Testosterone Replacement Therapy in Kingsburg, CA

KINGSBURG, Calif. (KFSN) -- Some restaurant owners love to show their hometown pride.

Roadhouse 99 on Smith near Draper in downtown Kingsburg is helping change perceptions about this small city with the Swedish theme.

Owners and brothers, Ernie and Adrian Perez, got started in the food industry when they were barely in their 20s.

Now with Roadhouse 99, they've created a new vibe in town with delicious dishes and craft cocktails.

"For a long time, you would leave to go have a nice meal, right? You'd go to Fresno, you'd go to Visalia because Kingsburg was too small and everything closed early," explained Adrian.

That's no longer the case.

Dishes like the New York steak sandwich have been a hit for the Perez brothers.

"We're taking a New York strip, prepping it ourselves. Topped with grilled mushrooms and onions. We make our own garlic aioli sauce and we put it on a Basque roll," said Ernie.

Ernie says the house chips seem to be more popular than the fries.

This is a place where you can grab a burger called "Get Figgy With It."

"That was a crazy concoction by my brother there," Ernie said.

"So, it's a half-pound burger patty, pork belly, blue cheese crumble, fig jam, and balsamic production sauce," said Adrian.

The brothers' creativity is on full display with their pork belly bites. They're sliced and smoked.

"After pulling it out of the fryer, we sit it on a little bit of cole slaw with a little bit of housemade honey siracha sauce and siracha mayo that we make ourselves," explained Ernie.

Ernie and Adrian had a small eatery along Highway 99 for eight years before moving downtown.

Customers couldn't wait for this place to open in August.

"Yeah, it's a small town so anything new, obviously everyone's on it," said Jared Murray, a customer.

"We wanted to keep that same kind of vibe and make it very family-friendly. But we also wanted to add something that wasn't around so we added the craft cocktails," Adrian said.

"We're known for our old fashioneds. They're very tasty."

They also feature a large ice cube with the restaurant logo.

"If you want to go super healthy we have the salad here, with a little chicken of course," Ernie said.

"Right now, we're using local strawberries from right down the road from Fry's Strawberry Stand."

"Our Brussel sprouts are very popular. Flash-fried with bacon, dried cranberries, and blue cheese crumble," said Adrian.

With its modern take on food and cocktails, Roadhouse 99 offers a toast to Kingsburg.

People loved that pork belly so much that the Perez brothers started putting it into different dishes.

For years, residents and businesses in the City of Kingsburg have only been given one option for high-speed internet.

That looks to change later this year with the installation of fiber optic cable courtesy of a partnership between the locally owned Kingsburg Media Foundation (KBMF) and the City of Kingsburg.

Following the installation of 17 miles of fiber optic cable, which will be completed this fall, residents will have another option for wireless internet directly from KBMF. Previously, Comcast was the only wired option available.

According to a study by the Public Policy Institute of California, around 15% of Californians remain without access to high-speed, broadband internet. This issue, commonly known as the “digital divide,” hits the Central Valley particularly hard due to its large rural population, which experiences higher levels of difficulty in accessing broadband services due to the expansive geography of the region.

Last month, a workshop at Fresno City College presented by Broadband for All aimed to receive input that will affect the development of California’s five-year action plan.

Kingsburg’s plan, however, dates back to pre-pandemic, with the city and KBMF initially formulating plans to expand service coverage as early as 2019.

The impact of the pandemic forced both the city and the foundation to expedite their process.

As the pandemic continued, many residents and businesses in Kingsburg encountered connectivity and speed issues due to the large number of users accessing the internet for work, school and health reasons, said Alex Henderson, Kingsburg city manager.

“Around that time, we started to have some conversations about options,” Henderson said. “As it got closer from an infrastructure standpoint to Kingsburg, it became more of a potential reality. Once KBMF brought it in, we started to have more accelerated conversations about potential buildout.”

In August of last year, KBMF finalized a partnership with the City of Kingsburg, receiving $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds provided during the pandemic and a $2.2 million loan from the city. The loan will be repaid over several years through customer subscriptions.

The project will be completed in three phases, with phase one focusing on the downtown. Phase one was prioritized due to events taking place downtown during the summer, with phases two and three focusing on more residential areas.

“We’re excited to do this project because we love making an impact in our community,” said KBMF Chief Marketing Officer Brian Griffin. “We understand that the people and businesses that we serve are real people living real lives, and part of those lives are done online.”

To Griffin’s knowledge, this project is the first city-wide broadband connection project in the Central Valley.

“You’ll see models that resemble this that are done in larger urban areas that are providing Wi-Fi access in public spaces,” he said. “This is the first one I know of to be a municipal system in the Central Valley.”

The installation of fiber cables will extend to the outskirts of Kingsburg and will accommodate future hardware upgrades as the town grows.

Once the system is up and running, customers can expect to see download speeds starting at 200 megabytes per second all the way up to 1 gigabyte per second.

Plans start from as low as $50 a month to $300 a month with add-on options including phone and television. Discounts are available through the federal Affordable Connectivity Program.

KBMF was founded in 2012 and saw its foundation built upon serving the community. Initially, the foundation was established to provide audio mixing and recording services for the Kingsburg City Band’s public performances. Since its conception, the foundation has expanded its focus to include internet and voice services, IT design, implementation and support as well as other community-based services.

The installation of fiber cable throughout the city expands on the foundation’s service-driven goals.

“We’re excited to do this project because we love making an impact in our community,” Griffin said.

family background/ Ty graduated from California State University, Fresno with a degree in ag business and plant science. He’s the son of Becky and Andy Muxlow.age/23grower/Kingsburg, Californiacrops/Peaches and nectarinesbusiness/Family Tree Farms

How did you get your start?Some of my first experiences were learning how to irrigate a field, understanding what it means to grow a commodity. As a kid, I pruned, I picked, I did pretty much everything under the sun to grow a piece of fruit.

Those lessons really helped me to understand what work and manual labor has to be done in the field to get fruit to market.

I enjoyed being out in the field, out in nature getting my hands sweaty. It grew into a passion of mine and gave me an entrepreneurial spirit.

What other things helped direct your path?When I was 12 years old, instead of my dad investing in a college fund for me, he invested in a “college farm.” We leased some ground near our home and started a new orchard. It’s something that I enjoyed — getting the opportunity to grow something that young and learn from my mistakes and successes.

When we planted the farm, I remember measuring different spacings to see what might work, whether it was going to be a 9-foot tree spacing or an 8-foot tree spacing.

My dad helped me with those calculations, and it taught me a lot. After the planting, I remember training the trees up with the crews and learning about scaffolds, the main branches and where they should be. We decided on a quad-V planting, which I believe is the most efficient style to pick and prune.

After planting, I became the full-time irrigator. I learned that you could control three basic aspects of a tree: You can control the light, water and amount of fertilizer. I was able to get that hands-on experience, helping me grow into the farmer I am.

What are your current challenges?Some of them concern labor and water. I’m looking at ways to make the tree smaller, find ways to use platforms and utilize drip irrigation systems.

We are experimenting with platforms. They’ve been widely used in the apple industry and we’re trying to mimic that to make it more efficient to pick our crop.

How do you approach platforms with stone fruit?Setting up a stone fruit orchard to be successful with platforms, I believe you must ensure the row spacing is just right for the platform to fit. We’ve found there are spacings that work perfectly for the platform.

Also, we can’t put a platform into a furrow-irrigated orchard. We need to use a microsprinkler or drip irrigation system instead, so the ground is flat where the tires will roll. We must keep branches out of the rows.

The tree training needs to be perfect, so I chose a Tatura trellis system to help with tree uniformity and better utilize light as well. It takes more initial cost with a Tatura system and drip irrigation, but it makes sense in the long run financially because of the cost variability of labor and water.

There’s fixed costs and variable costs. Variable costs are much more expensive over time than fixed costs.

What’s your advice to other young growers?I would say it’s very important to know your books and know your costs of farming. You’ll need to know what things cost and how it applies to your acres. For example, if you’re picking a certain size of fruit and it’s not getting packed, then you’re wasting your pickers’ time.

Knowing your books and understanding the expense side of your farm will help you better manage the business. The most useful course I took covered Excel, how it works and what kind of macros can be used to help forecast future business numbers.

—TJ Mullinax

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A Fresno County jury awarded a Kingsburg family nearly $50 million in damages for injuries the husband suffered at the hands of American Ambulance.

The $49.8 million verdict is the second highest ever awarded by a Fresno County jury, but the family would give it all up to have things the way they were before March 2018.

Nicholas Merlo was getting his home ready for a new addition when he posed for a picture constructing a crib in early 2018.

"He was 39 years old," said Merlo family attorney Daniel Baradat. "His wife was 8 1/2 months pregnant."

Nick was a mortgage broker; his wife, a middle school administrator.

The first-time father-to-be went to have an endoscopy at Pristine Surgery Center, but his oxygenation levels dropped during the procedure.

A nurse anesthetist gave him a breathing tube before sending him to Clovis Community Hospital via American Ambulance.

The ride ruined his life.

A paramedic removed the breathing tube and couldn't insert a new one.

By the time he reached doctors at Community, Merlo suffered cardiac arrest and a severe lack of oxygen.

"They kept him alive," Baradat said. "However, he's badly badly brain-damaged. He's in a persistent vegetative state. That's been three and a half years and he's going to remain like that for the remainder of his life."

Merlo could still live for decades, but doctors believe he'll never regain consciousness.

His family sued over the medical mistake.

"Six very qualified doctors said if you don't pull that endotracheal tube, he doesn't have this brain injury," Baradat said

After seven weeks in trial, the jury only needed a few hours to agree - American Ambulance was grossly negligent.

They awarded the Merlos a $49.8 million verdict, including $30 million in non-economic damages for pain and suffering.

California's medical malpractice law written in 1975 limits pain and suffering damages to $250,000 per plaintiff, so a judge would reduce the total award to $20.3 million.

The American Ambulance administration sent Action News a statement saying they'll appeal the verdict.

"This is a very sad situation," said American ambulance chief administrative officer and general counsel Erik Peterson. "Our paramedics treated Mr. Merlo like they would any patient, using their training and procedures to do everything they could to improve his declining condition."

"It's kind of offensive to the Merlo family for them to say that," Baradat said, adding that he hopes other patients get more competent treatment.

Since American Ambulance is appealing the verdict, the Merlos won't get any money for now.

But the jury award racks up interest at 10% per year during the appeals process.

A long-awaited T-Mobile call center anticipated to bring 1,000 jobs to Kingsburg now has a confirmed site set for the Fresno County city.

T-Mobile confirmed that it had signed a lease for the former Kmart space on Sierra Street, west of Highway 99. At more than 95,000 square feet, Kmart was Kingsburg’s largest retailer before the store closed in March 2017. The terms of the lease were not disclosed, but a 2019 financial analysis for the project estimated that annual lease costs for the call center would be about $1.5 million.

“In the coming weeks, T-Mobile plans to begin demolition and start improvements to the building – consistent with the city’s heritage and aesthetic – to prepare for the center to serve customers starting in 2022,” the company said in a statement.

T-Mobile first announced its plans to locate its new “customer experience center” in Kingsburg almost two years ago, as the mobile-phone carrier was in the midst of engineering a merger with rival Sprint.

But the location came with a catch – the call center, and its promise of 1,000 new jobs for Kingsburg and surrounding areas of Fresno, Kings and Tulare counties, would only become a reality if the $26 billion merger was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission.

T-Mobile coming to Kingsburg

Wireless company T-Mobile will open a new customer call center in 2022 with about 1,000 employees in the former Kmart store on Sierra Street in Kingsburg

© OpenStreetMap contributors

The 95,201-square-foot space was occupied by retailer Kmart until the store closed in March 2017.

Map: Tim Sheehan | The Fresno Bee Source: T-Mobile

The Kingsburg location and its jobs, as well as other call centers proposed by the wireless companies, became a major talking point of a lobbying and public relations campaign by T-Mobile pushing for the merger.

Federal antitrust regulators approved the merger in July 2019, followed by the FCC. The state of California and several other states sued to block the merger based on concerns about diminished competition in the cellular market, but a federal judge ultimately ruled in favor of the merger.

Prior to the merger, T-Mobile and Sprint were the third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers in the U.S., well behind Verizon and AT&T. The merger vaulted the new combined company into a more solid third place. To allay federal antitrust concerns, T-Mobile was required to sell off the popular Boost Mobile prepaid wireless service, and other Sprint assets are being sold to DISH, the satellite TV provider that will now get into the wireless phone business.

The 2019 economic analysis commissioned by T-Mobile forecast that the Kingsburg call center would have 1,007 employees. “T-Mobile estimates that employees at the center will have an average weekly compensation between $1,129 and $1,254” in both salary and benefits,” the analysis by Berkeley Research Group stated. Total payroll at the center – which would be expected to be fully staffed and operational in 2022 – is expected to be between $56 million and $65 million a year.