June 26, 2013 – Daily Brief * — The SCV Talk Archive

An historic day: The United States Supreme Court Wednesday struck down portions of the Defense of Marriage Act and also ruled that proponents of California's Proposition 8 -the 2008 ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage only months after it had been made legal- did not have standing before the court and thus "appears to remove legal obstacles to same-sex couples marrying" in California. But it probably doesn't affect other states, only the Golden State. NY TIMES Breaking News BLOG is a great source. More on this later.

News had barely broken yesterday afternoon that the LA County DA would charge Bradford Pate, the 38 year old wrong-way driving suspect in Saturday's awful Highway 14 crash, with one count of murder when SCVTV & KHTS reported that a 60 year old female victim in the crash had died as a result of her injuries on Monday night at Holy Cross. So now Pate faces two counts of murder and will be arraigned on Thursday. Heartbreaking story and pics at SCVNEWS

Fire Season is coming already here: You might have suspected it, but now we have confirmation. At last night's City Council meeting, LA County Fire Chief Daryl Osby "predicted that the worst fire season in a century awaits us," because plants are as dry now as they usually are in the fall, according to I HEART, who ably summarizes the rest of the long & disorganized meeting in which Councilmembers by a vote of 4-1 (Boydston dissenting) gave themselves a 6% raise, even as SEIU officials asked where was the love for the staff. Also the Lyons Corridor plan got approved and Ferdman, Noltemeyer and Alan Cameron, with his "sonorous voice" said some things about some things. But none of it may matter, writes I HEART, "if the whole valley becomes an ashen wasteland." I HEART SCV

Also, Marsha McLean says for her, her role as a City Councilwoman is a full time job. She says she spends 40 hours a week working on City business, which means she makes about $8.70 per hour, just $0.70 more than California's minimum wage, inline with some of the fast food positions that pass for employment in town. More on the raise from the oh-so appropriately-named Luke "On the" Money at the SIGNAL

Finally, the City's $180.6 million budget was formally approved last night. Alas no funds are planned for a state of the art movie theater. Next year my friends. SIGNAL

Bob Khalsa, President of the Southland Regional Realtors Association -SCV Branch- doesn't sound as upbeat about May's housing numbers as he did earlier this month. In May, home sales dropped slightly from April, but single family home median prices increased 1.3% in May over April. Condo median prices, which had surged throughout the spring, actually fell 2.5% in May compared with April. On the plus side, short sales are now just a bit over 1/4 of all sales in the SCV. SIGNAL

* Congrats to the UCLA Baseball team, which won the College World Series yesterday in Omaha Nebraska with some big time help from some local SCV talent and fellow Hart Alums, Pat Valaika (whose mother I know) and Shane Zeile (any relation to the famous Todd Zeile?). Valaika had 5 RBIs and was a big time player in UCLA's first ever College World Series title. SIGNAL, ESPN

Jared Foster, accused pet spearer/pyro, is out on bail and his arraignment has been rescheduled until July 19. SIGNAL

The Castaic burglar trio who lead Deputies on a high speed chase and then were caught hiding in a spa & a trash can in Valencia have been IDd. They are Rafiki Smith, 18 of LA, Kiyon Hodges, 23 of LA, and Jumua Zhaytoon, of Victorville. Gotta love the subtle humor in the LASD Press release. Rafiki "Smith, whose occupation is listed as a rap artist" has quite the wrap (rap?) sheet. SCVNEWS

iPad thief wanted in Valencia. The 40 something man was seen breaking into a car at Granary Square and iHiking it out of there. SIGNAL A good reminder to install PREY or Where's my iDevice on all your iDevices. An LA TIMES Reporter recently blogged about tracking down her lost/stolen iPhone, and the experience is remarkably similar to what's portrayed in movies. LA TIMES

Retired Sheriff's Deputy who worked for 20 years in the SCV writes a good LTE to the Signal saying the public ought to give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt. "By and large, the men and women in law enforcement serving our community and others do get it right. They deserve our appreciation, respect and prayers.... At the end of the day, so long as I got home to my wife and kids, I didn’t worry about being judged by 12. It was always better than being carried by six." SIGNAL

Genius: LTE writer says the solution to wrong-way drivers -which have caused three horrible accidents this year on the 5 and 14- is to simply install wrong-way spikes at the entrance to the off-ramp, similar to the ones you find in parking lots. The LTE Writer has even thought about emergency vehicles, saying the spikes should only be installed "if there is room for emergency vehicles to maneuver around them." Cheap, and effective. LTE

Are you a Stephen King fan? I am, and I'm thrilled to see CBS pour some big money & high production values into Under the Dome, which debuted Monday night. I can't watch TV as I have a six month old, but I will catch it later. The book I can't recommend enough...it's a fantastic exploration of civilization, big personalities, small towns, egos, government, rule of law, and ideas about authority. Sadly, like many King books, it does have a Deus Ex Machina style ending, but I can forgive that. LA TIMES

Comments (4)

SantaClaritaDotComWednesday, June 26th, 2013 at 2:56 pm
It's like there's a curse of Stephen King's stuff...anything that makes it to TV or Movies, turns to garbage. Hopefully this one will be different!
evitalc31Wednesday, June 26th, 2013 at 6:19 pm
I know. I hope this Stephen King series makes it.
PetzThursday, June 27th, 2013 at 8:43 am
Steve Petzold The effect of yesterday's SCOTUS decision is being completely misrepresented by those who sanction lawlessness by the state officials and the federal judiciary. Section 3.5 of the CA state Constitution still has full force and should be determinative. Prop 8 was not thrown out by the SCOTUS decision. They determined that the proponents of Prop 8 did not have standing in the 9th circuit federal appeals court or before SCOTUS. If we are a country of laws than the adoption of Prop 8 was actually legitimized by the court in the DOM decision. By implication Judge Vaughan erred. Prop 8 was actually affirmed by the actions taken by SCOTUS yesterday. CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 3 STATE OF CALIFORNIA SEC. 3.5. An administrative agency, including an administrative agency created by the Constitution or an initiative statute, has no power: (a) To declare a statute unenforceable, or refuse to enforce a statute, on the basis of it being unconstitutional unless an appellate court has made a determination that such statute is unconstitutional; (b) To declare a statute unconstitutional; (c) To declare a statute unenforceable, or to refuse to enforce a statute on the basis that federal law or federal regulations prohibit the enforcement of such statute unless an appellate court has made a determination that the enforcement of such statute is prohibited by federal law or federal regulations.
InkGigoloThursday, June 27th, 2013 at 9:49 am
Oh yeah?!?!?!?! Well ... Well ... :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P (One good troll deserves another)