June 13, 2011 – Daily Brief

From my understanding, the City/County have no choice here. They MUST account, and plan accordingly, for a population growth. It is state law. Your anger is misdirected. If you believe they can do a better job of planning for the inevitable population growth, then by all means, have at it. But to tell them that they should not be planning for population growth, as I see so much of the so-called activists of Santa Clarita do, is just spinning your wheels. They have no choice. The state tells them “your population will grow by this many in this time… how do you plan on accomodating that?” Cities such as my hometown of Burbank, 100% built out with no open space available to build upon, has to do the same thing. Though their population growth is probably smaller than Santa Clarita’s, they still have to account for growth. Even though not a single new parcel of land will be developed.

So the primary guiding document for all SCV development can go on whether or not we have drinkable and affordable water? And no one is entitled to declare the emperor naked? If it doesn’t start with OVOV, where does it start? The lack of true LEADERSHIP on the Council is stunning.

I do not argue that those are legitimate and salient points. Your argument may be that OVOV does not adequately address the concerns for supplying water to meet the projected growth. But that is not what you said. You said that they want to endorse a doubling of the population. No, I’m sure they don’t. The council are all land owners who don’t want their property values and personal wealth to decrease… so they’d rather see less growth (if they knew what was good for them). But, and again I emphasize, their hands are tied. They must account for and plan for the growth that they are told is coming.

To remain silent and not force water considerations into OVOV is to endorse the growth contained in the document. That is what I expect LEADERS to do– not to make apologies and excused for inactoin, but to take action and solve problems proactively. And so I fault the Council for not taking the lead and pushing back based on water supply. But they never have, and they drink the “water” that CLWA pours onto them. Green water with Presidents on it.

Yes, now see, thats a point I can support. I think that CLWA, Valencia Water, Newhall County, et al, as well as the city are doing a MISERABLE job at educating people on conservation and the water issues that are impacting our community. There is ZERO outreach, zero public awareness and zero activity. The city needs to adopt ordinances pertaining to water waste. Now. On my drive every morning I see sprinklers creating a virtual wash down Via Princessa… Because of stupid overspray. No recourse, no consequence, no care.

There is a choice. Smart planning would place the growth in real urban areas that have suitable mass transit options. Not in some far away suburban community with some of the worst air quality in the basin, that you try to urbanize. So what we will have will continue to be an insufficient number of local jobs and gridlocked traffic. If folks complain about traffic now, just wait for 20 years – it will be much much worse. The only alternative to beat it will be to pull a Jeff and ride your bike around town or walk or use rail to wherever you want to go.

Absolutely. And one of the tennants of OVOV should be about local job creation and sustainability. It should also be about improving mobility within the valley via alternative transportation options. I would like to see there be some addressing of the fact that Canyon Country and East Newhall don’t have nearly the retail or service options that Valencia has, forcing us eastsiders to drive our smog belching, gas guzzling SUVs down only two roads (Soledad or Newhall Ranch) to get to where all the good stuff is. What that means is ZOMG DEVELOPMENT! Yes, it has to be. But if it can be done wisely, it doesn’t have to be scary.

Lets talk about the local job creation part. The City just approved Vista Canyon Ranch – a “Village” under the OVOV concept. Instead of adhering to the 2:1 jobs housing goal as deemed necessary under OVOV, they granted the politically connected developer JSB Developments (Jim Backer) a residential overlay. This allows the conversion of 250,000 square feet of commercial into additional houses, thus making this a 1:1 jobs housing project. Oh and by the way, it will be in the river bed off the 14 so it does offer more retail and jobs for the east side but not nearly enough. The developer was quite frank about indicating residential will be built if the demand for commercial is not there. A major concern with OVOV is that all the residential growth happens without the 2:1 jobs. How successful has the City been in creating jobs? Not very, especially the last 3 years.

The monthly food truck/farmers’ market thing in Newhall is a really cool thing, which I’m sure you haven’t been to, and it isn’t at all desperate. The farmers’ market the rest of the month? Sure. I’m not sure where this new event will fall, but I could see it breaking either way.

I have been. It’s fine, just gimmicky–the City finds something that works (food trucks) and forces it into everything. The desperation remark refers to the constant re-hashing of the same basic event in Newhall (people come walk around, drawn by some special event or another, in hopes that they will think “Hey, this Newhall place is pretty swell” and come back on their own time, which most don’t). The City is profoundly Newhall-centric in its attentions, and I just wonder about the return on this over-investment of attention relative to other areas of Santa Clarita.

Where else has the city forced food trucks onto something?

It’s a fair point–I’m conflating City-sponsored events (Food Truck Festival, Farmer’s Market Art Walk with Food Trucks, Amgen Bike Race/Family Ride-followed-by-food-trucks (bikes and bites), etc…) with the auto dealers and COC food trucks and Newhall Lands. Call it an atmosphere of food trucks.

There is indeed an atmosphere of food trucks, though it’s one I support, shamelessly. Most of these are things that the City has lent a promotional hand to (Bikes & Bites was COC, the stuff at Central Park was a private company). I think food trucks will find their ultimate home in suburbia. Here they fill a more defined vacuum, there is ample off-street parking, and once basic permissions are established, there are no surprises.

And to think, back in the day, we had to hide in the dark in vacant parking lots and fear cops crashing our early food truck parties.

I’ve been meaning to revisit the old town farmers market. Last I was there it paled in comparison to COC. I’m waiting for them to announce food trucks will be at the libraries. Judging by the promotional material I have been getting in the mail, the city is nervous about pulling this off. I think a food truck promo is the next obvious step.

The Newhall FM has nothing on COC’s. I’ve said from the beginning that they should bring in Ventura County Farmers’ Markets (the people who run COC), to run this one, though I’m skeptical whether a weekday FM, on its own, could even thrive in SCV.

The art walks and farmer’s markets are always a good time. No, they’re not always huge, but they’re a lot of fun especially when you run into other townies. The theaters are usually open to check out and the REP has a full bar as well. Anything the city plans that’s fun to draw its citizens together is all right with me.

I disagree. The margin of people returning is slightly larger than you would think. I just got back from eating at the Way Station (Bill Reynolds didn’t show, HA!) and had a conversation with a family that found out about the place by coming to a Thursday FM, in addition to the “Out West” shop down the street (where I just purchased my dad his Father’s Day gift). Add to that several family members that regularly shop and eat in Newhall after revisiting it during city sponsored events. So albeit a small personal pool from which I draw, I’ve seen it work firsthand. Just sayin’.

To be clear, I was responding to IHeartScv’s (“Hey, this Newhall place is pretty swell” and come back on their own time, which most don’t.) comment……

I too liked visiting the Old West shop in Newhall in April after a satisfying Kris Special (chicken gravy on the side please!) at WayStation. It occurred to me that that part of Newhall is a strangely preserved Western-movie backlot complete with pretend cowboys, pretend rodeo participants, prentend western facades. But hey… it’s the closest it gets to Hollywood attraction so why not draw people to it with food and what not.

I’ll agree only with the cover bands statement. Not that I expect my top 5 favorite musical acts to grace the stages at future events, but enough with the cover band cheese. Even a marginally talented and variety minded “DJ” would suffice…… Other than that, nothing to complain about. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Wait a minute, Coastal Sage reads the Drudge Report?

It is a favorite among racist coachroaches

The real irony is that it’s a link to a website run by a government institution. Let that one steep in your kettle for a bit.

A guide at Mono Lake told us a couple of years ago that one of the roads up by Mono Lake, which is currently called a “Scenic Drive” was actually built as an emergency escape in case of volcanic eruption.

Remember the talk about 20 years ago about Mammoth Lakes going up in a huge volcano or earthquake? Not too far off, as there was a swarm of quakes, and that whole Crowley Lake region (Long Valley caldera) is riddled with lava flows, hot springs, etc. I freaked my then-young kids on vacation there when I explained that less than a mile below the hot springs they were swimming in was molten lava.

I’ve done some reading on the volcanic activities and implications of the whole eastern Sierras…. Man thats some scary stuff. Apparently traces of volcanic ash from the last eruption in the area has been found as far away as the eastern seaboard… and a significant blanket covered most of the great basin. Scary that it could happen again without notice.

Thumbsup for being concise, on point and relevant… even if you are reading Drudge..

Generally, I agree with you. The crossing guards in Burbank are all part-time, and I believe that they’re mostly of retirement age, looking to supplement their pension/social security/401k income. There are a couple who are not (one, who spoke at the council meeting last week talked of being a newly-single mother), but my question then becomes: why aren’t you pursuing a fulltime job? (Starbucks, I believe, offers benefits to their part-timers, just to correct your “never” statement… but I will grant you its exceedingly rare.) Another point to consider… crossing guards are there really to benefit and serve who? Kids (and their parents, at an early age) on their way to school. So I think that it should be the School district paying for it, if anything.