Those disclosure forms can be a pain can’t they?
- State Commission looks at Mayor’s disclosure forms: Following last week’s allegations by local Democrat Bruce McFarland, a state commission is “looking into the possibility that Mayor Bob Kellar may have violated state law by failing to disclose his earnings on a financial disclosure form,” Katie Geyer reports in The Signal today. The documents, known as the Statement of Economic Interest Form 700, concern Kellar’s income in 2002, 2003, and 2004. In particular, Kellar received more than $10,000 in commission as a selling agent during a 2005 purchase of land in Canyon Country by College of the Canyons that he allegedly did not disclose on the forms. Geyer says the state commission has the power to fine up to $5,000 per violation and got a brief quote from Kellar. The Signal also looked into some problems other City Council members had in completing their disclosure forms; details on Councilmembers Boydston and Weste are in a separate article.
- More on Lennar/UAE Purchase story: The Signal’s Jim Holt followed up on a Los Angeles Business JournalImage not recoveredburqa.jpgstory from earlier this week that said Lennar -partial owner of Newhall Land- may be purchased by a group of investors from the United Arab Emirates. Whereas the LABJ writer Richard Clough couldn’t get a Lennar spokesperson to comment about the rumor on the record, Holt did. Marshal Ames, a Lennar VP, told Holt that it was “old news” and a “rumor” and said “We don’t comment on rumors.” That’s not exactly a denial but it’s more than the LABJ got and there have been no new developments in the story since Reuters broke it on February 26. Holt also spoke to Councilmember TimBen Boydston who clarified some of the comments he made to the LABJ. You can read excerpts from the LABJ article here, and Holt’s article is here.
- Man shot outside 7-11 in Canyon Country:A 28 year old Latino man was shot after getting into an argument with another man at around 12:40 am at a 7-11 store in Canyon Country Wednesday. “The two men argued briefly in the [store] before the suspect left the store, purportedly to go to his car. As the victim left the store with a friend, the suspect shot him and fled the scene,” Carol Rock reports at KHTS. Deputies are looking for the suspect, described as a “38 year old Hispanic man, about 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighing approximately 190 pounds,” according to Parimal Rohit at The Signal. The victim suffered wounds to his right arm and right upper torso; he was in stable condition at Henry Mayo as of Wednesday afternoon.
- Saugus District may be in the red: So reports Sharon Cotal at The Signal, who says that the valley’s largest elemetnary school district may be “unable to meet its financial obligations” in upcoming years. There’s a whole lot of options between now and then though but the District has been forced to find ways to trim $5 million from its future budgets in light of the state’s financial crisis. Notable quote: “The budget crisis was not due to any action on the part of the Saugus Union School District. Our school district has always had a healthy reserve in spite of receiving the lowest base revenue funding in Los Angeles County,” Superintendent Judy Fish told Cotal.
- And at Hart: At last night’s meeting of the Hart School Board, members approved some $10. 3 million in cuts during an extended meeting “that went from frustration to compromise with a dash of hostage negotiation,” according to Carol Rock at KHTS. The cuts are designed to balance the budget “should the state make good on its threat of a 10 percent across-the-board budget cut.” On the adjustment list: increasing class sizes by one student, removing drug dogs from campuses, and eliminating freshman athletics. Rock has the in-depth report here.
Politics
- 4th District Congressional race: I linked to a story yesterday in the Times on Tom McClintock, former state senator who represented a small part of Santa Clarita who’s now entered the race to represent California’s 4th District in Congress. The Hill, a DC newspaper covering Congress, has an interesting follow up article. There were three Republicans who were hoping to represent the 4th in Congress, and two have dropped out after McClintock announced his candidacy. The other Republican who will face off against McClintock for the GOP’s primary in that District is former Rep. Doug Ose, who’s already racked up a long list of endorsements from California’s Congressional GOP delegation, including our own Buck McKeon. The Hill calls McClintock a “conservative icon” and other Republicans apparently think Ose is a “unarguably liberal Republican,” so I’m wondering if those California Congressman will shift their endorsements. Link
- So much for the bipartisan spirit: It’s only been a few weeks since the ink dried on the bipartisan stimulus bill that President Bush signed, but Buck McKeon is already back to partisan games, slamming the “tax and spend” Democrats for a “fiscally irresponsible” FY 2009 budget in an editorial released yesterday. “If last year was any indication, we can look at this budget as laying the groundwork for Democrats’ aggressive drive to promote big government, burdensome taxation, and strict regulation across all spectrums,” McKeon says. KHTS
- State budget crisis: If you’re concerned about the cuts to K-12 and the general state of California’s budget, don’t miss KCRW host Warren Olney’s interview of a leading state Democrat and Republican on taxes, spending and Sacramento politics. It’s posted here in mp3 format on KCRW’s site.
- I received my ballot, did you? My City of Santa Clarita municipal election sample ballot arrived in the mail yesterday. The 16 page ballot has candidate statements and bios for all 5 City Council Candidates, in English and Spanish no less, and invites voters to vote by mail. Some notes: Marsha McLean and Frank Ferry are listed as endorsing Laurie Ender. McLean is also listed as endorsing Diane Trautman. Bob Kellar and Bob Spierer are 63 years old, and Gutzeit is the youngest candidate at age 40. You can see the sample ballot at the City’s website
Blogs, Opinion and More
- Golf blogger really doesn’t like AT&T Classic and Valencia course: “Then there’s next week’s event at Valencia, a monstrous Robert Trent Jones Sr. design next to the 5 freeway in that massive slice of over-development hell known as Santa Clarita, a solid 25 minute drive from a decent population base and 45 minutes from the heart of LA,” says the snob.
- 200 votes enough to put Ender on the Council? That’s what blogger/businessman/city watcher Tim Myers thinks after gaging who exactly went to Laurie Ender’s “Rally in the Park” last Saturday (hint, they may have been a bunch of unknown new people who normally don’t participate in city matters or the gala circuit, you know, voters!) “Laurie Ender mixed up the usual campaign of appealing to the “usual suspects” that held sway since 1998, holding a rally on March 1 that frankly brought out the Helmers and Northpark Elementary PTA and Northbridge, Northbridge Point and Northpark crowds. This could constitute enough effort. Voting turnouts in these areas stand no higher than others historically, and a five to six percent uptick in this precinct alone could put Laurie over the hump,” Myers writes.
- Two Whiners in the LTE Section: One didn’t like Saturday columnist Diana Sevanian’s recent piece which mentioned “flatulence” and asks if The Signal will next post “photos of public defecation.” The next whiner thinks The Signal should never speak to the families of people who have committed crimes in reference to Parimal Rohit’s recent interview of convicted murderer Robert Wheeler’s mother. In that article, Wheeler’s mom said her son was mentally ill and worried how he’d be treated in state prison, to which the LTE writer says: “An innocent person has been killed and she is worried about how her son might not get treatment in jail. He is where he belongs and he can rot there because that’s what he deserves,” the writer says, ending with this advice: “Next time you should consider an interview with the family of the REAL victim.”
- Significant Ecological Areas: SCOPE activist and City Council fixture Cam Noltemeyer has a good op/ed in today’s Signal. The board member details some of the developments around the valley and praises Los Angeles County for a designation it gives to certain ecological sensitive areas. She says the City has no such regard for those areas, known as SEAs, and notes that several recent and future projects within the city have or will be built on land formally designated as SEAs by Los Angeles County. Even if you normally roll your eyes when Noltemeyer takes the podium at City Council meetings, you ought to read this well-articulated column.
Editor’s Note:
Today a story ran in The Signal regarding Dwight P. McDonald and comments an SCVTalk reader posted on this website. Those comments were posted in response to the February 12, 2008 Daily Brief.
Shortly after the brief ran, a Deputy District Attorney asked me to provide her with the IP address of the users who posted those comments.
I refused to hand over what I view as my reader’s private information.
A subpoena followed. Left with no choice, I handed over the information to the LA County Deputy District Attorney.
It’s the policy of this blog to protect such information. However, faced with a lawful subpoena, I had no choice but to hand it over.
Editor Note #2:
The photograph of Marlee Lauffer is purely in jest and hopefully inspired a chuckle in you.