10 Minutes with Tipton: Pete Vander Poel III
Tipton Elementary School has nine different electives the junior high students can choose from to take each semester of their sixth through eighth-grade years. One of the electives is a newspaper class where students produce two editions of the Tipton Tiger Times each semester. This semester, students had questions about their community, so they reached out to Mr. Pete Vander Poel III who represents the community on the Tulare County Board of Supervisors. He visited the school on November 7 and graciously answered the questions of the newspaper students.
Pete Vander Poel III, Tulare County Supervisor, District 2
Please tell us a little bit about yourself — Your background, where you grew up, your family.
“I was first elected to the Tulare County Board of Supervisors in 2008 and I attended kindergarten as a Tipton Tiger here in 1989.
I love this place. I love to see how Tipton’s grown — how Tulare County has grown over the years because it’s a lot different than when I was a kid.
I was born and raised on a dairy in Corcoran, Tipton, Woodville, then Tulare. I attended kindergarten here, then I went to Cypress Elementary in Tulare, then Cherry Avenue and then Tulare Union High School where I was the valedictorian. I attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where I graduated in 2006 cum laude with honors. That was a significant achievement for me.
In the middle of my second year of college, not very far from here, on Avenue 144 and Road 152, I was in a car accident where I ended up being in a coma for about 10 days up in Fresno. I had to go through about six months of therapy. I learned how to walk again, count, read, write and count money all over again. My accident was on March 23, 2004, and I went through the therapy and returned to UCLA by Fall 2004. I graduated with better grades, on time, and with honors.
At Tulare Union, I was the student body president and then I was pledge class president at my fraternity. I knew that leadership would be a big part of my life, but I didn’t know the opportunity would present itself at such a young age.
Once I had graduated, I worked in downtown Los Angeles and just thought that this wasn’t the quality of life that I wanted for myself or my family. I took a job as a financial analyst at Wells Fargo and was then approached by the mayor, at the time, of Tulare and was told that Connie Conway, who was then on the Tulare County Board of Supervisors, was running for the state assembly and this created an opening. I won the Board of Supervisors election at 23 and took office at 24. I was, and think I still am, the youngest elected supervisor in the State of California at the age of 23.
I am married and have three children ages 8, 6, and 5, and happily live in Tulare with my wife, Ashley. I love serving on the Tulare County Board of Supervisors. All the great things Tulare County does, I get to be a part of. When you think of politics, or elected positions, you think of the president, but you don’t think of the local government, and local government is where the rubber meets the road — we receive a lot of funding and mandates to do certain things and deliver certain items. Mandates come from D.C., but where funds are delivered and displayed is right here in Tulare County.
Tulare County is more than 4,000 square miles in size and is larger than the state of Connecticut. As far as population, we are the 17th largest county in the state of california and there are 58 counties in the state. The county’s population is just shy of 500,000 people. We have five supervisorial districts and each one represents about 100,000 people. My job is to represent the people who live in the southwest part of this great county.
The largest city in Tulare County is the city of Visalia, then the city of Tulare, then Porterville, then Dinuba, then Farmersville, Exeter, Woodlake, and Lindsey are all small and pretty close in size. There are only eight incorporated cities in this county meaning they have a mayor, their own police, city council, fire, and their own infrastructure within their jurisdictions.
Tipton is an unincorporated community. It doesn’t have its own police department, fire department, infrastructure, mayor, etc. The unincorporated communities then look to the county government for their police, fire, department, service, parks and recreation department and library. We have probably about 40-50 communities or ‘hamlets’ in Tulare County.
At the county, we have over 5,000 employees. We are an over a billion dollar ‘company’ with revenues dealt with in budget each year. We control the budget for the sheriff’s department, and Tulare County Fire Department. Here in Tipton, you have your own fire station here and your own library branch right here.
I got a phone call from someone complaining about the lack of sidewalks for children walking to and from school and how they should not have to walk through the mud in Tipton. There is a $3.5 million project scheduled for construction in the spring a year from now in the planning stage with our Resource Management Agency, which works with road and sidewalk projects. The project will include improvements along Evans Road between Road 152 and Lerda Avenue and along Woods Avenue between Thompson Road and Newman Road. The project consists of installing curb, gutters and sidewalks, other drainage improvements, replacement and installation of ADA curb ramps, crosswalk improvements. It is currently 30 percent of the way through the design phase. The Board of Supervisors serves as a board of directors for these departments and we touch every resident of this county through county programs or services. If you own your home, you pay taxes and your taxes come from the Tulare County Tax Collector.
What do you love about your career?
“I love being a problem solver. An elected official is a liaison between the public and the government. When a constituent or someone who lives in this county, calls and they don’t know who to call they’ll contact my office and then I will get involved and point them in the right direction to get the answer to that question. That’s one thing I love about my job.”
What do you dislike about your career?
“What I least like is not being able to do everything for everyone. We have limits in terms of revenues, limits of the number of people we can employ and there are limits to what we can do, and I wish we could do more. When I drive through the community of Tipton and see kids are walking to school through mud to get there, I think ‘Gosh, I wish we could do something about that.’ I wish we could do more.”
Would you encourage others to pursue your career?
“If you have a passion for leadership and serving. You are giving back, but this job also requires that you live a life where you don’t ‘turn off.’ In most jobs, on a weekend, you don’t have to go to events or return phone calls, or emails. I do because that’s my life. I’ll see people in a grocery store and people tell me about a road or stray animals in a community. I’m taking notes and making sure I follow up on those things. I am always on the clock and always willing to serve.”
What advice do you have for young people who might be pursuing your line of work?
“If you’re going to slice my work into something, call it ‘public service.’ If you’re going to go into ‘public service,’ be passionate about what you do. If you want to be a firefighter, engineer, planner, or doctor who works in the public sector — because Tulare County even employs doctors — every one of those jobs and careers requires someone who is compassionate and serves the public and makes the community they come from a better place.”
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
“You can see yourself at different phases in life. If you would have asked me in college where I would have seen myself in 10 years, I wouldn’t have seen myself as a county supervisor. I look back at 2012 having been married for two years and not having had a kid yet. I am a product of doing something I love. I’ve had a lot of different opportunities. If you look up and down ballots in our county, or even in this country, there are supervisors, or school board members running for state assembly, or Congress trying to step up the ladder, but that’s not me. I’ve served for 14 years on the Board of Supervisors, which is longer than anyone else on the current board combined. In 2008 I was elected at 23 and got into the office at 24 and my next closest colleague in age was 53 years old. I brought a different perspective to a group that had a different landscape prior to my being there. Here I am at 38. If I am blessed to work as a supervisor 10 years from now, I would love to continue.”
Anything else you would like to add? (Maybe a current, or past project you’re proud of)?
“That’s hard because I’ve done a lot of projects. One that stands out was in Allensworth about four to five years ago. We installed the first sidewalk that the community had ever had. That community had never had sidewalks. I don’t know what you know about Allensworth, but it is a historical community — the first community resided in and governed by and populated by African Americans west of the Mississippi after the Civil War. That was a cool project.
In Earlimart, the community had never had a park. They have a great park, a first-class park. We worked with the community, applied for a grant, received a grant, and installed that park. It has athletic fields, playground equipment, and barbecues for the community to relax and recreate in.
Just last month, or a month and a half ago, the first-ever community basketball courts were opened in Pixley.
With the (American Rescue Plan Act) ARPA funds, which is a stimulus program after COVID, the government spent billions of dollars and Tulare County received $90 million in funds. What did we do with the funds? We invested in our communities and permanent infrastructures. One thing here is working with the community to help with water and sewer.”
How can we as students make a difference in our community?
“Get involved. Tipton has a town council run by its own community members. It does not have elected members, it has appointed leaders who are concerned residents who want to make a difference. They have had an annual awards banquet in the past, for which I was the emcee. They’ve done community clean-ups, they’ve done all kinds of things such as removing graffiti, and park clean-ups.
You can look at the world through two different lenses: what can the world do for me, or what can I do for the community which will ultimately make my life better. If you sit on the sidelines and complain, but don’t get involved and don’t bring solutions, you can expect more of the same. But if you get involved you have your concerns heard and you can make a change.”
TODAY TRACK BOYS BASKETBALL
5:30 p.m. — Legacy Christian at Summit
GIRLS BASKETBALL
5 p.m. — Lindsay at South
5:30 p.m. — Legacy Christian at Summit
GIRLS SOCCER
4:30 p.m. — Lindsay at Mission Oak
BOYS SOCCER
4:30 p.m. — Mission Oak at Lindsay