- Oh my: The United States Supreme Court has struck down a key part of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights era. The part, known as Section 4, required nine states which have shown a history of voter suppression, to get permission from the US Department of Justice before changing voting laws. The provision was renewed as recently as 2006 -by a Republican Congress. It was struck down today in a 5-4 decision. No telling what impact this will have in the South, where politicians will now have a free hand to move polling places, require ID checks before voting, and other techniques they used during the Jim Crow era to dissuade blacks from voting. However, I don't think it will affect California where we have our own Voting Rights Act that, as we've blogged about in the past, is slowly changing how people are elected in California cities, school districts, and other agencies. NY TIMES, NY TIMES LIVE BLOG
- Two males and one female burglary suspect fled Castaic yesterday, leading police on a high speed chase (100 mph on Magic Mountain Parkway) into Valencia, where they abandoned their car, ran into a neighborhood and tried to hide from Deputies. It didn't take long for the Deputies -with guns drawn- to track down the trio. The two men were found hiding in a hot tub, and the woman was hiding in a trash can. SCVNEWS, SIGNAL
- Great piece from Signal business reporter Jana Adkins today on how job recruiters in the SCV see the employment market locally. First up, about 40% of the jobs the recruiters are trying to fill are in supply chain or manufacturing, which tells us something about our local economy. Also, one recruiter told the Signal that many local companies are finally getting rid of B & C players, knowing that there are enough A players out there looking for work. Overall, the recruiters say they're as busy now as they were in 2005-2007, before the recession, when the SCV was still boomtown USA. And over at COC/City's WorkSource Center, they're getting more open positions as well, but most are in entry-level positions in accounting, HR, or manufacturing. Finally, one recruiter says businesses in the SCV know that SCV residents would prefer to live & work locally, rather than commute over the hill, so the employers take advantage of this and offer lower salaries in exchange for the benefit of living/working in the SCV near your family. SIGNAL
- Meanwhile, SCV-based US Health Works, an occupational health care provider, acquires seven other occupational medical centers in the Kansas City area. US Health Works is in the Industrial Center and has been growing over the last ten years; they now employ 2,700 people nationwide. SIGNAL
- Speaking of the boomtown days, sad to say, but Santa Clarita (nor any Californian suburb) didn't even get a nod from Business Insider's 2013 list of the 10 Fastest-Growing Suburbs in America. Four of the suburbs are in Washington state; one is a suburb of New Orleans, and two are in Utah & Florida. I can understand Washington state and even Utah, but Florida? Louisiana? Crazy stuff. BUSINESS INSIDER
- Corollary: At least we didn't end up on their list of the top 13 suburbs where poverty is soaring (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta are top of the list) BUSINESS INSIDER
- Corollary #2: Mortgage rates are skyrocketing, with the average for a 30 year fixed at 4.63%, a full point higher than their record low of 3.44% in December 2012 reports the Times. Shares in KB Homes, Lennar, and Toll Brothers are down as a result. Good thing I locked in my refi last week. LA TIMES
- Watch out Jason Crawford and City of Santa Clarita: New LA Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti says that, after school funding, attracting film productions back to the City of Los Angeles is his number one priority. And so another race to the bottom begins. Who can hand out the most tax credits to TBS so they can shoot a trashy reality show for one season? LA TIMES
- Road Rage in LA: Watch out SCVers for any white male driving a gold-colored Infiniti with Illinois plates. Last Friday, a Reddit user was driving on the 110 freeway south of LA when he was cut off by an unknown driver, who then proceeded to harass and torment the driver for almost 10 minutes while on the freeway. The illinois driver threw beverages at the driver, called him racist names, and told him to "Go back to Asia." The Asian driver caught it all on Dash cam. Unbelievable. HUFF PO
- Federally funded DUI checkpoints aren't going anywhere: State's Transportation Agency announces it has approved 274 state and local applications to receive $87 million in traffic safety grants, parts of which go to fund the now-notorious, near-weekly DUI/Driver Education/Papers Please! checkpoints we get in the SCV that usually net one or two actual drunk drivers, but inconvenience thousands of motorists. SIGNAL
- Why are people suddenly driving in the wrong direction on our local freeways? Jim Holt investigates, and visits the site of a northbound Highway 14 off-ramp that was used as an on-ramp by two allegedly impaired drivers in the last two weeks. Both resulted in crashes injuring over a dozen people, and killing one. Jim Holt found DO NOT ENTER & WRONG WAY signs at the off-ramp, and asked a CHP officer what causes people to drive the wrong way. "It’s been my experience that 100 percent of the wrong way incidents were by drunk drivers,” the officer said, mentioning that drunk drivers can only focus on a few things at a time, like driving straight or slowly, but may not have the ability to appreciate "the direction of traffic." SIGNAL
- Neat: The mighty Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, perhaps the most storied public agency in the state of California, will honor 17 men, including two Saugus residents, who perished in an underground mine explosion in Sylmar in 1971. The men were building a water pipe, probably from the SCV area, when a methane gas buildup -thought to be caused by the Sylmar earthquake- exploded and trapped the men. Only one man survived. Good report at the SIGNAL
- Good job kids: Teenagers in the City's Community Court Diversion Program re-painted a quarter mile of walls and bridge surfaces along the Santa Clara Bike Trail, the class 1 Bike Path that stretches from Lost Canyon to Valencia. SCVNEWS
- Interesting, the City of Moorpark just completed its transition from having its libraries run by Ventura County to having them run by the City of Moorpark via LSSI, the same company we've hired to run our libraries. And like Santa Clarita, Moorpark has dished out $100k to buy materials, DVDs, audio books and other items. MOORPARK ACORN
- As if to prove my point that the City should go ahead and build us a high-tech, reserved seating movie theater like a Muvico or ArchLight or what have you, the City announced yesterday they're going to show the movie The Pirates: Band of Misfits to people at the Aquatic Center. See, we're already half-way there; the City plays movies for us, as long as you go sit in a pool. Now just build us a theater. CITY BRIEFS
- Congressman McKeon and several other Defense experts have all but formally accused Russia and President Putin of violating the 1987 INF treaty between the US & Soviet Union, which prohibited both nations from building intermediate range nuclear missiles. WASH TIMES
- Lois Eisenberg, a frequent LTE writer in the Signal (most recently she complained about kids being too rowdy after getting let out for summer) says LTE Writers are intimidated by online commenters and that's the reason we see so few new LTEs in the Signal. LTE
- Neat aerial pictures of Los Angeles' three major man-made features: Wilshire Blvd, the LA River, and the Alameda Rail corridor. PHOTOG
Editor Note: Yesterday I posted an opinion piece about Hart Board Member Joe Messina. The piece was, on reflection, mean-spirited and its title unfairly tied Joe Messina -a decent, and hardworking, if outspoken community member- to the disgraced Stephen Winkler. For the mean-spirited tone of the post and the title (which I have considered, but won't change because I should own it), I apologize to Joe Messina and anyone who was offended by the way I wrote it.
I will say this: the post, and the big reaction and push-back it got on Facebook, did teach me some things about Joe Messina, things that I should have, in retrospect, mentioned in the post. Messina admits that he is a creationist, even saying he believes dinosaurs and man existed at the same time, but says he swore to uphold state law, which requires the teaching of evolution in the Hart School District's science curriculum. And I see no reason to doubt him on that promise from his time on the Hart Board. I was unfair to him in that regard, but I, and many others, have trouble separating Joe the Board Member from Joe the Radio Host. That, plus the fact that I've always been passionate about teaching evolution in science classrooms and debating creationists, made me write something that was unusually harsh and mean-spirited about Joe.
In any case, I apologize again. Joe and I plan to meet up and discuss/debate some of these issues on his radio program in the coming weeks. I'll be sure to post a link and time/date if you want to tune in.
Comments (39)