Morning Squeeze
- Feinstein Luncheon today: Dianne Feinstein will speak today before a crowd of local government officials, business leaders and other 'dignitaries.' According to the SFVBJ, she'll address the war in Iraq, the Children's Health insurance program, and global warming in her Washington Report. She'll also talk a bit about Cemex and transportation issues. Finally, DiFi will present awards to two area students for outstanding academic and community service. DiFi's visit marks the first time -in my recollection at least- that such a powerful and prominent Democrat will actually speak to SCVers. Wish I could go. If you are going and would like to report on what she has to say, email me.
- Growing SCV faces diversity challenges: As Santa Clarita's minority population has grown in the last few decades, residents and leaders have found ways to embrace the changing face of the SCV, Pat Aidem reports in today's Daily News. A city sponsored program created in the wake of racial disturbances in the mid 90s has helped educate youth and residents on differences in religion and culture before the "seeds of hatred take root." But challenges remain: few of the area's 40 elected government officials are minorities, despite the fact that 44 percent of the SCV's students are minorities, and local minority students still report racial incidents at school, the mall, and elsewhere. Also important to note: several top posts at the city, the Sheriff's Department and the Fire Department are filled by African Americans or Latinos. Good article
- More media vs public access? I've stated before that if Santa Clarita were placed somewhere in the midwest, we'd have three local TV network affiliates, several radio stations, and at least two newspapers serving our 250,000 residents. But since we're actually located in the media shadow of the Los Angeles megalopolis, the demand for local news isn't the same and the supply of media outlets (specifically bandwidth) isn't available. So what are we to do? Richard Budman's group, Lauren Broadcasting, is a private, for-profit media company that would like to use Santa Clarita's public access channel to broadcast news, feature stories, and sports programming for Santa Clarita. The catch? The company will air advertisements during the programming, something that is allowed under state law but strikes some well-meaning locals as wrong. Katie Geyer has an excellent report
- Skate park in
WeedsStevenson Ranch? Stevenson Ranch has some wicked hills that area skateboarders have been using, much to the annoyance of west side residents. Some are asking that a skate park be built at the Richard Rioux Park in Stevenson Ranch, and a meeting will be held on October 24 that Dave Bossert hopes skateboarders will participate in. Link - Melee at Stevenson Ranch Apartment: The LASD blog says a love triangle lead to a brief melee involving two young men and friends, a mother and brother, kitchen knives, "steel garden decorations" and marijuanna at a Stevenson Ranch apartment building on Sunday. Bad boyz-whatcha gonna do?
- A Storm gathering over the Hart district? That's what local GOP blogger Kevin Korenthal says, in his endorsement of Joe Messina for the Hart Board.
- Buck Fights File Swappers: Santa Clarita's man in Washington has introduced a bill to force American universities to block illegal downloads of movies, music and other media. The bill would identify the top 25 American Universities that receive notices regarding copyright infringement, then force those colleges to limit downloading with anti-piracy tools. A college technology trade group says such a bill would make the government an "agent of the entertainment industry." McKeon, it should be noted, is the senior Republican on the House Education and Work Force committee. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports
- City IT Manager warns of solar flares, Signal struggles with science: Solar flares have been responsible for interference in radio signals, electronics, and even power grids in the past. We're due for some interference this week, and as Kevin Tonoian, the city's IT manager, told the Signal, the SCV could be affected this Friday. Among other things, satellite and radio signals (including your cell phone) could be disrupted. The Signal article, which calls this phenomenon "sun outages" is here, while a Wikipedia article describing solar flares can be found here. Just how bad could it get? Montreal suffered a power outage in 1989 after a particularly vicious solar storm. Read more here.
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