Yesterday on my ride home from work, I spotted at least three 40+ foot motorhomes parked around Railroad Avenue and 13th Street. I guess the cowboys decided to come early and stay in style this year for the festival that starts today. Yeehaa!
News
- Hung Jury in Castro Murder Trial: Jurors deadlocked 9-3 in favor of acquittal on the murder charge against Esperanza Castro, the 45 year old Canyon Country woman who was accused of killing her husband in 2006. The County DA’s office is deciding whether to try her again and in the meantime is keeping her in custody(!). Parimal Rohit has an excellent story and speaks with a few jurors about the case. “The big problem with the plaintiff’s case was that the detectives were sneaky and leading,” one juror told Rohit.
- Group forms up to fight Avenues Project: Katie Geyer reports today on community opposition to the Avenues Project, a mixed use development sporting twin “12 story buildings, retail shops, and 800 residential units” in the old Smiser Mule ranch property wedged between Wiley Canyon Road and Interstate 5. The project was detailed by proponents at the City Council meeting on Tuesday but a new neighborhood group, the Calgrove Corridor Coalition told the new city council “We’re not going to let this slide by.” The 37 acre project looks to be very preliminary at this point - paid booster Jeff Lambert even admitted they don’t have a “full picture” of traffic issues yet. As for the City Staff? “City staff shares the opinions of the public,” honcho Ken Pulskamp told the Council. Geyer has the report, WeThePeopleSCV site, Avenues website
- Castaic gets dumped on part 1: Some 30 lbs of dynamite were found in El Monte yesterday and some 200 people near the business where it was found were evacuated. Authorities say a man who purchased the TNT several years ago tried to return it all once to a business in the area. So what’s this got to do with the SCV? Well, rather than detonate it in El Monte, Sheriff’s Bomb squad officials “later chose to trasport [the tnt] to Castaic and destroy it there.” Huh?
- Castaic gets dumped on part 2: The Signal finally has a nice detailed article on the proposed Women’s jail facility the County wants to build on Pitchess Detention Center Property. Reporter Jim Holt says the 1,000 unit jail will be medium-security (no barbed wire a county exec says) with rehabilitative programs and fewer guards. The county hopes to open the facility by 2012 and says it should help with overcrowding county-wide. Report
- More on bear attack that killed Canyon Country man: Stephan Miller, the 39 year old Canyon Country man who was killed when a trained grizzly bear bit him on the neck Tuesday, was an experienced animal trainer and worked for years “with wild animals used in the entertainment industry,” Carol Rock at KHTS reports. Rock also spoke with Sue DiSesso, who’s late husband Moe was famous for training animals for movies. DiSesso knew Miller and says everyone in that business is “shook up about this, it’s a real tragedy.” Meanwhile, the Times Online,a UK paper, says that the bear, Rocky, may be put down which is really sad in my mind given that the bear is on our state flag and humans caused the Grizzly’s extinction in California. There’s also a YouTube video of the bear in a recent movie.
- Jon Dell blogs from Sacramento and gets educated on water, .edu: The KHTS news director says the SCV delegation that visited the Capital this week for talks with state officials had a packed schedule on Tuesday. Among other things, the group met with water officials, state senator George Runner, Audra Strickland, education officials, and of course Cameron Smyth, who co-sponsored the trip. Dell says he learned a lot: “And as the sun set over the flat farmland along the I-5, I couldn’t help but sit back and wonder how much I had learned about our town. I knew water availability was an issue, but I didn’t know that it was the number one issue in state politics,” he says, concluding: “It was a successful trip. We made our voices heard in a constructive way.” Link
- Hasley Hills gets hug from City, prepped for big day at County: The Hasley Hills neighborhood plus the economic might of the Valencia Commerce Center will go before LAFCO this summer after the City Council voted this week to close the application and send it off. Katie Geyer says LAFCO could take six to 12 months to process the application. If approved, the City would add some 1,400 homes and 6 million square-feet of commercial space to its territory. The city would also have to redraw its map, extending the pink of Santa Clarita proper into the white of LA County on the west side of the 5. Go get em tiger
Blogs
The Signal did not arrive on my doorstep today, so I have no idea if there are any worthy LTEs to mention, but here’s the latest from the SCV blogosphere
- SCVegan reviews controversial ZPizza chain in Valencia: The Vegan blogger, in touch with all things vegan in the SCV, says much controversy “surrounds ZPizza within the vegan community.” He traces the reasons for that controversy then gives a positive review of the pizza he received there. Any pizza is good pizza
- SCVTalkers opine on Hart elimination of instructional assistants: ReaderMama, an SCVTalker, consistently writes reasonable and intelligent posts; this time she opines on trouble with RSPs as the district and concludes, “I think the Hart District would be better served by eliminating a few higher paid positions in administrative areas rather than making massive cuts at the bottom tier. Let’s start with the Director of Personnel. and work our way up.” Link
- We’re lucky to have Laurie Ender: A Variety blogger says Santa Clarita is “lucky to have such a formidable talent on its city council” in the form of Laurie Ender. Wait, Variety? Yeah, remember Ender used to work as a “top producer” for Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood, so the Valencia mom has some “Hollywood Elite” connections. The blogger, reporter Cynthia Littleton, says Ender is the “kind of best-and-brightest, pillar of her community that is desperately needed in politics, particularly at the rubber-meets-the-road local level.” She traces Ender’s community roles here in the SCV, her boss-like status of the SCV PTA, and says Ender’s so remarkable that she may be making news in Santa Clarita, but has the talent to perhaps go onto Sacramento and Washington DC. High Praise for our Councilmember
- Mmmm. I love April in the SCV: It’s the best month in Santa Clarita, BY FAR. The cool breezes of the last few days have just been wonderful. Anyway, those breezes are carrying certain smells, particularly roses which are in full bloom this year. I’m going to snap some pictures of rose bushes around my house, but in the meanwhile, you can satisfy your rose fetish by reading this Ventura County Star article about a Fillmore woman who has some 400 (!) roses in her backyard. Even SCV “master rosarian” Kitty Belendez is shocked by how many roses this woman has. Link
- And last but not least: Try not to get too upset with me if you see me pedaling around the SCV. I just added the patch below to my commuting bag so that when I pull up in front of an SUV at an intersection, they know exactly how much I pay to transport myself.
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