Sacramento Valley Forum - In the News

Conference speakers share their local food promotion experiences

Chico Enterprise Record
Thursday, October 28, 2010
By Heather Hacking - Staff Writer

CHICO — The promotion of locally-grown food has been under way for years, with the Buy Fresh Buy Local slogan becoming more common.

Locally, during summer months, people can go to a farmers market several times a week. But expanding local buying opportunities and breaking into the larger distribution markets still has its hurdles.

Three panelists shared their experiences with local food promotion Wednesday during the Sacramento Valley Forum, hosted in Chico by the Great Valley Center.

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Hey, We’re Better Than Placer County

A News Café
Thursday, October 28, 2010
By Paul Shigley

Regular visitors to A News Café know that we’re strong promoters of locally sourced food. A session during the Great Valley Center’s Sacramento Valley Forum on Wednesday reminded me just how far Shasta County has to go with its local food movement. But the session also hinted at the possibilities.

Much of the focus of the panel discussion, conducted at Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico, was on “Placer Grown.” The nonprofit organization of the same name does innumerable things to boost the Placer Grown brand, to educate consumers about the benefits of eating locally, and to connect growers with distributors, retailers and restaurants.

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Thursday, Dec. 2, Preview Screening of Digital Doctors: The Future of Health Care

Please join us Dec. 2 in Sacramento for a preview of Digital Doctors: The Future of Health Care, a collaboration between the Great Valley Center and KVIE Public Television.

This half-hour program is part of the Great Valley Center's Health Initiative, which aims to engage public dialog on issues impacting community health in the Central Valley. For more information or to RSVP for this event, click here.

The Great Valley Center's Health Initiative is made possible with funding from the California HealthCare Foundation.

Nov. 9 Town Hall in Visalia -- How Will Health Care Reform Affect You?

Great Valley Center and KVPR’s Quality of Life to hold public town hall on health care reform Nov. 9 in Visalia

You’ve heard the political opinions on health care reform but what will the changes really mean for you? How will they affect the way you pay for and receive health services? And when will all these changes take place?

The Great Valley Center and Valley Public Radio’s Quality of Life program will host a public town hall on the provisions of the recently passed federal health care reform at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9, in Ponderosa Hall at College of the Sequoias in Visalia.

During this two-hour event, a panel of guest experts will explain the details and timing of specific changes in the legislation and answer questions from the audience. This non-partisan event is free and open to the general public. The program will be recorded and broadcast Nov. 16 on Valley Public Radio which reaches listeners in Fresno, Bakersfield, Visalia, Madera, Tulare, Clovis, Merced, and Hanford.

If you can’t attend the event but would like to submit a question about health care reform, please contact Stacey Shepard at the Great Valley Center, stacey@greatvalley.org.

The event is made possible with funding from the California HealthCare Foundation, www.chcf.org

QUALITY OF LIFE, hosted by Terry Phillips, is a public forum on the air that looks at people and issues affecting the Central Valley. Listeners are invited to call in and participate. The programs are heard Tuesday mornings from 9am to 10am, and are rebroadcast on Tuesday evenings at 7pm.

THE GREAT VALLEY CENTER, founded in 1997, is a private, non-profit organization that supports organizations and activities working to improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of California’s Central Valley, in partnership with the University of California, Merced.  

UC Merced reckons its economic contributions to the Valley at more than $500M since 2000

Merced Sun-Star
Monday, Oct. 18, 2010

by Sun-Star Staff

 

UC Merced declared Monday that in the past decade it has contributed more than $1.1 billion to the state's economy -- $550 million of that in the San Joaquin Valley.

Fresno and Merced counties were the two local communities that shared most of the the campus' economic largess. That's money UC Merced spent on employee wages, construction contracts and goods and services.

"Despite one of the most difficult economic climates in decades, UC Merced continues to invest heavily in the future of the Valley," Chancellor Steve Kang said. "The university's rapid growth is creating quality jobs, stimulating secondary investments, increasing tax revenues and helping to offset recessionary declines in other sectors of the regional economy. We are extremely pleased to be pumping sustainable value back into the region at a time when unemployment and poverty are creating so much financial hardship for so many Valley residents."

Read more: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2010/10/18/1615385/uc-merced-reckons-its-economic.html#ixzz14KcAuwHx

Lovelace completes government leadership course

The Times-Standard

October 15, 2010

The Great Valley Center in Modesto announced Wednesday that Humboldt County Supervisor Mark Lovelace has completed the Great Valley Leadership Institute, a five-day leadership course for local elected officials in California.

This is the eighth year for the course, which is taught by Marty Linsky of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The curriculum, using a case study method, covers negotiation and shared decision making, ethics and coalition building, managing role challenges, self-assessment and leadership and other subjects relating to effective governance.

The course involved 11 members of school boards, city councils and county boards of supervisors meeting in Modesto.

Building a Future: Planning experts share wisdom at summit

The Modesto Bee
Sunday, October 10, 2010
by Garth Stapley

Standing alone may have served a romantic image of the great American West in years past. But for today's San Joaquin Valley, isolationism is death.

That's what planning experts said over and over when asked how the historically undervalued valley can expect to climb out of California's center rut and into a bright, vibrant future.

"The most important thing is coalition building," lobbyist Mark MacDonald said last week at a summit in Modesto, where planning specialists from near and far gathered to ponder valley strategy for hitting up money powerbrokers. "All your battles (must be) internal, before you get up to Sacramento."

No county is an island, these growth gurus said, urging hands to join from Stockton to Modesto to Bakersfield and all points between to create strong coalitions, develop sound land-use plans and build efficient transportation systems.

"We are a family. And just like in a family, we may have arguments and disagreements, but when you walk outside, usually a family tries to put on a face that's acceptable."

— Dejeuné Shelton, interim executive director, Great Valley Center (Modesto)

Read more: http://www.modbee.com/2010/10/09/1376914/planning-experts-share-wisdom.html#ixzz14KdZVHeX