July 27, 2005 - Top Stories
By DAVID ROSS
A few years ago they used to call the brewing rebellion of the Western states against the federal government’s tendency to take their land and make it into parks and preserves: the Sagebrush Rebellion.
Some of the same sentiments, of government taking private property without just compensation, seems to be bubbling just under the surface in San Diego County as a result of the marathon endurance exercise known as General Plan 2020.
Smart Growth, the underlying philosophy of GP2020, downzones properties in the outer rim of a community while concentrating growth in the center.
Naturally this means that a great deal of personal wealth is transferred from one property owner to another.
For years the County has danced around the issue of whether or not those whose property values will be cut by the downzoning will be compensated.
It has implied but never promised that what is called “an equity mechanism” will be adopted. No “equity mechanism” has ever been on an agenda for the Board of Supervisors. Nor has it been discussed.
“There’s still no activity that has been generated by the County,” commented planning group Chairman Andy Washburn at the July planning group meeting.
Yet, planning groups such as Valley Center’s have made it clear that their support of the vast changes in GP2020 were contingent upon there being such a mechanism. It has passed several motions saying that its support was tied to an “equity mechanism.”
However, the group’s support becomes less and less important as the process moves forward, making Valley Center’s planning group look rather like Charlie Brown after Lucy promised to hold the football while he kicked it.
This impatience with the County on this issue bubbled to the surface at the July meeting of the Valley Center Planning Group when a resident, Brian Bates, pointed out that no equity mechanism has been adopted.
“This board and most people in the community requested it. I think we should demand it. Given this absurd Supreme Court ruling [on taking private property for public purposes] we’d like to request that the board suspend all GP2020 and strongly say to the Board of Supervisors, ‘Where’s our equity mechanism?’ ”
Washburn noted that the planning group went on record again in January on this issue.
Planner Larry Glavinic asked that this be put on the August agenda.
“Of course, how many times do they have to hear it from us?”
“Stop working with them until they do it,” said Bates.
Hearing the Candidates
The planning group also heard from three of the four candidates for a vacancy on the board.
They were Terry Van Koughnett, Hugh Salisbury and Kevin Kloestra. A fourth candidate, Maurice Cloutier, wasn’t able to attend.
The candidates were asked to explain why they wished to serve and what they see as Valley Center’s greatest challenge.
Van Koughnett said he has lived here for ten years and done a lot of volunteer work.
“I’d like to bring to the planning group my business background. The greatest challenge facing us is growth. I think we can deal with density issues but it has to be managed.”
Kloestra said that he was now retired after 35 years of management. “I once lived in a community in Michigan that went through the kinds of growth that this community is going through now. “
He said would bring a background of planning and a good corporate sense of consensus management to the job.
“The main issue confronting us is that development is happening, and there’s a lot of sentiment for keeping things the way they are.”
Salisbury said he is the only one of the candidates who lives on the west end of Valley Center. He is a resident of Circle R.
“I I really believe I can help you,” he said, noting his experience working on pension funds and in construction.
He added, “I’m all for keeping two lane roads because I believe that wider roads will lead to more traffic.”
The year was 1955. President Eisenhower increased the minimum wage to $1 per hour. Disneyland opened its doors in Anaheim. Bill Haley and the Comets had a big hit with Rock Around the Clock.
And, in August of that year, Tom Miller and Carl Jochim started a new venture in Valley Center, a fence construction firm. Carl’s mother-in-law suggested the partners call the new company Frontier Fence Company.
The name caught on, as did the company. Now in its 50th year, the second-generation firm—Tom Miller had bought out his partner in 1963—estimates that in that time it has constructed a total of 6,750,000 lineal feet of fencing. “That’s enough to circle the globe over 187 times,” says Tom Miller who, at 77, maintains an active participation in Frontier Fence.
Over the years, Frontier Fence Company’s clients have included the U.S. Navy, Standard Oil, The City of Oakland, Del Mar Fairgrounds as well as, literally, thousands of commercial and residential clients in North County.
“Since about the mid 1980s, our market has been concentrated here in North County,” Miller says. “There is plenty of work up here. Certainly enough to keep us busy working on an average of 500 lineal feet of fencing every workday.
Tom’s sons, Curt, 54, Mark, 52, and twins Tommy and Jimmy, 47,started in their dad’s business at the entry level position of working in the yard on weekends, after school, and during vacations.
Today, even though they are a hands-on bunch that doesn’t pay much mind to titles, each is a vice president with specific responsibilities for each part of the company. That’s on paper. In reality, they all pitch in as and where needed.
Success Story
Tom Miller and Carl Jochim had been friends since they were teenagers in Whittier.
Carl had moved here first, purchasing and then operating a 20-acre ranch in Valley Center with his wife. But profits were small, so Carl resumed doing here what he had successfully done in Whittier: building fences.
Not long after, Carl saw the need for another fence company here. Meanwhile his buddy, Tom, was working several jobs in Whittier to support his growing family.
“One of my jobs was selling fencing. With his own background in the fence business, Carl convinced me to move down here and help him start our own fence company.”
Frontier Fence Company’s first location was in Valley Center in a converted chicken house and grain storage facility.
One of their early jobs was for a man who owned a Ford dealership in Los Angeles and owned property along Lake Wohlford Road, in Valley Center. Then, the fledgling company took on the big boys and won a fencing contract at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
The contract was for $60,000. Frontier Fence Company was the successful low bidder, $20 lower than the next lowest bidder.
By 1958 Frontier Fence Company’s headquarters had moved to its present location at 1314 West Mission Road.
In honor of its Golden Anniversary, Frontier Fence Company has added a few face and figure to its corporate identity. “The Cowboy” officially joined the firm in 2004, in time for the 50th anniversary celebration.
Keys to Success
Getting involved in the community worked well for Tom Miller. In the 1960s, while building several horse corral fences in Valley Center, Tom bought a few horses. He then helped start the Valley Center Vaqueros, a horse owners association, now in its 45th year. He later served as association president. In the mid 1970s he joined the Escondido Rotary Club, a group he led as president in 1987-1988.
“From day one our goal was to become a ‘legitimate’ organization,” he said. “We didn’t open our doors for business until we had obtained a contractor’s license and the required insurance. We may have started in a converted chicken house, but we were always a legitimate concern,” he said.
Oh Pioneer!
Frontier Fence Company, celebrating its 50th Anniversary in business in 2005, was almost called “Pioneer Fence Company”. Explains Tom Miller, who started the business with partner Carl Jochim in 1955,”We were the first fence construction company in North San Diego County in the mid 1950s. To us, it was a new frontier. To others we were pioneers. So even thought we incorporated our business and obtained our business license as Frontier Fence Company, customers occasionally made checks payable to ‘Pioneer Fence Company.’ ”
In fact, Miller says an occasional check still comes in today made out to ‘Pioneer Fence Company’.
County Assessor/Recorder Clerk Gregory J. Smith announced recently that the assessed value of all taxable property in the County increased $37.6 billion over the previous year to $319.4 billion.
This represents a 13.34% increase in the total assessed value and is the largest increase since 1980-81, said Smith.
This includes values of 933,760 parcels, 140,522 businesses, 59,708 boats, 21,240 mobile homes and 4,620 aircraft.
In San Diego County the highest priced property that sold or transferred this year was the Pfizer Campus Office Park, which sold for $372 million.
In Valley Center the highest priced property that sold was the Hidden Oaks Ranch, a 20 bedroom, 19 bathroom house whose adjoining property has nine miles of trails, that sold for $7 million, according to Robert Edmundson, manager of the local office of Coldwell Banker.
The highest price for a home in VC was a 4 bedroom, 3 bath home on Mesa Verde that sold for $2.2 million.
The average price of a home in the Valley was about $615,000 for a three bedroom, midrange house, said Edmundson.
This increase in property values and hence property taxes, may be good news for the County’s budget next year. The last two years the County had to, from its perspective, cut programs to the bone, partially because the State took a larger share of property taxes as part of a two year deal to “balance” the state budget.
Those deals end next year, which will put much more money into the County’s general purpose fund.
The Valley Roadrunner
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