SCV Talk · Archive
Nine years of the Valley’s town square · 2006–2015
SCV Talk
October 11, 2010· scvtalk.com · WordPress (SCVTalk 3.0) · Wayback capture

October 11, 2010 – Daily Brief

By Jeff — Jeff Wilson

  • The City will create a Citizen’s Public Library Advisory committee if an agenda item is approved at tomorrow night’s City Council meeting.  ”Ideally, the individuals on the Committee will represent youth services, senior services, public education, PTA, early child development, private education, higher education, home schooling, cultural groups, local history, media, teens, book clubs, commuters, the disabled, library advocates, service organizations, healthcare, small business, etc.” The size of the committee will be based on how many applicants apply and its goal will be to determine specific goals and objectives for our brave new world of locally-owned but privately run libraries COUNCIL AGENDA, SIGNAL
  • Also on the agenda: City staff recommends the Council reject all 24 bids it received for construction of the Newhall library. The bids, which ranged from $10.7 million to $14.4 million either had mistakes or were too much, so the staff will re-advertise the job. Grading is near complete at the site of the new Newhall library and one of those old auto buildings has been torn down AGENDA ITEM
  • The City of Santa Clarita will slow its annexation of neighborhoods in the Tesoro Del Valle area after two developers complained of premature annexation, despite the fact that a November 2009 vote showed support for full annexation among residents. AGENDA ITEM, SIGNAL
  • Dave Bossert posts full response of Tesoro Board member who disputes the characterization above and says that what the homeowners in Tesoro really voted for was a negotiated, smooth annexation, not a premature one. WRB
  • Open-ended CicLAvia event, in which the City of LA shut down 7 miles of streets to cars from East Hollywood to Downtown LA, was a raging success yesterday with over 100,000 people participating, many on bikes, skateboards or just walking. LA TIMES
  • Halloween is officially upon us! Heritage Haunt (nice website!) at the old Heritage Junction begins this weekend and is always fun for the kids. And this year, College of the Canyons is hosting an outdoor, bring-your-blankets-and-chairs, screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Takes place October 30.
  • Great Signal profile of the new director of the SCV Senior Center. James Morgan, a long-time non-profit executive, says he’s learning about the needs of seniors in the SCV and thinks the valley will need more senior-facilities in the future. “One of the challenges here is the facility. It’s not the Taj Mahal; though we do get things done here. We need more facilities. We’re not looking to move; we just need more than one location.” SIGNAL
  • Is standardized testing for students a good thing or a bad thing? The Signal’s .edu beat reporter Tammy Marshalian bravely tackled the thorny subject talking to Dr. Marc Winger of Newhall School District and a USC Professor about whether teachers these days are merely “teaching to the tests.” SIGNAL
  • The suburban bedroom community is dead, long live the new jobs-housing balance/walkable/ped-friendly paradigm! Or, the Associated Press takes a look at how Irvine, a near-clone of Valencia, is maturing from the fossil-fuel dependent dream of 60s suburban living to a more modern community in which jobs and housing are planned for in conjunction. Valuable reading for you OVOV haters. ASSOCIATED PRESS
  • Of course maybe none of it matters: researchers say California is overdue for an 8.1 magnitude super-quake that could stretch from Monterey County all the way to the Salton Sea. That includes us fellow brave SCVers, the San Andreas fault runs just north of here. EEK
  • 64 year old San Fernando Valley agricultural fair at risk of being disbanded and forgotten after Pierce College in Woodland Hills denies the event a permanent home. Just move it permanently up here already! DAILY NEWS
  • Three weeks out from the midterms, the Signal profiles the race between State SEnator Tony Strickland and Johnny Chiang for state Controller as well as Buck McKeon & Jackie Conaway for 25th District of the US House of Representatives
  • Myers admires Don Ricketts, the Hoya-educated lawyer who has filed suit against the City for its plans to seize and outsource the operation of our three libraries SIGNAL
  • In this year of the anti-incumbency rage, The Signal doesn’t mind that Buck McKeon is becoming more of a high-powered Washington Insider type and less of an awww-shucks, boot-wearing GOP congressman from the sticks. They hope that if he takes control of the House Armed Services Committee that he’ll finally be able to remedy our long-standing CEMEX problem (you remember that- the City thanked him four years ago for it!)ENDORSEMENT
  • When a government agency goes and does something big and dramatic like, I don’t know, seizing three libraries from the County against widespread opposition, it’s supposed to think of all the consequences -good, bad and ugly- that might happen as well as stakeholder response. That’s the gist of this LTE which asks why the City didn’t realize the County might stop its renovation of the Canyon Country library
  • Rare introspective blog post from an SCV Real Estate agent who advises other real estate agents to think about and apply the Golden Rule when dealing with other agents
  • Dave Bossert takes issue with recent Signal editorial about how the paper forms its official editorial positions. He trashes the Signal’s claims of objectivity when it comes to covering the City, saying the City has spent $150,000 in ad dollars with the Signal last year alone. “They have a vested interest in keeping the City of Santa Clarita regime happy by siding with them and agreeing with them at almost every turn,” he writes. WRB

Comments (21)

  1. Gang FangOctober 11, 2010 at 7:20 am
    The Heritage Haunt is actually pretty damn good. In years past I’ve been to almost every “haunted” attraction in southern California, and it holds up to the others really well. Worth your time.
  2. TeresaToddOctober 11, 2010 at 7:50 am
    Many thanks to the 7,000-plus residents who came out to this weekend’s SCV Community Expo at the Santa Clarita Sports Complex in support of local businesses. And a few words to the imbecile(s) who cut down and tried to destroy the EXPO signs on Soledad Friday night… SHAME. There were 107 local businesses trying to connect with residents at the SCV Community Expo. What purpose did cutting down our large signs publicizing the event serve? And as though silencing our efforts to inform the community were not enough, you determine that taking a knife to the signs, splitting them into pieces, then cowardly tossing the pieces over a secured fence you thought was inaccessible was a good idea. Wrong. We pieced the signs back together and reattached them to the fence (we had permission from the owner of this private property). And, by the way, karma bites.
  3. Gang FangOctober 11, 2010 at 8:21 am
    Wal Mart special ops perhaps? Bill Reynolds on a misguided yet holy drunken flashback attack against the gay/ communist/ liberal/satanist plot to take over his freedoms? In any case, pitiful and wasted prank energy.
  4. IHeartSCVOctober 11, 2010 at 8:19 am
    RE: Irvine I think it’s easier to shove homes into a job-rich area than to shove jobs into a home-rich area.
  5. TimBen BoydstonOctober 11, 2010 at 9:40 am
    Enjoyed reading the article on Irvine. It is interesting to note that the planners in the surrounding communities don’t seem to agree that the increased density will be beneficial. We are not OVOV “Haters”. I want the new general plan to have more jobs for local residents. My issue is with additional housing that does not come with the infrastucture to support it. We should have standing policies that traffic will not get worse than it is now. Roads must be built to assure that the traffic does not get worse. We should not be forced to conserve water so that the conserved water can be then given to new residences. We need to secure new sources to match new users. We should put a policy in place that the air in our valley will not get worse. These policies would make good planning. Without these types of policies, we will end up in a traffic-choked, smog ridden, urban nighmare. Most of the people in the key planning postions don’t live here and will not have to live with their bad planning decisions.
  6. cashOctober 11, 2010 at 8:31 am
    California is overdue for an 8.1 magnitude super-quake that could stretch from Monterey County all the way to the Salton Sea. Hopefully the school administrators, with High Pressure pipelines within the close proximity of their schools, are aware of the 8.1 potential and are making sure their emergency plans consider it. West Ranch, Golden Valley, McGrath and Northlake are examples.
  7. DamageincOctober 11, 2010 at 8:45 am
    Earth quakes from transform faults don’t have that magnitude or that ratio.
  8. cashOctober 11, 2010 at 8:48 am
    That is not the point. If you are suggesting no impact beyond the main fault, you would be wrong.
  9. Coastal SageOctober 11, 2010 at 8:14 pm
    Apparently, as of yesterday morning, an 8.1 earthquake can occur on the San Andreas Fault. See: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-san-andreas-20101010,0,7815936.story
  10. cashOctober 11, 2010 at 8:41 am
    The mouth of the west is right about the signal. The Signal is the mouth of the city of Santa Clarita, the mouth of the Chamber of Commerce, etc, etc. The Signal is not the mouth of the residents of Santa Clarita, and in fact the Signal will not take on issues that may shed a bad light on the city. The big guy at the Signal is part of the GOBN.
  11. Street KnowledgeOctober 11, 2010 at 9:02 am
    It’s my view from the cheap seats, but it does seem that The Signal is decidely more GOBN-friendly in the Lamont era than it was under Jay Harn. It’s more Budman/Fleet-ish these days.
  12. Tim MyersOctober 11, 2010 at 9:24 am
    PRAVDA!!!!!
  13. cashOctober 11, 2010 at 9:32 am
    Is Lamont Russian!
  14. awesometownieOctober 11, 2010 at 3:01 pm
    Lamont is of Scottish decent but been in Long Beach for a long time. He is not in the GOBN, and is rarely even in the SCV, but gives them free reign in his paper. The so called “editorial board” is the biggest joke- a desperate effort by 2 failing “news” entities to sound important.
  15. cashOctober 11, 2010 at 3:38 pm
    Did you really think I thought a guy named Ian Lamont is Russian!!!! Ian is on the GOBN speed dial.
  16. Daddy Joe GOctober 12, 2010 at 2:54 am
    So we out source our newspaper. This is quite the community for local control.
  17. Daddy Joe GOctober 11, 2010 at 10:04 am
    I want to thank Jeff for these daily briefs. I don’t seem to be able to share an opinion, but I am grateful that you share your research. Thanks.
  18. Need for Involved CitizenryOctober 11, 2010 at 10:06 am
    Huge difference between Irvine and Santa Clarita. The article mentions Irvine has 192,000 jobs (more jobs than residents) so they have a significant jobs inbalance. So it would make sense to build more housing locally. The SCV has what – maybe 50,000-60,000 jobs? With a population in the Valley of over 200,000 now and OVOV taking it to 400,000, we would need job growth to at least quadruple to have a true live work environment. There just isn’t that kind of commercial\industrial space that will be built under OVOV. In fact, the plan only calls for roughly a doubling of jobs. That would be great but for the doubling of the population…. The concept sounds good but the reality is we really only need jobs out here and not anther 200,000 people. I can guarantee you that if the parcels are entitled for houses they will be built and sold. But if the businesses don’t demand and soak up commercial and industrial space, it won’t get built creating an even worse situation.
  19. KevitivityOctober 11, 2010 at 3:37 pm
    Does there exist somewhere a breakdown of the positives and negatives of this proposed annexation of West Creek? Is it all of West Creek?
  20. NickelDimeOctober 11, 2010 at 5:58 pm
    Kev, the West Creek/Hills annexation is simply not going to happen for some time. Newhall Land opposes primarily because they have a known quantity in LACo and the City tends to be more stringent. We can go into specifics, but it really doesn’t matter – they got what they wanted and it won’t happen for years. The Copperstone communities will likely be the only thing that is annexed. In NL’s defense, there has never been an annexation in Santa Clarita’s history mid-way through a residential development. Then again, there has never been a housing crisis quite like this either. So you and I (and mike and a few others on SCVTalk!) will wait some time before we have a vote in local politics. Congrats on your recent nuptuals, BTW!
  21. spineflower2October 11, 2010 at 8:20 pm
    Sad to see the demise of the San Fernando Valley Fair, a regular fall haunt at Devonshire Downs in Northridge. Agriculture, animal husbandry, crafts, and even horse racing were the highlight of the start of the school year for untold kids growing up in theboom years of the SCV.

Preserved as part of the SCV Talk Archive. Text is presented as originally published; presentation has been standardised for readability. The original capture is available at the Internet Archive.

Support