Big (comparatively) voter turnout in Tuesday’s election, the incoming councilmembers and what they’ll work on, McKeon’s reaction to Petraeus’ report, a local biotech firm gets hit hard, plus Santa Clarita is still a bedroom community? All that ahead in today’s Daily Brief.
News
- Voter Turnout possibly highest in 10 years: Santa Clarita voters went to the polls (or more likely, their mailboxes) for the 2008 City Council election more than in any council election since 1998, reports Katie Geyer at The Signal. Geyer says that preliminary stats show that some 12,408 ballots were counted at City Hall on Tuesday night. Of that, 67% or about 9,000, were vote-by-mail ballots. An additional 1,000 absentee & provisional ballots remain to be counted. Going by those numbers, it appears many voters only chose one candidate on their ballot: VoteSantaClarita.com reports that a total of 21,971 votes were counted, a disparity of some 2,845 votes if all 12,408 voters had selected two candidates. Even with the higher turnout, only 16% of the city’s 82,000 registered voters participated in our local election. Signal, VoteSantaClarita
- Ender, Kellar talk about agendas on City Council: In the same article referenced above, Councilperson-elect Laurie Ender told The Signal that she believes the new city council be a “well-represented and dynamic team” and that she hopes she can travel to Washington to work on fighting Cemex. She also mentioned Mayo expansion and the MRF and said she was looking forward to new public participation in city affairs. Mayor Bob Kellar, who won his third term on the council, told the Daily News that his “mandatae is to do a good job serving the community.”
- McKeon, Iraq, the anatomy of a Bin Laden quote, and local media: Lost in the post-election blahs yesterday was a telephone press conference scheduled by Congressman Buck McKeon to discuss with local reporters General David Petraeus’ Iraq report before Congress. The eight term Santa Clarita congressman, who’s running for office again this fall, told reporters that success in Iraq was “undeniable” and that the results of the military surge are “important and impressive.” At the beginning of his discussion with reporters, he quoted from 2007 Osama Bin Laden message in which the Al Queda leader emphasized the importance of Baghdad in the fight against Americans. The Signal reports on that quote and the telephone press conference here. Part of Bin Laden’s quote was apparently used by McKeon earlier in the day when he was quoted by the Wall Street Journal about the war in Iraq: “I think we’ve also talked about the price of being there and the price of leaving…it is either victory and glory or misery and humiliation.” Meanwhile, the Victorville Daily Press took a different approach to McKeon’s conference call and mentioned that not all Republicans share his views.
- Valencia based MannKind Corp stock loses nearly 60% of its value: The pharma and medical products company based in northern Valencia is trying to develop an inhaled form of insulin, the hormone injected by diabetics to help control their blood sugar. But investors dumped MannKind stock yesterday after rival Pfizer announced that tests of its inhaled insulin product showed increase risks of lung cancer. The LA Times reports on that and billionaire found Alfred Mann’s ideas for the product here.
- Santa Clarita is so generic it could be anywhere: That’s the consensus from Variety, the Hollywood trade journal, which reports that the “bedroom community of Santa Clarita often doubles for numerous cities and countries.” Nothing really new in this report, though there’s a quote from city “film analyst” Jessica Freude who told Variety that Santa Clarita “has thousands of locations but not one distinctive look.” Link
- Thieves better not touch my NetFlix, or two crime shorts: Two perps were arrested by SCV Sheriff’s deputies on Monday after a “tipster reportedly saw them taking items from several mailboxes” in Saugus. The perps, both of Granada Hills, had “checks, credit card statements and NetFlix DVDs” on them. And north of Soledad Canyon Road, a 47 year old man was arrested for allegedly trying to steal copper from “a pole holding high tension wires” according to KHTS.
- Castaic Library taking shape: Brief report today from the Daily News on new county libraries. Troy Anderson reports that a space in Castaic has been leased by the County for a “storefront library” that will open this summer. No details on where it’s at, but it will apparently be in a shopping center. Link
Blogs & Opinion
- I Heart on the differences between Laurie Ender and Frank Ferry: As a public service, I Heart’s taken the time to examine the similarities and differences between Councilman Frank Ferry and Councilwoman-elect Laurie Ender. Link
- Publisher Jay Harn says Laurie Ender may have a “mandate”: The Park Commish’s win in the election was “definitely strong” and the “public has spoken,” so much in fact that Jay Harn, Signal publisher, says “no one can question the fact that she may perceive she brings a ‘mandate’ with her as she takes her seat.” Link
- Photo of SCV Walmart appears on Chinese news site: This one isn’t really newsworthy, and I really doubt it’s of an SCV WalMart, but a Chinese news website reporting on the economy has what it describes as a photo of the bread section in a Wal Mart store in the SCV. There’s an elderly woman who looks like an old Russian babushka in the picture.
- These are the kids who get a free temporary skate park: SCVLife.net blogger has a video of local teens skating in places they shouldn’t be. But they’ll all hang out at the $170,000 temporary skate park, right?