- OH YEAH BABY! Barack Obama narrowly lost the Santa Clarita vote, Registrar results show. The President-Elect and hero of my generation received 27,789 votes in Santa Clarita vs 28,617 for John McCain, a difference of less than 1,000 votes! In unincorporated Valencia, Obama beat McCain 290 votes to 262. The same was true of Stevenson Ranch, Dave Bossert’s side of town, where Obama beat McCain 2,855 votes to 2,656. Even unincoporated Canyon Country went Blue with 1,941 votes going to The One and 1,380 going to McCain and the Wasila Witch Project. I have the complete run down and I’m not going to post it becasue I don’t want the Signal to get it, so look for a post from me later today with how Santa Clarita voted on everything.
- That’ll Teach Me to call elections early: The 19th Senate race isn’t over yet- though Hannah Beth Jackson has a 108 vote lead over Republican Tony Strickland, 85,000 vote-by-mail and 15,000 provision ballots have yet to be counted. Says Tony Strickland of his chances: “All the math guys I trust say it looks good for me.” VECO Star, Signal
- LA Times finally gets on Newhall Ranch story: News broke about two weeks ago that Barclays Bank, the creditor in the LandSource bankruptcy saga, wants Landsource to sell off some of its assets, including, possibly, the 21,000 acre Newhall Ranch property west of Interstate 5. Well today the Times finally got around to covering this important regional story; the paper says today that Barclays has “proposed a plan that would grant some creditors the right to trade the debt owed to them for some of LandSource’s property through a bidding process.” LandSource, as the Signal reported, has filed an objection to this plan. Looks like that little mountain climber guy over at the Newhall Ranch website might be homeless soon. Times
- SFV/SCV Republicans cry in their beer, look ahead: “The country will survive,” one Simi Valley McCain booster tells the Daily News. On the bright side, the DN says, look at all the Republicans Santa Clarita re-elected. Link
- Proposition 8 passage: It looks all but certain, even with the outstanding ballots, it’s going to be almost impossible to climb back from a 500,000 vote deficit. Signal has local reaction, including reaction from a married gay couple in Valencia. Link
- West Ranch Town Council to host Mayo Hospital Meeting: A smart move to bring parties together or grandstanding by Herr Bossert and the WRTC? Actually, the meeting was held last night. Link
- Hart District Measure SA Reax: Gotta hand it to the Hart District- they conceived a $250 million $300 million measure just a few months ago, executed an adequate Yes on SA Campaign, created some good PR with a Castaic High site selection, and voters ultimately rewarded them. But can Hart follow through? They say they can, and they say Castaic High is at the top of the priority list. What’s more, Board Member Gloria Mercado Fortine is promising “full disclosure and transpararency” as they get their hands on all our money. Let’s hold them to it. Signal has more.
- Memo to Signal headline writer: ditch the favored son routine: Credit to Carole Lutness who ran a tough and real campaign against Cameron Smyth, the “favored son” of Santa Clarita. At least they didn’t use the term “Golden Boy.” Also- today Smyth says he received 15% of support from non-Republicans; yesterday it was 20%.
- Memo to the cagers, get off your cell phone: I completely agree with Katie Mocharnuk, LTE writer from Valencia, who says Santa Clarita drivers are still driving around with their cell phones glued to their ears. “You can tell when you get behind or near someone holding a phone to their ear. They are tapping their brakes, weaving a little in their lanes and not paying attention to signals.” Amen sister.
- Bossert on election: Decent commentary here.
Nine years of the Valley’s town square · 2006–2015
