November 25, 2013 – Daily Brief — The SCV Talk Archive

City unemployment rate ticks up .1% in October to 5.8%. SIGNAL
Castaic man who killed his dog and cat -and then set the dog's corpse on fire- gets three years probation and ordered to attend some sort of residential treatment program. Signal commenters upset at light sentence. Jared Foster also spent 66 days in jail. SIGNAL
Public Art debate, ctd: Money with a good Signal report on the Newhall Roundabout art project and the "do nothing" option winning the City's online poll . City staff seem a bit perplexed saying they didn't know what to expect from the poll, so they're going to go ahead and hand this hot potato back to the Council tomorrow night. SIGNAL
Public Art debate, ctd: Newhall projects seem to bring out the best/worst in Signal readers. Here's one funny comment suggesting we turn the empty roundabout into a nudist space: "Go bare! Santa Clarita needs a clothing optional open space! And the civic leaders can kiss my assets." heh. And this one, highlighting the perils of public art: "What the city calls art is swap meet debris."
Public Art debate, ctd: Letter writer from Canyon Country just loves the "whimsical" bug that sits on the median outside of Central Park. "Is it whimsical? YES! Is it joyful, fun and beautiful? ABSOLUTELY! At least to those of us who like to see the happy side of life amid a mess of misery here and there. I don’t know who is responsible for its installation, but I am glad it was done. It brightens up the day!" she writes. Of course it's not that hard to make something look interesting in Saugus, the least whimsical community in the SCV. SIGNAL
The other shoe drops: The State Water Project says it will only be able to hand out 5% of the water it's supposed to deliver to local agencies this year. Not to worry says Dan Masnada of CLWA, we have water in 'storage' but usually the state is wrong about their predictions and the picture changes through the winter. SIGNAL
LA County considering purchase of Castaic Library building. The County recently voted to expand the space, which is in a normal shopping center, and apparently buying the entire building is more cost effective in the long run. SIGNAL
Santa Clarita library to host Literacy and Arts festival at the Old Town Newhall library on December 7. CITY BRIEFS
Speaking of the Old Town Newhall library, three cheers for Petz who has persuaded the City to cite the individual who penned words that the City placed on the large windows facing Main Street. Petz writes: " Just a note to let you know that I successfully lobbied the city through TBB and Ken Striplin to grant proper attribution to the words above the south entrance to the OTN library."Ah, yes, we would like to go back again to those old California days, marked now on the padre's El Camino Real by signpost, bell , and cross.They lend an inspiration to the impetus of building the West in the days of old and the days of gold."George Massie, Gold Prospector magazine September, 1989 from his article Newhall of the 1880s.Mr Striplin confirmed in an email to me that they will be giving credit to the author soon.
Hart District to purchase $48k worth of specialized snake fencing for West Ranch, Golden Valley and Rancho Pico schools. Those schools, situated on the wildland-urban interface as they are, have a particular problem with snakes slithering onto campus and relaxing on cool, green grass. SIGNAL
Awesome story and videos about local school kids building robotic Lego systems and challenging each other to see which one can complete a series of disaster recovery drills best. SIGNAL, KHTS via SCVNEWS
Bossert with a column today in which he does two things: wonders why the USA -home to 300+ million diverse souls, a true melting pot- can't be more like Zurich Switzerland, where everyone is nice and civil to each other. Oh and he calls Frank Ferry a bully. Twice. SCV BEACON
Go Coaster Guy: Coaster Guy blog nominated as Best Theme Park Website of the Year. As roller coaster blogs go, Coaster Guy can't be beat and it's neat to have him (in town?) covering Magic Mountain almost exclusively. COASTER GUY
Manzer: Daryl Manzer schools us all on how old timey SCVers pronounce this area's many and varied community names. "We need to have pronunciation billboards placed around this little valley. And maybe we could get a list of the words and places in our valley most often mispronounced and send it to all of the other TV stations." I'd be happy if TV stations stopped referring to SCV as if it was way way out there. SCVNEWS
Oldest unsolved murder in SCV? Dr. Alan Pollack with the sorrowful tale of a woman shot dead in Mint canyon in 1890, allegedly by a Native American, who was never caught despite a posse being formed to catch him and a reward from the Governor. SCV HISTORY
It's on: David Hegg, pastor of Grace Baptist and a Sunday Signal columnist, is a great writer and thoughtful columnist. Usually he writes about ethics, public morality, or values and such. But not in a televangelist style; Hegg is a serious thinker and his columns are approachable and interesting even for an infidel like me. But this week he touched the third rail of science & religion: Darwin. And he concludes that thanks to Darwin, many of us think that "more and more of us see life as ultimately meaningless. After all, if we are just the common consequence of an evolutionary process that has taken billions of years to get to us, then our lives are just momentary blips on the radar screen of history." Christianity, in contrast, offers meaning and purpose and relationship. But I say the the "common consequence of an evolutionary process" makes our lives all the more precious, incredible, unique, meaningful and even awe-inspiring. SIGNAL
Once again, I am not the Jeff Wilson from Valencia: To the commenter(s) on this blog that think I write to the Signal and pretend I'm from Valencia, I do not. There's apparently more than one Jeff Wilson in this valley and I did not write this LTE in the Signal.
Mike D. with some awesome ways you can put some SCV into your Thanksgiving this year. I'm trying #5 now with my British colleague who has no place to go on T-Giving and is amazed at the Black Friday sales. SANTA CLARITA.COM
Lady Ducayne reviews a Saugus breakfast spot named Thelma's Morning Cafe. LADY DUCAYNE

Comments (2)

IHeartSCVMonday, November 25th, 2013 at 9:35 am
I'd rather them just scrape that dumb quotation off the library altogether. Every time I see, I'm struck by just how weird it is, from the gigantic lettering that sets "Ah, yes," apart from the rest (is "ah, yes," the core message?) to the awkwardness of "inspiration to the impetus." Let me restate my firm support for Petz as SCV's quotations advocate, defending all against wayward quotation marks and seeking appropriate quotation attribution, but this is one we should just let go.
PetzMonday, November 25th, 2013 at 2:02 pm
I was struck by the eloquence of the quotation from the moment I slipped behind the construction wall and saw the word "cross" on a public building. The quotation is drawn from the end of an article in Gold Prospector magazine. After finding out that the author, George Massie. had passed away, I felt a passionate calling to assure that his legacy be preserved with proper attribution, on the OTN library. The mystery will always be how it came to appear on the glass in the first place. I thank TBB and Ken Striplin for their effort in adding the name of George Massie.