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March 21, 2011· scvtalk.com · WordPress (SCVTalk 3.0) · Wayback capture

March 21, 2011 – Daily Brief

By Jeff — Jeff Wilson

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One of these "transfer cases" contains the body of Pfc. Rudy A. Acosta of Canyon Country as he arrived in Delaware Sunday. Acosta, a 19 year old Army medic died in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, on March 19. RIP Pfc. Acosta. (AP Photo, click for link)

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A photo of Rudy Acosta from a 2010 Signal announcement about him deploying to Afghanistan (click for link)

  • Private First Class Rudy A. Acosta, a 2009 graduate of Santa Clarita Christian school and a medic in the US Army’s 2nd Calvary Regiment (Dragoons), died Friday when he and another solider were “allegedly shot with small arms fire by an individual from a military security group” in Kandahar Afghanistan according to the Pentagon. A blog about the Regiment says at least five others were also wounded in the shooting, and a local source KHTS talked to says the shooter might have been an Afghani, though circumstances aren’t clear at all. Acosta’s parents, residents of Canyon Country, flew to Delaware on Saturday to meet their son.  Acosta was a member of Santa Clarita Baptist Church and the church had a slide show for the young man Sunday while singing Amazing Grace. All of SCVTalk grieves with them; Acosta was only 19. KHTS
  • Very disturbing episode of racism this weekend in Saugus SCVTALK
  • For a second time, the State Attorney General’s office has declared that the County’s portion of OVOV violates state law. Specifically Attorney General Kamala Harris says the plan will result in increased vehicle trips with no mitigation. “The (One Vision) plan will result in a 120 percent increase in existing driving trips,” she wrote. The City, meanwhile, likens the AG’s OVOV slap as a “normal part of the process.” DAILY NEWS, SIGNAL
  • Sunday’s epic rainstorm dumped a half inch to one inch of rain on the SCV every hour. Or so says KPCC which remarks that the storm made the Santa Clara River so swollen that they were worried about a bridge downstream in Ventura County. Here in town, a gas station structure collapsed and multiple roads were flooded and closed. The rain may continue this morning but taper off this afternoon. KPCC, KHTS, DAILY NEWS, SIGNAL
  • LSSI will decide which books and materials to purchase as part of the City’s plan to spend $900,000 on new materials for the three libraries it is seizing from the County, according to the Signal. The Signal report says LSSI made the determination that the County’s inventory was lower than thought based on a “bibliographic inventory that revealed the County has almost half the number of books the City thought.” Why didn’t the City know better? Ken Striplin, assistant City Manger: “We assumed certain startup costs, and as we’ve gone through the process, we’ve come across things that were different from what we expected.” Signal commenters are ticked SIGNAL
  • As is the local Tea Party, which outlines in red each expenditure the City is proposing and asks, “could a tax really be far behind?” They link to the SC Voters for Better Government Petition and advise their readers to show up on Tuesday night at the Council meeting, where the matter will be decided or delayed SCV PATRIOTS
  • Bossert wants people to show up at the Council meeting tomorrow night to protest the library takeover as well. He even quotes Martin Luther King in service of the cause (For real?) WRB
  • Devastating cuts ahead for Hart District and public education statewide if the tax measures Brown wants to put on the ballot fail SIGNAL
  • Raising sewer rates to pay for a plan to clean chloride from our water won’t happen until at least May, says Laurene Weste. I’m unclear if the April meeting of the Sanitation Board is still on though. SIGNAL
  • $1 billion state cut to First 5 preschool program threatens preschools in Saugus Union School District SIGNAL
  • Residents get a taste sense of the SCV’s sewage plant that’s at the heart of the chloride matter SIGNAL
  • I missed an interesting New York Times profile of Buck McKeon last week. Hurry, go and read it before the Times gets locked down for subscribers only NY TIMES
  • Princess Cruises has just started building a new flagship cruise ship for its fleet. By the time the Royal Princess sets sail, it will weigh in at 141,000 tons and will be large enough to accommodate 3,600 passengers. More details and a video HERE
  • Paul Brotzman defends OVOV against Lynne Plambeck saying that at build-out, an SCV under OVOV would have 15,000 less units than it would under the existing general plan. SIGNAL
  • Myers wants us to stop using the word “disaster” and “catastrophe” so liberally in the wake of the Japanese quake/tsunami/nuclear crisis. I’m inclined to agree SIGNAL
  • Albert Einstein Elementary school can’t get a charter in the SCV because the SCV’s existing public elementary schools are too good. Or at least that’s what one dad who likes charter schools says in a long LTE. So if existing schools are good enough, why should we steer resources to the charter schools? If parents want choice, they have private schools, do they not? SIGNAL
  • At last, altSCV has a website with digital copies of their paper available for free. Check it out! ALT SCV

Comments (26)

  1. cashMarch 21, 2011 at 7:13 am
    ■Devastating cuts ahead for Hart District and public education statewide if the tax measures Brown wants to put on the ballot fail …… And let’s continue to paint more bike lanes with the excess cash we have in the budget……
  2. cashMarch 21, 2011 at 7:15 am
    God bless Private First Class Rudy A. Acosta.
  3. A FriendMarch 21, 2011 at 7:30 am
    Rudy was an outstanding young man. He had a heart for the Lord and a desire to help others.
  4. cashMarch 21, 2011 at 7:45 am
    My grandson is in Afghanistan. We communicate with face book. Saturday he told me that “they” all had a very bad day on Friday, because “they” had lost one of their own. So sad.
  5. navigatorMarch 21, 2011 at 8:08 am
    I had hoped that we would not get another name for the CVC bridge monument. Our list of lost loved ones at the Memorial Day Ceremony will be one name longer as well. My thoughts are with this young man’s family.
  6. Bill ReynoldsMarch 21, 2011 at 10:09 am
    Well said Navigator. . .
  7. Need for Involved CitizenryMarch 21, 2011 at 8:29 am
    Warning – long response… Paul Brotzman of the City is trying to use a comparison of apples to walnuts to sell OVOV and is more than happy to misrepresent what will really happen to our community. The City and County have been trying to compare a seriously flawed current plan against OVOV rather than tell you what happens against existing conditions. This is because the change will be so dramatic – A doubling of the population, a decrease in intersection quality from a B- grade to a D+ grade on average, failing traffic levels on SR 14 and I-5 with no analysis done on the Newhall Pass (because it will be so bad – failing levels ++++). In spite of this Paul tells us that there will be a reduction of 15,000 units when compared with the existing plan (note no direct statement as to what the growth is from existing conditions), and that there will only be another 8,000 units added as part of this plan (minimizing the entitled but unbuilt 63,000 units). Paul also talks about all the community outreach and meetings they’ve had. These meetings have been nothing more than dog and pony shows, with essentially no community input incorporated into the plan. Gee thanks for having the meetings Paul – why don’t you listen to what the residents say they don’t like and try to incorporate those comments into the plan? Paul also goes on to say that the City is protecting our quality of life even though polution doubles, vehicle trips double, etc and there is no land identified in OVOV as future parkland, even though the City has less parkland that they need under any standard (open space is not parkland). As a matter of fact, the State Department of Justice just wrote a letter to LA County informing them that the EIR doesn’t pass muster and that they must comply with the requirement to reduce pollution from the existing conditions – not double them. In spite of this letter, the City thinks they will be unaffected in their plan (even though the County plan was already better than the City’s). Paul also indicates the water agencies and disticts were engaged but the agencies have indicated they can’t furnish water to one area and their ability to deliver water to new units is based upon all residents reducing their demand (rationing through price increases). Likewise, Paul goes on to say the Plan “promoting low-impact development”. The key word here is “Promote”. There are very few “Requirements” in OVOV, thus making it a plan with no teeth, only promises to the community. The reality is developers will ignore these “Promote” goals because it will cost them a bit more money and the City in the spirit of being Business Friendly will be more than happy to accede. I’m surprised Paul doesn’t indicate how all the new roads will improve traffic conditions (even though the City has no funding for them). As a matter of fact, Caltrans sent the City a letter indicating the City needs to develop a funding plan for the OVOV required improvements because they are solely due to the growth under this plan. How does the City plan to pay for this? There is nothing in the plan to address this problem. Also Paul indicates that the Plan does not propose or permit any building/construction but the reality is that if a developer comes in with a plan that is consistent with what is approved by OVOV, the project will never need to go before the Planning Commission or Council so now it the time to comment and express opposition. There are too many flaws with this plan to address here. If your really interested in the issues, take a look at the letters the Planning Staff got for written comments prior to approval by the Planning Commission. They are part of the Planning Commission package for the last meeting.
  8. Coastal SageMarch 21, 2011 at 5:30 pm
    Here’s part of the real-politic of Mr. Brotzman’s comment in The Signal: City and County staff claim that a regional agency called “LAFCO” is compelling them to draw up new General Plans for the Santa Clarita Valley which will bring in approximately 200,000 more people (the “OVOV General Plans”. ) At the same time, the Attorney General’s divisional staff which enforces the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) says that the County’s OVOV General Plan will illegally produce seriously increased bad air quality for the Santa Clarita Valley, because, among many other reasons the County’s OVOV doesn’t comply with CEQA, the County’s and City’s planners “assume” that certain traffic congestion mitigations to the 14 and 5 Freeway will be built. Given California’s budget crisis, the likelihood of further state funded construction to improve traffic flow on the 14 and 5 Freeways is slim to none. But then, there’s the real kicker, which the Attorney General’s office hasn’t written about yet. It’s the County’s and City’s bogus OVOV traffic models for the Santa Clarita Valley, which show no unbearable traffic increase or gridlock, even if 200,000 more residents are added to the Santa Clarita Valley. The trick drafted by the City and County staff in OVOV is that the traffic models assume that three roads across the contaminated Whittaker Bermite property will be funded by someone and quickly built to accommodate the traffic created by those 200,000+ new residents: (1) nearly 2 miles of Via Princessa, to connect its eastern and western dead ends, crossing roughly 1 mile of the contaminated Whittaker Bermite property; (2) Santa Clarita Parkway which would run from the 14 Freeway into Bermite, and then head northward out of Bermite, cross the Santa Clara River on a new bridge, cross Newhall Ranch Road and then go up into the hills to the north towards Central Park, (3) an eastward extension of Magic Mountain Parkway, from its eastern terminus at Railroad Avenue up into Whittaker Bermite. Construction of roads (2) and (3) are complicated and increased by the need to take the roads over/under the Metrolink tracks. Without the construction of those “paper roads” and their bridges and railway crossings, the City’s and County’s OVOV traffic models fail, creating real gridlock if the homes for 200,000 new residents are built. Gridlock creates serious increases in the valley’s air pollution. One can assume the fraud on the public and the state, created by the OVOV traffic models, will eventually be discovered by the Attorney General’s CEQA staff. Why are the OVOV traffic models a fraud on the public? Because the city has no money to build those 3 roads, bridges or railway crossings associated with the “paper roads” on, through and from the Bermite property. The city staff claims it needs to have SOMEBODY develop 2900+ housing units and 92,000 square feet of commercial space on the contaminated Whittaker Bermite property QUICKLY, and pay the road fees to the city associated with that development, in order to fund real construction of those “paper” roads, bridges and railroad crossings. The only other alternative in terms of raising funds for construction of the paper roads, is for existing Santa Claritans to vote to tax themselves to pay for their community to build those roads, bridges and railroad crossings, to accommodate the 400,000+ car trips per day generated by those 200,000 new residents. And when will the 2900+ housing units and 92,000 square feet of commercial space (or more) be built on the Whittaker Bermite property, bringing in the road fees to pay for the “paper roads”? After Whittaker and its insurer AIG finish paying for clean up (remediation) of the toxic substances on the surface, in the soil, and dripping downwards into Santa Clarita’s drinking water. And when will Whittaker and AIG be finished with that toxic clean-up work, as supervised by the DTSC (California Department of Toxic Substances Control)? When they feel like finishing that work. There’s an old City Council enacted land use control, called DS12, which provides that no building permits may be issued for development on ANY PART of Whittaker Bermite until all toxic substances have been removed to the satisfaction of DTSC. That includes removal of the carcinogenic toxic chemicals TCE and PCE which are flowing from the Bermite property north west and west, into the community’s drinking water, as well as directly dripping down into the drinking water. DTSC officials, as well as responsible Santa Clarita community leaders, have long advocated keeping DS12 in force, so that the owner of the Bermite property or Whittaker cannot cherry pick the “easy to clean-up” parts of Bermite, cannot leave the heavily contaminated parts of Bermite unremediated, and cannot leave it to Santa Clarita taxpapers to pay the costs of taking the TCE, PCE and other explosives related chemicals out of the community’s drinking water supply. (Well water provides 50% of Santa Clarita’s drinking water, the balance coming from the State Water Project aqueduct.) DTSC has now determined, from a scientific point of view, that there are parts of Bermite’s soil and contaminated water underneath, which will NEVER be fully remediated of toxics. While the un-cleanable area allegedly only covers 2% of Bermite’s 960+ acres of land, there has been no calculation of the QUANTITY of deeply embedded PCE and TCE liquids and explosives related chemicals will continue to drip and flow into Santa Clarita’s drinking water. In other words, that 2% contains a whole lot of toxic chemicals which negatively affect Santa Clarita’s drinking water. In addition, a large number of Bermite’s acres have near surface PCE and TCE (volatile organic chemical/VOC) contamination which DTSC says will be sucked out of the soil using the equivalent of water wells, bringing the PCE and TCE to the surface, using equipment called SVE’s. That carcinogenic PCE and TCE will be burned off and its byproducts released into Santa Clarita’s air, with any chlorine/chloride residue in the equipment being removed and disposed of at places unknown. Credible California public safety activists, on toxics issues, tell Santa Claritans that the near-surface PCE and TCE, when sucked out of the soil using SVE’s, are volatile gases which move through the soil towards structures, entering the structures’ walls and making residents ill. As a result, while the SVE units are pumping the PCE and TCE out of the soil, no housing units can be safely built in the area where the SVE units are creating plumes of carcinogenic soil gases. So whatever the acreage of Bermite which will be affected by the operation of SVE units and the creation of carcinogenic TCE and PCE soil gas plumes, no housing can be built near the SVEs vicinity any time soon, even if DS12 was repealed. Ergo, the housing units and commercial space planned for Bermite will not be producing road building fees to fund the OVOV paper roads any time soon. Bottom line, the OVOV traffic models supporting the building of more housing units in the Santa Clarita Valley for 200,000 more people is a fraud, because of the “paper roads” relating to Whittaker Bermite. Traffic gridlock is what Santa Claritans can expect in the future, regardless of whether OVOV is enacted, or the existing City/County General Plans are left alone, because the existing General Plans were also based on the fraudulent traffic models “counting” construction of the “paper roads”: the Via Princessa, extension of Magic Mountain Parkway and the building Santa Clarita Parkway. Nice try Mr. B. Ultimately, the B s didn’t work in West Hollywood City Hall either.
  9. Lori RivasMarch 21, 2011 at 9:14 am
    Last night, at about 8:30-9PM, a friend who lives in the apartments at Rotella and Lyons, told me that the tunnel going under Rotella – part of the paseo that leads to Old Orchard Park, was nearly FULL of rain water…as in, to the top! Those tunnels are, what, 15′ high? Anyone have photo evidence of this?
  10. NateMarch 21, 2011 at 9:38 am
    Camera out in that angry rain would be a task. It was pretty insane yesterday.
  11. Timothy Myers SRMarch 21, 2011 at 9:46 am
    The water would run down into the tunnel since it slopes at both ends. The tunnels are probably more like eight to nine feet high.
  12. Lori RivasMarch 21, 2011 at 9:50 am
    I am bad at estimating measurements, but it seems those tunnels are quite a few feet higher than my standard ceiling. Then again, it has been awhile since I’ve walked through the tunnels. My kids used to call it the “echo cave,” and no trip to the park was complete without a yowl or two down there.
  13. Timothy Myers SRMarch 21, 2011 at 10:12 am
    On the Library Cost Overruns: So do we start writing our letters of recommendation now for the City employees that have otherwise done a good job but we be thrown under the bus and blamed for this cluster?
  14. Eric HeilbrunMarch 21, 2011 at 11:28 am
    Cluster? What cluster? The city hired the very best firm in the world to manage our libraries. (Well, O.K., maybe they’re the ONLY firm in the world that does what they do, but I guess that makes them the best, doesn’t it?) Laurie Ender is excited that we are going to potentially save MILLIONS and when it comes to numbers, is there anyone better than Laurie? Look, its not as if the city council rushed into this, that meeting on Aug 24 went on for hours. The Board of Trustees was told by the city attorney that they could collect the “special tax”. Huh?…What do you mean there’s no Board of Trustees? Well, then who did the city attorney give this info to? Your kidding, he doesn’t work here anymore? Well, whatever, at least there’s a web cam so we can watch the new library being built.
  15. LarMccMarch 21, 2011 at 11:32 am
    Don’t forget the cultural quiet room we will be getting. Not sure how things could get any better.
  16. Joe GrandeMarch 21, 2011 at 11:45 am
    Letter of recommendation for someone who works for the city? You’re kidding, right?
  17. Coastal SageMarch 21, 2011 at 5:44 pm
    Tim: The City of Riverside received whole lot of heart-felt letters of recommendation for Ken Pulskamp’s predecessor as City Manager of Santa Clarita. We all know how well those letters worked.
  18. Timothy Myers SRMarch 21, 2011 at 10:23 am
    Laurie Ender can use Ender Math all she wants because she also knows about Incumbent Math which almost assures re-election, especially since she will put her thumb on every City contractor’s forehead to max out donations and then run a great amount of glossy mailers with pictures of her and Buck McKeon together and trumpeting his endorsement. The anti-incumbent crowd really needs to develop some strategies to DEPRESS voter turnout, since the civic minded but lightly informed break so heavily in favor of incumbents.
  19. Coastal SageMarch 21, 2011 at 5:46 pm
    And don’t forget BuckPAC’s history of spending money to get candidates elected to the City Council, including Marsha McLean in her first successful run for that office. The dumber the woman candidate, the more the big boys like them.
  20. ToddMarch 21, 2011 at 10:44 am
    On the subject of bike lanes, Cash you do realize that the money that pays for those comes from totally different funding sources than school money, right? Furthermore, if the Hart District’s budget woes could be fixed for the same amount of money that the bike lanes cost, then I don’t think we’d be anywhere near the crisis that we are. But I hope you enjoy your fantasy world that you live in. Please tell me that it’s sunny, warm and dry, as opposed to the real world today.
  21. cashMarch 21, 2011 at 11:30 am
    It is your kind of thought process that is causing the financial problems we have. What I know is the bike lanes are paid by taxpayers, the same source of all money spent by the government. Get real kid!
  22. CoinMarch 21, 2011 at 7:02 pm
    Dont even bother with Cash. We all know his feelings on bike lanes. He’s entitled to it. The best part of it is that his opinion doesnt have any impact. I for one, as a taxpayer, dont mind paying for bike lanes.
  23. Petz-aka Saugus SteveMarch 21, 2011 at 11:02 am
    I just want to express my deepest sympathy and appreciation to the Acosta family and Rudy’s friends. You are not alone and many hearts in the community grieve with you during this difficult time.
  24. CCMarch 21, 2011 at 11:59 am
    I am deeply saddened for the loss of this brave young man. Far too young.
  25. Coastal SageMarch 21, 2011 at 3:01 pm
    RE: Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation Districts (Comment on Signal story) To reiterate the key issues: (1) California appellate case law says that local government agencies (e.g. the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation Districts) can sue the state for reimbursement of unfunded state mandated programs. The seminal Court of Appeal case on unfunded mandates specifically recites that this principle applies to compliance with California clean water standards. Active participants in that case were (drum roll) County of Los Angeles Sanitation District management. The case’s written opinion provides a road map for how to sue the state to get the money to build the facilities to comply with the state mandate being imposed by the Regional Water Quality Control Board. At the time of the last dramatic Sanitation District hearing, both Marsha McLean and Laurene Weste were in possession of a copy of that appellate case, and Ms. McLean got the 3 person Sanitation District Board (McLean, Weste & Antonovich) to “direct staff” to pursue such a litigation strategy by filing a test case. My personal bet is that “staff”, in the person of the Sanitation District’s General Manager, who really, really wants to impose this massive sanitation tax increase, has ignored that directive. (2) Appellate court case law won by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association makes it absolutely clear that under Propositions 218, 62 and 13 (all of which form a part of Article 13 of the California constitution) forbid the levying of any tax, assessment or fee to “build new facilities” unless 2/3rds of the registered voters in the district (i.e. Sanitation District) vote to tax themselves to build the new facilities. The General Manager of the Sanitation District chooses to ignore that law, and instead wants to again attempt to jury-rig a phony mail in election, under an inapplicable code section, requiring the majority of property owners to mail in ballots “voting no”. (He tried that last year but his management was so incompetent, the ballots were mailed to mortgage lenders not property owners.) The real question is whether Ms. McLean and Ms. Weste are going to blindly follow this headstrong Sanitation District General Manager and his hand-picked hack lawyer (who has never litigated an Article 13 case at the appellate level) or whether they are going to take control of the Sanitation District’ decision making, sue the state over the Regional Water Quality Control Board’s unfunded mandate for building of the new chloride-removal facilities, and “Just say no” to the senior Sanitation District staff members who have very questionable motives for pushing this new, illegal sewer fee/tax/assessment on the Santa Clarita Valley. Ms. McLean and Ms. Weste need to carefully weigh whether they are leaders or sheep.
  26. Alan FerdmanMarch 21, 2011 at 3:12 pm
    CS Thanks for the information. I will be sure to ask a related question Wednesday Night at the Sanitation District informational meeting. Will be sure to let you know what they answer.

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