- MRF Headaches at City Council Meeting: At least a dozen public commenters went before the City Council Tuesday night to express their desire to keep the proposed Materials Recovery Facility out of communities outside of Santa Clarita. Many of them came to the council meeting after a rumor was circulated via email that the MRF, which will sort out recyclables from trash and is needed to comply with state recycling law, would be built in Val Verde. One man from Granada Hills even showed up to say the City shouldn’t build the MRF there. All the protests made it sound like the city and Burrtec had already selected one or more sites to build the facility, but the agenda item made it clear that the City was only forming a citizen’s site selection committee to help pick a spot. City Manager Ken Pulskamp, and several councilmembers, also emphasized that a site hadn’t been preselected: Pulskamp: “Unequivocally, there are no preconceived locations.” Councilwoman Laurene Weste, who fought Elsemere and is something of an authority on these matters, told the attendees that “Some terrible information has been dissemenated to people.” In the end the Council voted to approve the creation of the committee, so this isn’t the last we’ve heard of this.
- Democrats and Republicans spar over McKeon’s stimulus position at Council Meeting: “We ask the Santa Clarita City Council to express dissappointment with our representative Buck McKeon, for obstructing President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” local Obama volunteer Bart Bishop told the City Council at the end of the meeting. Bishop was one of fourDemocrats who spoke about the stimulus plan and said they were dissapointed that McKeon had voted against it. In response, at least a dozen Republican commenters spoke in support of McKeon while another 32 submitted cards supporting the nine term Congressman. Here’s a sample from local GOPers: “I wake up every morning and see the DOW drop whenever the President talks, and I’m glad I have Buck McKeon on my side.” And Sterling King on local Dems: “From what source is this wind in your sails? This is silliness!” Alan Cameron, he with the voice of Moses, told the City Council that if you calculate the SCV’s stake in the $780 billion stimulus package, the number comes out to about $3.2 billion based on population and the SCV ought “to get some of that money we’re paying.” In the end, the council adjourned without comment or discussion on the matter. KHTS has more.
- Mayor Ferry discusses Area Court: Mayor Ferry, during his comments, told the City Council about his recent meeting concerning the Santa Clarita Courthouse. Ferry said the meeting was organized by developer Larry Rasmussen and involved city leaders, Senator Runner, Assemblyman Smyth, District Attorney Steve Cooley and others and concerned the possibility of building an “Area Court” for the Santa Clarita region. Ferry explained that an area court has more responsibilities than a simple court house, which is what Santa Clarita has now. The county has area courts nearby, one under-utilized one in Chatsworth and one overcrowded one in Sylmar, so I think the meeting was about possibly building one here.
- Sheriff Baca threatens to release 1,500 inmates in Castaic, OMG! That was the feeling one got when reading an AP Story on Sheriff Lee Baca’s threat to close the medium-security Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, layoff hundreds of deputies, and release some 1,500 inmates in order to deal with some $71 million in cuts to the LASD’s $2.5 billion budget. The Signal posted the AP story on its website at about 3:30 PM yesterday, but KHTS says the story was overblown after speaking with a Baca spokesperson, who told the radio station such discussion was “very preliminary.” The Signal followed up this morning with some sharp-edged quotes from Supe Antonovich’s Spokesman Tony Bell on Baca: “The Sheriff is premature in his assessment of the need to close anything,” Bell said. Ladies and Gentlemen, if Pitchess closes, I think we have found our location for the MRF! It’s brilliant! Just put the trash where the inmates used to be.
- 2009 looking a lot like 2008 for SCV Real Estate: So the headline in the Signal tomorrow will be that sales of single family homes in the SCV jumped 48.5% in January to 147 properties (compared with 99 sales a year earlier), but the real story, in my view, is that the median home price dipped below $400,000 in January 09 compared with $460,000 in January 08. Condo sales were also up yoy last month as the median price for those fell to $205,000. Someday soon, I’ll be able to afford to buy in Valencia. At last! Valencia Hills or OO1, here I come! Daily News has the numbers.
- Don’t Tread on Me says Acton/Agua Dulce to County: There was some Old West type resentment on display at the middle school in Acton Monday night as 250 residents of Acton and AD gathered to complain about county water well regulations. What they basically want is to have the ability to build water wells without being forced to test for things such as arsenic. A County rep told the Signal that them folks up there sure is protective of their rural lifestyle and added the water well regulations aren’t “made in an arbitrary fashion. There’s a rationale for everything [the city slickers] put in place.” Signal
- Lack of Medical Services in Castaic: Melissa Gasca has an interesting article in today’s Signal on the lack of medical services available in Castaic and how the economy is making it difficult to attract high quality care. Residents would like to see an urgent care in the area so they don’t have to trek down to Valencia.
- Channel 20 basically left with nothing after Time Warner left:Yet another reason to hate big cable- Councilwoman Laurene Weste could barely hide her contempt last night as she told the City Council that when Time Warner ended its responsibility for broadcasting Channel 20 in January, they basically left existing Channel 20 staff with “nothing.” She said specialized equipment had been removed and though the city stepped in with some funds to replace equipment, the group that programs and manages Channel 20 was still recovering. Speaking of Channel 20 and SCVTV, which is broadcast on Channel 20 and at SCVTV.com, they’ll be hosting an original program this weekend on James Dean.
- Liberal Blog says Senator Runner proposing new voter regulations: Calitics says George Runner’s “VoteSafe” act would require voters to present ID at the polls and vote-by-mail voters to include the last four digits of their driver’s license or social security number. This is a fairly standard Republican issue; GOP always complains about voter fraud, Democrats always complain about voter access, but Calitics says Runner’s act would make it expensive and difficult to manage elections on the local level.
- Big explosion in Pico Canyon due to filming: So KHTS says some callers were concerned about a plume of smoke appearing above West Ranch high School yesterday. Not to worry, the station says, someone was just lighting up 500 gallons of gasoline to see what would happen. Actually, that someone was the cast/crew of CBS’ The Unit, and they were filming some whiz-bang action scene or other. My only question - why are they setting off explosions in some of the driest and most tenderboxed areas of the SCV? Check the photo at The Signal.
- Gary Horton touches on the car free lifestyle, talks infrastructure: The Signal columnist reflects on all the times he’s nearly been hit by some inattentive driver while crossing McBean to get to his beloved Starbucks and says that Newhall Land was visionary when it built paseos into the Master Plan. What we need, Horton says, is more of that kind of smart transportation planning, and as “infrastructure manna is falling from Washington heaven” we ought to think hard about how we want to spend it. It should include a bullet train from LA to SF and separated freeway lanes for semis and cars, Horton says. As a pedestrian and cyclist, I’ve had the same experiences as Horton while crossing major streets in the SCV, I’m almost at the point where I’m going to start carrying a stop sign and point it at drivers like a crossing guard.