In case you’ve been stuck under a rock and haven’t noticed, Madera is having a moment.
Our neighbor to the north has been flourishing, most recently with the Oct. 27 opening of North Fork Mono Casino and, weeks earlier, the Topgolf groundbreaking at Valley Children’s Healthcare, part of its aptly named Echelon development on the river bluff. And that’s just 2026. In 2024, an AutoZone distribution center opened in Chowchilla, bringing about 300 jobs.
Of course, Madera has faced challenges. Its hospital closed for more than two years. Chowchilla, a community of nearly 19,000 people, found itself without a pharmacy when Rite Aid closed. And federal cuts to health care spending present serious challenges to Valley Children’s.
But the community has proven resilient and worth investing in. American Advanced Management Inc. stepped in to reopen Madera Community Hospital. Alpha Care Pharmacy of Kerman saw an opportunity to serve Chowchilla. And Valley Children’s is pursuing commercial development beyond Topgolf to pay for patient care.
What ties it together became clear at the State of Madera County event Oct. 29, where I moderated a panel of local leaders: These folks actually work together.
Necessity, meet invention
Valley Children’s President and CEO Todd Suntrapak was candid about why the hospital is becoming a landlord. About 75% of its patients are covered by Medi-Cal, he said, and the program’s base rate hasn’t increased in 14 years. In 2018, his board told him to find new revenue. The answer is Echelon, where rents will go to patient care.
“It’s all about paying for patient care because we don’t think we have another opportunity to source out new revenue,” Suntrapak said.
He put the commercial investment at about $250 million. Topgolf alone will create 300 jobs, he said, with more big announcements coming soon. He also credited the developers of Riverstone and Tesoro Viejo for helping put Valley Children’s on firmer footing.
Leveraging Yosemite’s gateway
The county has also partnered in a meaningful way with a private developer. Macaulay said Outbound Yosemite came to the county wanting to expand its Oakhurst-area hotel but didn’t have the money to do it. The county agreed to share hotel tax revenue with the developer, and the project is growing from a 15-room boutique hotel to a 120-room conference center expected to open in 2027.
The goal, he said, is to bring in visitors outside the May-through-August rush, when it’s hard to get a room in Oakhurst or Bass Lake, so small businesses can keep workers on year-round. Measure U, on the county ballot now, would raise the transient occupancy tax, with the money going to the general fund to support public safety.
Public safety comes first
Asked what their jurisdictions got right, panelists kept coming back to public safety.
Madera Mayor Cece Gallegos cited Measure K, the city’s half-cent sales tax split between police and fire. It paid for Station 58, the city’s first new fire station in decades, along with body cameras, police vehicles and an updated 911 system.
Madera County Supervisor Bobby Macaulay said voters rejected the county’s Measure L safety tax in 2017, but the board pursued its priorities anyway. The county has since opened three fire stations, broke ground on another in Riverstone and expanded partnerships with Fresno and Merced counties to improve response times. As of Oct. 1, the county’s ISO fire protection rating improved, which Macaulay said could mean lower insurance premiums.
Chowchilla Mayor Kelly Smith said voters passed Measure N with no sunset date, and the city just added three full-time firefighters after relying on volunteers.
Sharing the bill
On infrastructure, the collaboration really shines.
Smith said Chowchilla piggybacked on the county’s Road 16 repaving to cut costs, and pooled Measure T transportation money lets the city land projects it couldn’t afford alone. When Chowchilla annexed land, he said, the county negotiated a fair tax-sharing deal quickly. He also thanked Macaulay for hosting quarterly meetings of local leaders.
“Everybody is treating us really well,” Smith said.
Gallegos said Madera has put $35.5 million into sewer and water projects and doubled wastewater treatment capacity to 10 million gallons a day, while PG&E has invested $45 million to power the city. Her priority for the next decade: a regional transportation system built by all three jurisdictions. Local leaders, she said, need to “put down the walls.”
Macaulay’s one-word answer for the future was planning. He pointed to the Highway 41 expansion, the largest infrastructure project in county history, which appeared in planning documents as far back as 2001.
The lesson
In Madera, glamour takes a backseat to practicality. Fire stations, sewer lines and tax-sharing agreements won’t draw crowds the way Topgolf will. But they’re what make a community ready when a Topgolf comes calling.
Elsewhere in the Valley, too many agencies are stuck in turf wars and gridlock while projects stall and costs climb. Madera’s leaders are showing a different way: pool the money, share the credit and pick up the phone. Other Central Valley agencies would be smart to take notes.
