I’m still ill but I feel ten times better than I did yesterday morning. I’m a bit doped up right now on various drugs so pardon the inevitable grammar/spelling errors.
News
- Standard and Poors says LandSource bankruptcy expected in weeks: The firm that counts Newhall Land as its biggest asset has defaulted on its loan payments and is expected to seek bankruptcy protection within weeks, Standard and Poors by way of Reuters is reporting today. Landsource is a unit that was formed by Lennar, LNR, Ceberus Capital and CalPERS a few years ago. It owns Newhall Land’s 15,000 acres of land in Northern Los Angeles County (including the Newhall Ranch land). The Reuters report claims that Landsource had $115 million in the bank in early February but only has $25 million in the bank now. Reuters wasn’t able to get a quote from a Landsource or Newhall Land spokesperson. Reuters report, Calpers WSJ report
- Rim of Valley bill on President’s Desk: The bill -sponsored by two area Democratic congressmen- would “look into” turning some 500,000 acres of land above and to the west of Santa Clarita into federally protected parkland under the Santa Monica Mountains Conservation authority. Advocates hope some day to build 150 miles of trails through the wilderness area. Katie Geyer has a good report here, and the Daily News one has also.
- Paramedics on strike: Some 60 medics working for AMR in the SCV went on strike yesterday in an effort to get better pay and medical benefits. Parimal Rohit finds out what the strike is about. KHTS quotes a medic who says the issue boils down to medical coverage. “When you’re making $9.50 an hour as an EMT, sometimes it comes down to paying health insurance or the rent.” Link
- Sharon Runner talks to SacBee about her fatal disease: Assemblywoman Sharon Runner announced last year that she was suffering from “limited sclerodoma,” a lung disease that is ultimately fatal and has no cure. The wife of Senator George Runner (known as the “Funner Runner”) is on the organ transplant list for a new set of lungs, and the disease is impacting what she can do. Despite all that, Runner seems to be in good spirits and says she just wants “God’s will to be done.” She gets “winded” on walks from her Assembly office to her husband’s office in the Capital. Link
- Crime Shorts: A 29 year old woman from North Hollywood was arrested in Canyon Country and Deputies found a US Postal Service mail key, methamphetamines, and other pieces of mail. She’s being held on $32,000 bail and I imagine she’ll be introduced to the feds soon. KHTS says the woman hadn’t stolen any mail from Santa Clarita boxes. Link And over at the Hart District, a female guidance counselor is under investigation for “inappropriate” telecommunications with a 16 year old student at Golden Valley High. There’s nothing specific in any reports yet, though KHTS got a Sheriff’s investigator to say that email and text messages were part of it. It may not be a criminal investigation at this point either, but the telecommunications may have been sexual in nature. OMG U R SO HAWT!
- Santa Clarita becoming a biotech hub? With the help of MannKind and other biotech firms, it’s looking more and more like the SCV is becoming a good place for biotech firms, the SFVBJ reports.
Miscellaneous
- Ken Striplin points out Enterprise Zone success stories: A few weeks ago, the Daily News did a piece asking whether communities such as Santa Clarita are really served by the state Enterprise Zone program, which gives businesses tax incentives to hire and operate locally. The Daily News report said multi-national companies like WalMart and McDonalds were quick to take advantage of the designation. Well, in Sunday’s Signal, Assistant City Manager Ken Striplin outlined some of the businesses in Santa Clarita that have taken advantage of the program. From Valencia Acura to WalMart to Salt Creeke Grill to US Healthworks; it looks like quite a few companies are taking advantage of the designation. It’s “proven to be an amazing new tool in the economic development toolbox” Striplin says. Link
- Tim Myers has more on election, teases us with City Council districts: The blogger and bespeckled business exec got out of map of Santa Clarita’s precincts and used crayons to signify which precincts Laurie Ender, Bob Kellar, Diane Trautman and Bob Spierer won (Gutzeit didn’t win any). What he found was completely different than in past elections where councilmembers Kellar and Smyth cleaned up valley-wide. In fact, in the 2008 election, Ender destroyed all comers in North Valencia, Saugus and other areas served by her mighty PTA, while Kellar dominated the east valley. So all this fresh lovely data has Myers wondering whether it’s time to take the training wheels off of City Politics and do grown-up City Council Districts (Ummm YEAH!). Anyway, he doesn’t talk about districts much this week but promises more analysis next week. Good stuff
- Mayors Prayer Breakfast tomorrow: The Signal has coverage of the annual breakfast put on by a Christian businessman’s group. The event will be decidedly less controversial than last year; a comedian will give the keynote. You wouldn’t know why it was so controversial if you read Katie Geyer’s piece on the breakfast from yesterday; the Signal writer says the controversy last year was just about the word “Mayor” and the placement of an apostrophe. That’s part of it, but not the whole story as SCVTalkers will remember: the controversy was over the Keynote speaker, arch-conservative Ralph Drollinger who’s comments about female legislators (they being sinful) offended many in the community, even Marsha McLean, who was Mayor at the time. I even caused a ruckus when I started an online petition asking the Mayor to boycott the breakfast (that went nowhere but McLean and others made statements in reaction to it). Anyway, Geyer’s report is here.
- More anti-urbanization agitprop from “Not A Ferry Fan” YouTuber: A new video posted on the site shows scores of headlines about crime, development, and Santa Clarita problems and claims City Manager Pulskamp wants to urbanize the SCV. It touches on the hospital, the Avenue project, traffic and more. A soundtrack plays “Hey City Manager, this city’s broken” again and again in the background. If you wish the SCV never grew much beyond what it looked like in 1970, you might enjoy it. Link
- Hey Gary Horton, didn’t your momma teach you not to hate? Gary Horton is a talented if somewhat odd columnist in that he seems to vacillate between being a liberal Democrat to a guy who supports Buck McKeon even though our Rep toes the George Bush line like no one else. Well in today’s Signal, Horton has a column that might get some play in the blogosphere once the Signal posts it online. It’s titled, “I hate you Hillary Clinton” and it’s a series of complaints against the junior Senator from New York who’s in a neck-and-neck race for the Democratic nomination with Barack Obama. “I hate you because you’re a narcisstic candidate running damaging your own party’ s prospects because of your limitless self-obsession and greed for power,” Horton says. He also calls her a “cowardly cheater,” a “divider of our nation,” a liar.