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June 22, 2007· scvtalk.com · PHP-Nuke (SCVTalk 1.0) · Wayback capture

Daily Brief – June 22, 2007

It's finally Friday and your Daily Brief is standing at attention.

News
  • Opening statements in Racz murder trial: "What we will prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, is that Ann [Racz] ceased to exist on April 21, 1991," said prosecutor Beth Silverman in the murder trial of John Racz, a former Sheriff's Seargant, who is charged with killing his wife on that day. In her opening statement, Silverman also touched on conflicting statements given by Racz to investigators just days after her disappearance. Racz claimed he met with his wife at the old Tips Restaurant on Lyons, two days after she went missing, but none of Ann's friends or family heard from her after April 22. What's confusing about the prosecutor's quote above is that Ann Racz actually disappeared on April 22 after she left her husband's house to pick up food from McDonalds. In Alex Dobuzinskis' report, prosecutors say that John followed her that day in his own car. After Ann's trip to McDonalds, she was never seen again, and a body has never been recovered. Read both the Daily News report and the Signal's report.
  • Prudence or Delay? Annexation activists in Castaic wanted their town council to support their bid to annex into the City of Santa Clarita, but the Castaic Town Council decided to remain neutral on the matter. Town Council members want to wait for the results of an independent study on governance options for Castaic and the west side communities of Stevenson Ranch, West Ridge and other areas. Geyer reports.
  • Funding for Parks: Tennis players lose out, but Central Park will grow. Article includes a quote from Laurie Ender, who is chairwoman of the parks commission and is running for City Council. Brief Article
  • Stop slacking and enter your zany float in the parade: 25,000 people are expected to line the 4th of July parade route in Newhall, and the deadline to enter a float/horse/buggy/pet is June 27, no expections. SCVParade.com for more information, Daily News with more details
Media Notes:
  • John Boston on Vital Express: The only Signal writer to ever mention the controversy surrounding the departure of Dan and Lisa Boaz, once the darling business couple of the SCV, has an update for us today in his Count Sauguslavsky column. Boston says that the Boazes, who started Vital Express here in Santa Clarita and moved to the Charlotte, North Carolina area last July, "are living the large life in Florida with a new freight concern: airfreight.com." I checked out the website and it seems to be little more than an aggregator website that filters news and information about the freight business. They're trying to sell ad space on the website, and it's also got a link back to the Vital Express website, which is still up and running but hasn't had an active "Press Room" link for a long time. In July 2006, KHTS reported that the Boazes and Vital Express hadn't paid employees and vendors money owed to them and said that the Boazes had funneled much of the businesses' revenue into supporting their "lavish lifestyle instead of paying the bills." The Boazes were fixtures on the local charity circuit and had even pledged $2 million for naming rights on COC's Performing Arts Center before backing out in spring 2006. They sold their Sand Canyon house last summer and moved off to Charlotte leaving a lot of angry people who wouldn't go on the record with KHTS. Interesting story huh? So why the media blackout?To this day, I wonder why this wasn't a front-page story in the Signal. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the Boazes were quite sue happy? Within days of me linking to KHTS' story last year, I noticed dozens of hits from a San Fernando Valley law firm. The firm continued to view that particular story for about a week until, suddenly, I received an email from Dan Boaz himself, who said simply, "I need your mailing address." Apparently they couldn't find my address using open-source methods (or the phone book) but wanted to either issue a cease and desist order or sue the penniless blogger. I had heard they tried to issue the same order to KHTS, but, happily, the radio station still has the two part story on their website. Part 1 , Part 2. Kudos to KHTS for reporting on this when it seems no one else would.
  • Buried: A bank robbery in Stevenson Ranch or Saugus usually gets front page treatment in the Signal, but to find out about shotgun-toting robbers who held up a Mexican restaurant on San Fernando Road in Newhall, you'd have to glance at the third story in the "In Brief" section on page A6 of today's Signal. I may have missed it, but I didn't see this Tuesday robbery reported in either the Sheriff's daily crime notes or in the Signal this week. The robbers held employees at gunpoint and got away with a few hundred dollars. No one at the restaurant was injured. Maybe the victims didn't report it right away, but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
  • Newsmaker is BACK! But you won't read it in the Signal anymore. Leon Worden has a new Newsmaker of the Week interview at SCVTV.com. The subject this week is Chris Price, City Engineer on Newhall Redevelopment. Haven't had time to watch the 30 minute interview yet.
  • Where's Corpus? It's been a month since I last saw a story written by Christi Anne Corpus, one of the Signal's most versatile writers.
Video
  • Buck McKeon on Immigration: In a short TV news report on immigration, Santa Clarita's eight term Congressman in DC says the controversial Senate immigration bill is amnesty in disguise. "People that come in the country illegally should not be put on a path to citizenship," McKeon says, sitting behind his desk in his DC office.

Comments (4)

  1. MorningstarrJune 22 at 8:01 AM PT
    Great commentary on Vital Express Jeff and kudos to John Boston. One has to wonder about all the red faces that were cozy to the couple. One thing this town has is people who are part of the "elite" crowd seen in photo ops and at every party. Now, they all pretend that the Vital Express fiasco never existed. There's a good story in there somewhere!
  2. mikeJune 22 at 10:26 AM PT
    The company I work for had some dealings with Vital Express prior to their sponsorship of the COC P.A.C.. All of us were shocked to hear that a company like that really had the money to pay for the sponsorship. A couple of things that we shipped were badly damaged. Their VP promised a refund and to have the shipping case fixed. When time came to pay for the repair Lisa Boaz said they won't pay and spent a good 20 minutes screaming at a co-worker of mine. As we talked to a few people, we found out how bad of a reputation they had around town. Everything in the KHTS report made sense to us, based on what we experienced. The news blackout is shameful, because there is a real story here. But those of us who were aware of the local scene at the time can remember that they were real local hotshots for a while.
  3. bosshogJune 22 at 2:34 PM PT
    I wish I could find a link to it, but a D.C. reporter that was at the press conference checked those boxes with the supposed 1 million letters, they were empty.
  4. adventJune 22 at 9:46 PM PT
    Worth watching the Newsmaker video. It covers the Newhall money pit and the "unconventional" (as they called it) back in parking. For you Openspacers - watch the end part about North Nehall and the 400 to 500 houses the city has planned along the Lyons Av. extension. This will surely cut down some traffic just as good as the cross valley connector will turn Soledad into a ghost trail...

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