- 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
A decade of the Valley’s town square · 2006–2015
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