June 18, 2008 - Daily Brief
Written by Jeff on June 18th, 2008Was that just the absolute worst basketball game you’ve ever seen? How could our mighty Lakers lose by almost 40 points…to the Celtics no less?!?
News
- Teen had cocaine: The unnamed teenage boy who was involved with the former Golden Valley High counselor had some cocaine on him the night the two tried to check into a San Fernando Valley Hotel. He was also arrested, according to the Signal. Wow, they were really going to have a good time.
- Bear struck and killed on 14 Freeway: Authorities don’t know if it was the same bear spotted in Saugus on Friday and Sunday, but a bear somehow did end up in the carpool lane of the 14 freeway near Sand Canyon Road where it was struck by a Palmdale motorist and died at around midnight on Monday. The motorist suffered minor cuts. Link
- Santa Clarita women get hitched: A 59 year old Santa Clarita woman and her 61 year old partner were one of the first same sex couples to be married in California this week, the Times reports. Cindy Gise, a retired teacher, met her wife at a Cal State Northridge sorority over 40 years ago (back when it was Valley State) and were married yesterday at a court house in Norwalk. The Times has a picture of the happy couple with a protester standing behind them, and LA Observed covered their marriage too. Overall, some 648 marriage licenses were issued yesterday in LA County, a 387% increase over a typical day. Even George Takei, Sulu on “Star Trek” got married. Congrats!
- A Decade + in prison for mother/son burglary duo: The mom gets 13 years, 8 months while the son, who actually did the breaking/entering, gets 10 years 8 months in state prison. Maybe the court took pity on him after he was shot three times by heroic Canyon Country homeowner Nadine Teter, who stopped the would-be robber in his tracks in the backyard of her house back in October 2006. Parimal Rohit has the complete story.
- CNN ponders the future of the suburbs: According to one expert, younger people don’t dream of buying a single family detached home in the burbs, these days, they’d rather live in “walkable urban communities.” That, plus increasingly high gas prices and the foreclosure crisis, could doom the American suburb, which has been the dominant living environment for Americans since the 1940s. That’s if you believe this CNN article, though it feels a bit hyped up to me. The writer goes so far as to predict that someday, suburbs like Santa Clarita will suffer as young professionals move to the city and poor city dwellers move to the suburbs. That’s the way it works in Europe btw, suburbs there are slums. Link
- Robbery at Valencia gas station: Wow, you don’t hear of crimes like this very much in North Valencia: just after midnight on Tuesday morning, a 17 year old boy was assaulted and robbed at the Mobil Gas station on Decoro Drive and McBean Parkway. The teen suffered minor injuries and a cut lip. The fuzz thinks the assailants were members of the Newhall 13 gang (They’re still in business?). Link
- Nearly 100 horses found starving in Pearlblossom: Geez, what is it with the Antelope Valley and supposed animal sanctuaries? Dave Bossert has the County’s press release.
- Gonna be hot today: I’m starting to rethink this whole “bike to work everyday” thing; Signal says it will be 102 today. Actually, check that, I still have a blast on my bike everyday, even when it’s scorching outside. The secret is to bring a sweat rag, deodorant, and a pair of shorts with you. It’s the only way to survive the summer in the SCV on a bicycle and still look halfway presentable at work.
Misc
- Cam Smyth preaches the GOP small government message: Our Assemblyman seems to have a fondness for writing op/eds in the Ventura County Star, not the Santa Clarita Signal. Today’s focuses on how much Californians pay in taxes and Republican plans to balance the budget (cutting line by line), but he still wants to work with Democrats. Link
- NatGeo photog specializes in fires: Interesting blog post on the Photoshelter.com website: A National Geographic photographer named Mark Thiessen worked his butt off last year documenting California’s extraordinary wildfire season. The interview contains several pictures Thiessen took of fires (including one in the SCV), and they are stunning. Link
- Parimal Rohit, Signal Journalist, Constitutional Scholar: The crime beat reporter finds a loophole in the Constitution that may, just may, allow Bill Clinton to become President again, if Hillary is somehow elected.
- Two Good pieces in the Signal Op/Ed section: I liked Gary Horton’s column on Barack Obama, Gas prices, peak oil, and more, and Carole Lutness sounds entirely reasonable in her advocacy for a plastic bag ban or tax at grocery stores (the ChiComs decided to do it, can’t we top them?).
- I Heart’s July InsideSCV column: The blogger turned magazine columnist takes a look at the challenges to the City’s revenue stream and discusses -in typical hilarious fashion- how Claritans can help turn the city’s budget around. Link
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“CNN ponders the future of the suburbs” but one more over reaction, much like that of global warming.
Technology utilization, changes in corporate/worker expectations and improved automobiles will still allow for people to live in the burbs. There may be a minor shift in the current make up of who lives in the burbs and who does not, but I doubt the article will play out. Young professionals are very savvy when it comes to technology and may be the least likely to have to move to the city. Factory workers and those chained to their work location would be the most likely to have to move, as I see it. There are plenty of low rent districts in the inner city.
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“According to one expert…..”
“Expert” is an over-used word that is attached to anyone with an opinion that manages to get some air-time.
“…..suburbs like Santa Clarita will suffer as young professionals move to the city and poor city dwellers move to the suburbs. That’s the way it works in Europe btw, suburbs there are slums……”
Comparing us to Europe? Like comparing apples to elephants. Saying we “will” suffer is nothing more than a crystal ball prediction, nothing to back up this assertion but an opinion. Here’s what will turn this city into slums: miles and miles of urbanization that comes with mile after mile of condos and apartments and strip malls.
As for Santa Clarita, no amount of developer-backed drivel will stop the devoted/determined Santa Claritans who are working to preserve the suburban way of life that brought most here in the first place.
As for animal abuse in the Antelope Valley, that is a problem inherent with that area, along with a high incident of child abuse. Animal abuse is a felony in California - abuse an animal, go to jail - and if everyone who reads of animal abuse cases like this would write a letter to the prosecutor condemning the abuser and request that the abuser be punished within the full extent of the law, the abuser will probably receive the maximum sentence allowed for such a heinous crime.
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Cities are becoming more expensive while far-slung suburbs are becoming less expensive. Los Angeles is a dense area with a metro area that ends rather abruptly and few suburbs are far from employment centers, so I don’t think we’ll see much of that phenomenon out here, but I would not be surprised at all to see it occur in smaller metro areas with suburbs that are spread more thinly.
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Animal abuse - all of the fine SCV citizens had better start realizing that a new law went into effect…you cannot leave an animal in an unattended car AT ALL!
I’m still seeing dogs locked in cars at the grocery store, shopping centers, etc. Maybe the law needs to be better publicized.
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“”I’m still seeing dogs locked in cars at the grocery store, shopping centers, etc. Maybe the law needs to be better publicized.”
Leave the dog at home. It is a dog! All other animals for that matter. Lately I see dogs in the market, restaurants and other stores. Store owners are having to post no dogs allowed. The sign used to read no, shoes no shirt, no service. Now people think it is OK to take the dog into a restaurant! OK, fully dressed dogs, maybe! But I frankly I do not want to eat at place that allows Fido to sit there and lick himself and bite for flees!.
Do we really need a law or do we just need to use a little common sense and exercise public courtesy?
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saying that condos “will” turn the city into slums isn’t looking into a crystal ball? Those horrible people who can only afford a $300,000 condo and not a $500,000 house and going to bring ruin to our city.
Isn’t the city already made of nothing but strip malls? What fraction of a century would one have to go back to find a time where that wasn’t the case?
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“saying that condos “will” turn the city into slums isn’t looking into a crystal ball? Those horrible people who can only afford a $300,000 condo and not a $500,000 house and going to bring ruin to our city”.
Peter and his family move into the cheap rental apartment, and others move up to the $300,000.00 condo. The more affluent move into their gated housing development with HOA’s, in hopes of keeping others out!
Try as you wish to force the contrary……
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Jeff, you have moved to the level of Davie of the West. If you decide to censure postings by making your own views and values the criteria, your blog will die out. The level of participation has already dropped way of.
Cash
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George Takei and his partner just got their license, they didn’t get married yesterday. They’re planning a private ceremony. Don’t know where the news folks started reporting that they actually got married, but the news shouldn’t be spread incorrectly.
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“saying that condos ‘will’ turn the city into slums isn’t looking into a crystal ball?”
Look where there ARE miles and miles of apartments and condos - like many areas of the San Fernando Valley, no crystal ball needed to see what happened there. Or many areas of the Antelope Valley, for that matter.
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stroll around the antelope valley, density is not their problem. Both Lancaster and Palmdale have less than half of the density of the SCV. The Anetlope Valley helps the point of the author, if anything.
cash, by agreed, I was referring to a prior post, about bringing the dogs everywhere
Gated housing communities represent a sliver of the number of homes in the SCV. Out here, it’s the apartments and condos that are gated.
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I mean less than half the density of the city of santa clarita
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Do not know too many affluent that live in gated condos or apartments. Nor am I aware of HOA’s in apartment complexes.
I hope Pdale and Lcaster are not your example of progressive community.
You got the point, I am sure.
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“George Takei and his partner just got their license, they didn’t get married yesterday. They’re planning a private ceremony”
Don’t ask don’t tell works for me. Can’t we live gay marriage of off the front page? How about be just put it on the same page of the paper as the other marriage announcements.
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Loading a suburb up with condos and apartments will always end up with the community turning into the San Fernando Valley, and traffic becomes an intolerable nightmare.
“Isn’t the city already made of nothing but strip malls?”
“made up of nothing but strip malls?” I think the city can be defined by a lot more than strip malls, but I agree, there are certainly enough.
“The Anetlope Valley helps the point of the author, if anything.”
There are parts of Antelope Valley that prove how blight can consume communities when apartments and condos become a major housing source for an area.
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Leave not live!
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Pauline, when is the last time you’ve been to the Antelope Valley? Nearly all of it has high crime and very little of it has apartments and condos. Block upon nameless blocks of homes. The AV and SFV are entirely different places, both with their own distinct forms of trouble. The SCV is closer to either than either is to the other.
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I don’t think you folks get out enough - the lower White’s Canyon area is almost all single family housing and it is pretty close to slumlike. Blocks and blocks of home in deteriorating condition, yes, some even have cars on the dry patch of dead lawn. Does anyone cross the railroad tracks to Race Street? Not exactly a posh area.
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Mike, we ride through Palmdale many times on our Harley. We ride through areas of Palmdale that are nearly nothing but apartments. Perhaps Palmdale is not considered the Antelope Valley, but there are definitely parts of Palmdale that are nothing but apartments and condos.
“The AV and SFV are entirely different places, both with their own distinct forms of trouble.”
Yes, I realize that, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and like a vast number of other Santa Claritans, I moved (escaped) here to get away from all the problems, many of which were caused when once lovely neighborhoods turned into block after block of apartments. The areas of Palmdale that have the most problems are the areas filled with block after block of apartments and condos in run-down neighborhoods, and the same goes for some portions of the San Fernando Valley.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBM854BTGL0