News
- Censorship at Hart High? Senior Waseem Salahi claims Hart High administrators forbade him from publishing an editorial critical of the lack of minority representation on the school's Associated Student Body in the Smoke Signal, Hart's student newspaper. School administrators say they only wanted some changes to the editorial and ran out of time as the paper went to press, but Salahi claims that administrators told him the editorial "would cause division in the student body...[and] said it was inappropriate." Whatever the case, the editorial has been replaced by a year book ad in today's Smoke Signal, but the Signal itself has printed the editorial and Salahi will distribute copies of the editorial on campus today. Sharon Cotal More on this story below
- Am I really to believe this? Either we have a winner for "dumbest criminal in the SCV" or something's not quite right with the CHP's account of a large drug bust in Newhall. Apparently, a Northern California man named Marcel Onate wandered up to an off-duty CHP officer on Sunday during dinner at a local family restaurant and offered him a free sample of marijuana. The chippie took the pot, notified his superiors, and the CHP began surveillance of Onate, who was staying at an unspecified hotel. Three days later, the CHP watched as Onate and a partner loaded duffel bags into their car, then executed a traffic stop on Onate at Lyons and Old Orchard where they found "more than 20 pounds of marijuanna, one pound of hashish, $4,000 in cash, and various paraphernalia." Karen Elowitt has the unbelievable details. This isn't the first time the CHP has made a spectacular drug bust in the SCV : back in September 2006, Josh Premako reported on another traffic stop that lead to the arrest of a man who's pickup truck contained 400 kilos of cocaine worth an estimated $40 million.
- Sheriffs Make Show of Force in Newhall: "Community Interaction Team" Deputies arrested a group of suspected gang members at the Alliance Gas Station on San Fernando Road in Newhall on Wednesday night, according to SCVSheriff.com. The report says that deputies on a routine patrol saw the suspects loitering and when they drove into the gas station, several of the suspects immediately ran. More deputies were called in and all the suspects were eventually detained. Deputies reportedly found "several individual packages of methamphetamine" on the suspects. The bust happened just blocks away from the site where Bryan Miranda, an 18 year old Hart High grad, died in a December 1 drive by shooting on Arch street. Link
- So that's what he's been up to: Republican strategist, lobbyist, COC board member, wanna-be Hart PR guru and mailbox rascal Scott Wilk has been working to convince the Castaic Lake Water Agency to use his firm's Washington lobbying services, according to water-beat reporter Jim Holt. Anchor Consulting has been mentioned here on SCVTalk before, and the firm is offering "to represent some of the agency's key interests in Washington." More on the SCV's 2006 "Behind the Scenes" Newsmaker here
- Realtor : SCV Foreclosures drastically under-counted: A closer look at Santa Clarita's MLS system reveals that realtors in the SCV either intentionally don't check off the "Real Estate Owned" box in the database system or simply forget to. Whatever the case, realtor/blogger Robert compared the official number of REO/Foreclosed homes in the MLS system (74) with other information in the system and found that there are actually some "243 Santa Clarita foreclosure homes either for sale or in escrow." That is 228% more than what's being reported, Robert says. He also includes a breakdown of where the foreclosures are at in the SCV. Link
- Tag, KHTS is it! Another one of Mitt Romney's perfectly groomed, handsome sons interacted with residents of the SCV yesterday. Tagg Romney called into KHTS' morning show to discuss his father's candidacy, illegal immigration, the war in Iraq and other issues. KHTS has posted an mp3 of the interview, you can download it at the bottom of the story here. Tagg's brother Matt, not to be confused with Mitt, visited GOP members earlier this year at the IHOP in Stevenson Ranch.
- Speaking of GOP Candidates: Guess who's been named as the 25th District chair for the Rudy Giuliani for President campaign? Certainly not Buck McKeon, who heads the Romney effort in CA-25; rather the title goes to Lena Smyth, the attractive wife of our Republican Assemblyman Cam Smyth, who's been a vocal Giuliani supporter all year. Lena's taken on increasingly public roles in the year since her husband ditched City Hall for Sacramento; she's also gotten press for her efforts to warn mothers about sexual predators. No telling what her job will be as chair of the Giuliani campaign in CA-25 (aside from spreading Giuliani's bona fides as a "fiscal conservative and strong leader"), but with California's primary just 6 weeks away, we're sure to find out. Rudy Announcement
- Buck closes up 2007 with Press Conference: Our man in Washington is going to hold a press conference with District reporters at 3pm today. The topic in part will be the hated Alternative Minimum Tax along with other current issues in Congress. Not sure why Buck's holding one of his rare telephone press conferences on a Friday afternoon, but there you have it.
- The Smoked Signal: More on the "censored" editorial in Hart High's student newspaper: An anonymous blogger says Waseem Salahi, the paper's editor and the author of the editorial, will probably face suspension if he distributes his alternative "Smoked Signal" newsletter to students today. The blogger has copies of what Salahi plans to distribute. Under the banner of "The Smoked Signal," Salahi says that his rebel newspaper is dedicated to Hart's policy of representing "the needs of every upper-middle class white girl at Hart." I think this guy's got a future in journalism, no? The Smoked Signal
- Guns Guns Guns! Blogger, activist, and Newhall redevleopment member Kevin Korenthal penned a column in today's Signal on guns in the wake of the shooting tragedies in Omaha, Denver, and Colorado Springs. He decries three local businesses who've put stickers in their windows announcing that the premises are a "Gun Free Zone." "None of the businesses/educational offices that display this type of language on their property in Santa Clarita are employing" means to detect guns, he says, concluding that California ought to modify its concealed carry laws. He's not the only one hot for guns lately: the Signal's forums are rife with debate about gun control laws, with one user even asking others how he can get his wife a gun for Christmas. Remind me not to insult the Signal's readers so much in future columns. *scared*
- COC International Film Festival: I don't cover COC events enough here, but I plan to remedy that starting today. Tonight, COC will show the last film in its International Film Festival series for 2007. "La Belle et la Bête", the classic French original Beauty and the Beast, will show at 7pm in Hasley Hall room 101. Discussion usually follows these screenings, so if you're looking for something different than standard Christmas cinema fare tonight, COC's your best bet.
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