to Americare’s CEO Mike Summers, “They possibly utilized experience that was gained by other companies they have ownership in or worked for. Obviously companies cannot claim as their own experience gained by other companies while they worked there. Only that company’s experience may be counted.”
Americare couldn’t know what representations Mercy Ambulance made in its bid to the fire district because, under the rules mandated by the County’s Emergency Medical Services, the whole process of evaluation was conducted behind closed doors.
Americare commented on this when Summers wrote: “Although the facts are very unclear due to non-disclosure of essential documents, details, and competitors’ bids, we would like to appeal the decision. . . .”
He also wrote, “ . . . many strange things occurred during this fire RFP (request for proposal), closed-door sessions, secret meetings, confidential members of panels, etc. All of which are unheard of in a bid process.”
Summers also claims that Mercy misrepresented its experience in San Diego County.
“They apparently have claimed to the press and to you to be a current provider of BLS and ALS services in San Diego County. They are not licensed by the county of San Diego as either an ALS or BLS provider. They are not ‘of Escondido’ since we have been advised there have no license in Escondido. . .”
NOTE: The Roadrunner was informed by the fire district at the time the contract was awarded that Mercy was based in Mariposa County.
Valley Center farmer Jim Bathgate was honored with San Diego County Farm Bureau’s 2003 Farmer of the Year award for his contributions to his local Farm Bureau and local agriculture.
The award was presented by Eric Anderson, 1999 Farmer of the Year and past president of San Diego County Farm Bureau at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido before an audience of 250 San Diego County Farm Bureau members, dignitaries and Bathgate friends and family.
“Jim has been around for a long time and he’s so consistent and dedicated to this industry," said Bob Vice, San Diego County Farm Bureau’s 1987 Farmer of the Year.
“Over the years, whenever you get a group of people together, if the chips are down and you need people, Jim’s there. Whether it’s the county fair booth, a board of supervisors’ meeting, a political meeting, or another seat in the audience for agriculture, he is just so committed and does it without any expectation or applause.”
District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and state and local politicians also honored Bathgate at the event. State Senator Denise Ducheny and State Assemblyman Ray Haynes presented Bathgate with a joint proclamation from the area State Assembly and Senate delegation. Board of Supervisors Chairman Greg Cox and Supervisor Bill Horn also presented Bathgate with a proclamation from the County of San Diego.
Bathgate grew up on a 60-acre farm in San Juan Capistrano, where he learned and practiced the art of agriculture as a youth helping support the family’s primary crop, Valencia oranges. To help make ends meet when Valencias were out of season, the family orchard grew a host of crops including avocados, walnuts, persimmons, apples, plums, apricots, pomegranates, figs, and quince as well as vegetables including asparagus, peas, lima beans, tomatoes, sweet corn, squash, and melons.
As a young adult, Bathgate’s farming endeavors were put on hold while he completed his Bachelor’s degree in chemistry and botany at Pomona College in 1955.
Two years in the Army followed, where he received his medical corpsman training and was assigned to the chemical and biological Dugway Proving Ground in Utah as a biologist in the bacteriology lab. After the service, a short stint with a semiconductor company opened the door of opportunity into the aerospace industry, and Bathgate soon signed on with Rockwell as a component engineer where he spent the next 17 years before farming would call him back. But the ebb and flow of surviving on agriculture alone would beckon him back into industry off and on throughout the 1980s.
“I never retired; I was redirected,” said Bathgate, who has been a Farm Bureau member since 1980 and a director representing the deciduous fruit commodity since 1988. “Sometimes, you have to do more than farm to survive.”
Today, Bathgate is 100 percent farmer and growing about 1,000 persimmon trees as well as 150 different cultivars of stone fruits, citrus, bananas, apples, pears and more on the five-acre farm in Valley Center that he shares with his wife, Lee.
In addition to his tireless efforts year after year producing San Diego County Farm Bureau’s annual display at the San Diego County Fair, Bathgate’s hands are full in other agricultural arenas as long-time director of the Rare Fruit Growers and Cherimoya associations, founder of the California Fuyu Growers Association, and as director of the San Diego Agricultural Society established in 1999 to promote local agriculture.
Bathgate also sits on the Hellhole Canyon education committee where he identifies plants; he is an advisory committee member at the Small Business Development Center at MiraCosta College; and he is a 10-year member of the Dos Valles Garden Club in Valley Center where he identifies, propagates and raises plants, conducts plant sales and reinvests those funds back into his community in the form of scholarships to local students and schools. In 1996, Bathgate received a Volunteer Award from the North San Diego County Philanthropic Council.
San Diego County Farm Bureau is a nonprofit trade organization with more than 7,000 members. It has operated since 1913 with the mission to represent San Diego County Agriculture through public relations, education and public policy advocacy in order to promote the economic viability of agriculture balanced with appropriate management of natural resources.
Jennie Wimmer’s contribution to California’s Gold Rush and to the Golden State’s history was finally recognized Sunday, 118 years after her death, when a plaque telling her story was placed at the VC Cemetery.
Dozens of members of Wimmer’s descendants arrived for the ceremony, which included an unveiling of a handsome plaque that had been presented to the cemetery by “The Clampers” whose official name is the Squibob chapter of E Clampus Vitus. This organization places markers at sites of historical interest all over California. The event was also sponsored by the Valley Center Historical Society.
For many years Wimmer’s grave was, if not unmarked, not particularly noted. Even her name was misspelled on the worn red brick headstone that marked her final resting place. That marker was placed in 1944 as a Boy Scout project.
Yet she is credited as being a co-discoverer (along with James Marshall) of the gold nugget that sparked the California Gold Rush of 1849, the single most important event in the state’s history. Wimmer assayed the nugget that Marshall found in the American River, by placing it in a solution of lye and declared it to be gold after it emerged unchanged.
Many historians call Wimmer one of the most famous women in California history. Fame and fortune bypassed Jennie Wimmer. She ended her days in Valley Center, unknown and in virtual poverty.
The original gold nugget was acquired by the University of California and is housed at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley. An account of the first discovery of gold written by Capt. John Sutter refers to the gold piece as “The Wimmer nugget.”
Following the ceremony, visitors adjourned to the Valley Center History Museum where a permanent exhibition and tribute to Mrs. Wimmer was unveiled.
The display features documents, photos and a gold mining and panning set-up featuring an assortment of implements and objects common to a miner’s life.
The museum is open Tuesday-Friday from noon to 4 p.m. and Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.
For information call 749-2993 or visit www.valleycenterhistory.org.
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
Copyright © 2002, Palomar Community Newspapers, dba Valley Roadrunner. All rights reserved. This content may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Valley Roadrunner.