Daily Brief – September 27, 2007 — The SCV Talk Archive

The Hart High marching band is practicing on this crisp September morning, and I can hear rhythmic taps and loud horns. Several ambulance and fire truck sirens are wailing, on their way to some emergency via Lyons Avenue. In the distance, I hear the long moan of a Metrolink horn, carrying relaxed commuters to Los Angeles. And those pesky crows are soaring around the oak tree outside my window, cawing loudly, oblivious to all the noise around them. Such are the sounds I hear this morning in Santa Clarita. Your Daily Brief is ready.

News

More on Val Verde shooting death: Both Christi Anne Corpus and Pat Aidem have articles today describing Tuesday's shooting death in Val Verde. Initial reports were accurate; the shooting was the result of a fight between two neighbors who went back to their houses to retrieve guns. The victim in the shooting, Hermilo Talamante, age 34, "had been in a long-running dispute regarding family members," with Clarence Pullum, the man who allegedly shot him. Authorities have interviewed and released Pullum, and Aidem says the case was initially deemed to be "self-defense." Corpus reports that Talamante's family is upset by how long it took to get Talamante to Henry Mayo Hospital. "He was bleeding too much. A helicopter could have come and landed in one of these fields...It shouldn't have taken that long," a family member said, noting that it took 45 minutes to get Talamante to the hospital. A Sheriff's "containment area" may have delayed Talamante's transport to the hospital. Corpus' report is not online, but Aidem's is. Also, there's not much new information on the other murder that occurred in Val Verde last weekend. Link
Hospital expansion report: Katie Geyer has a good article today summarizing the city council's Tuesday night debate about the Henry Mayo Hospital expansion plan. The key issue, of course, hasn't changed: the opposition wants a written guarantee that a new inpatient building will be constructed, something Mayo CEO Roger Seaver says can't be done due to a "variety of outside factors." The Signal dramatically puts those factors on display on Page 1 with a lengthy boxed quote from Seaver that must be the longest "if...then" statement ever recorded. Geyer also has some good quotes from City Council Members on the plan. Mayor McLean: "This commitment has too many loopholes in it." Councilmember Weste: "The one thing that we don't know is about the inpatient building and that's everybody's angst. I think this issue needs to stop tearing this community to pieces." Not online.
Carol Rock digs abandoned house story: The Daily News columnist and ValleyNews.com blogger has been watching the brouhaha over that abandoned freeway house that was to be moved to the SCV before it hit a freeway underpass in LA and sat on the side of the 101 for nearly two weeks. The owners of the house say they were moving it to the SCV to build a homeless shelter, but Rock says a source close to the Santa Clarita Community Development corporation, responsible for the SCV's winter homeless shelter, told her that the SCCDC hadn't heard anything about the house. She also checked out what was supposed to be the final destination of the house: "I couldn't help doing some snooping and found the destination address listed on Richardson's permit to be a lot owned by Bigman set just behind a cliff in the middle of two oil fields on Sierra Highway near Placerita Canyon Road." All that and more at ValleyNews.com
City Sends "Offers to Purchase" to Newhall building owners: Realtor/Blogger Linda Slocum is in touch with some business and property owners in Newhall who tell her that the City has offered to purchase buildings as part of its redevelopment plan. Shockingly, one such letter, signed by Paul Brotzman, offered $3,355,900 for the building and land at the corner of Spruce Street and Lyons Avenue. Slocum continues: "[Owner] Tom Fitterer looked at the offer from the City of Santa Clarita and promptly faxed over his written acceptance, thinking it was not a bad deal." Alas, the deal was too good to be true. Slocum reports that "Within hours....Santa Clarita City representatives called him [Fitterer] to back out of the deal (sound familiar?) and then submitted a much lower offer to him at $585,000." Wow. Sounds like someone must have screwed up the mail merge/form letter. Slocum says she has copies of the initial and revised offer letters, and ends her post with a Wikipedia definition of "Keystone Cops." Link
Newhall Coffee to be official coffee of Subway Newhall Coffee, that local coffee roasting success story started by two brothers who graduated from Hart, scored a major deal with a chain of southland Subway restaurants. Customers buying breakfast items at Subways around Southern California will consume Newhall Coffee exclusively. The chain selected Newhall coffee after taste tests produced an "overwhelming response." Tammy Marashlian reports, but not online.
SCV Sheriff's Station launches new website: Neglected for years, SCVSheriff.com has been completely rebuilt with the City of Santa Clarita's help. The new website features a blog-style "news room", RSS feeds, media alerts, most wanted links and much more, all on a well-designed, good looking website that ought to be the envy of Sheriff's stations county-wide. But that's not all; future developments for the website may include, "interactive crime and traffic information, streaming video and podcasts capabilities and geographically smart databases," plus possibly "school safety and alert systems, detective bureau and other station resource areas, and Pitchess Detention Center (PDC) escape advisories - available via text message." Text message alerts when an inmate escapes? How cool is that? Here's hoping the "Geographically Smart Databases" somehow incorporates Google Maps, something the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News have used to great effect. SCVSheriff.com
West Ranch Wildcats forced to forfeit win against Pasadena: The football team allowed academically ineligible players to dress for the varsity and junior varsity games last week. The Signal says the varsity player entered the game in the 4th Quarter. It's a blow for the young football club, which began playing with the bigger schools this year and had a good start with a 3-0 record. Now they'll drop to 2-1. Grant Marek in the Signal has a report, but it's not online.

Comments (2)

MorningstarrSeptember 27 at 9:37 AM PT
Anything from Bossert regarding the Wildcats? I think if it were on the East side of the freeway, he would be all over it! Can the City back out of their offer? Isn't a contract met at the point of acceptance? Well now, if the City owns buildings, do they hike up the rents on the tenants? Since when is it the business of the City to be in Real Estate?
PaulineSeptember 27 at 10:13 AM PT
This project must not continue to be called by it's lie of a name any longer because an actual hospital expansion was never intended to be built. This is still abundantly clear from all the double-speak from Roger Seaver; his "commitment" isn't worth a plug nickel until it is IN WRITNG and why he considers this an insult, I just don't know. How many hospital contracts did Roger Seaver accept on the basis of commitment? Not a one, I am willing to bet, I'll bet Roger got everything in writing for all past hospital renovations. Doubtful Roger just shakes hands with a construction firm and takes their word that all THEIR "commitments" will become a reality based only on their word with nothing in writing. And City Council made it very clear that we cannot simply accept Roger Seaver's "commitment" for G&L that G&L will build an expansion as long as the Development Agreement releases G&L from this very obligation! Roger Seaver went on and on about all that has been accomplished at the hospital because of his "commitment" to excellence. SO totally irrelevant! What does that have to do with a hospital expansion that we can't get in writing even though the project is called a hospital expansion! The reason that G&L Realty named this project a hospital expansion is so that, right off the bat, people THINK of it as a hospital expansion, thus putting the burden of proof that it ISN'T an actual hospital expansion on the "hospital expansion opposition." Also, when G&L representatives "schmoozed" their way around this town shamefully misrepresenting this project as a hospital expansion that isn't, it was very easy for them to pass off this sham of a project as a hospital expansion by CALLING the project a hospital expansion. Naming this project a hospital expansion was a lie: G&L never intended to build a hospital expansion and BOTH development agreements release G&L from any legal obligation to expand the hospital. Another blatant misrepresentation from G&L Realty/Henry Mayo/G&L Realty representatives was to falsely label the opposition to this sham of a project as the "opposition to the hospital expansion" when, as they ALL well know, the people forming the opposition are the very people fighting to GET an actual expansion in writing from G&L. It is Roger Seaver and the G&L representatives (Hunt Braly, Scott Wilk, Arthur Sohikian, and Jeff Lambert) that won't demand an actual hospital expansion from G&L, which is the big mystery in all this: wouldn't you think they would be fighting right along with the "opposition" to make sure this city actually gets a hospital expansion from G&L since the G&L reps continually point out how critical it is for Henry Mayo TO expand? Well, of course it is, but it is the G&L reps working (earning their G&L payoff?) to prevent this very expansion from becoming a reality by refusing to help US get the hospital expansion IN WRITING! And why is it that the people who say they love Henry Mayo don't seem to care about the hospital being expanded? An actual hospital expansion doesn't even seem to be an issue for the very people who should be screaming the loudest about receiving a hospital expansion, and they continue to wrongly call us "the opposition to the hospital expansion WHILE the "opposition" is fighting to get an expansion in writing for THEM! Shameful misrepresentations and shell games, and loopholes big enough to drive a Hummer through with room to spare, that's all we continue to get from G&L and all of their representatives. Nothing has changed, G&L Realty's "hospital expansion proposal" STILL not guaranteed in writing after three years. Pauline Harte.