SCV, Behold Your Salvation

Written by Jeff on March 9th, 2010

In the annals of SCV History, there has never been a moment like the one that we are about to experience.

It will be more momentous than when the first Tataviam came down from Alaska and cast his eyes upon our fertile valley; more awe-inspiring than when Gaspar de Portola introduced the wilds of Santa Clarita to the Europeans in his diary, more breathtaking than when ol’ Henry Mayo charmed the Spanish into giving him this land, and yes, even Awesomer than Newhall Land’s Awesometown.

Are ya’ll ready for this? An awed hush ought to be overtaking you now.

I’m talking, of course, about the completion & opening of the Cross Valley Connector, the here-to-fore mythical Silk Road of SCV-land, the only roadway in Santa Clarita with its own mission statement (Bridging the Gap), the long hoped-for link between the rich pampered people of Valencia and the downtrodden masses of Canyon Country, the road that will solve all our traffic woes, get us to Johnny’s soccer practice faster and make driving fun again.

Verily I say unto you, if St. Paul had lived in our time, he would have had his conversion moment on the Cross Valley Connector, not the Road to Damascus. 

You can let your breath back out now.

And because this is Santa Clarita and we absolutely love ribbon-cutting ceremonies of all types, we’re not just going to open the CVC and let you drive on it. No, that would be too simple, too ordinary for such a road.

No we’re going old school. Way back. Back before the hybrids. Back before the automobile. Back even before the bicycle.

The first wheeled human transport device to cross this road to nirvana will be a stagecoach!

Break it down KHTS:

Crossing town seamlessly! The Cross Valley connector is opening on Saturday March 27th linking the 14 Freeway with the I-5, by the 126, easing traffic across our Valley.
Now you can be one of four lucky participants and become the first to cross the new bridge in the famous Wells Fargo Stage Coach!
Join Congressman McKeon, Santa Clarita Mayor Weste and other dignitaries. Become a part of history and be part of the official grand opening for this once in a lifetime experience.
The opening of the Cross Valley Connector on Saturday, March 27th at 11 a.m. You’ll receive a special City Certificate, including a photo of you in the stagecoach, Custom Framed by Fast Frame Valencia.
You can be a winner by sending us an email about why YOU are excited the cross valley connector is complete. Log onto hometown station dot com for details. All Santa Clarita residents are invited to join us for the festivities on Saturday, March 27th at 11 a.m. time at Soledad and the Golden Valley Bridge.

Carbon neutral with all the refinements and luxury features you could possibly want from the finest in 19th Century transport, the Wells Fargo Stagecoach will take some lucky Claritan across this traffic-slaying roadway, this bridge to the future.

The unintentional irony is so delicious!

And you can travel with Buck McKeon and Laurene Weste no less! And get a certificate! Truly the City is pulling out all the stops for this red-letter day in our history.

KHTS says if you want to be one of the lucky ones to first go across our new road, you have to email them at contest@hometownstation.com. I hope they see this post and consider it my entry into the contest.

But even if I don’t win, I will spoil everyone’s fun and ride my bike across the CVC the night before.

 

Posted in Humor, Traffic, Transportation | 18 Responses »

In Defense of Frank Ferry

Written by Jeff on March 9th, 2010

This is a little off the beaten path for me, so pardon me while I delve into religion and theology for a moment…

Maybe it’s the lapsed (and thus guilt-ridden) Catholic in me, but I really resent Not a Ferry Fan and other’s attacks on Frank Ferry for his comment that God doesn’t distinguish between American and non-American in the February City Council meeting.

Here it is played again in NAFF’s latest and quite possibly blasphemous video in which he takes on the voice of God and schools Frank Ferry on how sinful the illegals are:

After Ferry said this in early February, some said he was putting his allegiance to Cardinal Roger Mahoney before his allegiance to the City of Santa Clarita.

I say so what? So what if Ferry’s position on illegal immigration is informed by his Catholicism? Guess what, mine is too! The question for local conservatives and Christians is why aren’t your views on immigration shaped by your faith first and foremost rather than conservative political orthodoxy?

I’ll let Catholic theologian Richard Benson take over:

Every human being is created in the image of God and is both unique and equal. Some letters to editors refer to undocumented immigrants as “illegals.” I find this appalling language. Apart from the fact that it is bad grammar, it is a type of objectification of others reminiscent of the worst kind of racial profiling. No human being is ever to be reduced to being totally or even primarily identified by the color of their skin, their country of origin, their legal status or any other external characteristic. Every human being is first and foremost a person. In the book of Genesis, Scripture reveals that every human being is created as “imago Dei,” i.e. the image of God. Every human person is the child of God and therefore every human is a part of the family of God. We are sisters and brothers.

Local conservatives and Christians ought to be outraged when know-nothings like Not a Ferry Fan and Pastor Yancey take a person’s legal status before a human-created government and equate it with their standing before everlasting God. As if God would fault a poor man for crossing an arbitrary line on a map in order to better care for his family!

“Oh Jeff, you just don’t understand. The illegals are breaking the law! They’re illegal!” they shout.

But there is a higher law! A law and a law-giver who commands  us to treat fellow human beings with respect, dignity and love. Whether that is a Catholic law, a Christian law, the Golden Rule, karma or any other principle that decent religious people have believed in and fought for throughout the ages, it is a higher law than United States Code or ICE regulations.

Shame on you!

I hope Frank Ferry doesn’t back down at tonight’s Council meeting. I hope he stands for his principles and yes, his Catholic beliefs.

Now back to your regularly scheduled City Council election intrigue.

 

Posted in Opinion, Politics | 37 Responses »

Campaign Finance in the SCV-The New “Normal”

Written by Tim Myers on March 9th, 2010

Candidates for the City Council filed their second report for the April election and the big news (and it is BIG news) is Dave Gauny’s rasing of $15K and “loaning” (probably personal money) of another $15K to his campaign to rack up the highest total in cumulative fundraising for this cycle; much higher than the current incumbents and other serious contender, TimBen Boydston.  Contrast this with Frank Ferry’s anemic amount of less than $1,000 during the reporting period and “emergency” fundraising email late in February, and one can see serious cracks in the base of the wall of incumbency.

But perhaps the most shocking news comes when one compares the fundraising totals with the totals just two years ago in the 2008 election when Laurie Ender came first and incumbent Bob Kellar came second.  Laurie Ender from HER OWN CAMPAIGN (independent expenditures aside) raised and spent just under $80K and Bob Kellar raised and spent just under $90K according to the public finance disclosures.  My calculations show that at the current velocity of fundraising any successful candidate in the current cycle  will probably raise and spend about half those amounts equating to a 30% annual DE-flation in the cost of running a local campaign, and even if Frank Ferry can execute on his heroic fundraising effort he will only achieve a cumulative number of about 70% of those amounts from just two years ago.

These big drops in support can only mean one thing:  Real estate prices and commercial rents are not the only thing that burst after the piercing of a bubble.  One can surmise that people just don’t have the money or want to spend the money they did just two years ago on political campaigns which changes the whole calculus of the election.

I have always touted the impregnability of incumbency in City Council Elections due to history, and such history has tended to repeat itself over and over again.  The incumbents, already with what name recognition can be sucked from our apathetic town, monopolize endorsements and money to sail back into office, but the challengers have outmaneuvered them this time to thwart not just one but two of the three legs of the stool of incumbent impregnability.

For what its worth, my Nebraska bride has convinced me to give one of my three votes to TimBen Boydston.  Sorry Johnny Pride!

 

Posted in Misc. | 20 Responses »

March 9, 2010 – Daily Brief *

Written by Jeff on March 9th, 2010

Giddyup Dave Gauny, giddyup. Incredible shot huh? I had to wait like 20 minutes for the horse (stallion?mustang?) to do that in Sand Canyon

  • City Council candidate David Gauny smashes all incumbent and challenger fundraising between 1/1/10 and 2/27/10 raising $14,259 in contributions. He also received loans in the amount of $15,789 and has the most funds on hand of all candidates at $24,279. Last time the City Clerk’s office released information, Gauny had only raised a few hundred dollars
  • As for the other challengers and incumbents, Boydston received $9,039 and has $13,980 on hand, Frank Ferry received $980 (not a typo) and has $16,987 on hand, McLean received $5993 and has $17,430 on hand, and Weste received $7,325 and has $21,762 in da bank. Harrison Katz raised over $2,000. All data from VOTESANTACLARITA.COM
  • Not a Ferry Fan pretends he’s God in his latest condemnation of Frank Ferry and the incumbents. He’s also outraged at TMS, as usual YOU TUBE
  • 1,260 new homes north of Soledad and west of Sierra Highway? It’s possible if LA County approves the Skyline Ranch development SIGNAL *
  • Sheriff’s spokesman says he doesn’t believe arresting Deputies were aware that Johnny Pride was a Council candidate at the time of his arrest, says The Signal. Also, independent eyewitnesses saw the two fourteen year old girls in his apartment. The Sheriff’s Department “anticipate(s) refiling the case with the DA again.”  SIGNAL
  • The 47 year old motorcyclist who crashed his bike and was killed Sunday in Bouquet Canyon had a wife and two daughters and is described by a friend as a “good family man.” Both the Signal and KHTS say he was travelling at a high rate of speed, but the CHP can’t say whether he was speeding or not. Was he alone or riding through the canyon with a group, as one witness reported here? SIGNAL, KHTS
  • The City Council will vote tonight whether to support a number of regressive and loony anti-immigration bills in Congress, including ones that defund ACORN, make English the national language and remove birthright Citizenship of American babies born of illegal immigrant parents, as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Shameful if you ask me. I wish we had the numbers to show up in the Council chambers and turn our backs on them as they vote. KHTS
  • An off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer was robbed by two men on bicycles near Bouquet Canyon Road and Newhall Ranch yesterday. Deputies arrested one 20 year old man, but the other escaped SIGNAL
  • A Santa Clarita man was among three arrested yesterday after a four year long FBI/LASD investigation into a credit card skimming operation that occurred in Santa Clarita and throughout Los Angeles County. The skimming devices were installed at gas pumps and are very difficult to detect, authorities say Some 15,000 accounts were compromised resulting in $3 million lost LAIST, LA TIMES
  • A combination of “public apathy and corporate greed” will destroy the Santa Clara river valley unless you act now to stop Newhall Land from building Newhall Ranch, a group called Animals on the Edge says in a press release today. The group has made Newhall Ranch one of their causes and has posted a photojournal of various places along the river on their website PRESS RELEASE, WEBSITE
  • LAist hikes Whitney Canyon Park in Newhall, which looks incredibly lush right now LAIST
  • If you listen to just one radio show this week, make sure it’s This American Life’s broadcast on March 5. The opening act of the show is all about a scummy real estate developer who built and sold ‘luxury’ condos in a trendy Chicago neighborhood. But underneath the granite countertops and hardwood floor lurked…a building with no concrete foundation and bad plumbing. The developer? No where to be found! THIS AMERICAN LIFE
  • Kevin Buck, Signal columnist, says local politics is too boring to write about. No, you just lack imagination Kevin SIGNAL
 

Posted in Daily Brief | 56 Responses »

Actually Congressman….

Written by Jeff on March 8th, 2010

The Congressman Buck McKeon interview that appeared in Saturday’s Signal is interesting on a number of levels. First of all, it’s rare to see our Congressman interviewed in our local paper on national subjects. Usually our local media just asks him what he’s doing for us in Washington.

Perhaps that’s why Congressman McKeon seems caught off guard and even a tad irritated at Randles line of questioning. And maybe that’s why some of his responses don’t hold up under examination.

To wit:

Term Limits:

Check out McKeon’s deflection when Randles’ asked him directly about federal term limits:

THE SIGNAL: On March 3, you announced you will be running for re-election. You have served in Congress for more than 15 years. How important are term limits for elected officials?

McKEON: How important are they? In what way?

THE SIGNAL: Do you think it’s important to have some sort of term limits on elected officials? You’re the only Congressman that’s serve in the 25th Congressional District…

McKEON: We had a 25th Congressional District before i served in the 25th Congressional District, it was just a different congressional district.

We have term limits every year. Every two years we stand for election so the people have a chance to make a choice at that time and I think that’s a good system.

That’s quite a contrast with what he told the Daily News in 1995. From the May 23, 1995 edition*:

“I believe term limits are necessary to increase citizen participation and revive the concept of the citizen legislator who serves for a short time as a civic duty rather than as a career,” McKeon said. “Without term limits, we will continue to move more and more towards a system dominated by an entrenched class of politicians that erode accountability and responsiveness.”

…

McKeon, serving his House second term, has pledged to limit his congressional career to eight to 10 years. McKeon’s district covers the Los Angeles County portion of the Antelope Valley.

Zoom forward to 2010 and McKeon tells the Signal that he will serve in Congress “as long as I’m healthy and able to continue on.”

Stimulus

But that wasn’t the only flip-flop.  On the topic of the federal stimulus program, McKeon denied to The Signal that he ever said the the stimulus had failed to create jobs.

THE SIGNAL: You have said the $800 billion dollar federal stimulus has created no new jobs and…

McKEON: No, I didn’t say it hasn’t created no new jobs. When you throw out that kind of money it’s bound to create some jobs. What I have said is, since that bill was passed, we were promised it would create 3 million new jobs, but in fact what has happened is we have lost 4 million jobs. What I said was it’s been basically ineffective and for the amount of money that’s been spent, very few jobs have been created.

Actually Congressman, as recently as February you were saying the stimulus didn’t create jobs:

“The question is ‘Did the Stimulus Bill create new jobs?’  The answer is no.  The Democrats’ claimed their stimulus plan was going ‘create new jobs’ and hold unemployment at or below 8.5%.  The reality is new jobs have not been created.   In fact, millions of jobs have been lost, despite the $800 billion boondoggle that was rushed through Congress.

And that was only the latest flip flop. Back in November, McKeon toured a local lock factory that hired 17 new employees with stimulus money. The Signal story about that tour said, “The congressman voted against the stimulus package but conceded that in the case of Pacific Lock, the program is working.”

Health Care

Few issues have lit up our Congressman’s press and outreach machine like Health Care reform.  You should read his discussion with Jonathan Randles on the topic, but I wanted to zero in on McKeon’s abuse of the phrase “government takeover of healthcare,” which has appeared 16 times in outreach emails over the last year.

McKEON: Such as government basically taking over healthcare, and I have real concerns about that.

He goes on to claim that if Health Care reform passes, the 80% of Americans who like the insurance coverage they have “will lose it.”

For the last time, there is no proposal in the House, the Senate or in the President’s desk drawer that amounts to a “government takeover” of healthcare. Respected fact-check website Politifact.com tags Congressmen who say such things as “Liar Liar, Pants on Fire,” saying:

By any reasonable definition, there’s no way that the Democratic plan could be considered a government takeover. Indeed, its primary approach is to set up new systems to encourage private health insurance companies to provide more coverage and better services.

The cornerstone of the Democratic program is actually the status quo. The majority of Americans would continue to get health coverage the way they do now — from private insurance companies. That coverage would be paid for the same way it is now — by private employers and individual premiums. That’s not a government takeover.

Indeed, FactCheck.org said the whole “Government Takeover” mantra was one of 2009’s biggest “whoppers” alongside death panels.

It’s easy to figure out why Congressman McKeon continues to use this inaccurate phrase. Back in May 2009, pollster Frank Luntz said that was the only reasonable chance Republicans had of derailing health care reform.

I hope The Signal and other local media will do more interviews like this as the 2010 campaign season kicks off. Congressman McKeon works for us, after all.

* Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer.  (1995, May 23). CONGRESSMEN BACK MEASURE ON TERM LIMITS MCKEON, THOMAS SUPPORT BID FOR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT :[ANTELOPE VALLEY Edition]. Daily News,p. AV.1.  Retrieved March 7, 2010, from California, South Newsstand. (Document ID: 19938913)

 

Posted in Opinion, Politics | 6 Responses »

Putting the pieces together on Johnny Pride

Written by Jeff on March 8th, 2010

What’s going on with the Johnny Pride case? Why was he arrested and placed in the slammer on $500k bail only to be released the next day?

An anonymous emailer speculates:

It is generally the policy of the LA District Attorney and LASD SVB to not arrest people for statutory rape until confirming DNA evidence is gathered and processed.  Based upon the timeline of the complaint this DNA evidence would have been available sometime one to two weeks ahead of the actual election or maybe even after the election.


The SVB detectives, perhaps not understanding local politics very well, had a Patrick Fitzgerald moment.  Like the intrepid US Attorney from Chicago who felt he needed to act quickly to stop Ron Blagoavich from selling a Senate seat, the detectives worried they would be savaged for letting someone under an active investigation for rape get elected to the City Council. So they arrested JP quicker than normal.

On Friday, bureaucratic laziness kicked in.  Someone in the DA’s office said to release him because the arrest had come too soon.  The LASD, knowing this would cause them pain, decided to pin it on the DA saying the DA had “dismissed” the case for insufficient evidence.

As this was getting ALL over local media the spokesperson for the DA’s office backtracked and said they could not confirm the actual dismissal.  There will be a flurry of activity on Monday (3-8) and a probable arrest warrant issued.

This is all speculation and should be treated as such. But it sounds like a possible, if not plausible, scenario to me.

 

Posted in Crime | 10 Responses »

March 8, 2010 – Daily Brief

Written by Jeff on March 8th, 2010
  • No updates yet in Johnny Pride case, we’ll keep our ears to the ground today however
  • SCV is home to at least 13 private schools and their appeal is growing, reports the Signal. More than a few of them teach “evolution as a theory” alongside creationism. Enrollment in the schools seems to be growing, with one (Trinity) set to open a full high school in a few years SIGNAL
  • The Signal’s Jonathan Randles had a one-on-one interview with Congressman Buck McKeon on health care, immigration, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell SIGNAL
  • Second round of campaign finance disclosure forms will be visible on VoteSantaClarita.com by close of business tomorrow, March 9 I’m told. We may have some numbers for you today however.
  • TimBen Boydston opens campaign HQ on Old Town Newhall TIMBEN.COM
  • Go Weste the SCV Congress of Republicans says. SIGNAL
  • Newhall Land officials must be tickled pink with the success of Awesometown and how the term has entered the SCV vernacular SIGNAL
  • Mother thought man arrested for molesting her boy was a “weird guy,” but gave him the benefit of the doubt because he was in her church. That and more details in the Signal’s thorough story SIGNAL
  • New Sheriff’s Captain ran cold case and unsolved murder team. He also has run the LASD’s city contracting bureau SIGNAL
  • The two giant Texas oil companies who are apparently funding a California ballot initiative to overturn our landmark Greenhouse Gas law are staying quiet about the issue says the NY TIMES
  • State Senate bill would forbid cyclists from riding while using their cell phone. Streetsblog is upset but I say what’s good for the goose is good for the gander STREETSBLOG
  • Leasing companies and owners are using the SCV’s 25% of vacant office space for film production SIGNAL
  • The motorcyclist killed in Bouquet Canyon on Sunday was a 47 year old man from Northridge. The CHP says his motorcycle collided with a car but no one else was injured SIGNAL
  • Los Angeles International airport and its “faded, cramped domestic terminal” is us, the people of “the United States of Deferred Maintenance,” writes Thomas Friedman
  • I should have seen this coming: Roger Gitlin quotes from my round-up of last week’s Minuteman Rally. Let me just reply with the Bob Kellar defense. The quote is completely taken out of context. SIGNAL
  • Speaking of that rally, blogger Blazing Monk has put together an interesting highlight video of the rally BLAZINGMONK
  • A perfect storm of media, crime, and the City of Santa Clarita in Dave Bossert’s commentary this week WRB
  • About that editorial last week that hinted at the existence of a “Crime is Rising!!1!” hit mailer by one of the Council challengers, the Signal says it messed up and didn’t mean to cause such a fuss. There is no mailer…yet the paper says SIGNAL
 

Posted in Daily Brief | 14 Responses »

Another (Possible) Fatality in Bouquet Canyon

Written by Jeff on March 7th, 2010

SCVTalk reader and cyclist Chris Castallo rolled up on a sad scene in Bouquet Canyon earlier today:

I was doing the the San Francisquito-Spunky Canyon-Bouquet Canyon loop this morning, and came across this scene around noon. Coroner had just gotten there. About 2 miles north of the cafe @ route marker 9.95. Guy with a house there said there had been a ton of sport bikes all morning, and that he’d guessed they were doing in the 80s.

The CHP tweeted a few hours ago that there was a possible fatality on Bouquet Canyon.

In September, I wrote about sport motorcyclists using the Canyon as their own private race track. Groups of them would shoot up and down the canyon at very high speeds, often times using the entire roadway as they turned into and came out of a corner in the picturesque canyon north of Santa Clarita. They drove their bikes so fast that a friend of mine and I pulled off the road to let them pass (video of them flying through the canyon is at the link above).

Unfortunately it looks like someone has paid the ultimate price for the joyriding. I hope no innocent drivers or other road users were injured.

Chris says he’s no longer going to ride his bike on Bouquet. I agree, I stopped riding that road after the September incident. What a shame.

 

Posted in News, Traffic, Transportation | 8 Responses »

The Great (but unscientific) Santa Clarita Broadband Survey

Written by Jeff on March 7th, 2010

There has been a lot of talk about Google’s plans to deploy 1 Gb/s fiber to some lucky communities. The City of Santa Clarita is pushing hard to be recognized, asking its Facebook followers to submit videos explaining why we should receive super high speed internet access. And today, The Signal wrote an Editorial to Google promising that the SCV would be Google’s forevermore if the company chose us for their project.

All that made me wonder, just how fast is Santa Clarita now?

Let’s find out. Follow the steps below:

  1. Close all of your PC’s open browser windows, streaming media programs (like Windows Media Player, Zune or iTunes) and just leave open SCVTalk. Make sure no one on your home network is watching Netflix or streaming audio
  2. Click this link: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ , a popular broadband speed test website
  3. Choose “Los Angeles” as your location to test from
  4. Let the test run
  5. With your download numbers in hand, vote in the poll below

How fast is your internet connection Santa Clarita?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

What the numbers mean:

My internet provider is AT&T Yahoo DSL. I’ve had them for about seven years and well, they aren’t advancing with the times. I get about 2.43 megabits per second download speed and 430,000 bits upload speed. A megabit should not be confused with a megabyte. A bit is about 1/8th of a byte. I can download files, in other words, at about .307 megabytes per second, which means it would take me about 16-20 seconds to download a 5 megabyte MP3 audio file.

My dad, on the other hand, has a Time Warner Cable internet connection and routinely gets between 15 and 20 megabits per second download. That averages out to about 2.5 megabytes per second, meaning he could download a 1gigabyte movie file in a little over 5 minutes.

Now what Google is proposing is about 5o times as  fast as the internet connection my dad enjoys on the best of days. We’re no longer talking about downloading movies in minutes or even seconds; no we’re talking about eliminating the concept of  ”downloading” altogether. Basically all media would be instantly accessible to your computer; in fact, under ideal circumstances it could be faster for you to access a High Def YouTube video than to access a High Def video on a computer in the room next to you in your house.

Of course,  you will still be limited by your source’s internet speed. It’s not likely that YouTube or Netflix could actually send you a movie at full 1 gb/s but still, the improvement in your download time would be remarkable.

So yes. I concur with the Signal and the City. Bring the internet to me Google, with great dispatch!

 

Posted in SCV.Tech | 14 Responses »

DA Rejects Johnny Pride Case as it Stands

Written by NickelDime on March 6th, 2010

The Daily News is reporting the LA District Attorney has rejected the case against Johnny Pride, at least as it currently stands.

Johnny Pride, a Santa Clarita city council candidate and reality-show contestant who had been arrested for the alleged rape of two 14-year-old girls, was released from custody Saturday because of “insufficient evidence,” authorities said.

The District Attorney’s office rejected the case, but Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officers plan to continue investigating in an effort to develop more evidence, according to Sgt. Dan Scott of the Sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau.

Pride was released from custody at 1:30 a.m. today, Scott said.

“The investigation is on-going, including further investigation into the processing of DNA evidence,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a written statement.

UPDATE:

Johnny Pride’s father, Gerry, blasted the City of Santa Clarita and the Sheriff’s Department after his son was released:

Pride could not be reached for comment Saturday. But his father, Gerry Scarpitta, a teacher living in Yuma, Ariz., said the District Attorney’s Office rejection of the case is “proof that the city of Santa Clarita is as corrupt as I thought it was.”

“They’ve deliberately been harassing my son, but this time they attacked him with the full force of their authority,” said Scarpitta, 57.

“They did this unethical, immoral thing. What they did was just unconscionably wrong; it was an abuse of power. They had him arrested and I believe they knew all along they didn’t have sufficient evidence.”

Scarpitta accused officials of having his son arrested because he had challenged the “corrupt power structure” in Santa Clarita. The father said federal or state authorities should investigate the city because it is “out of control.”

As for the two girls, Lt. Steve Whitmore said this:

“The interviews (with the girls) were quite extensive, their stories matched and when we served the search warrant, what they told us was all verified in the apartment itself,” Whitmore said. “Everything they told us was exactly the way it was, even down to some minor details. It was pretty complete, pretty exacting.”

Also, the Los Angeles Times says that the Sheriff’s Department is “waiting on results from medical examinations of the two girls.” Lt. Steve Whitmore, the main SVB man who has been talking to the media, says the Pride case is still a “pending investigation for us.”

Did someone screw up the process here?

Why on Thursday  is Johnny Pride deemed such a threat that he is arrested at work and put in the slammer on half a million dollar bail just hours after a campaign function? And why after midnight on a Saturday morning is the DA saying there is insufficient evidence to try him? Why did the LASD take their case to the DA if it wasn’t fully developed yet?

Has the arraignment on Monday been canceled?

UPDATE #2:

Fox 11 LA talked with the spokesperson for th District Attorney’s Office who can’t confirm that the DA has dropped charges:

Various media outlets have reported the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office declined to file charges because of a lack of evidence.

However, district attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said tonight that she could not confirm reports that apparently originated with the sheriff’s department that prosecutors rejected the case.

“I absolutely cannot confirm what the sheriff’s department is reporting,” Gibbons said.

She said she got a call regarding the matter Friday and called prosecutors to confirm the report, but hasn’t heard back. She said she did not expect to have any more information before Monday, and that there was no way of knowing whether charges will be filed or not.

 

Posted in News | 54 Responses »

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